Making moral judgements: internalism and moral motivation

Making Moral Judgements is about the relation between moral judgements and motivation. It addresses an apparent tension between the internalist view that there is a necessary connection between moral judgements and motivation and the cognitivist view that such judgements express beliefs about how the world is morally. This thesis argues that to resolve this tension we need first to distinguish the act of making a moral judgement from the content of a moral judgement. Act internalism asserts a necessary connection between the act of making a moral judgement and motivation. This is perfectly consistent with there being no connection between the truth of moral propositions -the content of moral judgements - and motivation. The act internalist approach is developed using speech act theory. Speech acts that do more than simply state facts or express motivating states are ubiquitous in our linguistic practice. Moral judgements can be construed as a type of compound speech act that involves assertion and motivation. This approach, it is argued, can help us better understand the complexities of moral motivation and of moral practice. On the speech act approach, in making a moral judgement an agent goes beyond description or cognition in holding herself and others to account with regard to a moral requirement. To be able to do this, the agent must be generally susceptible to a range of reactive attitudes that make up the point of view of normative participation. It is in relation to this participant point of view that we can account for the capacity of agents to be motivated by moral considerations. And it is with regard to this point of view that internalism is best understood as an expression of our interested or participatory relation to moral deliberation and moral practice

On the Possibility of Robots Having Emotions

I argue against the commonly held intuition that robots and virtual agents will never have emotions by contending robots can have emotions in a sense that is functionally similar to humans, even if the robots\u27 emotions are not exactly equivalent to those of humans. To establish a foundation for assessing the robots\u27 emotional capacities, I first define what emotions are by characterizing the components of emotion consistent across emotion theories. Second, I dissect the affective-cognitive architecture of MIT\u27s Kismet and Leonardo, two robots explicitly designed to express emotions and to interact with humans, in order to explore whether they have emotions. I argue that, although Kismet and Leonardo lack the subjective feelings component of emotion, they are capable of having emotions

The organisation of sociality: a manifesto for a new science of multi-agent systems

In this paper, we pose and motivate a challenge, namely the need for a new science of multi-agent systems. We propose that this new science should be grounded, theoretically on a richer conception of sociality, and methodologically on the extensive use of computational modelling for real-world applications and social simulations. Here, the steps we set forth towards meeting that challenge are mainly theoretical. In this respect, we provide a new model of multi-agent systems that reflects a fully explicated conception of cognition, both at the individual and the collective level. Finally, the mechanisms and principles underpinning the model will be examined with particular emphasis on the contributions provided by contemporary organisation theory

Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception

The Humean conception of the self consists in the belief-desire model of motivation and the utility-maximizing model of rationality. This conception has dominated Western thought in philosophy and the social sciences ever since Hobbes’ initial formulation in Leviathan and Hume’s elaboration in the Treatise of Human Nature. Bentham, Freud, Ramsey, Skinner, Allais, von Neumann and Morgenstern and others have added further refinements that have brought it to a high degree of formal sophistication. Late twentieth century moral philosophers such as Rawls, Brandt, Frankfurt, Nagel and Williams have taken it for granted, and have made use of it to supply metaethical foundations for a wide variety of normative moral theories. But the Humean conception of the self also leads to seemingly insoluble problems about moral motivation, rational final ends, and moral justification. Can it be made to work

Beyond Detached Concern : the cognitive and ethical function of emotions in medical practice

This dissertation analyzes the ideal of detached concern in medical practice. This ideal arises as an attempt to bridge the gap in medicine between managing diseases and recognizing patients as persons. First, physicians take their emotions to interfere with making objective diagnoses and making every aspect of their practice scientific. Second, physicians idealize detachment as the stance of the impartial moral agent who is able to care for all types of patients out of a sense of duty. Third, physicians also recognize the need to be empathic; however they conceive empathy as a purely cognitive capacity that is compatible with detachment.Chapter one analyzes the features of emotions that contribute to and also threaten rational agency. Chapter two analyzes Descartes\u27 theory of the emotions, which is the outcome of his scientific method for understanding reality. Descartes\u27 legacy to physicians is not only the capacity to build powerful mechanistic models of diseases, but the failure to account for human experience via such models.Chapter three considers the turn to Kantian ethics to restore respect for patients as persons to the practice of medicine. Kantian impartiality is shown not to require detachment. Further, the practice of Kantian ethics in medicine is impoverished when physicians are not affectively engaged.Whereas chapters two and three show the limitations of the arguments for emotional detachment, chapters four and five give positive arguments for the role of emotions in medical practice. Chapter four examines the cognitive and affective aspects of clinical empathy, and argues that emotions are essential for directing the empathizer to imagine what the patient is experiencing. The final chapter argues that given the importance of emotional engagement and the fact that emotions can obstruct rational and moral agency, physicians need to regulate their emotions without detaching themselves from patients. Physicians can best meet the goals of medicine by cultivating overarching emotional attitudes like curiosity and courage to effectively move themselves towards a more realistic and respectful appreciation of patients

