Five questions with … Erick Jose Ramirez
Five Questions With … is a series of profiles that invites professors to share insights into their research and its impact. Rooted in the Jesuit tradition of curiosity, reflection, and service to others, this series offers a window into how scholarship at º£½ÇÉçÇø connects academic excellence with a commitment to the common good.
Erick José Ramirez is a professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy at º£½ÇÉçÇø who explores how people think, feel, and make moral decisions. He is the author of “ and co-editor of “,” both of which consider how emerging technologies raise new questions for our moral lives.
What questions or challenges are at the heart of your current work?
At the heart of my work is a broad but fundamental question: what does it mean to be human, especially as our relationship with technology evolves? More specifically, I study how we shape technologies to serve us and how, in turn, for better or for worse, those technologies shape us. Over the past decade, I’ve focused on the spectrum of extended reality technologies, ranging from virtual reality, where you’re wearing a headset and headphones and experiencing a completely simulated experience apart from your physical world, to augmented reality, where you may be changing or controlling just one aspect of a digital representation of yourself, like a photo filter.
These tools are still relatively new, but we already see their moral, political, and social implications. My work asks how we can think critically about those effects now, before these technologies become fully embedded in our everyday lives, in order to minimize their harms and make the most of their possibilities.
Why is this issue important for the world to address at this time?
Extended reality technologies matter now because they are already reshaping how we experience the world—and our brains often treat simulated experiences as real ones. Anyone who’s put on a VR headset for the first time knows the danger of bumping into a table because the brain is so immersed in the virtual scene. But the implications go deeper: Studies show that people often merge memories of what happened in VR with what happened in physical space, as if the brain makes no distinction.
That means experiences in VR, whether joyful or traumatic, can affect us just as strongly as those in the physical world. This raises urgent ethical questions about how VR is used in research and education, where the assumption has long been that “simulated” experiences don’t really matter.
We’ve already seen how slow our laws can be to catch up with technological change. Take sexual harassment: The legal frameworks developed for the physical workplace didn’t translate easily to online spaces, and we had to rethink everything in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Extended reality is likely to present a similar challenge. In immersive spaces, harassment and harmful behaviors can feel just as invasive as they would in person, yet current laws don’t clearly address them. We risk repeating past mistakes if we wait until extended reality becomes mainstream before taking these issues seriously.
There are also profound questions about identity and embodiment. Humans have always used technology—whether pigments, clothing, or surgery—to shape how our bodies represent who we are. Extended reality extends that process dramatically, letting people inhabit virtual bodies or apply digital filters that feel just as real as their physical ones.
Early studies suggest people can identify with these digital bodies as strongly as their biological ones. That means we may soon need to decide whether harming someone’s avatar or augmented “layer” should be treated more like damaging property, or more like harming the person themselves. And with major companies already experimenting with AR glasses and even contact lenses, we face the real possibility of a future where identity itself becomes a subscription service.
At the same time, the potential isn’t all negative. Extended reality offers extraordinary opportunities for creativity and self-expression, allowing people to move beyond biological limitations and represent themselves in new ways. Just as fashion once transformed how people presented identity, digital layers open up entirely new dimensions for art, culture, and personal freedom. The challenge is ensuring that these tools are developed and used responsibly—so that extended reality enriches our lives rather than amplifying harm.
Why have you chosen to dedicate your career to this research?
I didn’t set out knowing I would be a philosopher. When I first started college, I chose human resource management because I thought I should study something very practical. But along the way, I took courses in cognitive psychology, neuroanatomy, and philosophy of mind, and those completely changed the way I thought about the world. Suddenly, I was hooked on these big, open-ended questions about the mind, the self, and what it means to be human.
Over time, I realized that philosophy, especially when it engages with technology and cognitive science, felt like a place where I could make meaningful progress on questions that matter, not just to me, but to the students and communities I work with. Technology is changing so fast, and with it come really profound ethical questions about identity, emotion, and even what counts as a good life.
At the end of the day, I’ve chosen this path because it feels both urgent and deeply human. We can’t stop technology from reshaping our world, but we can guide the way we think about it, and that’s where philosophy can make a real difference.
How have your students impacted your research?
My students have been central to my research in ways I didn’t fully anticipate. Over the past seven or eight years, I’ve worked with more than two dozen students on projects exploring extended reality, neuroethics, and emerging technologies. They’ve contributed not just their labor, but their curiosity and fresh perspectives. They’ve introduced me to concepts or ways of thinking I hadn’t considered. For example, one student taught me the term ‘vibe coding,' a coding practice I hadn’t encountered before, which opened up a whole discussion about how people interact with AI in unexpected ways.
Collaborating with students also allows me to explore the technology hands-on, from developing simulations to testing ethical scenarios, while learning about the limitations and capabilities of current tools. In many ways, our work together feels like a two-way street: I guide them, but they guide me, helping me see questions and possibilities that keep the research both relevant and grounded. Their involvement has made the work richer, more nuanced, and, frankly, much more exciting.
What is a book in your field that you think everyone should read?
The second is David J. Chalmers’ “Reality+”, which takes on the philosophical implications of virtual reality in a way that’s both fun and provocative. He argues that life in a simulated world could be just as real and meaningful as life in the physical one, and whether you agree or not, it forces you to think deeply.
For my third pick, I recommend “His Master’s Voice” by the Polish science fiction writer StanisÅ‚aw Lem. Written during the Cold War, it’s about scientists racing to decode what looks like a signal from space, but what I love is how it wrestles with the limits of human understanding and the possibility that some things may be beyond us. Lem manages to be funny, imaginative, and philosophically serious all at once, which makes his work as insightful today as it was decades ago.
Select Articles and Papers by Erick Jose Ramirez:
Since 2017, the VR Experimental Philosophy Lab has been producing and making freely available VR translations of classic moral dilemmas. These simulations are suitable for use in the classroom, in the lab (for moral psychological research), and for starting discussions about philosophy with friends and family.
