It is argued that the notion of Umwelt is relevant for contemporary discussions within theoretical biology, biosemiotics, the study of Artificial Life, Autonomous Systems Research and philosophy of biology. Focus is put on the question of whether an artificial creature can have a phenomenal world in the sense of the Umwelt notion of Jakob von Uexküll, one of the founding figures of biosemiotics. Rather than vitalism, Uexküll's position can be interpreted as a version of qualitative organicism. A (...) historical sketch of Autonomous Systems Research (ASR) is presented to show its theoretical roots and fruitful opposition to traditional AI style robotics. It is argued that these artificial systems are only partly 'situated' because they do not in the full sense of the word experience an Umwelt. A deeper understanding of truly situated autonomous systems as being a kind of complex selforganizing semiotic agents with emergent qualitative properties must be gained, not only from the broad field of theoretical biology, but also from the perspective of biosemiotics in the Uexküll tradition. The paper is thus an investigation of a new notion of autonomy that includes a qualitative aspect of the organism. This indicates that the Umwelt concept is not reducible to purely functional notions. (shrink)

Schulman (Entropy 7(4):221–233, 2005) has argued that Boltzmann’s intuition, that the psychological arrow of time is necessarily aligned with the thermodynamic arrow, is correct. Schulman gives an explicit physical mechanism for this connection, based on the brain being representable as a computer, together with certain thermodynamic properties of computational processes. Hawking (Physical Origins of Time Asymmetry, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994) presents similar, if briefer, arguments. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the support for the link between (...) thermodynamics and an arrow of time for computers. The principal arguments put forward by Schulman and Hawking will be shown to fail. It will be shown that any computational process that can take place in an entropy increasing universe, can equally take place in an entropy decreasing universe. This conclusion does not automatically imply a psychological arrow can run counter to the thermodynamic arrow. Some alternative possible explanations for the alignment of the two arrows will be briefly discussed. (shrink)

This article defends two claims. First, humans could be in relationships characterised by hate with some robots. Second, it matters that humans could hate robots, as this hate could wrong the robots (by leaving them at risk of mistreatment, exploitation, etc.). In defending this second claim, I will thus be accepting that morally considerable robots either currently exist, or will exist in the near future, and so it can matter (morally speaking) how we treat these robots. The arguments presented in (...) this article make an important original contribution to the robo-philosophy literature, and particularly the literature on human–robot relationships (which typically only consider positive relationship types, e.g., love, friendship, etc.). Additionally, as explained at the end of the article, my discussions of robot hate could also have notable consequences for the emerging robot rights movement. Specifically, I argue that understanding human–robot relationships characterised by hate could actually help theorists argue for the rights of robots. (shrink)

- Biological and cognitive systems have the capa- bility of developing new goals during phylogenesis of species or during ontogenesis of single individuals. On the other hand, current artificial cognitive systems focus on how achieving a given fixed set of hard-wired goals. They search an optimal solution of a problem, given a set of goals and a set of optimiza- tion criteria. They look for “how” to achieve a given goal. Natural agents develop new goals in order to cope (...) with par- tially unknown and ever changing environment. They must find “what” they want to achieve and not only “how”. The development of new goals on the basis of the interaction with the environment is here defined the “what” problem. The de- velopment of a collection of goals permits to redefine the con- cept of Umwelt in what could be considered the teleological Umwelt of an agent. The objective of this paper is twofold: i) to outline the “what” problem and ii) to describe a robotic archi- tecture capable of addressing it. (shrink)