The distracted robot: what happens when artificial agents behave like us

In everyday life, we are frequently exposed to different smart technologies. From our smartphones to avatars in computer games, and soon perhaps humanoid robots, we are surrounded by artificial agents created to interact with us. Already during the design phase of an artificial agent, engineers often endow it with functions aimed to promote the interaction and engagement with it, ranging from its \u201ccommunicative\u201d abilities to the movements it produces. Still, whether an artificial agent that can behave like a human could boost the spontaneity and naturalness of interaction is still an open question. Even during the interaction with conspecifics, humans rely partially on motion cues when they need to infer the mental states underpinning behavior. Similar processes may be activated during the interaction with embodied artificial agents, such as humanoid robots. At the same time, a humanoid robot that can faithfully reproduce human-like behavior may undermine the interaction, causing a shift in attribution: from being endearing to being uncanny. Furthermore, it is still not clear whether individual biases and prior knowledge related to artificial agents can override perceptual evidence of human-like traits. A relatively new area of research emerged in the context of investigating individuals\u2019 reactions towards robots, widely referred to as Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). HRI is a multidisciplinary community that comprises psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers as well as roboticists, and engineers. However, HRI research has been often based on explicit measures (i.e. self-report questionnaires, a-posteriori interviews), while more implicit social cognitive processes that are elicited during the interaction with artificial agents took second place behind more qualitative and anecdotal results. The present work aims to demonstrate the usefulness of combining the systematic approach of cognitive neuroscience with HRI paradigms to further investigate social cognition processes evoked by artificial agents. Thus, this thesis aimed at exploring human sensitivity to anthropomorphic characteristics of a humanoid robot's (i.e. iCub robot) behavior, based on motion cues, under different conditions of prior knowledge. To meet this aim, we manipulated the human-likeness of the behaviors displayed by the robot and the explicitness of instructions provided to the participants, in both screen-based and real-time interaction scenarios. Furthermore, we explored some of the individual differences that affect general attitudes towards robots, and the attribution of human-likeness consequently

From Life-Like to Mind-Like Explanation: Natural Agency and the Cognitive Sciences

This dissertation argues that cognition is a kind of natural agency. Natural agency is the capacity that certain systems have to act in accordance with their own norms. Natural agents are systems that bias their repertoires in response to affordances in the pursuit of their goals. Cognition is a special mode of this general phenomenon. Cognitive systems are agents that have the additional capacity to actively take their worlds to be certain ways, regardless of whether the world is really that way. In this way, cognitive systems are desituated. Desituatedness is the root of specifically cognitive capacities for representation and abstraction. There are two main reasons why this view needs defending. First, natural agency is typically viewed as incompatible with natural science because it is committed to a teleological mode of explanation. Second, cognition is typically held to be categorically distinct from natural agency. This dissertation argues against both of these views. It argues against the incompatibility of agency and natural science by demonstrating that systems biology, general systems theory, and sciences that deal with complex systems have typically underappreciated conceptual and theoretical resources for grounding agency in the causal structure of the world. These conceptual resources do not, however, reduce agency to systems theory because the normativity inherent in agency demands descriptive resources beyond those of even the most sophisticated systems theory. It argues against the categorical difference between natural agency and cognition by pointing out that separating cognition from a richer web of situated, ecologically embedded relations between the agent and the world generates the frame problem, which is an insuperable obstacle to making cognition that is sufficiently responsive to the complexity of the world. Rooting cognition in natural agency is a more robust empirical bet for theorizing cognition and artificial intelligence

From Life-Like to Mind-Like Explanation: Natural Agency and the Cognitive Sciences

