One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is deciding who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. Much recent attention has been devoted to the "animal question" -- consideration of the moral status of nonhuman animals. In this book, David Gunkel takes up the "machine question": whether and to what extent intelligent and autonomous machines of our own making can be considered to have legitimate moral responsibilities and any legitimate claim to moral consideration. The machine question poses (...) a fundamental challenge to moral thinking, questioning the traditional philosophical conceptualization of technology as a tool or instrument to be used by human agents. Gunkel begins by addressing the question of machine moral agency: whether a machine might be considered a legitimate moral agent that could be held responsible for decisions and actions. He then approaches the machine question from the other side, considering whether a machine might be a moral patient due legitimate moral consideration. Finally, Gunkel considers some recent innovations in moral philosophy and critical theory that complicate the machine question, deconstructing the binary agent--patient opposition itself. Technological advances may prompt us to wonder if the science fiction of computers and robots whose actions affect their human companions could become science fact. Gunkel's argument promises to influence future considerations of ethics, ourselves, and the other entities who inhabit this world. (shrink)

A new theory of moral and aesthetic value for the age of remix, going beyond the usual debates over originality and appropriation. Remix—or the practice of recombining preexisting content—has proliferated across media both digital and analog. Fans celebrate it as a revolutionary new creative practice; critics characterize it as a lazy and cheap (and often illegal) recycling of other people's work. In Of Remixology, David Gunkel argues that to understand remix, we need to change the terms of the (...) debate. The two sides of the remix controversy, Gunkel contends, share certain underlying values—originality, innovation, artistic integrity. And each side seeks to protect these values from the threat that is represented by the other. In reevaluating these shared philosophical assumptions, Gunkel not only provides a new way to understand remix, he also offers an innovative theory of moral and aesthetic value for the twenty-first century. In a section called “Premix,” Gunkel examines the terminology of remix (including “collage,” “sample,” “bootleg,” and “mashup”) and its material preconditions, the technology of recording. In “Remix,” he takes on the distinction between original and copy; makes a case for repetition; and considers the question of authorship in a world of seemingly endless recompiled and repurposed content. Finally, in “Postmix,” Gunkel outlines a new theory of moral and aesthetic value that can accommodate remix and its cultural significance, remixing—or reconfiguring and recombining—traditional philosophical approaches in the process. (shrink)

Zizek Studies: The Greatest Hits (So Far) assembles and presents the best work published in the field of Zizek Studies over the last ten years, providing teachers, students, and researchers with a carefully curated volume of leading-edge scholarship addressing the unique and sometimes eclectic work of Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek. The chapters included in this collection have been rigorously tested in and culled from the (virtual) pages of the International Journal of Zizek Studies, a leading open access (...) journal that began publication in 2007. The book is organized into three sections or subject areas where Zizek and his seemingly indefatigable efforts have had significant impact: philosophy, politics, and popular culture. As a "greatest hits," the book offers the long-time fan and uninitiated newcomer alike a comprehensive overview of the wide range of opportunity in the field of Zizek studies and a remarkable collection of truly interdisciplinary "hits" from a diverse set of innovative and accomplished writers. (shrink)

Addressing a challenge and opportunity that is definitive of life in the 21st century, this book provides a range of possible solutions that serve to motivate and structure future research and debate around the concept of 'the other' in communication.

The most significant philosopher of Being, Martin Heidegger has nevertheless largely been ignored within communications studies. This book sets the record straight by demonstrating the profound implications of his unique philosophical project for our understanding of today's mediascape. The full range of Heidegger's writing from Being and Time to his later essays is drawn upon.

A short, reader-friendly introduction to a complex philosophical topic. One that encompasses not just philosophical and literary topics but technological ones as well.

Terra nova 2.0 -- The real problem -- Social contract 2.0 -- In the face of others -- Open-ended conclusions.

