About

Adam Moore is a Professor at the University of Washington's Information School (iSchool) and serves as an adjunct professor in the Philosophy Department. He received his doctorate in Philosophy from Ohio State University in 1997. His teaching and publishing focus on areas including intellectual property, privacy, and information control. Moore's work involves exploring the ethical and philosophical dimensions of information technology, contributing to discussions on how information is managed, protected, and ethically governed.

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Chemical engineering
• Organic chemistry
• Gerontology
• Pulp and paper industry
• Engineering
• Demography
• Composite material
• Chromatography
• Materials science
• Waste management
• Medicine
• Environmental health
• Internal medicine

Selected publications

• Introduction. Arizona Dream

  Stanford University Press eBooks · 2026-04-11

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Intellectual Property

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2025-11-20

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Intellectual property rights - and the very concept of such rights - are coming under attack in our modern world, in which there is widespread sharing of content across a spectrum which extends from agreed open access to outright piracy. Institutions and legal systems that protect intellectual property, both domestically and internationally, stand in need of justification. In this book five different philosophical justifications for intellectual property are presented and defended. Additionally, all of the major criticisms of intellectual property are examined and ultimately rejected. The discussion includes the issues and controversies surrounding generative artificial intelligence and the challenges which it poses to current systems of intellectual property protection. As a result of this thorough and wide-ranging analysis, readers in philosophy, law, political science, information science, and media studies will be in a better position to determine the benefits and burdens of patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets.

  PublisherDOI

• Exploring the Intuitive Theory of Empathy

  2025-04-28

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Empathy is an emotion that plays a key role in emotional understanding and perspective-taking, and has been identified as a strong motivator for prosocial behavior. We explore people's intuitive theory of empathy, focusing more specifically on the role that the concept of empathy plays in people's causal model of prosocial behavior. We suggest that people implicitly think of empathy as indexing the weight that the actor puts on the welfare of the recipient when deciding whether to help. We test this proposal by asking participants (N=150) to read a series of vignettes in which an actor has the opportunity to help a recipient in need. We find that participants have a robust expectation that actors who feel empathy for the recipient are more likely to help. Furthermore, participants seem to expect that actors who feel empathy are more sensitive to the potential benefits of an action when deciding whether to help. We also test if people can `invert' this intuitive theory to make inferences about an actor's empathy, given their observable behavior. We find only weak evidence that they can do so, although this might be due to limitations in our experimental design. Overall, our work is a first step toward elucidating the computational principles underlying laypeople's conception of empathy.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mitigating phase changes in the gas-phase that disrupt CO2 capture in membrane contactors: CO2-NH3-H2O as a model ternary system

  Journal of Membrane Science Letters · 2024-05-25 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Solid and liquid products can form in the gas phase of membrane contactors applied to reactive ternary systems for CO2 absorption, which poses a critical barrier for carbon capture applications. The mechanism initiating these unwanted phase changes in the gas phase is unclear. This study therefore systematically characterises CO2 absorption in distinct regions of the vapour-liquid equilibrium (VLE) within an illustrative ternary system (CO2-NH3-H2O), to provide an explanation for the formation and mitigation of these solid and liquid products in the gas-phase. Unstable CO2 absorption and increased pressure drop indicated product formation within the gas-phase, which occurred at high CO2 capture ratios. Temporal analysis of gas-phase composition enabled gas-phase products to be related to the relative ternary composition. This was subsequently correlated to distinct regions of the VLE. Consequently, mitigation strategies can be developed with recognition for where products are least likely to form. Pressurisation was proposed to modify the relative gas-phase ammonia composition to reposition conditions within the VLE. The commensurate increase of CO2 into the solvent shifts the ammonia-ammonium equilibrium towards ammonium to indirectly reduce vapour pressure. This synergistic strategy allows sustained operation of membrane contactors for CO2 separation within reactive ternary systems which are critical to delivering carbon capture economically at scale.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The role of solvent temperature and gas pressure on CO2 mass transfer during biogas upgrading within porous and dense-skin hollow fibre membrane contactors

