book

This is Technology Ethics

by Sven Nyholm, Steven D. Hales

January 2023

Intermediate to advanced

288 pages

8h 59m

English

Wiley-Blackwell

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1.1 A Hut in the Black Forest1.2 The Question Concerning Technology: The Instrumental Theory of Technology from Martin Heidegger to Joanna Bryson1.3 “Post‐Phenomenology” and the Mediation Theory of Technology1.4 Technologies Conceived of as Being More Than Mere Means or Instruments1.5 Technologies Regarded as Moral Agents1.6 Technologies Regarded as Moral Patients1.7 Some of the Key Types of Technologies That Will Be Discussed at Greater Length in Later Chapters of the BookAnnotated Bibliography
2.1 Two Campaigns2.2 The Ethics of Virtue and Human Flourishing in Ancient Greece2.3 Ancient Chinese Confucianism and Traditional Southern African Ubuntu Ethics2.4 Kantian Ethics2.5 Utilitarianism and Consequentialist Ethical Theories2.6 If Ethics More Generally Can Be All the Things Discussed in the Previous Sections, then What Does this Mean for Technology Ethics in Particular?2.7 How Technology Ethics Can Challenge and Create a Need for Extensions of More General Ethical TheoryAnnotated Bibliography
3.1 Methodologies of Ethics?3.2 The Ethics of Self‐Driving Cars3.3 Ethics by Committee3.4 Ethics by Analogy: The Trolley Problem Comparison3.5 Empirical Ethics3.6 Applying Traditional Ethical Theories3.7 Which Method(s) Should We Use in Technology Ethics? Only One or Many?Annotated Bibliography

4.1 Averting a Nuclear War4.2 What Is Artificial Intelligence and What Is the Value Alignment Problem?4.3 The Good and the Bad, and Instrumental and Non‐Instrumental Values and Principles4.4 Instrumentally Positive Value‐Alignment of Technologies4.5 Instrumentally Negative Misalignment of Technologies4.6 Positive Non‐Instrumental Value Alignment of Technologies4.7 Negative Non‐Instrumental Value Misalignment of Technologies4.8 The Control Problem4.9 Control as a Value: Instrumental or Non‐Instrumental? And Are There Some Technologies It Might Be Wrong to Try to Control?Annotated Bibliography
5.1 A Better You?5.2 Behavior Change Technologies and Gamification5.3 Control: Three Basic Observations5.4 Key Dimensions of Control Discussed in Different Areas of Philosophy5.5 Behavior Change Technologies and the “Subjects” and “Objects” of Control5.6 The Value and Ethical Importance of Control5.7 Concluding This ChapterAnnotated Bibliography
6.1 Two Events6.2 What Is Responsibility? Different Ways in Which People Can Be Held Responsible and Different Things for Which People Can Be Held Responsible6.3 Responsibility Gaps: General Background6.4 Responsibility Gaps Created by Technologies6.5 Filling Responsibility Gaps by Having People Voluntarily Take Responsibility6.6 Should We Perhaps Welcome Responsibility Gaps?6.7 Responsible Machines?6.8 Human–Machine Teams and Responsibility6.9 Concluding This ChapterAnnotated Bibliography
7.1 Machine Ethics7.2 Arguments in Favor of Machine Ethics and Types of Artificial Moral Agents7.3 Objections to the Machine Ethics Project7.4 Possible Ways of Responding to the Critiques of the Machine Ethics Project7.5 Concluding This ChapterAnnotated Bibliography
8.1 The Tesla Bot and Erica the Robot8.2 What Is a Humanoid Robot? And Why Would Anybody Want to Create a Humanoid Robot?8.3 Can People Act Rightly or Wrongly Toward Robots?8.4 Can Robots Have Morally Relevant Properties or Abilities?8.5 Can Robots Imitate or Simulate Morally Relevant Properties or Abilities?8.6 Can Robots Represent or Symbolize Morally Relevant Properties or Abilities?8.7 Should We Be Discussing—Or Perhaps Better Be Avoiding—the Question of Whether Robots Can Be Moral Patients, with Moral Status?Annotated Bibliography
9.1 Replikas, Chuck and Harmony, and Boomer9.2 Ethical Issues That Arise in This Context Independently of Whether Technologies Can Be Our Friends, Lovers, or Colleagues9.3 Technological Friends9.4 Technological Lovers and Romantic Partners9.5 Robotic Colleagues9.6 Are These All‐or‐Nothing Matters? Respect for Different Points of View9.7 The Technological Future of RelationshipsAnnotated Bibliography
10.1 The Experience Machine10.2 Different Ways of Merging with—Or Merging with the Help of—Technology10.3 Transhumanism, Posthumanism, and Whether We Should Become—Or Perhaps Already Are—Cyborgs10.4 Some Critical Reflections on the Proposals to Merge with Technologies and the Arguments and Outlooks Used in Favor of Such Proposals10.5 Concluding Reflections: Revisiting the Hut in the Black ForestAnnotated Bibliography

Content preview from This is Technology Ethics

7CAN A MACHINE BE A MORAL AGENT? SHOULD ANY MACHINES BE MORAL AGENTS?

7.1 Machine Ethics

7.1 In the previous chapter, we saw that Christian List claims that “it should be clear that, while there are significant technological challenges here, conceptually, there is no reason why an AI system could not qualify as a moral agent” (List 2021: p. 1229). As List sees things, AI systems might in principle even be able to be morally responsible for their decisions. The kinds of examples List has in mind are technologies acting in what he calls “high‐stakes settings.” That is to say, List is talking about technologies—like self‐driving cars or military robots—that have to make decisions that might have good or bad effects on human beings. We can here also imagine machines making decisions that might have good or bad effects on animals or on the natural environment. Such technologies that are operating in high‐stakes settings need to make their decisions in a way that is sensitive to moral considerations, List argues. This general idea—the idea of technologies as moral agents—is the topic we will be exploring in this chapter.

7.2 This is by no means an idea that is unique to List. In fact, there is a whole field of interdisciplinary research called “machine ethics.”¹ The aim of machine ethics is to create what some authors call “artificial moral agents” or AMAs, as this is sometimes abbreviated. This field of research is spearheaded by the computer scientist Michael Anderson and the philosopher ...