It has been debated whether the so-called attention economy, in which the attention of agents is measured and sold, jeopardizes something of value. One strand of this discussion has focused on so-called attention rights, asking: should attention be legally protected, either by introducing novel rights or by extending the scope of pre-existing rights? In this paper, however, in order to further this discussion, we ask: How is attention already protected legally? In what situations does a person have the (...) right to attention under current law? -/- Unlike (Chomanski, Neuroethics 16:1–11, 2023), who discusses an overall right to attention, or (Puri, Rutgers Law Record 48:206–221, 2021), who discusses an overall right to attentional privacy, in this paper we focus on two types of situations in which a person’s attention is already protected by legal regulation. Sustained attention-requiring tasks can be jeopardized by distractions whereas attentiveness to certain kind of stimuli can be jeopardized by immersive stimuli. That is why distractions are regulated in situations where an agent has what we call a concentration right and immersive stimuli are regulated in situations where an agent has what we call a duty to be attentive. The further analysis of these situations provides an understanding of the legal means by which attention is already regulated, which can be helpful when thinking about how it should be regulated in the future. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence and robotics have increasingly been adopted in agri-food systems—from milking robots to self-driving tractors. New projects extend these technologies in an effort to automate skilled work that has previously been considered dependent on human expertise due to its complexity. In this paper, we draw on qualitative research carried out with farm managers on apple orchards and winegrape vineyards in Aotearoa New Zealand. We investigate how agricultural managers’ perceptions of future agricultural automation relates to their approach to expertise, (...) or the degree to which they think specialised skills and knowledge are required to perform agricultural work on their orchards and vineyards. Our research generates two insights: the perceived potential for work to be automated is related to the degree to which it is seen to require technical or embodied expertise, with technical expertise being more automatable; and, while embodied expertise is perceived to be more difficult to automate, it is sometimes attributed more exclusively to those in positions of power, such that embodied expertise can be highly valued while the majority of embodied work is viewed as non-expert and thus automatable. Our analysis illustrates that a robot can be an expert when expertise is technical. It also shows variability in the conceptualization of skilled or unskilled work, and that those conceptualizations can set the stage for the future effects of new technologies. This generates new insights into the conditions under which automation might reproduce existing inequalities in agriculture, and also raises new questions about responsibility in the context of automation. (shrink)

Informed consent is central to modern research ethics. Informed consent procedures have mainly been justified in terms of respect for autonomy, the core idea being that it should be every competent individual’s right to decide for herself whether or not to participate in scientific studies. A number of conditions are normally raised with regard to morally valid informed consent. These include that potential research subjects get adequate information, understand those aspects that are relevant to them, and, based on that (...) information, make a voluntary decision whether or not to participate. These conditions are meant to guarantee that participation is genuinely the individual’s own choice and is coherent with his or her authentic interests. (shrink)

The discussion about robots in elderly care is populated by doom scenarios about a totally dehumanized care system in which elderly people are taken care of by machines. Such scenarios are helpful as they attend us to what we think is important with regard to the quality elderly care. However, this article argues that they are misleading in so far as they (1) assume that deception in care is always morally unacceptable, (2) suggest that robots and other information technologies necessarily (...) deceive elderly people by creating a “virtual” world as opposed to a “real” world, (3) assume that elderly people of the future have similar ICT skills and interests as the elderly people of today, and (4) assume a simplistic view of technologies. The article suggests an approach to evaluating care robots and ICT in health care which acknowledges and addresses a number of ethical problems raised by robotic care—for instance disengagement problems—while taking into account that some elderly people may need care that does not treat them as (empirically) autonomous, that many the elderly of the future are likely to be digital natives, and that the task of evaluating technologies in care is more complicated than the discussion of deception suggests. (shrink)

Robot ethics encompasses ethical questions about how humans should design, deploy, and treat robots; machine morality encompasses questions about what moral capacities a robot should have and how these capacities could be computationally implemented. Publications on both of these topics have doubled twice in the past 10 years but have often remained separate from one another. In an attempt to better integrate the two, I offer a framework for what a morally competent robot would (...) look like and discuss a number of ethical questions about the design, use, and treatment of such moral robots in society. Instead of searching for a fixed set of criteria of a robot’s moral competence I identify the multiple elements that make up human moral competence and probe the possibility of designing robots that have one or more of these human elements, which include: moral vocabulary; a system of norms; moral cognition and affect; moral decision making and action; moral communication. Juxtaposing empirical research, philosophical debates, and computational challenges, this article adopts an optimistic perspective: if robotic design truly commits to building morally competent robots, then those robots could be trustworthy and productive partners, caretakers, educators, and members of the human community. Moral competence does not resolve all ethical concerns over robots in society, but it may be a prerequisite to resolve at least some of them. (shrink)