This essay addresses the other side of the robot ethics debate, taking up and investigating the question “Can and should robots have rights?” The examination of this subject proceeds by way of three steps or movements. We begin by looking at and analyzing the form of the question itself. There is an important philosophical difference between the two modal verbs that organize the inquiry—can and should. This difference has considerable history behind it that influences what is asked about and how. (...) Second, capitalizing on this verbal distinction, it is possible to identify four modalities concerning social robots and the question of rights. The second section will identify and critically assess these four modalities as they have been deployed and developed in the current literature. Finally, we will conclude by proposing another alternative, a way of thinking otherwise that effectively challenges the existing rules of the game and provides for other ways of theorizing moral standing that can scale to the unique challenges and opportunities that are confronted in the face of social robots. (shrink)

The task of this essay is to respond to the question concerning robots and responsibility—to answer for the way that we understand, debate, and decide who or what is able to answer for decisions and actions undertaken by increasingly interactive, autonomous, and sociable mechanisms. The analysis proceeds through three steps or movements. It begins by critically examining the instrumental theory of technology, which determines the way one typically deals with and responds to the question of responsibility when it involves technology. (...) It then considers three instances where recent innovations in robotics challenge this standard operating procedure by opening gaps in the usual way of assigning responsibility. The innovations considered in this section include: autonomous technology, machine learning, and social robots. The essay concludes by evaluating the three different responses—instrumentalism 2.0, machine ethics, and hybrid responsibility—that have been made in face of these difficulties in an effort to map out the opportunities and challenges of and for responsible robotics. (shrink)

In a friendly interdisciplinary debate, we interrogate from several vantage points the question of “personhood” in light of contemporary and near-future forms of social AI. David J. Gunkel approaches the matter from a philosophical and legal standpoint, while Jordan Wales offers reflections theological and psychological. Attending to metaphysical, moral, social, and legal understandings of personhood, we ask about the position of apparently personal artificial intelligences in our society and individual lives. Re-examining the “person” and questioning prominent construals of (...) that category, we hope to open new views upon urgent and much-discussed questions that, quite soon, may confront us in our daily lives. (shrink)

This essay responds to the machine question in the affirmative, arguing that artifacts, like robots, AI, and other autonomous systems, can no longer be legitimately excluded from moral consideration. The demonstration of this thesis proceeds in four parts or movements. The first and second parts approach the subject by investigating the two constitutive components of the ethical relationship—moral agency and patiency. In the process, they each demonstrate failure. This occurs not because the machine is somehow unable to achieve what is (...) considered necessary and sufficient to be a moral agent or patient but because the characterization of agency and patiency already fail to accommodate others. The third and fourth parts respond to this problem by considering two recent alternatives—the all-encompassing ontocentric approach of Luciano Floridi’s information ethics and Emmanuel Levinas’s eccentric ethics of otherness. Both alternatives, despite considerable promise to reconfigure the scope of moral thinking by addressing previously excluded others, like the machine, also fail but for other reasons. Consequently, the essay concludes not by accommodating the alterity of the machine to the requirements of moral philosophy but by questioning the systemic limitations of moral reasoning, requiring not just an extension of rights to machines, but a thorough examination of the way moral standing has been configured in the first place. (shrink)

One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is deciding who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. This special issue of Philosophy and Technology investigates whether and to what extent machines, of various designs and configurations, can or should be considered moral subjects, defined here as either a moral agent, a moral patient, or both. The articles that comprise the issue were competitively selected from papers initially prepared for and presented at a symposium on this subject matter convened during (...) the AISB/IACAP 2012 World Congress, held in at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, UK. (shrink)

Addressing a challenge and opportunity that is definitive of life in the 21st century, this book provides a range of possible solutions that serve to motivate and structure future research and debate around the concept of 'the other' in communication.

Large language models such as ChatGPT enable users to automatically produce text but also raise ethical concerns, for example about authorship and deception. This paper analyses and discusses some key philosophical assumptions in these debates, in particular assumptions about authorship and language and—our focus—the use of the appearance/reality distinction. We show that there are alternative views of what goes on with ChatGPT that do not rely on this distinction. For this purpose, we deploy the two phased approach of deconstruction and (...) relate our finds to questions regarding authorship and language in the humanities. We also identify and respond to two common counter-objections in order to show the ethical appeal and practical use of our proposal. (shrink)

Ethics is ordinarily understood as being concerned with questions of responsibility for and in the face of an other. This other is more often than not conceived of as another human being and, as such, necessarily excludes others – most notably animals and machines. This essay examines the ethics of such exclusivity. It is divided into three parts. The first part investigates the exclusive anthropocentrism of traditional forms of moral␣thinking and, following the example of recent innovations in animal rights philosophy, (...) questions the mechanisms of such exclusion. Although recent work in animal- and bio-ethics has successfully implemented strategies for the inclusion of the animal as a legitimate subject of moral consideration, its other, the machine, has remained conspicuously excluded. The second part looks at recent attempts to include these machinic others in moral thinking and critiques the assumptions, values, and strategies that have been employed by these various innovations. And the third part proposes a means for thinking otherwise. That is, it introduces an alternative way to consider these other forms of otherness that is not simply reducible to the conceptual order that has structured and limited moral philosophy’s own concern with and for others. (shrink)

In this short introduction, David J. Gunkel examines the shifting world of artificial intelligence, mapping it onto everyday twenty-first century life and probing the consequences of this ever-growing industry and movement. The book investigates the significance and consequences of the robot invasion in an effort to map the increasingly complicated social terrain of the twenty-first century. Whether we recognize it as such or not, we are in the midst of a robot invasion. What matters most in the face (...) of this machine incursion is not resistance, but how we decide to make sense of and respond to the social opportunities and challenges that autonomous machines make available. How to Survive a Robot Invasion is a fascinating and accessible volume for students and researchers of new media, philosophy of technology, and their many related fields. It aims both to assist readers' efforts to understand a changing world and to provide readers with the critical insight necessary for grappling with our science fiction-like future. (shrink)

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 60, Issue 1, Page 88-117, March 2022.

This essay examines whether and to what extent the “other” in communicative interactions may be otherwise than another human subject and the moral opportunities and challenges this alteration would make available to us. Toward this end, the analysis proceeds in five steps or movements. The first reviews the way the discipline of communication has typically perceived and theorized the role and function of technology. The second and third parts investigate the critical challenges that emerging technology, such as artificial intelligence applications (...) and robots, poses to this standard instrumentalist way of thinking. The fourth part introduces an alternative called “relational ethics,” which effectively flips the script on the usual way of proceeding. And the fifth part presents and responds to one important and notable objection to this alternative. The goal in all of this is not to complicate things but to introduce and formulate a techno-ethics that is more agile in its response to the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century and beyond. (shrink)

In this essay we reflect critically on how animal ethics, and in particular thinking about moral standing, is currently configured. Starting from the work of two influential “analytic” thinkers in this field, Peter Singer and Tom Regan, we examine some basic assumptions shared by these positions and demonstrate their conceptual failings—ones that have, despite efforts to the contrary, the general effect of marginalizing and excluding others. Inspired by the so-called “continental” philosophical tradition , we then argue that what is needed (...) is a change in the rules of the game, a change of the question. We alter the normative question from “What properties does the animal have?” to “What are the conditions under which an entity becomes a moral subject?” This leads us to consider the role of language, personal relations, and material-technological contexts. What is needed then in response to the moral standing problem, is not more of the same—yet another, more refined criterion and argumentation concerning moral standing, or a “final” rational argumentation that would be able to settle the animal question once and for all—but a turning or transformation in both our thinking about and our relations to animals, through language, through technology, and through the various place-ordering practices in which we participate. (shrink)

In this paper I reply to the four critical articles that were provided in response to my book Deconstruction (MIT Press 2021). It proceeds in four steps: (1) I begin with a reply to Stanisław Chankowski’s use of the psychoanalytic term “fetishistic denial” to describe the formal character of the text. (2) I then engage with the criticism supplied by Piotr Kozak, who questions deconstruction’s theory of truth (or its lack thereof). (3) From this, I take-up and respond to Przemysław (...) Nowakowski’s proposal that deconstruction might provide a way to reimagine the interdisciplinarity of cognitive science. And (4) I conclude with a response to Michał Piekarski’s mashup of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jacques Derrida, which supplies a reading of these two thinkers that is arguably greater than the sum of the parts. The objective of the reply is not to offer a defense of myself or my text but to engage with these interesting and insightful reviews in a way that opens the space for productive dialogue. -------------------------- Received: 28/09/2023. Reviewed: 30/10/2023. Accepted: 12/11/2023. (shrink)

In this brief response to Mark Coeckelbergh’s contribution, I demonstrate how the author introduces an important shift in the way we approach technology. Instead of focusing on the new and often-times dramatic existential vulnerabilities supposedly introduced by technological innovation, Coeckelbergh targets the way technology already transforms our existential vulnerabilities. And I show how this shift in focus has three very important consequences: a different way to ask about and investigate the question concerning technology, the importance of hacking as a mode (...) of responding to this question and the significance of questioning as a philosophical project. (shrink)

