Supposing it were possible to get houses built, corn grown, battles fought, causes tried, and even churches erected and prayers said, by machinery—by automatons in human form—it would be a considerable loss to exchange for these automatons even the men and women who at present inhabit the more civilised parts of the world, and who assuredly are but starved specimens of what nature can and will produce. Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.
On Liberty, Ch. 3
Overview
I work on liberal moral and political theory.
My research has two strands. The theoretical strand centers on modern liberal political thought, focusing especially on moral psychology and the themes of sociability, individuality, and judgment. The applied strand concerns the ways liberal theory can help us address contemporary moral and political problems, particularly pertaining to artificial intelligence and robotics.
I am currently at work on my dissertation, which examines how human relationships with AI systems might reshape the social conditions in which individuals exercise moral and political judgment. I draw on three modern theorists of judgment—Rousseau, Smith, and Kant—to argue that the normative claims that we make on each other may change when we socialize with artificial agents, and that these developments carry profound consequences for justice in a liberal society.
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Journals
Tzur, Tal. 2026. “Individualism Without Individuality: Friedrich Hayek and the Neoliberal Citizen.” Constellations. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.70081
Edited Volumes
Tzur, Tal. 2026. “What Would the Machine Feel? Imagination and Sympathy in a World of Artificial Intelligence,” in The Smithian Mind, Ben-Moshe, Debes, and Schwarze (eds.), Routledge Philosophical Minds series, 2026.
Work in Progress
Herder’s Cultural Antidote to Political Division (with Jeffrey Church)
Misinformation and the Method of Judgment in Rousseau’s Dialogues (with Michelle Schwarze)
An Adam Smithian Account of the Normative Treatment of AI Agents
Under What Circumstances Can Culpability Gaps be Morally Permissible?
