My Research Program
My research centers on the role that values play in psychiatry and related fields, in keeping with the broader research program of "values in science" within philosophy of science. I have published on such subjects as the inclusion of psychiatrized people in the process of revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the proper role of values and concepts of well-being in delineating the boundaries of psychiatry, and issues relating to the use of AI chatbots for psychotherapy.
Published Work
Knox, Bennett. 2026. “The Risk of Value Capture for AI Psychotherapy Chatbots.” Philosophy & Technology 39 (37): 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-026-01057-w.
Abstract: As part of the expansion of digital mental healthcare and the growing attention towards artificial intelligence in psychiatry, Large Language Models (LLMs) are being explored as devices for the delivery of psychotherapy. In this paper I consider what it would take for LLM-based psychotherapy chatbots to be effective, and argue that this question leads to a deep and difficult problem: the threat of value capture. In short, there is a risk of these systems becoming overly optimized towards improving outcomes on simplified, standardized psychometric scales. This may cause the systems to guide users towards adopting values which have been constructed based on convenience for institutions and developers, rather than fostering the type of self-reflection that would yield values better tailored to an individual. I outline the concept of value capture, explain how it applies to this context, and motivate the idea that it is a problem we should be concerned about. I then give suggestions about how the problematic aspects of value capture in the case of LLM psychotherapy chatbots can be at least partly mitigated.
Knox, Bennett. 2025. “Hermeneutical Pluralism in Psychiatry: Lessons from Spectrum 10K.” In Values, Pluralism, and Pragmatism: Themes from the Work of Matthew J. Brown, edited by Jonathan Y. Tsou, Jamie Shaw, and Carla Fehr, vol. 347. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-92958-8_10.
Abstract: In this chapter I propose and support a view about the relationship between psychiatric science and activist movements such as the Neurodiversity Movement, which I call “hermeneutical pluralism.” Using the moral imagination framework from Science and Moral Imagination (Brown, Science and Moral Imagination: A New Ideal for Values in Science, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 2020), I explore a contemporary case study in psychiatric science: the controversy over the Spectrum 10K genetic study on Autism. Through the application of this framework to a case involving significant interplay between psychiatric science and the Neurodiversity Movement, I draw out some lessons about how these knowledge systems might relate to each other in a productive manner. Ultimately, I argue that this case illustrates the attractiveness of my hermeneutical pluralism view: the Neurodiversity Movement (and other movements like it) ought to be maintained as knowledge systems that are independent of psychiatric science, even as these movements and psychiatric science ought to foster some form of engagement with one another.
Knox, Bennett, Hannah Allen, and Stephen M. Downes. (2024). “The Uselessness of Polygenic Scores for Addressing College Drinking” — Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 31 (4):437-439. https://doi.org/10.1353/ppp.2024.a948899.
*Commentary on: Turkheimer, Eric, and Sarah Rodock Greer. (2024). "Philosophical Case Conference: Spit for Science and the Limits of Applied Psychiatric Genetics" — Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 31 (4): 397-424. https://doi.org/10.1353/ppp.2024.a948896.*
Abstract: Here we articulate a negative answer to Turkheimer and Greer’s question: “Is it possible to envision a genetically informed program that ethically intervenes on campus drinking?” (Turkheimer & Greer, 2024). However, first, we note that the authors cover an immense amount of ground in their paper. They lend insight into how psychiatric genetics, at its very core, is conducted through their detailed examination of a large body of work in one specific area of this large field. A main result of this is to explain the gulf between results and conclusions, work that provides an invaluable service not just to various areas in philosophy and bioethics, but that are deserving of readership by a very wide audience. This gulf is explained via a careful accounting of the statistical measures used to assess the impact of genes on alcohol-related behavior in the college students sampled and comparisons between the strength of these measures and the strength and scope of conclusions drawn by the Spit for Science (S4S) researchers.
Knox, Bennett, Pierce Christoffersen, Kalista Leggitt, Zeia Woodruff, and Matthew H. Haber. (2023). “Justice, Vulnerable Populations, and the Use of Conversational AI in Psychotherapy” — The American Journal of Bioethics 23 (5): 48-50. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2023.2191040.
*Commentary on: Sedlakova, Jana, and Manuel Trachsel. (2023). “Conversational Artificial Intelligence in Psychotherapy: A New Therapeutic Tool or Agent?” The American Journal of Bioethics 23 (5): 4–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2022.2048739.*
Abstract: Sedlakova and Trachsel (2023) identify a major benefit of conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) in psychotherapy as its ability to expand access to mental healthcare for vulnerable populations and provide helpful guidance on some ethical issues that arise from the status of CAI as neither a simple tool nor a full agent. However, considerations related to cross-cultural diversity, potential sources of biases against the vulnerable populations that CAI is meant to provide access to, and questions of how to handle responsibility for harms unintentionally inflicted by CAI complicate this picture. In this commentary we discuss some of these complicating factors and provide recommendations about how to proceed with greater attention to issues of justice and accountability in the use of CAI for psychotherapy.
Knox, Bennett. (2023). “The Institutional Definition of Psychiatric Condition and the Role of Well-Being in Psychiatry” — Philosophy of Science 90 (5): 1194-1203. https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2023.48.
Abstract: This article draws on Kukla’s “Institutional Definition of Health” to provide a definition of “psychiatric condition” that delineates the proper bounds of psychiatry. I argue that this definition must include requirements that psychiatrization of a condition benefit the well-being of (1) the society as a collective and (2) the individual whose condition is in question. I then suggest that psychiatry understand individual well-being in terms of the subjective values of individuals. Finally, I propose that psychiatry’s understanding of collective well-being should be the result of a “socially objective” process and give certain desiderata for this understanding.
Knox, Bennett. (2022). “Exclusion of the Psychopathologized and Hermeneutical Ignorance Threaten Objectivity” — Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 29 (4): 253-266. https://doi.org/10.1353/ppp.2022.0044.
*Winner of the 2022 Karl Jaspers Award from the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry (AAPP)*
Abstract: This article brings together considerations from philosophical work on standpoint epistemology, feminist philosophy of science, and epistemic injustice to examine a particular problem facing contemporary psychiatry: the conflict between the conceptual resources of psychiatric medicine and alternative conceptualizations like those of the neurodiversity movement and psychiatric abolitionism. I argue that resistance to fully considering such alternative conceptualizations in processes such as the revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders emerges in part from a particular form of epistemic injustice (hermeneutical ignorance) leveled against a particular social group (which I call the "psychopathologized"). Further, insofar as the objectivity which psychiatry should aspire to is a kind of "social objectivity" which requires incorporation of various normative perspectives, this particular form of epistemic injustice threatens to undermine its scientific objectivity. Although many questions regarding implementation remain, this implies that psychiatry must grapple substantively with radical reconceptualizations of its domain if it is to achieve legitimate scientific objectivity.
Knox, Bennett. (2022). “Standards and Assumptions, the Limits of Inclusion, and Pluralism in Psychiatry” — Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 29 (4): 275-277. https://doi.org/10.1353/ppp.2022.0047.
*Response to commentaries on the above Jaspers Award paper*