This essay seeks to make a case for deconstruction as a kind of critical intervention for responding to and dealing with the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century and beyond. Toward this end, it proceeds in three steps or movements. (1) The first part will deconstruct deconstruction, deliberately employing what will be revealed as an inaccurate vernacular understanding of the term in order to extract a more precise and technical characterization of the concept. (2) The second part will investigate (...) the constitutive elements of deconstruction, focusing attention on its two-step procedure, which has been deliberately designed to be a kind of distortion of Hegelian dialectics. (3) Finally, the third part will examine the opportunities and the challenges of the theory and practice of deconstruction indicating how and why it can be considered a critical intervention, albeit one that is not without its own potential problems and vulnerabilities. ------------------------- Received: 29/10/2022. Reviewed: 13/12/2022. Accepted: 23/12/2022. (shrink)

T h i s article examines the ethical implications of the desirefor disembodiment situated in the texts and technologies of cyberspace. The article is divided into 2 parts. The first traces the conceptual history of dualism, demonstrating its exclusive cultural politics and investigating the socio-political consequences of encoding this metaphysical information in contemporary media technology. The second part examines the material conditions of new communication technology, arguing that the issue of access reduplicates in practice the exclusivity of dualism. The article (...) concludes by investigating the ethical implications of employing dualistic metaphysics as a legitimizing narrative of media technology and cyberculture. (shrink)

Among the many forms of artistic expression that characterize the digital era, remix occupies a rather central position. At the same time, however, the success of remix as an artistic practice raises several hard questions. What is original and what is derived? How can we sort out and make sense of questions concerning origination and derivation in situations where one thing is appropriated, reused, and repurposed for something else? What theory of moral and aesthetic value can accommodate and explain these (...) situations where authorship, authority, and origination are already distributed across a network of derivations, borrowings, and re-appropriated found objects? This paper develops a response to these questions, and it does so in three steps or movements. The first briefly introduces the concept of remix and the opportunities and challenges that this now wide-spread, content creation practice presents to existing models and theories of moral and aesthetic value. The second outlines the three elements of what I call “remixology”—a new axiology (or theory of moral and aesthetic value) that is designed to scale to these new opportunities and challenges. The third and final movement investigates the consequences of this proposal, demonstrating how remixology can be read backwards through time, providing us with some new perspectives on artistry and creativity in all human endeavors, and read forwards into the emerging challenges that have been made available by innovations in algorithmic content generation and computational creativity. (shrink)

In this brief article we reply to Michal Piekarski’s response to our article ‘Facing Animals’ published previously in this journal. In our article we criticized the properties approach to defining the moral standing of animals, and in its place proposed a relational and other-oriented concept that is based on a transcendental and phenomenological perspective, mainly inspired by Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida. In this reply we question and problematize Piekarski’s interpretation of our essay and critically evaluate “the ethics of commitment” that (...) he offers as an alternative. (shrink)

In "Why Žižek? - Why Online?" David J. Gunkel addresses head-on the complexly related issues Žižek's intellectual appeal and the suitability or otherwise of this Journal's online format. The essay not only demonstrates the way that Žižek's materialist philosophy complicates decisions about the material of publication but illustrates how these questions materialize in recent debates about scholarship and why they should matter for us.

A familiar interpretation of quantum mechanics (one of a number of views sometimes labeled the "Copenhagen interpretation'"), takes its empirical apparatus at face value, holding that the quantum wave function evolves by the Schrödinger equation except on certain occasions of measurement, when it collapses into a new state according to the Born rule. This interpretation is widely rejected, primarily because it faces the measurement problem: "measurement" is too imprecise for use in a fundamental physical theory. We argue that this is (...) a weak objection, as there may be many ways of making "measurement" precise. However, measurement-collapse interpretations face a more serious objection: a dilemma tied to the quantum Zeno effect. Is measurement itself an observable that can enter superpositions? If yes, then the standard measurement-collapse dynamics is ill-defined. If no, then (at least if measurement is an observable), measurements can never start or finish. The best way out is to deny that measurement is an observable, but this leads to strong and revisionary consequences. This reinforces the view that there is no nonrevisionary interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This chapter describes three relatively specific forms such as destructive uploading, gradual uploading, and nondestructive uploading. Neuroscience is gradually discovering various neural correlates of consciousness, but this research program largely takes the existence of consciousness for granted. It presents an argument for the pessimistic view and an argument for the optimistic view, both of which run parallel to related arguments that can be given concerning teletransportation. Cryonic technology offers the possibility of preserving our brains in a low‐temperature state shortly after (...) death, until such time as the technology is available to reactivate the brain or perhaps to upload the information in it. Reconstructive uploading from brain scans is closely akin to ordinary (nongradual) uploading from brain scans, with the main difference being the time delay, and perhaps the continued existence in the meantime of the original person. (shrink)

