Ethics and Information Technology 11 (1):19-29 (2009)
Authors | |
Abstract |
In this essay, I describe and explain the standard accounts of agency, natural agency, artificial agency, and moral agency, as well as articulate what are widely taken to be the criteria for moral agency, supporting the contention that this is the standard account with citations from such widely used and respected professional resources as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I then flesh out the implications of some of these well-settled theories with respect to the prerequisites that an ICT must satisfy in order to count as a moral agent accountable for its behavior. I argue that each of the various elements of the necessary conditions for moral agency presupposes consciousness, i.e., the capacity for inner subjective experience like that of pain or, as Nagel puts it, the possession of an internal something-of-which-it is-is-to-be-like. I ultimately conclude that the issue of whether artificial moral agency is possible depends on the issue of whether it is possible for ICTs to be conscious.
|
Keywords | accountability agency artificial agents consciousness ethics moral agency natural agents |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1007/s10676-008-9167-5 |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
Artificial Evil and the Foundation of Computer Ethics.Luciano Floridi & J. W. Sanders - 2001 - Springer Netherlands.
Reason, Relativity, and Responsibility in Computer Ethics.James H. Moor - 1998 - Acm Sigcas Computers and Society 28 (1):14-21.
Pragmatism in Progress: A Reply to Radder, Colapietro and Pitt.Jozef Keulartz, Michiel Korthals, Maartje Schermer & Tsjalling Swierstra - 2004 - Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 7 (3):39-49.
Pragmatism in Progress: A Reply to Radder, Colapietro and Pitt.Tsjalling Swierstra - 2004 - Techne 7 (3):39-49.
Citations of this work BETA
Critiquing the Reasons for Making Artificial Moral Agents.Aimee van Wynsberghe & Scott Robbins - 2019 - Science and Engineering Ethics 25 (3):719-735.
In AI We Trust: Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, and Reliability.Mark Ryan - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (5):2749-2767.
Critiquing the Reasons for Making Artificial Moral Agents.Aimee van Wynsberghe & Scott Robbins - 2018 - Science and Engineering Ethics:1-17.
A Normative Approach to Artificial Moral Agency.Dorna Behdadi & Christian Munthe - 2020 - Minds and Machines 30 (2):195-218.
Moral Responsibility of Robots and Hybrid Agents.Raul Hakli & Pekka Mäkelä - 2019 - The Monist 102 (2):259-275.
View all 50 citations / Add more citations
Similar books and articles
Storytelling and Moral Agency.Lynne Tirrell - 1990 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48 (2):115-126.
The Ethics of Designing Artificial Agents.S. Grodzinsky Frances, W. Miller Keith & J. Wolf Marty - 2008 - Ethics and Information Technology 10 (2-3):112-121.
Moral Agency in Other Animals.Paul Shapiro - 2006 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 27 (4):357-373.
Failed Agency and the Insanity Defence.Steve Matthews - 2004 - International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 27:413-424.
Moral Agency, Self-Consciousness, and Practical Wisdom.Shaun Gallagher - 2007 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 14 (5-6):199-223.
Mental Mechanisms, Autonomous Systems, and Moral Agency.William Bechtel & A. Abrahamsen - manuscript
Manufacturing Morality A General Theory of Moral Agency Grounding Computational Implementations: The ACTWith Model.Jeffrey White - 2013 - In Floares (ed.), Computational Intelligence. Nova Publications. pp. 1-65.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2009-01-28
Total views
278 ( #38,573 of 2,506,002 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
18 ( #47,491 of 2,506,002 )
2009-01-28
Total views
278 ( #38,573 of 2,506,002 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
18 ( #47,491 of 2,506,002 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads