Dr Alexandra Couto

Dr Alexandra Couto is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Kent. She holds a MPhil and DPhil in Political Theory from Oxford University (Berrow Scholar).

She held research positions in Vienna (ERC Project, Philosophy Department, Vienna) and in Oslo (Innocently Benefitting from Injustice Project, Philosophy Department). Before coming to Kent, she was teaching at Warwick University.

Alexandra's work is within moral and political philosophy as well as business ethics. Her research has focused on various topics such as the role of responsibility in luck egalitarianism, the conditions for the justifiability of interpersonal forgiveness and issues relating to the Beneficiary Pays Principle, a principle according to which we might accrue remedial duties by benefiting (innocently) from injustices.

Previously, she has also worked on freedom of speech and the grounds for taking privacy to be valuable and has also published a book defending a minimal form of liberal perfectionism Liberal Perfectionism: the Reasons that Goodness Gives (De Gruyter).

Alexandra has extensive experience lecturing and teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level in business ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law, ethics and applied ethics.

Supervision Topics: any topic related to business ethics including, but not restricted to, the ethics of corporate remuneration, the ethics of AI, corporate forgiveness, data privacy, discrimination and gender bias, the ethics of supply chain management, sustainability and climate change, CSR, the ethics of whistleblowing, the ethics of marketing, the ethics of product regulation, the ethics of risk, etc.

Current Supervisees: Cerys Hughes- Exploitation in our treatment of non-human animals

Past Supervisees: David Matthew- The Ethics of Roles (passed without correction) 

Alexandra welcomes applications in any area related to business ethics (with suggestion of possible topics indicated above).    

Royal Institute of Philosophy Council Member