Quantum electrodynamics is a time-symmetric theory that is part of the electroweak interaction, which is invariant under a generalized form of this symmetry, the PCT transformation. The thesis is defended that the arrow of time in electrodynamics is a consequence of the assumption of an initial state of high order, together with the quantum version of the equiprobability postulate.

Quantum electrodynamics is a time-symmetric theory that is part of the electroweak interaction, which is invariant under a generalized form of this symmetry, the PCT transformation. The thesis is defended that the arrow of time in electrodynamics is a consequence of the assumption of an initial state of high order, together with the quantum version of the equiprobability postulate.

Most animals have significant behavioral expertise built in without having to explicitly learn it all from scratch. This expertise is a product of evolution of the organism; it can be viewed as a very long term form of learning which provides a structured system within which individuals might learn more specialized skills or abilities. This paper suggests one possible mechanism for analagous robot evolution by describing a carefully designed series of networks, each one being a strict augmentation of (...) the previous one, which control a six legged walking machine capable of walking over rough terrain and following a person passively sensed in the infrared spectrum. As the completely decentralized networks are augmented. the robot’s performance and behavior repetoire demonstrably improve. The rationale for such demonstrations is that they may provide a hint as to the requirements for automatically building massive networks to carry out complex sensory-motor tasks. The experiments with an actual robot ensure that an essence of reality is maintained and that no critical disabling problems have been ignored. (shrink)

Algorithmic biases, or algorithmic unfairness, have been a topic of public and scientific scrutiny for the past years, as increasing evidence suggests the pervasive assimilation of human cognitive biases and stereotypes in such systems. This research is specifically concerned with analyzing the presence of discursive biases in the text generated by GPT-3, an NLPM which has been praised in recent years for resembling human language so closely that it is becoming difficult to differentiate between the human and the algorithm. (...) The pertinence of this research object is substantiated by the identification of race, gender and religious biases in the model’s completions in recent research, suggesting that the model is indeed heavily influenced by human cognitive biases. To this end, this research inquires: How does the Natural Language Processing Model GPT-3 replicate existing social biases?. This question is addressed through the scrutiny of GPT-3’s completions using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), a method which has been deemed as amply valuable for this research as it is aimed at uncovering power asymmetries in language. As such, the analysis is specifically centered around the analysis of gender and race biases in the model’s generated text. Research findings suggest that GPT-3’s language generation model significantly exacerbates existing social biases while replicating dangerous ideologies akin to white supremacy and hegemonic masculinity as factual knowledge. (shrink)

Human–robot interactions are often affected by error situations that are caused by either the robot or the human. Therefore, robots would profit from the ability to recognize when error situations occur. We investigated the verbal and non-verbal social signals that humans show when error situations occur in human–robot interaction experiments. For that, we analyzed 201 videos of five human–robot interaction user studies with varying tasks from four independent projects. The analysis shows that there are two types (...) of error situations: social norm violations and technical failures. Social norm violations are situations in which the robot does not adhere to the underlying social script of the interaction. Technical failures are caused by technical shortcomings of the robot. The results of the video analysis show that the study participants use many head movements and very few gestures, but they often smile, when in an error situation with the robot. The results suggest that participants do not see the robot as a social interaction partner with comparable communication skills. Our findings have implications for builders and evaluators of human–robot interaction systems. The builders need to consider including modules for recognition and classification of head movements to the robot input channels. The evaluators need to make sure that the presence of an experimenter does not skew the results of their user studies. (shrink)