Introduction -- Repression, ignorance, and undone science -- The epistemic dimension of the political opportunity structure -- The politics of meaning: from frames to design conflicts -- The organizational forms of counterpublic knowledge -- Institutional change, industrial transitions, and regime resistance politics -- Contemporary change: liberalization and epistemic modernization -- Conclusion.

The book is an extended study of the problem of consciousness. After setting up the problem, I argue that reductive explanation of consciousness is impossible , and that if one takes consciousness seriously, one has to go beyond a strict materialist framework. In the second half of the book, I move toward a positive theory of consciousness with fundamental laws linking the physical and the experiential in a systematic way. Finally, I use the ideas and arguments developed earlier to defend (...) a form of strong artificial intelligence and to analyze some problems in the foundations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

In a response to my recent article in this journal, Shahram Shahryari argues that I fail to present a third position between absolutism and relativism. He makes two points: first, that fallibilism is insufficient as an alternative, because it is compatible with both relativism and absolutism. The second point is that my argument that experience can lead to objective judgment without being a new absolute fails. I discuss these in turn, showing that both critiques fail and that pragmatism is a (...) genuine alternative between absolutism and relativism. (shrink)

A collection of essays focusing on the relationship between concepts of the holy and the unholy in western European medieval culture. Demonstrates how religion, magic, and science were all modes of engagement with a natural world that was understood to be divinely created and infused with mysterious power"--Provided by publisher.

This book describes various Western musical ecologies of the cosmos developed from the ancient world to the present, ecologies that seek to define the creation and preservation of the universe through musical principles. The author explores centuries of musical treatises, hymns, and Western fiction.

I will present two examples of influential (and incorrect) interpretations of Poincaré, pinpointing their errors and documenting some of their diffusion. The first example, which appears to have been initiated by Moritz Schlick, is the widespread misinterpretation of Poincaré’s argument for geometric conventionalism by basing it on the underdetermination of theories in science. The second example, having to do with Poincaré’s claim that Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries are inter-translatable, stems from Louis Rougier and was spread in the English language literature (...) by Max Black. I will then reflect on whether it is possible to avoid fragmentation in the interpretation of Poincaré, using Jeremy Gray’s admirable attempt at completeness in his intellectual biography of Poincaré as an example. Finally, I will propose one possible new direction for study of Poincaré that might enrich our view of him substantially by achieving a level of detail that has so far been lacking. (shrink)

[This is an edited version of a keynote talk at the conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) on November 28, 2022, with some minor additions and subtractions.] -/- There has recently been widespread discussion of whether large language models might be sentient or conscious. Should we take this idea seriously? I will break down the strongest reasons for and against. Given mainstream assumptions in the science of consciousness, there are significant obstacles to consciousness in current models: for example, their (...) lack of recurrent processing, a global workspace, and unified agency. At the same time, it is quite possible that these obstacles will be overcome in the next decade or so. I conclude that while it is somewhat unlikely that current large language models are conscious, we should take seriously the possibility that successors to large language models may be conscious in the not-too-distant future. (shrink)

Through a philosophical lens, this book explores the powerful educational capabilities of classic psychedelics.

This book argues against the common view that there are no essential differences between Plato and the Neoplatonist philosopher, Plotinus, on the issues of mysticism, epistemology, and ethics. Beginning by examining the ways in which Plato and Plotinus claim that it is possible to have an ultimate experience that answers the most significant philosophical questions, David J. Yount provides an extended analysis of why we should interpret both philosophers as mystics. The book then moves on to demonstrate that both (...) philosophers share a belief in non-discursive knowledge and the methods to attain it, including dialectic and recollection, and shows that they do not essentially differ on any significant views on ethics. Making extensive use of primary and secondary sources, Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology and Ethics shows the similarities between the thought of these two philosophers on a variety of philosophical questions, such as meditation, divination, wisdom, knowledge, truth, happiness and love. (shrink)