  Journal of Membrane Science · 2023-08-01 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  Biogas upgrading uniquely requires pressurisation of hollow fibre membrane contactors (HFMC) to be competitive with classical water absorption, and when complemented with an ambient industrial temperature range, these conditions will determine CO2 mass transport phenomena that are distinct dependent upon whether microporous or nonporous membranes are used. This study therefore examines the independent and concomitant role of temperature and pressure in determining CO2 mass transport, and selectivity, within microporous and nonporous HFMC. At low solvent temperatures, higher CO2 flux was achieved which indicates that solvent solubility is more critical than CO2 diffusivity to enhancing mass transport. Low temperatures also favoured mass transfer within the microporous membrane, explained by the reduction in solvent vapour pressure which limited pore wetting by condensation. In contrast, the nonporous membrane exhibited poorer mass transfer at low temperatures due to a decline in dense polymer permeability. Crucially in this study, neither wetting of the microporous membrane or plasticisation of the nonporous membrane were observed following pressurisation. Consequently, CO2 flux increased in proportion to the applied pressure for both membrane types, emphasising the critical role of pressurisation in augmenting process intensification for biogas upgrading which is typically facilitated at pressures of 7–10 bar. Resistance-in-series analysis illustrated how pressurisation reduced gas-phase resistance, and subsequently enhanced selectivity. Consequently, an outlet gas quality of 98% methane could be achieved within a single microporous module at 4.5 bar, meeting the industrial standard for biomethane whilst reducing solvent requirements, separation energy and methane losses. Comparable behaviour was observed during pressurisation of the nonporous membrane, but with a less significant benefit to CO2 mass transfer and selectivity, ostensibly due to the resistance imparted by the dense polymer. When considered collectively, low solvent temperature and high gas pressure enhance process intensification subsequently reducing process size (e.g., membrane area) and separation energy, while also advancing selectivity to deliver a gas product at the composition required for biomethane with minimum methane losses, which are critical factors in demonstrating microporous HFMC as an industrially competitive solution for biogas upgrading.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The character of socially dominant WEIRD humans

  2023-04-03 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Human and non-human primates live in social groups organized through dominance hierarchies, and display behavioral traits that are relevant to navigating different types of hierarchies. The psychological, social, and evolutionary sciences are replete with different measures of behavioral dominance, which has given rise to some outstanding questions. Are we all measuring the same thing? What is the overlap between constructs, and what are the common underlying dominance factors? Using two independent samples, this preregistered study examined the relationships among dominance constructs as well as with many other relevant traits. Our results suggest that three domains – dominance, prestige, and leadership – all offer distinct pathways by which an individual can attain status and power. Moreover, the three domains are not independent, they are reliably correlated; e.g. an individual who is strong in leadership also tends to seek prestige. Our results also suggest that while modern, well-tailored assessments can capture these distinct domains, most older assessments capture the general tendency to seek power and status. We report the broader characteristics of dominance, prestige, and leadership motivated individuals, and the future study of these constructs is discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• The uniqueness of dominance: structural and criterion discriminability

  2023-04-03 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Dominance, a trait capturing assertiveness, leadership, and social boldness, is sometimes subsumed as a facet of extraversion, but might be a blended trait, overlapping with extraversion and openness. We hypothesized that while dominance overlaps with these traits in some areas, dominance also is a uniquely discriminable construct. In a series of preregistered analyses, we looked for the ideal factor structure of dominance, extraversion, and openness, and predicted associations with external variables that would demonstrate the discriminability of each of these three personality constructs. We found that dominance is always best modeled with its own factor, though overlap is present and can be appropriately modeled. We also confirmed that dominance is associated with anger and aggression, while extraversion and openness are not. The further discriminability of dominance is discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• Obesity-related complications, healthcare resource use and weight loss strategies in six European countries: the RESOURCE survey

