References for literature from mathematicians who provided critics and proposals concerning ethical aspects of mathematics research

Michael Harris has written some blog posts on ethical aspects of mathematics.

There is also an opinion piece by Tom Leinster about ethical questions arising for mathematicians working for intelligence agencies. More on mathematics and mass surveillance can be found here.


Maurice Chiodo is someone I am aware of regularly writing on ethics. Here's one starting point: https://ethics.maths.cam.ac.uk/pub


Here's an article from the 1980's on the AMS voting to turn down Reagan-era Star Wars funding in math:

https://www.the-scientist.com/news/math-society-votes-down-funding-by-sdi-military-62998

Bill Thurston was instrumental in getting the AMS to vote on this. He also wrote an article "Military funding in mathematics" that I can't find online, but a shortened version was in the Notices: https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/198701/198701FullIssue.pdf (p. 39). Thurston's AMS obituary also mentions that: https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/198701/198701FullIssue.pdf

Allyn Jackson discussed the AMS motion in a 2008 article: https://www.ams.org/notices/200804/tx080400445p.pdf

Alexander Grothendieck also famously resigned from IHÉS, ostensibly over similar issues.

Is that the kind of thing you were askng about?