Joanna Demaree-Cotton

joanna demaree cotto

Joanna is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Philosophical Moral Psychology Lab at the Uehiro Oxford Institute. She is also a Hugh Price Fellow in Philosophy and Psychology at Jesus College and an Honorary Member of the Department of Experimental Psychology. Her research focuses on various questions at the intersection of ethics and psychology. She uses interdisciplinary methods from analytic philosophy and empirical psychology to investigate the psychological underpinnings of moral judgments, moral concepts and moral agency, and explores implications of empirical studies for normative questions in philosophical ethics. She is PI of an interdisciplinary British Academy grant which examines gender bias in concepts of autonomy and the application of principles of valid consent. Recently, she has been working on projects on the folk concept of valid consent, attributions of moral agency and responsibility, and obligations to respect the wishes of the dead. Other topics of interest include: the effects of framing and nudges on autonomy and valid consent; blame and moral responsibility, especially in contexts of impaired agency; the implications of psychology and neuroscience for moral epistemology and moral debunking; moral intuitions and metaphilosophy; the psychology and ethics of moral dilemmas. 

Joanna joined the Uehiro Oxford Institute after receiving her PhD in Philosophy from Yale University with a dissertation entitled “The Philosophy and Psychology of Valid Consent". She was also a Newcombe Fellow in the study of ethical values with the Woodrow Wilson foundation. She received her B.Phil in Philosophy and her B.A. in Philosophy and Psychology from the University of Oxford. During her time at Yale, as well as conducting doctoral research, she developed an undergraduate course on the ethics of technology, and taught various undergraduate courses on applied and normative ethics, the psychology and philosophy of human nature, and introductions to the history of philosophy.

Website: Philosophical Moral Psychology Lab

 

2015-2021 PhD in Philosophy, Yale University (Dissertation title: "The Philosophy and Psychology of Consent.")
2013-2015 B.Phil in Philosophy, University of Oxford 
2010-2013 B.A. in Philosophy and Psychology, University of Oxford

 

Drezga-Kleiminger, M., Wilkinson, D., Douglas, T., Demaree-Cotton, J., Koplin, J., & Savulescu, J. (2025). Should we use behavioural predictions in organ allocation? Bioethics, 39 (8), 737–747.
Mei, P., Brewis, D. N., Nwaiwu, F., Sumanathilaka, D., Alva-Manchego, F., & Demaree-Cotton, J. (2025). ‘‘If ChatGPT can do it, where is my creativity?’’ Generative AI boosts performance but diminishes experience in a creative writing task. Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, 100140.
Demaree-Cotton, J., & Kahane, G. (2025). “Moral Dilemmas”. In Philip Robbins & Bertram Malle (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Moral Psychology, Cambridge University Press. 101-123.
Drezga-Kleiminger M, Demaree-Cotton J, Koplin J, Savulescu J, Wilkinson D (2023). Should AI allocate livers for transplant? Public attitudes and ethical considerations. BMC Medical Ethics, 24 (1).
Lewis, J., Demaree-Cotton, J., Earp, BD. (2023). Bioethics: Experimental Approaches. Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, Springer Nature, 279-286.

Demaree-Cotton, J., Earp, BD., Savulescu J. (2022). How to use AI ethically for ethical decision-making. American Journal of Bioethics, 22 (7), 1-3.
Demaree-Cotton, J., & Sommers, R. (2022). Autonomy and the Folk Concept of Consent. Cognition, 224, 105065, DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105065.
Demaree-Cotton, J. (In prep). “Debunking Intuitions”. In David Copp and Connie Rosati (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, Oxford University Press. 
Demaree-Cotton, J., & Kahane, G. (Forthcoming). “Moral Dilemmas”. In Philip Robbins & Bertram Malle (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Moral Psychology, Cambridge University Press. 
Demaree-Cotton, J., & Daigle, J. (2021). “Blame Mitigation: A Less Tidy Take and Its Philosophical Implications.” Philosophical Psychology. 
Earp, B. D., Demaree-Cotton, J., Dunn, M., Dranseika, V., Everett, J. A. C., et al. (2020). “Experimental philosophical bioethics.” AJOB Empirical Bioethics, 11 (1), 30-33. 
Demaree-Cotton, J. (2019). “Analysing debunking arguments in moral psychology: beyond the counterfactual analysis of influence by irrelevant factors.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 42, e151. 
Demaree-Cotton, J., & Kahane, G. (2018). “The Neuroscience of Moral Judgment”. In M. Timmons, K. Jones, & A. Zimmerman (Eds.), Routledge Handbook on Moral Epistemology, Routledge. 
Demaree-Cotton, J. (2016). “Do Framing Effects Make Moral Intuitions Unreliable?” Philosophical Psychology, 29, 1-22.