Irina Mikhalevich Headshot

Irina Mikhalevich

Assistant Professor

Department of Philosophy
College of Liberal Arts

5106977881
Office Location

Irina Mikhalevich

Assistant Professor

Department of Philosophy
College of Liberal Arts

Education

BA, University of California at Berkley; Ph.D., Boston University

Bio

Irina Mikhalevich is a philosopher of science, cognitive science, and ethics who joined RIT as Assistant Professor in 2017. Her research focuses on conceptual and methodological problems in the science of animal minds and their implications for the moral status of nonhuman animals. 

She is currently working on several projects, including a project on the nature of scientific experimentation; another on the implications of invertebrate cognition research for the study of mind, meaning, and morality (tentatively titled, Minds Without Spines); and an ongoing investigation of simplicity preferences in science.

Irina received her Ph.D. from Boston University in 2014 under the supervision of Alisa Bokulich and Colin Allen (Pittsburgh), following which she held the McDonnell Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology (PNP) Program at Washington University in St. Louis (2014-2016) and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany (2016).

For more information, including publications and current projects, please visit her website at irinamikhalevich.com

5106977881

Personal Links

Select Scholarship

Book Chapter
Mikhalevich, Irina. "Animal Cognition." Mind, Cognition, and Neuroscience. Ed. Carolyn Dicey Jennings and Benjamin Young. London, UK: Routledge Press, 2021. N/A. Print.
Powell, Rachell, Irina Mikhalevich, and Allen Buchanan. "How the Moral Community Evolves." Rethinking Moral Status. Ed. Stephen Clarke and Julian Savulescu. Oxford, UK: OUP, 2021. N/A. Print.
Mikhalevich, Irina. "Simplicity in Cognitive Models: Avoiding Old Mistakes in New Experimental Contexts." The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds. Ed. Kristin Andrews and Jacob Beck. London, England: Taylor & Francis, 2017. 427-436. Print.
Journal Paper
Mikhalevich, Irina and R. Powell. "Minds Without Spines: Evolutionarily Inclusive Animal Ethics." Animal Sentience 29. 1 (2020): N/A. Web.
Mikhalevich, Irina and R. Powell. "Affective Sentience and Moral Protection." Animal Sentience 29. 35 (2020): N/A. Web.
Powell, Russell, et al. "Convergent Minds: The Evolution of Cognitive Complexity in Nature." Journal of the Royal Society, Interface Focus 3. 3 (2017): 20170029. Print.
Mikhalevich, Irina, Russell Powell, and Corina Logan. "Is Behavioral Flexibility Evidence of Cognitive Complexity? How Evolution Can Inform Comparative Cognition." Journal of the Royal Society, Interface Focus. (2017): 20160121. Print.
Mikhalevich, Irina and Russell Powell. "Sex, Lies and Gender." Journal of Medical Ethics 43. 1 (2016): 14-16. Print.
Mikhalevich, Irina. "Experiment and Animal Minds: Why the Choice of the Null Hypothesis Matters." Philosophy of Science 82. 5 (2015): 1059-1069. Print.
Mikhalevich, Irina. "Honor Among (the Beneficiaries of) Thieves." Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18. 2 (2015): 385—402. Print.
(\"Meketa\"), Irina Mikhalevich. "A Critique of the Principle of Cognitive Simplicity in Comparative Cognition." Biology and Philosophy 29. 5 (2014): 731—745. Print.
Invited Paper
Mikhalevich, Irina. "Consciousness, Evidence, and Moral standing." Animal Sentience. (2017). Web.

Currently Teaching

IDAI-700
3 Credits
This course will familiarize students with foundational concepts and emerging ideas in the ethics of artificial intelligence and their implications for public policy. It will be broken down into three sections: (1) the ethics of machine learning; (2) the moral status of AI; and (3) AI and the distant future. The first section will consider such topics as the ethical implications of unconscious bias in machine learning (e.g., in predictive text, facial recognition, speech dialogue systems); what constraints should govern the behavior of autonomous and semi-autonomous machines such as drones and smart cars; whether AI can undermine valuable social institutions and perhaps to democracy itself and what might be done to mitigate such risk; and how automation might transform the labor economy and whether this morally desirable. The second section turns to the question of our moral obligations toward (some) artificial intelligences. Here, we will ask what grounds moral status in general and how this might apply to artificial intelligences in particular, including how should we should balance moral obligations toward (some) AIs with competing obligations toward human beings and other creatures with morally protectable interests. The final section will look to the far distant future and consider how (if at all) we might identify and estimate future threats from AI and what might be done today to protect all those who matter morally.
PHIL-102
3 Credits
This course examines ethical questions that arise in the course of day-to-day individual and social life. Some consideration will be given to ethical theory and its application to such questions, but emphasis will be on basic moral questions and practical issues. Examples of typical issues to be examined are: What are the grounds for moral obligations like keeping promises or obeying the law? How do we reason about what to do? Examples of typical moral issues that may be introduced are capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion, corporate responsibility, the treatment of animals, and so forth.
PHIL-315
3 Credits
What we do is connected to what we know. Acting well depends on appropriate evaluation of perception, logic, and evidence, and acting on our beliefs commits us to various ethical outcomes. In addition, understanding how our minds work and how we produce knowledge in teams and institutions can improve the reliability of what we know and can assist us in achieving ethical goals. This course develops advanced critical thinking skills and investigates how knowledge claims and value claims interact in order to shed light on the conditions that make responsible knowing possible. We will study how we produce responsible knowledge individually and collectively: from how we make ethically rational choices in our own lives to how society directs research priorities in science and technology. Topics may include: rational decision-making, cognitive bias, moral psychology, social epistemology, epistemic, and ethical relativism, risk and uncertainty, research integrity, and values in science.
PHIL-404
3 Credits
The Philosophy of Mind includes issues of metaphysics, epistemology, logic, psychology, aesthetics, linguistics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and biology, to name a few. Issues to be investigated include: Is there an ontological difference between minds and bodies? Could there be minds without bodies? Can I know that I have a mind? Are there other minds in the universe? Can I be conscious of my own consciousness? Can other things have the kinds of experiences which I have?

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