Title
Automation and meaningful work
❗ Note: This colloquium will take place at 13:00 instead of the usual 10:00. ❗
Abstract
In this talk, I argue that meaning in life has a more substantive subjective element than is commonly thought. This claim, if correct, has significant implications for debates on meaningful work. I argue that the meaningfulness of work can come apart from the extent to which workers obtain achievements at work. In doing so, I respond to Danaher and Nyholm’s (2021) recent argument that automation threatens meaningful work by leading to ‘achievement gaps’. Pace Danaher and Nyholm, I argue that even if automation threatens achievement, it does not necessarily follow that it threatens meaningful work.
About Charlotte
Charlotte Unruh is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Southampton.
Previously, she was an Early Career Research Fellow at the Institute for Ethics in AI, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, and a Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Prior to that, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair of International Relations at the School of Social Science and Technology, Technical University of Munich, and a researcher at the TUM Institute for Ethics in AI.
Her research focuses primarily on moral philosophy, with particular interests in the philosophy of harm, future generations, and the future of work.