3,795 research outputs found

    Beyond Moral Fundamentalism: Dewey’s Pragmatic Pluralism in Ethics and Politics [preprint]

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    Drawing on unpublished and published sources from 1926-1932, this chapter builds on John Dewey’s naturalistic pragmatic pluralism in ethical theory. A primary focus is “Three Independent Factors in Morals,” which analyzes good, duty, and virtue as distinct categories that in many cases express different experiential origins. The chapter suggests that a vital role for contemporary theorizing is to lay bare and analyze the sorts of conflicts that constantly underlie moral and political action. Instead of reinforcing moral fundamentalism via an outdated quest for the central and basic source of normative justification, we should foster theories with a range of idioms and emphases which, while accommodating monistic insights, better inform decision-making by opening communication across diverse elements of moral and political life, placing these elements in a wider context in which norms gain practical traction in non-ideal conditions, and expanding prospects for social inquiry and convergence on policy and action

    Artificial virtuous agents in a multi‐agent tragedy of the commons

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    Although virtue ethics has repeatedly been proposed as a suitable framework for the development of artificial moral agents (AMAs), it has been proven difficult to approach from a computational perspective. In this work, we present the first technical implementation of artificial virtuous agents (AVAs) in moral simulations. First, we review previous conceptual and technical work in artificial virtue ethics and describe a functionalistic path to AVAs based on dispositional virtues, bottom-up learning, and top-down eudaimonic reward. We then provide the details of a technical implementation in a moral simulation based on a tragedy of the commons scenario. The experimental results show how the AVAs learn to tackle cooperation problems while exhibiting core features of their theoretical counterpart, including moral character, dispositional virtues, learning from experience, and the pursuit of eudaimonia. Ultimately, we argue that virtue ethics provides a compelling path toward morally excellent machines and that our work provides an important starting point for such endeavors

    A neo-aristotelian perspective on the need for artificial moral agents (AMAs)

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    We examine Van Wynsberghe and Robbins (JAMA 25:719-735, 2019) critique of the need for Artifcial Moral Agents (AMAs) and its rebuttal by Formosa and Ryan (JAMA 10.1007/s00146-020-01089-6, 2020) set against a neo-Aristotelian ethical background. Neither Van Wynsberghe and Robbins (JAMA 25:719-735, 2019) essay nor Formosa and Ryan’s (JAMA 10.1007/s00146-020-01089-6, 2020) is explicitly framed within the teachings of a specifc ethical school. The former appeals to the lack of “both empirical and intuitive support” (Van Wynsberghe and Robbins 2019, p. 721) for AMAs, and the latter opts for “argumentative breadth over depth”, meaning to provide “the essential groundwork for making an all things considered judgment regarding the moral case for building AMAs” (Formosa and Ryan 2019, pp. 1–2). Although this strategy may beneft their acceptability, it may also detract from their ethical rootedness, coherence, and persuasiveness, characteristics often associated with consolidated ethical traditions. Neo-Aristotelian ethics, backed by a distinctive philosophical anthropology and worldview, is summoned to fll this gap as a standard to test these two opposing claims. It provides a substantive account of moral agency through the theory of voluntary action; it explains how voluntary action is tied to intelligent and autonomous human life; and it distinguishes machine operations from voluntary actions through the categories of poiesis and praxis respectively. This standpoint reveals that while Van Wynsberghe and Robbins may be right in rejecting the need for AMAs, there are deeper, more fundamental reasons. In addition, despite disagreeing with Formosa and Ryan’s defense of AMAs, their call for a more nuanced and context-dependent approach, similar to neo-Aristotelian practical wisdom, becomes expedient

    How (not) to think of the ‘dead-donor’ rule

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    Although much has been written on the dead-donor rule in the last twenty-five years, scant attention has been paid to how it should be formulated, what its rationale is, and why it was accepted. The DDR can be formulated in terms of either a Don’t Kill rule or a Death Requirement, the former being historically rooted in absolutist ethics and the latter in a prudential policy aimed at securing trust in the transplant enterprise. I contend that the moral core of the rule is the Don’t Kill rule, not the Death Requirement. This, I show, is how the DDR was understood by the transplanters of the 1960s, who sought to conform their practices to their ethics—unlike today’s critics of the DDR, who rethink their ethics in a question-begging fashion to accommodate their practices. A better discussion of the ethics of killing is needed to move the debate forward

