CFP: Global Philosophy: Global Perspectives on Technology and Close Personal Relationships (CPR)

This special issue invites globally diverse perspectives on the moral, cultural, and technological dimensions of close personal relationships. In particular, we invite authors to consider variants on the following question: How do we love, trust, and connect across cultures and AI technologies?

Theme Overview

Close personal relationships such as friendships, kinship bonds, romantic partnerships, or other intimate ties are central to how human beings make sense of moral life. They shape our sense of identity, belonging, and obligation. Yet, most philosophical treatments of close personal relationships (CPR) have been grounded in Western assumptions about personhood, autonomy, and intimacy. This special issue of Global Philosophy seeks to expand this conversation by foregrounding global, intercultural, and cross-traditional perspectives on CPR with a recent technological developments in mind. We invite contributions that explore how different philosophical traditions, cultural practices, and linguistic contexts conceptualize what close relationships are, what they require, and who can share in them, as well as how they interplay with and/or change in the face of novel AI-powered technologies. In short, this issue aims to explore how moral, epistemic, and technological transformations—including the rise of AI interlocutors and digital companionship—are reshaping ideas of intimacy and closeness across cultures.

Background and Rationale

Recent philosophical work has begun to interrogate the nature of relationships between humans and artificial systems. For example:

• John Symons and Oluwaseun Sanwoolu’s “Close Personal Relationships with People and Artifacts? Loneliness, Agent-Relative Obligations, and Artificially Intelligent Companions” (Philosophy & Technology, 2025) examines whether AI systems can meaningfully participate in the obligations and commitments that define human closeness.

• John Symons and Syed AbuMusab’s “Social Agency for Artifacts: Chatbots and the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence” (Digital Society, 2024) provides a novel perspective on how chatbots and similar systems can function as social agents that shape human norms and expectations, particularly considering non-western notions and requirements related to intimacy and care.

• Ramón Alvarado’s “What Is Epistemic Loneliness?” (Synthese, 2025) explores loneliness as an epistemic condition rooted in our capacities as knowers—a concept that he envisions will shed light on technologically mediated communication and AI companionship: e.g., if AI is an epistemic technology (Alvarado, 2023), then it may be a viable epistemic partner.

Together, these works represent important developments in the study of CPR and technology, but they also elucidate an incomplete cultural scope of existing research. That is, most accounts still rely on Western moral and relational assumptions.

This special issue aims to challenge and address this limitation by inviting global perspectives on what counts as a close relationship and how these understandings intersect with emerging technologies, moral traditions, and forms of communication.

Possible Areas of Inquiry

We particularly encourage contributions that explore AI as a relational interlocutor—systems designed to engage in communicative or conversational exchange—and how cultural frameworks influence the ethics of these interactions. Although we are interested in the ethical and moral implications of AI technologies, we invite authors to not limit the interpretation of these to questions of harm and mitigation but rather explore a broader understanding of the former that includes deep normative transformations whose ethical status as negative or positive is still an open question, as well as potentially promising outlooks.

Hence, we welcome submissions addressing (but not limited to) the following themes:

• Relational ethics and care theory perspectives in non-Western contexts that consider the impact of 21st century technologies on foundational ideas therein.

• Technologically mediated relationships: AI companions, chatbots, and digital interlocutors from culturally diverse perspectives and value systems.

• Comparative accounts of friendship, kinship, and intimacy across philosophical traditions— including African, Asian, Indigenous, or Islamic philosophies of relationality and personhood — and the interplay these have with recent technological developments.

• Epistemic and moral dimensions of loneliness and social isolation across cultures and the potential effects (positive or negative) of AI technologies on them.

• Human Flourishing and the Ethics of Coexistence with Artificial Others.

• How different traditions understand trust, dependence, and mutual recognition in relationships mediated by intelligent systems.

Submission Details

• Abstract length: 800–1,500 words (extended abstract format)

• Deadline: January 15, 2026

• Notification of acceptance: February 15, 2026

• Full paper deadline (upon invitation): April 15, 2026

•Expected publication: June 2026

Abstracts should outline the paper’s central thesis, theoretical grounding, and contribution to expanding or diversifying global perspectives on CPR.

Please submit your abstracts via email to the editors: Ramón Alvarado (University of Oregon) — [email protected], Oluwaseun Sanwoolu (University of Kansas) — [email protected]