Metaethics in context of engineering ethical and moral systems

It is not clear to what the projects of creating an artificial intelligence (AI) that does ethics, is moral, or makes moral judgments amounts. In this paper we discuss some of the extant metaethical theories and debates in moral philosophy by which such projects should be informed, specifically focusing on the project of creating an AI that makes moral judgments. We argue that the scope and aims of that project depend a great deal on antecedent metaethical commitments. Metaethics, therefore, plays the role of an Archimedean fulcrum in this context, very much like the Archimedean role that it is often taken to take in context of normative ethics (Dworkin 1996; Dreier 2002; Fantl 2006; Ehrenberg 2008)

Making metaethics work for AI: realism and anti-realism

Engineering an artificial intelligence to play an advisory role in morally charged decision making will inevitably introduce meta-ethical positions into the design. Some of these positions, by informing the design and operation of the AI, will introduce risks. This paper offers an analysis of these potential risks along the realism/anti-realism dimension in metaethics and reveals that realism poses greater risks, but, on the other hand, anti-realism undermines the motivation for engineering a moral AI in the first place

Moral Motivation and the Authority of Morality: A Defense of Naturalist Moral Realism

Moral realism has been continuously accused of positing the existence of queer properties, facts, judgments, and beliefs. One of these queer features is supposed to be the normative force of morality-that is the way in which morality guides our actions. Critics of moral realism argue that nothing else in the world has this feature. This is a reason to doubt that moral facts and properties exist at all. This objection can be interpreted in at least two ways. One way to interpret it has to do with moral motivation, this is the internalism objection. The other has to do with the authority of morality. In this essay I defend naturalist moral realism against these two objections, the internalism objection and the authority objection. I argue that the internalism objection and the authority objection are independent of each other. Whether and how morality motivates us to act does not bear on the place that morality should have in our lives and decision-making. We may have no motivation to do things that we should do, and we may be extremely motivated to do things we should not do. The conflation of these two objections is widespread in the literature and is the source of some of their apparent persuasiveness. At the same time, I make a case for the opposite view, externalism, which is the view that moral judgments do not necessarily or inherently motivate, nor can they motivate by themselves. Instead moral judgments are only contingently connected with motivation. The specific form of externalism that I argue for is a pluralistic externalism, which I argue can meet the objections that are usually made against externalism better than any alternative form of externalism. The authority objection to naturalist moral realism is that morality has a certain kind of authority over us and that naturalist moral realism precludes this kind of authority. Therefore, naturalist moral realism must be false. The authority of morality can be understood in a variety of ways. For example, the importance that moral demands have in directing our lives or the way in which moral reasons seem to override other reasons for action. The authority of morality is supposed to be a problem for naturalist moral realism because the realist identifies moral facts and properties with complex natural facts and properties. The authority objection asks: why should any set of natural facts or properties have authority over our behavior? In other words, the naturalist moral realist seems to lack a convincing response to this kind of moral skeptic. I respond to the authority objection by defending a limited account of authority. Second, I argue that once properly understood, the authority of morality is no more a problem for naturalist moral realism as a metaethical theory than any other meta-ethical theory. Every metaethical position is faced with the difficult task of explaining this aspect of normativity and we have no reason to think this is a special problem for realism. Finally, I put forward a defensible version of naturalist moral realism, spelling out the commitment to objectivity and to naturalism

Consequences of unexplainable machine learning for the notions of a trusted doctor and patient autonomy

This paper provides an analysis of the way in which two foundational principles of medical ethics–the trusted doctor and patient autonomy–can be undermined by the use of machine learning (ML) algorithms and addresses its legal significance. This paper can be a guide to both health care providers and other stakeholders about how to anticipate and in some cases mitigate ethical conflicts caused by the use of ML in healthcare. It can also be read as a road map as to what needs to be done to achieve an acceptable level of explainability in an ML algorithm when it is used in a healthcare context

Trust in Medicine

In this chapter, we consider ethical and philosophical aspects of trust in the practice of medicine. We focus on trust within the patient-physician relationship, trust and professionalism, and trust in Western (allopathic) institutions of medicine and medical research. Philosophical approaches to trust contain important insights into medicine as an ethical and social practice. In what follows we explain several philosophical approaches and discuss their strengths and weaknesses in this context. We also highlight some relevant empirical work in the section on trust in the institutions of medicine. It is hoped that the approaches discussed here can be extended to nursing and other topics in the philosophy of medicine

Mercedes-Benz USA Labor Planning Dashboard

Mercedes-Benz USA specializes in producing high-quality vehicles that exceed customer expectations at a cost-effective rate. The company utilizes a labor planning dashboard that predicts the daily use of their lines at their part distribution centers by allocating their employees to different zones in inbound, outbound, or both. The supervisors manually input all the data to designate employees to various sections within those zones. Our team was tasked with improving and proposing an updated version of the labor planning dashboard by meeting their requirements while making it effective, responsive, and user-friendly. Through trial and error, the new labor planning dashboard combats these issues by eliminating an excessive amount of manual input and creates an automated dashboard by implementing a linear program solver known as an Assignment Problem

Swiping left on the quantified relationship : exploring the potential soft impacts

John Danaher, Sven Nyholm, and Brian D. Earp's (2018) fascinating articleon potential ethical objections to the use of quantified relationship technologies contends that “there is no blanket objection to or knockdown argument against” their use (17). Although we agree with this conclusion and with their plea for further empirical study of these technologies, we argue that their discussion of the quantified relationship does not adequately consider potential soft impacts of quantified relationship technologies (QRT)