Without doubt already ‘higher’ animals which as such have phenomenal perception possess an animalic soul. The contrasting comparison of animal and robot proves to be revealing: What does the animal have that the robot does not? A key role here plays Hegel’s interpretation, which can be addressed as a phenomenology of the ‘animalic soul’. His dictum ‘Only what is living feels a lack’ refers to the principle of self-preservation which governs everything organic. Concerning higher (...) animals this too appears as the basis of the soul: Everything, which the animal perceives thus has existential sense, self-preservation-sense. At the same time it becomes clear that robot perception is not capable of a constitution of sense, but is characterized by dementia of sense. Concretely systemtheoretically regarded, the relatedness to sense of the animal subject is here interpreted as an emergence phenomenon of the system constituted by the cooperative of perception, valuation and behavior (perc-val-act-system). In this emergentist perspective, there is, as it were, the dualism of solely-physical being and of immaterial-mental being, which at the same time is a monism with regard to the physical basis alltogether. (shrink)

Recent iterations of Alvin Plantinga’s “evolutionary argument against naturalism” bear a surprising resemblance to a famous argument in Descartes’s Third Meditation. Both arguments conclude that theists have an epistemic advantage over atheists/naturalists vis-à-vis the question whether or not our cognitive faculties are reliable. In this paper, I show how these arguments bear an even deeper resemblance to each other. After bringing the problem of evil to bear negatively on Descartes’s argument, I argue that, given these similarities, atheists can wield (...) a recent solution to the problem of evil against theism in much the way Plantinga wields the detailsof evolutionary theory against naturalism. I conclude that Plantinga and Descartes give us insufficient reason for thinking theists are in a better epistemic position than atheists and naturalists vis-à-vis the question whether or not our cognitive faculties are reliable. (shrink)

Recent iterations of Alvin Plantinga’s “evolutionary argument against naturalism” bear a surprising resemblance to a famous argument in Descartes’s Third Meditation. Both arguments conclude that theists have an epistemic advantage over atheists/naturalists vis-à-vis the question whether or not our cognitive faculties are reliable. In this paper, I show how these arguments bear an even deeper resemblance to each other. After bringing the problem of evil to bear negatively on Descartes’s argument, I argue that, given these similarities, atheists can wield (...) a recent solution to the problem of evil against theism in much the way Plantinga wields the detailsof evolutionary theory against naturalism. I conclude that Plantinga and Descartes give us insufficient reason for thinking theists are in a better epistemic position than atheists and naturalists vis-à-vis the question whether or not our cognitive faculties are reliable. (shrink)

Price discrimination is widespread in the American economy and sometimes can be defended as achieving socially preferable economic outcomes. However, the separation of markets required for price discrimination is often difficult to sustain. Sometimes those whom the seller wishes to charge higher prices are identified by imprecise markers. (Thus, as one example, airlines have traditionally attempted to identify business travelers willing to pay higher fares as those travelers unwilling to stay at their destination over a Saturday night.) Imprecise targeting (...) complicates efforts to prevent strategies of circumvention and sellers sometimes resort to claiming that buyers are morally bound to observe rules which sellers cannot otherwise enforce. This paper examines whether buyers can be morally bound by sellers to put themselves into discriminated-against classes.This paper takes the position that if, as often seems to be the case, there is a social consensus that consumers would not be morallyobliged to sort themselves into categories precisely designed to achieve the goals of price discrimination, then there is, a fortiori,a social consensus that consumers are not morally obliged to sort themselves into categories which are only crudely designed toachieve the goals of price discrimination, and which may in fact be counterproductive. (shrink)

Quantum electrodynamics is a time-symmetric theory that is part of the electroweak interaction, which is invariant under a generalized form of this symmetry, the PCT transformation. The thesis is defended that the arrow of time in electrodynamics is a consequence of the assumption of an initial state of high order, together with the quantum version of the equiprobability postulate.