    The ethics of genome editing of animals

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    In the Western culture nowadays, a large number of animals is used for food production and because of the growing world population, the demand for animal products is increasing even more. Since the planet has its environmental boundaries, it is important that these products are produced sustainably to minimize negative environmental impacts. Modern techniques, such as genome editing (i.e. a technology that is able to add, remove or alter DNA in a way that does not occur naturally), are suggested to be able to contribute to a sustainable production of animal products. The application of genome editing could profoundly affect a large number of animals and its outcome could shape society. Ethical reflections on the application of genome editing are therefore important. In this thesis, there was focus on four important ethical theories (utilitarianism, duty ethics, care ethics and virtue ethics) and their place in the debate on genome editing of animals. Lastly, suggestions were made to improve the debate on genome editing of animals. Firstly, utilitarianism judges an action based on its consequences. Actions are considered right when they provide the greatest good for the greatest amount of people and when they minimize suffering for all those involved. In order to determine whether genome editing of animals is justifiable, the benefits of genome editing of animals should be balanced against the entailed costs. Besides the direct costs of genome editing on animals (e.g. the consequences for successfully genome edited animals), also the indirect costs should be taken into account (e.g. the risk of animals with an unintended disorder or risk of miscarriages at a later stage of pregnancy). However, as observed in the literature review, few authors in the literature review actually made an assessment of the consequences, which could be due to some unknown risks of genome editing. Besides, utilitarian argumentation was observed to have the tendency to miss out on other valuable arguments by solely focusing on consequences. Duty ethics, or the animal rights theory, is a non-consequentialist theory which manifests itself in the thought that an action can be right or wrong by itself. Individuals who are able to experience life (i.e. those who satisfy the subjects-of-a-life criterion) are thought to have value in themselves, also known as inherent value. All those who have inherent value (e.g. humans and some animals such as farm animals) have it equally, and they therefore all have the right to be respected and not to be harmed. As a consequence, raising and slaughtering animals for their meat is unjustifiable because it violates their rights and genome editing for those purposes is therefore not accepted. However, as observed in the literature review, this established position on just the use of animals leaves very limited room in the discussion, which could narrow the position of duty ethics in the debate. Furthermore, since wrong-doings being part of the act are condemned, rather than the outcomes of the act, it could be difficult to reject application of genome editing of animals based duty ethics (referred to as the non-identity problem). In care ethics, the communication between human and animal takes a central place. Communication is formed by observation of the animal (e.g. observing facial expressions or vocalizations), which leaves room for human interpretation, feelings and sentiment, resulting in an attentive, responding and caring attitude towards animals. In order to determine whether genome editing is justifiable, it is important whether the intention corresponds with a caring attitude towards animals. In the literature review, care ethics was underrepresented which could be due to the diversity of opinions within care ethics. According to virtue ethics, we should strive to develop character traits that a morally good person would have (i.e. virtues). A virtues person is able to do what is right because the intention of the person’s action is right. This could also be applied to the concept of genome editing, where the intention of genome editing of animals should be taken into account in order to determine whether genome editing is justifiable or not. Furthermore, according to virtue ethics, the essence and purpose of a creature (i.e. telos) should be respected and the opinions are divided whether genome editing goes against this principle. In the literature review, it was observed that virtue ethical arguments are not always clearly recognizable, which could be a limitation of virtue ethics in the genome editing debate. In conclusion, a lack of interdisciplinary reasoning was observed in the genome editing debate, which could limit the debate. To stimulate understanding and improve the debate in the future, education could play a crucial role. Furthermore, similarities between ethical theories could be used as a starting point in the debate to boost mutual understanding

    Artificial moral advisors:A new perspective from moral psychology

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    What's the use of ethical philosophy? The role of ethical theory in special educational needs