  International Journal of Obesity · 2023 · 45 citations

  • Medicine
  • Gerontology
  • Environmental health

  BACKGROUND: Obesity-related complications (ORCs), such as type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular disease, contribute considerably to the clinical and economic impacts of obesity. To obtain a holistic overview of health and weight management attempts for people with obesity in Europe, we designed the cross-sectional RESOURCE survey to collect data on comorbidities, healthcare resource use (HCRU) and weight loss strategies from people with obesity in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK. METHODS: who reported interacting with primary or secondary healthcare services in the past 12 months, but had not been pregnant during this time, were recruited from an existing consumer research panel. All data were self-reported via an online survey (May-June 2021). Weight changes over the past year were calculated from participants' estimated weights. RESULTS: ) were more likely to report multiple ORCs than those in lower obesity classes. The presence of multiple ORCs was linked to various types of HCRU, including a significantly increased chance of reporting hospitalization in the past year. Most participants (78.6%) had attempted to lose weight in the past year, but of those who also reported estimated weight changes, 73.4% had not experienced clinically meaningful weight loss of ≥5%. CONCLUSIONS: ORCs are common in people with obesity, and are linked to increased HCRU. Together with the low reported success rate of weight loss attempts, this highlights an unmet need in Europe for enhanced weight management support for people with obesity.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Privacy, Security, and Surveillance

  2023-01-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  In this chapter, the author argues that none of the argument strands, considered individually or taken together, are strong enough to override individual privacy rights. Privacy also includes a right over the downstream use of bodies, locations, and personal information. If access is granted accidentally or otherwise, it does not follow that any subsequent use, manipulation, or sale of the good in question is justified. While privacy may be a cultural universal necessary for the proper functioning of human beings, its form – the actual rules of association and disengagement – is culturally dependent. The kinds of privacy rules found in different cultures will be dependent on a host of variables, including climate, religion, technological advancement, and political arrangements. Big data analytic software can analyze a small set of disparate data points, containing no personal identifying information, and then re-identify some particular individual.

  PublisherDOI

• Social norms and risks at mass gatherings: A systematic review

  International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction · 2023-02-21 · 15 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  Mass gatherings pose a set of serious health risks to attendees. Yet, the risks at mass gatherings have not been systematically reviewed and categorised, and there has been a lack of research on the role of social norms in shaping risks. This systematic review aimed to identify the types of risks and their prevalence at each type of mass gathering and to evaluate whether social norms are considered in the mass gatherings literature. We conducted our review following the PRISMA checklist and searched the literature comprehensively in May 2021 via six electronic databases: MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO, and CINAHL Plus. Articles were included if they met our inclusion criteria in the five domains: population, mass gatherings, risks, methods, and studies characteristics. The review included 183 articles about more than 83 mass gatherings in 42 countries. There were four types of planned mass gatherings: religious, sporting, music festivals, and other/cultural festivals, and four main types of risks: health, behavioural, environmental, and other/mental health risks. Social norms were mentioned in 5 articles. This is the first comprehensive systematic review of the literature regarding risks at mass gatherings with a specific focus on the role of social norms in shaping risks. Each mass gathering poses different types of risks depending on the nature of the event, and social norms can partially explain this. However, social norms are minimally considered in the literature and further studies about the role of identity-related norms in shaping risks at mass gatherings are needed.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Peter Vale

  Coventry (United Kingdom)

  10 shared

• Marc Pidou

  Cranfield University

  7 shared

• Adam Brookes

  7 shared

• E.J. McAdam

  Cranfield University

  7 shared

• Felix Suessenbach

  Stifterverband

  5 shared

• Felix D. Schönbrodt

  Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

  4 shared

• S. Bavarella

  Cranfield University

  4 shared

• Steve Loughnan

  University of Edinburgh

  4 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Philosophy

  Ohio State University