What is involved in having a singular thought about an ordinary object? On the leading epistemic view, one has this capacity if and only if one has belief-forming dispositions which would reliably enable one to get its properties right (Dickie, 2015). I first argue that Dickie’s official view entails surprising and unpalatable claims about either rationality or singular thought, before offering a precisification. Once we have reached that level of abstraction, it becomes difficult to see what is distinctively epistemic (...) about the framework. If we are to tease out the delicate connection between singular thought and knowledge, we should suspend the assumption that there is a homogeneous core, present in all cases of such thought, and that it is from there that its (univocal) epistemic character derives. (shrink)

Robots that incorporate the function of apologizing have emerged in recent years. This paper examines the moral permissibility of making robots apologize. First, I characterize the nature of apology based on analyses conducted in multiple scholarly domains. Next, I present a prima facie argument that robot apologies are not permissible because they may harm human societies by inducing the misattribution of responsibility. Subsequently, I respond to a possible response to the prima facie objection based on the interpretation that (...) attributing responsibility to a robot is analogous to having an attitude toward fiction. Then, I demonstrate that there are cases of robot apologies where the prima facie objection does not apply, by considering the following two points: (1) apology-related practices found in our human-to-human apologies, and (2) a difference in the degree of harm caused by robot failures and the resulting apologies. Finally, given the current norms governing our apology-related practices, I argue that some instances of making robots apologize are permissible, and I propose conducting critical robotics research questioning the validity of such norms. (shrink)

This paper considers the problems of the integration of independent manipulator control systems. Areas of control of the manipulator are: recognition of objects and obstacles, identification of objects to be grasped, determination of reliable positions by the grasping device, planning of movement of the manipulator to certain positions with avoidance of obstacles, and recognition of slipping or determination of reliable grasping. This issue is a current problem primarily in industry, general-purpose robots, and experimental robots. This paper considers current publications that (...) address these issues. Existing algorithms and approaches have been found in the management of both parts of the robot manipulator and solutions that combine several areas, or the integration of several existing approaches. There is a brief review of current literature and publications on the above algorithms and approaches. The advantages and disadvantages of the considered methods and approaches are determined. There are solutions that cover either some areas or only one of them, which does not meet the requirements of the problem. Using existing approaches, integration points of existing implementations are identified to get the best results. In the process, a system was developed that analyzes the environment, finds obstacles, objects for interaction, poses for grasping, plans the movement of the manipulator to a specific position, and ensures reliable grasping of the object. The next step was to test the system, test the performance, and adjust the parameters for the best results. The resulting system was developed by the research team of RT-Lions, Technik University, Reutlingen. The hardware research robot includes an Intel Realsense camera, a Sawyer Arm manipulator from Rethink Robotics, and an internally grabbing device. (shrink)

Verweij and Dawson claim that population health has a distributive dimension; Coggon argues that this presupposes a normative commitment to equity in the very definition of population health, which should, rather, be neutral. I describe possible sources of the distributive view, several of which do not presuppose egalitarian commitments. Two relate to the nature of health as a property of individuals ; two relate to the epistemology and pragmatics of public and population health. A fifth source of the distributive view (...) is a critical stance on the concept of population health; I contrast this with Coggon’s account of the public as a shared political imaginary. None of these views is ‘neutral’: they exhibit several different kinds of normativity and quasi-normativity, but this is not problematic. I argue that the critical stance appropriately distinguishes and relates social justice and public health. (shrink)