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    This article examines the relevance of modern moral philosophy to education, with particular reference to special educational needs. Where moral philosophers explore the tension between utilitarian and deontological reasoning, they often consider the balance between the rights of the individual and the benefits or costs for the majority. I argue that the debate is predicated on a false dichotomy between minority and majority which is best overcome by a return to virtue ethics. In exploring this ethical debate, I draw on a case study from Australia of a student excluded from mainstream education on the basis that inclusion will not serve the greater good of the majority of students. My intention here is not to offer practical guidance in the complex day-to-day deliberations of educators dealing with issues of inclusion, but to elaborate the structure of the present thinking about inclusion. It is hoped that an appreciation of the deeper basis of ethical reasoning will itself lead to a greater recognition of the need for exploring the ethical grounds of teaching and learning. I will argue that any dichotomy between the utilitarian happiness of the many and the deontological commitment to the rights of the individual is based on a misconception of human identity. The false choice between the many and the one rests upon the assumption that morality is fundamentally about restricting personal preferences in favour of the good of the majority, that there exists a fundamental conflict between what is good for the individual and what is good for society as a whole. This will lead me to argue that we need to reinterpret human identity as constituted by its social relations and that this reorientation is best achieved by reference to virtue ethics

    Affinity-Based Reinforcement Learning : A New Paradigm for Agent Interpretability

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    The steady increase in complexity of reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms is accompanied by a corresponding increase in opacity that obfuscates insights into their devised strategies. Methods in explainable artificial intelligence seek to mitigate this opacity by either creating transparent algorithms or extracting explanations post hoc. A third category exists that allows the developer to affect what agents learn: constrained RL has been used in safety-critical applications and prohibits agents from visiting certain states; preference-based RL agents have been used in robotics applications and learn state-action preferences instead of traditional reward functions. We propose a new affinity-based RL paradigm in which agents learn strategies that are partially decoupled from reward functions. Unlike entropy regularisation, we regularise the objective function with a distinct action distribution that represents a desired behaviour; we encourage the agent to act according to a prior while learning to maximise rewards. The result is an inherently interpretable agent that solves problems with an intrinsic affinity for certain actions. We demonstrate the utility of our method in a financial application: we learn continuous time-variant compositions of prototypical policies, each interpretable by its action affinities, that are globally interpretable according to customers’ financial personalities. Our method combines advantages from both constrained RL and preferencebased RL: it retains the reward function but generalises the policy to match a defined behaviour, thus avoiding problems such as reward shaping and hacking. Unlike Boolean task composition, our method is a fuzzy superposition of different prototypical strategies to arrive at a more complex, yet interpretable, strategy.publishedVersio

    Hume'un Ahlak Ve Siyaset Felsefesinde Doğalcılık Yanılgısı

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    Thesis (M.A) -- İstanbul Technical University, Institute of Science and Technology, 2018Tez (Yüksek Lisans) -- İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, 2018The naturalistic fallacy —first explicitly exposed by Hume— amounts to an attempt to infer a prescriptive claim from a descriptive one. However, the fact/value dichotomy presupposed by the naturalistic fallacy seems to run contrary to Hume's moral naturalism. In my thesis, I first present a systematic classification of the various responses to Hume's take on the issue. Then, following Sayre-McCord and Pigden, I argue that, contrary to the received view, Hume's goal is to overcome the naturalistic fallacy. Accordingly, I contend that Hume's focus on thick concepts indicates that for him, thick concepts can function as analytical bridges to produce prescriptive claims from descriptive ones.İlk olarak Hume tarafından ortaya çıkarılmış olan doğalcılık yanılgısı tanımlaycı/niteleyici bir iddiadan yönlendirici/buyuran bir iddianın çıkarsanması anlamına gelir. A ncak doğalcılık yanılgısı tarafından varsayılan bulgu ve değerlerin ikilemi Hume'un ahsaksal doğalcılığıyla zıt düşer. Tezimde ilk olarak Hume'un bu konudaki görüşü üzerine verilmiş çeşitli görüşlerin sistematik bir sınıflandırmasını yapıyorum. İkinci olarak, Sayre-McCord ve Pigden'I takip ederek ve genel görüşe karşı çıkarak, Hume'un hedefinin doğalcılık yanılgısının üstesinden gelmek olduğunu tartışıyorum. Dolayısıyla, Hume'un odağında yer alan yoğun kavramların Hume tarafından tanımlayıcı/niteleyici iddialardan yönlendirici buyurann iddialar çıkarsanabilmesi için analitik köprü olarak öne sürüldüğünü öne sürüyorum.M.AYüksek Lisan
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