David Koepsell

David Koepsell
Born	1969 New York, USA
Nationality	American
Occupation	Author, teacher, attorney

David R. Koepsell (born 1969) is an American author, philosopher, attorney, and educator whose recent research focuses on how ethics and public policy deal with emerging science and technology. His background is diverse: he has been a practicing attorney, been employed as an ontologist, been a university professor and has lectured worldwide. He is currently a Visiting Professor of Research Ethics at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Director of Research and Strategic Initiatives at Comisión Nacional de Bioética (CONBIOETICA) Mexico, an adjunct Professor at University at Buffalo and a Senior Fellow and Education Director of the Center for Inquiry - Transnational, based in Amherst, NY.

Career

Koepsell earned his PhD in philosophy (1997) as well as his doctorate in law (1995) from the University at Buffalo, where he studied with Barry Smith and currently serves as an adjunct Professor in the Department of Learning and Instruction.^[1] He has lectured worldwide on issues ranging from civil rights, philosophy, science, ontology, intellectual property theory, society, and religion. Koepsell was appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy at TU Delft in September 2008 and was promoted to Associate Professor in September 2013. He is an associate editor of Free Inquiry magazine. He is the co-founder, with Edward Summer, of Carefully Considered Productions, an educational media not-for-profit corporation. Koepsell also serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom.^[2]

Major theses

In stark contrast to the work of Michael R. Heim, who has promoted a Platonic dualism in his discussions of cyberspace and virtual reality, Koepsell has argued for a Searlean realism about all expression. Cyberspatial entities are expressions of the same type as any other intentionally produced, man-made object. Koepsell's work uses 'legal ontology' and common sense ontology to examine social objects. In the process, Koepsell criticizes the distinction between patentable and copyrightable objects as artificial, and argues for an open source approach to all intellectual property.^[3][4]

Koepsell's research interests focus on the nexus of ethics, law, and science.^[5] Specifically, while at Yale as a Visiting Fellow (2006–2007), he investigated ethical questions involved in the practice of bioprospecting and patenting elements of the human genome. Koepsell argues that there are two forms of commons, a) fiat and b) natural, otherwise called "commons by choice" and "commons by logical necessity." He has recently argued that DNA, like radio spectra, sunlight, and air, falls into the category "commons by logical necessity", and that attempts to own genes by patent are unjust.^[6] His book on the subject, entitled Who Owns You, was published by Wiley-Blackwell in March 2009.^[7] While it was endorsed by Nobel Prize winner John Sulston as a "lucid and compelling deconstruction of current practice in the patenting of human genes, exposing inherent contradictions in the process and offering practical ways to resolve them,"^[8] a starkly contrasting review of Who Owns You? has also recently been published.^[9] In an interview for Singularity University, he applauded the court decision in the Myriad Genetics case that "a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated," while manipulation of a gene to create something not found in nature could still be eligible for patent protection.^[10][11][12]

When it comes to the intersection of religion with politics and public policy, Koepsell maintains that "The United States Is Not a Christian Nation" - in fact, he made the title of his paper for the Secular Humanist Bulletin.^[13] More recently the Los Angeles Times quoted him as saying "I think [Benjamin Franklin] would have been dismayed by religious fundamentalism in government. He was a free thinker about many things and at least a skeptic about the afterlife and the divinity of Jesus. He was a scientist, a man of letters and a man of Earth."^[14]

Published books

• 2012 Breaking Bad and Philosophy, with Robert Arp, (ed.) Popular Culture and Philosophy series, (Chicago: Open Court). ISBN 978-0812697643
• 2011 Innovation and Nanotechnology: Converging Technologies and the End of Intellectual Property, (UK: Bloomsbury Academic). ISBN 978-1849663434
• 2009 Who Owns You? The Corporate Gold Rush to Patent Your Genes. (UK: Wiley-Blackwell). ISBN 978-1405187305 ^{[note 1]}
• 2007 Science and Ethics: Can Science Help Us Make Wise and Moral Judgments? Co-edited with Paul Kurtz, (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press) ISBN 9781591025375
• 2003 John Searle's Ideas About Social Reality: Extensions, Criticisms, and Reconstructions, co-edited with Laurence Moss, (Oxford UK: Blackwell) ISBN 978-1405112581 ^{[note 2]}
• 2002 Reboot World, (New York: Writer’s Club Press) (fiction)
• 2000 The Ontology of Cyberspace, (Chicago: Open Court). ^{[note 3]}

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

Notes

References

External links

• Official website
• Movie production website
• 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology
• David Koespell's academic CV