Plato and the Ethics of Permissible Resistance, an Ezra Hale Lecture Series

Speaker: Martin Peterson, Full Professor of Philosophyand Elisabeth Scurlock Chair in Human Values of Ethics in Artificial Intelligence. South Methodist University

Abstract: This talk is based on my personal experience as Chair of the Academic Freedom Council at Texas A&M University (2024-2026). The contemporary moral issue I discuss is the following: How should students and faculty respond to institutional censorship? I will use Texas A&M's decision to censor Plato as a case study and identify four possible responses: anticipatory obedience, civil disobedience, malicious compliance, and what I call dissenting compliance. Anticipatory obedience—conforming to perceived expectations before being explicitly required to do so—is morally problematic because it reinforces and extends censorship. Civil disobedience, while admirable in many political contexts, may be less justifiable in academia when its expected benefits are small compared to the substantial personal and professional risks. Malicious compliance avoids capitulation but depends on deliberately disruptive, bad-faith adherence to rules. I argue instead for dissenting compliance: complying with institutional policies while explicitly and publicly expressing principled disagreement with them. Ideally, undertaken with a light touch and sometimes humor, dissenting compliance can expose unreasonable constraints without sacrificing professionalism.

Short Bio: Martin Peterson joined SMU’s Department of Philosophy as Full Professor and Elisabeth Scurlock Chair in Human Values of Ethics in Artificial Intelligence in August 2026.

Peterson conducts research in AI ethics, ethics of technology, normative ethics, and decision theory. His work examines philosophical questions about emerging technologies, with particular emphasis on artificial intelligence and rational decision-making.

Before joining the Department of Philosophy at SMU, Peterson was the Sue G. and Harry E. Bovay Jr. Professor of the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering and Professor of Philosophy at Texas A&M University, where he served from 2014 to 2026. He previously held academic positions at Eindhoven University of Technology and the University of Cambridge.

Peterson is the author of several books, including Ethics for Engineers (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed. 2025), Ethics in the Gray Area (Cambridge University Press, 2023), The Ethics of Technology (Oxford University Press, 2017), The Dimensions of Consequentialism (Cambridge University Press, 2013), An Introduction to Decision Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed. 2017), and Non-Bayesian Decision Theory (Springer, 2008). He is also Editor of Cambridge Elements in Decision Theory and Philosophy.

He received his BA and MA from Stockholm University and his PhD in philosophy from KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Join the lecture via ZOOM.

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