Robots are simultaneously real machines and technical images that challenge our sense of self. I discuss the movie Ex Machina by director Alex Garland. The robot Ava, played by Alicia Vikander, is a rare portrait of what could be interpreted as a feminist robot. Though she apparently is created as the dream of the ‘perfect woman’, sexy and beautiful, she also develops and urges to free herself from the slavery of her creator, Nathan Bateman. She is a (...) class='Hi'>robot created along the perfect dimensions as a Vitruvian robot but is also a creature which could be interpreted as a human being. However, the point I want to raise is not whether Ava’s reaction to robot slavery is justified or not but how her portrait raises questions about the blurred lines between reality and fiction when we discuss our robotic future. A real version of Ava would not last long in a human world because she is basically a solipsist, who does not really care about humans. She cannot co-create the line humans walk along. The robots created as ‘perfect women’ today are very far from the ideal image of Ava. They are sexist, primitively normative and clearly ‘wax-doll machines’. So though Ava’s dimensions are perfect she, like the Vitruvian Man, remains a fiction. In real life, however, we may have to deal with an increasing solipsism stemming from people engaging with machines like sex robots. In this case, it is human and not robotic solipsism we need to worry about. (shrink)

Japan has more robots than any other country with robots contributing to many areas of society, including manufacturing, healthcare, and entertainment. However, few studies have examined Japanese attitudes toward robots, and none has used implicit measures. This study compares attitudes among the faculty of a US and a Japanese university. Although the Japanese faculty reported many more experiences with robots, implicit measures indicated both faculties had more pleasant associations with humans. In addition, although the US faculty reported people were (...) more threatening than robots, implicit measures indicated both faculties associated weapons more strongly with robots than with humans. Despite the media’s hype about Japan’s robot ‘craze,’ response similarities suggest factors other than attitude better explain robot adoption. These include differences in history and religion, personal and human identity, economic structure, professional specialization, and government policy. Japanese robotics offers a unique reference from which other nations may learn. (shrink)

Some authors have recently suggested that it is time to consider rights for robots. These suggestions are based on the claim that the question of robot rights should not depend on a standard set of conditions for ‘moral status’; but instead, the question is to be framed in a new way, by rejecting the is/ought distinction, making a relational turn, or assuming a methodological behaviourism. We try to clarify these suggestions and to show their highly problematic consequences. While (...) we find the suggestions ultimately unmotivated, the discussion shows that our epistemic condition with respect to the moral status of others does raise problems, and that the human tendency to empathise with things that do not have moral status should be taken seriously—we suggest that it produces a “derived moral status”. Finally, it turns out that there is typically no individual in real AI that could even be said to be the bearer of moral status. Overall, there is no reason to think that robot rights are an issue now. (shrink)

Although social robots are achieving increasing prominence as companions and carers, their status as partners in an interactive relationship with humans remains unclear. The present paper explores this issue, first, by considering why social robots cannot truly qualify as “Thous”, that is, as surrogate human partners, as they are often assumed to be, and then by briefly considering why it will not do to construe them as mere machines, slaves, or pets, as others have contended. Having concluded that none (...) of these familiar designations does justice to social robots’ still evolving and yet-to-be-defined status, I go on to consider whether engaging in a “relational turn” which prioritises the relationship over the entities in relation, can provide a more satisfactory alternative. In defending this stance, Damiano and Dumouchel contend that in addition to foregrounding the possibility that social robots constitute new types of artificial companions which we can find “companionable in different ways”, the relational turn has the added advantage of providing a more expansive and productive ethical framework for future research and development in this domain. But on balance, it is far from clear that this approach can circumvent the so-called “dummy-human” problem, the contention that social robots are little more than sophisticated toys with the potential to deceive their users about the prospects for genuine partnership and bonding. Accordingly, I conclude that while Damiano and Dumouchel’s shift in “target phenomenology” brings to the fore facets of the interaction that may be difficult to infer by focussing on the relata alone, it is ultimately too “thin” to qualify as a template for robust human-robotic interaction of the sort that could qualify as a genuine partnership. Hence, while their relational turn has its merits in alerting us to the novel possibilities and challenges afforded by this ever-evolving technology and to the limitations of existing frameworks, it is contended that in itself it cannot provide an adequate template for conceptualising what a genuine human–robot partnership might entail. Instead, we need a more expansive approach that can do greater justice to the complexities of human-robotic interaction in its continuities as well as differences from more familiar human prototypes. (shrink)