This dissertation argues that cognition is a kind of natural agency. Natural agency is the capacity that certain systems have to act in accordance with their own norms. Natural agents are systems that bias their repertoires in response to affordances in the pursuit of their goals. Cognition is a special mode of this general phenomenon. Cognitive systems are agents that have the additional capacity to actively take their worlds to be certain ways, regardless of whether the world is really that way. In this way, cognitive systems are desituated. Desituatedness is the root of specifically cognitive capacities for representation and abstraction. There are two main reasons why this view needs defending. First, natural agency is typically viewed as incompatible with natural science because it is committed to a teleological mode of explanation. Second, cognition is typically held to be categorically distinct from natural agency. This dissertation argues against both of these views. It argues against the incompatibility of agency and natural science by demonstrating that systems biology, general systems theory, and sciences that deal with complex systems have typically underappreciated conceptual and theoretical resources for grounding agency in the causal structure of the world. These conceptual resources do not, however, reduce agency to systems theory because the normativity inherent in agency demands descriptive resources beyond those of even the most sophisticated systems theory. It argues against the categorical difference between natural agency and cognition by pointing out that separating cognition from a richer web of situated, ecologically embedded relations between the agent and the world generates the frame problem, which is an insuperable obstacle to making cognition that is sufficiently responsive to the complexity of the world. Rooting cognition in natural agency is a more robust empirical bet for theorizing cognition and artificial intelligence

Three Conceptions of Modal Realism

The thesis is divided into three sections. The first of these is a critique of the conceptions of modal realism due to Lewis; the second, a critique of that due to McGinn. The third section comprises the development and initial evaluation of a third conception of moral realism which I term secondary modal realism. In Section One of the thesis [Ch.1- Ch.5] I argue against the acceptability of the objectual modal realism of David Lewis and I argue (tentatively) for one theory of the meaning of possible world statements which is consistent with this denial of the existence of possible worlds. Chapters 1- 4 concern the former argument, Ch.5 concerns the latter. In Ch.1, I argue that there is no genuine semantic utility afforded by the adoption of realism about possible worlds. The case is (i) that the genuine semantical utility which does accrue via the ontological commitment to possible worlds can be had without that ontological commitmment and (ii) that other claims to semanti utility which are associated with possible world semantics do not reflect legitimate semantic-explanatory interests. The main part of the discussion of objectual realism - constituted by Chapters 2, 3 & 4 - takes a different turn. Since Lewis is fond of comparing his modal realism to realism about the entities of mathematics, I attempt to show that, on both epistemological and metaphysical grounds, the comparison is quite unfavourable for objectual modal realism. In Ch.2, I defend the objectual modal realist's right to an a priori epistemology of modality in face of Benaceraffs dilemma, but, it is argued in Ch.3, even granted a priority, there is still a serious epistemological difficulty since the internal epistemology of modal realism which is proposed by Lewis is seriously flawed. In Ch.4, it is argued that there is at least one important metaphysical consideration which militates against an ontological commitment to worlds but which does not appear to have the same impact re. mathematical ontology, viz: that the mooted possible worlds are identification- transcendent. Having made the case for anti-realism about possible worlds I am concerned in Ch.5 with the outline of a theory of the meaning of possible world statements which is consistent with this ontological position. I argue for the unacceptability of a theory, outlined by Forbes, which depends upon the claim that possible world statements do not mean what they appear to mean. I then counterpose the options of an error theory and a metaphor theory of world-talk arguing that while both of these are prima facie tenable, the latter is preferable. In Section Two of the thesis [Ch.6 - Ch.9] I deal with the non-objectual modal realism of McGinn. Having set out the salient theses of McGinn's conception of modal realism [Ch.6], the critique of this conception follows. Ch. 6: the variety and resources of anti-realisms about modality are seriously underestimated by McGinn. In particular the option of anti-realism based on the strategy of proposing a sceptical solution as a response to a sceptical paradox is ignored. Ch.7: McGinn proposes that the only defensible form of modal realism consists in endorsing the thesis of supervenience (without reduction) of the modal on the actual. However, the discussion of supervenience fails to acknowledge many of the difficulties associated with the application of supervenience and related theses in the modal case. Furthermore, there is every reason to believe that acceptance of modal/actual supervenience involves no commitment to modal realism. Ch.8: consideration of the issues that flow from the discussion of the thesis of supervenience should point towards a central question of modal epistemology i.e. whether modal knowledge is attainable by conceptual means alone. However, McGinn's discussion of supervenience leads him away from this central question and as a result he mislocates the problematic nature of modal epistemology in the claim that we cannot represent modal facts as causally explaining our knowledge of them. Ch.9:The modal realism that McGinn offers is wholly unacceptable since it provides neither a clear conception of the truth-conditions of modal statements nor any account of how we detect modalities. The realism he offers is redolent of sceptical paradox and seems ripe for an anti-realist treatment in the form of a sceptical solution. Hence, the upshot of the first two sections is that the existing conceptions of modal realism, i.e. those of Lewis and of McGinn respectively, are indefensible. In Section Three of the thesis [Ch.10 - Ch. 12] the aim is to characterize and evaluate a third conception of modal realism - secondary modal realism. This project is inspired by (i) McDowell's secondary quality conception of moral reality and (ii) the observation of crucial similarities between the failings of more traditional conceptions of moral realism and those conceptions of modal realisms dealt with above. In Ch.10, I argue that anthropocentricity as opposed to perceptibility is the feature of paradigmatic secondary properties which is an appropriately generalizable feature of secondary realism and that a proper conception of the standard of correctness for secondary property judgments facilitates the extrapolation of that standard to the cases of moral and modal judgement. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)

The Naturalisation of Intentionality and Rationality Using Systems: A Functional Explanation of Mind, Agency and Intentionality in Human Linguistic Communities

This thesis recognises two axioms of materialism. Firstly, that the human or other agent is within and is comprised of the same stuff as, a universe made up of material things, each of which is, in principle, explicable in materialist terms. Secondly, that the theorist is himself an agent, explicable within the theory of agency that he propounds. The author contends that any attempt to explain complex conscious human agency 'from the top down' faces either a potential regress of explaining the aetiology of human agency in terms of some agency of design or the view, canvassed by Colin McGinn, (1989), that the human mind is 'cognitively closed' to the concepts that would explain how human consciousness can arise from the material substance of the brain. The author has avoided this dilemma by postulating an austere characterisation of agency, from which the rich and manifold nature of human agency and intentionality has developed by the accidents of evolution. He holds that this austere agency may be explained by natural accidents of chemical combination that have led, by the accidents of evolution, to the phenomena of reproductive life, functionally characterised in this explanation by agency and autopoiesis. This austere characterisation of agency is an example of a functional system. Agency is a capacity of an entity within the physical system of an agent in the world. This capacity is enabled by functions that the author has named; 'perception', 'representation', 'cognitive process' and 'action'. Through the processes of perception, physical states of the world physically cause changes in representational states of agency; within cognitive processes, representational states combine to cause actions of agency that change states of the world, that includes the agent, in ways that maintain or tend towards those goal states of the agent in the world, that are postulated in a theory of agency. It is argued that this concept of agency is functionally isomorphic with the technological concept of regulation. Two theorems from regulation are particularly relevant. Firstly, Ashby's theorem that for successful regulation the variety of possible states in the regulator must at least match the variety of states regulated against. Secondly, the very idea of regulation stems from the epistemic contingency for the agent, of events regulated against. Life, as we know it on earth, is reproduced by reproductive behaviour that follows and reproduces the programmes encoded in DNA. The autopoietic maintenance of the structure of the living organism against the contingencies of an unpredictable world is enabled by the mechanisms of agency. The structure of the thesis and the ontological commitments of the author are set out in a first introductory chapter. In the second chapter the author summarises the history and currant range of application of the system concept and describes the philosophical implications of his notion of a physical system. The notions of physical cause, accident, function, supervenience, representation and alternative realisation that are assumed within the thesis are also described in this chapter. The third chapter is devoted to the development of the concept of agency as a capacity, characterized by goals and intentionality and enabled by the functions listed above. Examples of agency in the world are described in the fourth chapter. These range from the simple reflex agency of a governor, unicellular organism or part of a plant to the complex integrated agency of production control systems, advanced vertebrates, including us, and social groupings such as a colony of social insects or some aspects of a human corporation. Also, within this chapter, the author considers the impact of language on human social agency, the implications of social agency for the attribution of personhood and through semantic ascent, the social practices of attribution of meaning, truth and mind, and the prepositional attitudes. He concludes that, since agency necessarily involves an agent in its world and human language is about the world as it is for the human agent; language, agency and the world are explanatorily inseparable. In the fifth and sixth chapters the author applies his theory of human agency to the computational theory of mind and the apparent tension between determinism, free will and personal responsibility. The author concludes: Firstly, that the brain as an organ of representation, is not a computer since computation is an act of agency, although parts of the brain may have a combinatorial function within such acts. Secondly, if freedom is defined as an absence of physical constraint then a free agent is physically responsible for its acts. Within the social practice of attribution of personhood to the continuous ongoing agent within the community, each person is held responsible for his actions, including those that change the future agency of himself and others, for better or for worse, according to the valuation of the community. In a final chapter the author summarises some of the philosophical implications of his thesis. The notions of variety in regulation and of autopoiesis as a necessary criterion of life are used in the thesis and are explained in each of two appendices