Professor Peter Lee
Biography
Professor Peter Lee is a Professor of Applied Ethics and Associate Dean for Research (Interim) in the University of Portsmouth Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. His research has spanned the ethical, operational and other human aspects of UK Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (drone) operations, the ethics of AI and autonomous weapon systems, moral injury and mental harms in military and police personnel, and politics and ethics of war. From 2016-2018 he was granted unprecedented research access to the two RAF Reaper squadrons for his book, Reaper Force: The Inside Story of Britain’s Drone Wars. In 2020 Peter led two research projects which explored legal, ethical, and moral perspectives on advanced technology and emerging weapon systems and, separately, moral injury in police online child sex crime investigators and RAF Reaper (drone) operators. In April 2023 he commenced a collaborative £850,000 EPSRC-funded project to create a Trustworthy Autonomous Robotic Drone System to Support Battlefield Casualty Triage. He is a member of the UK Ministry of Defence Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy Ethics Advisory Panel. He is also an Expert Adviser of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drones and Modern Conflict.
Research interests
The ethics of AI and autonomous weapon systems, the politics and ethics of war and military intervention, the ethics and other human factors of lethal military drone operations, and the application of Foucauldian conceptions of power, truth and subjectivity to contemporary political discourse. Peter is available for PhD supervision in these fields.
Research outputs
2024
Protecting the protectors: moral injury, coping styles, and mental health of UK Police Officers and staff investigating child sexual abuse material
Lee, P., Conway, P., Redmond, T., Lundigran, S., Davy, D., Bailey, S.
23 Nov 2024, In: Depression and Anxiety. 2024, 25p., 1854312
Research output: Article
The politics and ethics of threat from the air
Lee, P.
1 Jan 2024, In: Digital War. 5
Research output: Article
2023
How we can protect the protectors: learning from police officers and staff involved in child sexual abuse and exploitation investigations
Redmond, T., Conway, P., Bailey, S., Lee, P., Lundigran, S.
10 May 2023, In: Frontiers in Psychology . 14, 16p., 1152446
Research output: Article
Impacts of organisational role and environmental factors on moral injury and trauma amongst police investigators in internet child abuse teams
Lee, P., Tapson, C., Doyle, M., Karagiannopoulos, V.
1 Mar 2023, In: The Police Journal. 96, 1, p. 153–171
Research output: Article
2022
Understanding moral injury and belief change in the experiences of police online child sex crime investigators: an interpretative phenomenological analysis
Tapson, C., Doyle, M., Karagiannopoulos, V., Lee, P.
1 Sep 2022, In: Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology. 37, 3, p. 637-649, 13p.
Research output: Article
2021
Ethics of military cyber surveillance
Lee, P.
29 Oct 2021,
Research output: Chapter (peer-reviewed)
Armed drone systems: the ethical challenge of replacing human control with increasingly autonomous elements
Lee, P.
15 Jan 2021,
Research output: Chapter (peer-reviewed)
2020
How researching with the RAF Reaper community exposed my own suppressed trauma and what I would do differently next time
Lee, P.
17 Nov 2020, In: Critical Military Studies
Research output: Article
Psychological trauma – it’s what happens to other people. Right?
Lee, P.
19 Jun 2020, In: CREST Security Review
Research output: Article
Deciding life or death
Lee, P.
2 Jun 2020, In: Global Focus: The European Forum for Management Development Business Magazine
Research output: Article