William D Cornwell - AUE
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William D Cornwell
AUE
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Dr. William Cornwell, Ph.D., is Provost and Professor of Philosophy at the American University in the Emirates, where he provides academic leadership across eight colleges and supports bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral education, as well as accreditation and research capacity-building. His scholarship sits at the intersection of ethics, public policy, and the human implications of technological and social change.
His research centers on sustainability, intergenerational justice, and applied ethics in emerging technology contexts (e.g., AI-enabled systems, epistemic risk, and governance). He also writes on the metaphysics of time and its relevance to moral standing and obligations across generations. His work has recently appeared in Ethics, Policy & Environment.
In his leadership role, Prof. Cornwell focuses on building rigorous and innovative academic programs, strengthening institutional quality assurance, and advancing strategic partnerships that connect universities with industry and international collaborators. He is committed to strengthening research culture and promoting higher education that is both globally recognized and locally responsive.
The American University in the Emirates
Dubai International Academic City
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
POB 503000
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Papers by William D Cornwell
The Future is Already Here: How the Tenseless Theory of Time Grounds Our Obligations to Future Generations
Ethics, Philosophy & Environment
, 2026
This article explores the ethical foundations of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals...
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This article explores the ethical foundations of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which represent a global consensus on human and ecological well-being but lack a clear moral framework justifying obligations to future generations. I argue that the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights supports the notion of temporal justice and underpins SDGs. Although some philosophers contend that future generations cannot possess moral standing, a comprehensive understanding of the metaphysics of time demonstrates that they exist (tenselessly) as surely as we do. The primary barriers to protecting their interests are political and epistemic, necessitating thoughtful institutional design.
Virtue Ethics, Technology, and Sustainability
Sustainable Development and Social Responsibility—Volume 2, Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation
, 2020
Virtue ethics in the West received its first extensive elaboration and defense in ancient Greek p...
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Virtue ethics in the West received its first extensive elaboration and defense in ancient Greek philosophy. Requiring the cultivation of true character, both of the ethical and intellectual kind, virtue ethics emphasizes developing character traits such as courage, honesty, and practical wisdom over deploying abstract theoretical principles as a way of contributing to individual happiness and social harmony. With rapid changes in social structures and technologies, ancient and medieval virtues may seem quaint and irrelevant today. Is virtue ethics suitable only for the sort of premodern societies in which great virtue ethicists like Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas lived or does the theory have something essential to contribute to pressing contemporary debates?. This paper argues the situational form of virtue ethics: Some essential virtues are applicable in most times and societies, including our own, but they necessarily are expressed in a variety of ways in different circumstances. I then briefly explore contemporary versions of the virtues that would help us navigate a world of rapidly evolving technology that threatens to undermine environmental and social sustainability. These virtues, suitably updated, are as badly needed today as they were thousands of years ago.
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Darwin highlighted the relevance of purpose in biology, paralleling Aristotelian final causes.
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Knowledge without justification
This dissertation argues that there can be unjustified perceptual and testimonial knowledge. By &...
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This dissertation argues that there can be unjustified perceptual and testimonial knowledge. By "justification," I mean an internalist conception according to which a belief's justification is some relation that the belief bears to another belief. The first chapter characterizes the theory ...
Is Perception Inferential?
Experience and Analysis: Papers of the 27th International Wittgenstein Symposium: August 8-14, 2004: Kirchberg am Wechsel
, 2004
This paper argues for a naturalized middle position between two familiar extremes about perceptio...
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This paper argues for a naturalized middle position between two familiar extremes about perception: (i) psychological/epistemological holism, on which background beliefs always shape perceptual processing and justification, and (ii) naïve empiricism, on which perceptual belief-formation is insulated from background belief and therefore always non-inferential. It first links these debates by claiming that psychological holism and epistemological holism stand or fall together, as do psychological naïve empiricism and epistemological naïve empiricism. It then explains why both poles are unattractive: sensory input underdetermines perceptual judgment, yet a fully theory-laden perception would undermine observation’s role as a check on wishful thinking and “screwy theories.” Drawing on a Fodorian architecture of modular input systems and a non-modular central processor, the paper distinguishes observational hypotheses from perceptual belief-fixation and proposes a “take-for-granted” default: in Normal conditions, module outputs are routed directly into belief (non-inferentially), while salient reasons for doubt, or module-detected anomalies, trigger central scrutiny, yielding inferential perceptual beliefs when needed. This model explains when and why background beliefs appropriately intrude, and it avoids an empiricist Catch-22 by allowing justified perceptual knowledge without requiring prior meta-knowledge of perceptual reliability or the absence of far-fetched defeaters.
Making Sense of the Other: Husserl, Carnap, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger
The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Volume 5: Comparative Philosophy
, 1998
Phenomenology and logical positivism both subscribed to an empirical-verifiability criterion of m...
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Phenomenology and logical positivism both subscribed to an empirical-verifiability criterion of mental or linguistic meaning. The acceptance of this criterion confronted them with the same problem: how to understand the Other as a subject with his own experience, if the existence and nature of the Other's experiences cannot be verified. Husserl tackled this problem in the Cartesian Meditations, but he could not reconcile the verifiability criterion with understanding the Other's feelings and sensations. Carnap's solution was to embrace behaviorism and eliminate the idea of private sensations, but behaviorism has well-known difficulties. Heidegger broke this impasse by suggesting that each person's being included being-with, an innate capacity for understanding the Other. To be human is to be "hard-wired" to make sense of the Other without having to verify the Other's private sensations. I suggest that being-with emerged from an evolutionary imperative for conspecific animals to recognize each other and to coordinate their activities. Wittgenstein also rejected the verifiability criterion. He theorized that the meaning of a term is its usage and that terms about private sensations were meaningful because they have functions in our language-games. For example, "I'm in pain," like a cry of pain, functions to get the attention of others and motivate others to help. Wittgenstein's theory shows how Dasein's being-with includes "primitive" adaptive behavior such as cries, smiles, and threatening or playful gesture. As Dasein is acculturated, these behaviors are partially superseded by functionally equivalent linguistic expressions.
Where Ethics and Epistemology Meet: Michael R. DePaul's Balance and Refinement
Journal of Value Inquiry
, 1997
This review article assesses Michael R. DePaul’s Balance and Refinement: Beyond Coherence Methods...
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This review article assesses Michael R. DePaul’s Balance and Refinement: Beyond Coherence Methods of Moral Inquiry, focusing on how it links moral methodology to a broader epistemology. DePaul develops “balance and refinement” as an extension of reflective-equilibrium approaches, arguing that both conservative and radical versions face a “no credibility” problem: wide equilibrium is unlikely to yield credible moral beliefs if the starting judgments, background beliefs, and confidence assignments lack independent credibility. The most original contribution, as presented here, is DePaul’s appeal to formative experience, including morally significant art, as a mechanism for improving moral inquiry by addressing two neglected hazards: naïveté (insensitivity that distorts moral uptake despite adequate information) and corruption (experiences that warp moral sensibility and subsequent judgment). While commending this integration of moral education, experience, and inquiry, the article raises sustained concerns about DePaul’s epistemological apparatus—especially tensions in his treatment of “warrant” and inconsistencies in his characterizations of “rationality”—and questions whether the methodological insights require the robust moral realism DePaul favors. The review concludes that Balance and Refinement offers a compelling framework for thinking about moral development and inquiry, while leaving important theoretical questions open about moral cognition, the mechanics of formative change, and the prospects for convergence among conscientious inquirers.
The Burden of Autonomy: Non-combatant Immunity and Humanitarian Intervention
Ethical Perspectives
, 2005
Michael Walzer argues that except in cases involving genocide or mass slaughter, humanitarian int...
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Michael Walzer argues that except in cases involving genocide or mass slaughter, humanitarian intervention is unjustified because "citizens get the government they deserve, or, at least, the government for which they are 'fit.'" Yet, if people are autonomous and deserve the government that rules over them, then it would seem that they are responsible for the government's actions, including their nations' wars of aggression. That line of thought undermines the doctrine of non-combatant immunity, which is perhaps the most important of Walzer's jus in bello principles. In this way, the concept of self-determination frustrates Walzer's attempts to keep jus ad bellum and jus in bello considerations separate.
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Walzer's theory of noncombatant immunity contradicts his autonomy principle in justification for interventions.
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Epistemological Holism and Semantic Holism
Perspectives on Coherentism
, 2002
This paper draws upon the work of Wilfred Sellars, Jerry Fodor, and Ruth Millikan to argue agains...
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This paper draws upon the work of Wilfred Sellars, Jerry Fodor, and Ruth Millikan to argue against epistemological holism and semantic holism. In the first section, I contend that contrary to confirmation holism, there are individual beliefs ("basic beliefs") that receive nondoxastic/noninferential warrant. In the earliest stages of cognitive development, modular processes produce beliefs about how things are. The disadvantage of this type of basic belief is that the person may have possessed information that should have defeated it but was not taken into account by the module. For this reason, at more advanced stages of cognitive development, basic beliefs concern how things appear to be. These appearance beliefs are not formed holistically but should be checked against background beliefs before someone infers how things are. In the second section I argue against functional role semantics / inferential role semantics. Championing teleosemantics, I argue that many concepts' meanings are not determined by the meanings of other concepts. Rather, many concepts are skills of knowing how to identify of what the concept is. These skills can be developed independently of other beliefs or skills and are in an important sense theory-neutral.
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The theory explains persistent beliefs in illusions like the Müller-Lyer, showing insights into belief dynamics even post-awareness of fallacy.
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Human Nature Unbound: Why Becoming Cyborgs and Taking Drugs Could Make Us More Human
Values & Technology: Religion & Public Life, vol. 37
, 2011
This essay defends a qualified technological humanism: the prospect of becoming “cyborgs” through...
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This essay defends a qualified technological humanism: the prospect of becoming “cyborgs” through neural implants and pharmacological enhancement need not alienate us from human nature. Drawing on Aristotelian virtue ethics and an evolutionary account of human capacities, I argue that humans are distinctive problem-solvers and tool-users whose flourishing consists in developing intellectual, moral, and sensorimotor excellences. I distinguish therapeutic tools that restore normal function from non-therapeutic cognitive augmentation—the use of improvised technologies to extend perception, memory, attention, and reasoning beyond typical limits. After surveying emerging forms of intelligence augmentation (including cognitive-enhancing drugs, brain–machine interfaces, implanted or networked memory, and augmented reality), I address the familiar worry that outsourcing cognition produces dependence and shallow understanding. By analogy with earlier cultural technologies such as writing, I argue that responsible augmentation can shift effort away from rote tasks and toward higher-order reasoning and education. I then examine “moral augmentation,” including robotic embodiment and interventions that recalibrate affect and appetite, and argue that such modifications can support temperance and practical wisdom without eliminating agency. The essay closes by flagging governance and justice concerns such as access, inequality, security, surveillance, and standardization, while maintaining that well-directed enhancement can be an expression, rather than a repudiation, of our humanity.
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