The main claim I defend in this paper is that Robert Kilwardby, a thirteenth-century Dominican philosopher, construed bodily pain as a fully-fledged intentional state of the sensory soul. To prove this, I first examine Kilwarby’s account of how pain comes to be and how the sensory soul experiences it. I then show that pain cannot be reduced to a feeling the sensory soul experiences for the simple reason that pain has representational content, and is thus also directed at something.

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan defends the view that all animals who are “subjects of a life” have an equal moral right to life. In this chapter, I consider whether it makes sense to think that animals have an equal right to life in light of the challenge that life has less value for animals than humans. This challenge raises two central questions: (1) does life have less value for animals than humans and (...) (2) if it does, does this fact justify the view that animals do not have an equal right to life. I argue, first, that life has greater value for most humans than animals because most humans are capable of experiencing higher qualities of enjoyment in life, in the form of creative, intellectual pleasures. However, this does not justify denying that animals have an equal right to life. Whether beings’ lives deserve strong respect depends on whether the value of life for those beings meets a certain threshold. I argue that the value of life for many animals meets this threshold because it is compatible with the virtue of compassion. (shrink)

This article addresses two issues: the first is the philosopher's fear of a lawless freedom of nature. I quote Deleuze and Guattari, who explain our terror before chaos and the consequent call for help and protection. My hypothesis was that this threat of chaos has affected also the enlightened mind of Kant. Facing the possibility of chaos, the objective Kant did not exactly fear delusion and madness, which affect only fragile subjectivities, but was terrified with the chance that nature (...) class='Hi'>does not behave regularly, i.e., that _ knowledge _ becomes impossible. The second issue is a harder and more difficult question, and it is related to the _modern_ artist’s (or genius) anguish. It is a technical or an artistical complaint. He/She finds no more given rules to create his/her artworks. Differently from the philosopher, the genius fears the silence and the absolute muteness of nature. I try to deal with these two issues by taking into account Kant’s concept of purposiveness of nature as a regulative principle. I realize that, although this sufficed to calm down the philosopher’s anxiety, it proved to be insufficient to guide the artist. The delusion and madness that threaten the genius are deeper and more extreme than those of the philosopher. In order to treat the artist’s pain, without having to abandon the connection between art and nature, that constitutes one of the most fruitful reading keys of Kant’s Aesthetics, I resort to other ideas I found reading Lacoue-Labarthe and Hannah Arendt. (shrink)

An individual has a theory of mind if he imputes mental states to himself and others. A system of inferences of this kind is properly viewed as a theory because such states are not directly observable, and the system can be used to make predictions about the behavior of others. As to the mental states the chimpanzee may infer, consider those inferred by our own species, for example, purpose or intention, as well as knowledge, belief, thinking, doubt, guessing, pretending, liking, (...) and so forth. To determine whether or not the chimpanzee infers states of this kind, we showed an adult chimpanzee a series of videotaped scenes of a human actor struggling with a variety of problems. Some problems were simple, involving inaccessible food as in the original Kohler problems; others were more complex, involving an actor unable to extricate himself from a locked cage, shivering because of a malfunctioning heater, or unable to play a phonograph because it was unplugged. With each videotape the chimpanzee was given several photographs, one a solution to the problem, such as a stick for the inaccessible bananas, a key for the locked up actor, a lit wick for the malfunctioning heater. The chimpanzee's consistent choice of the correct photographs can be understood by assuming that the animal recognized the videotape as representing a problem, understood the actor's purpose, and chose alternatives compatible with that purpose. (shrink)

The recent rise in ethical consumerism has seen increasing numbers of corporate brands project a socially responsible and ethical image. But does having a corporate brand that is perceived to be ethical have any influence on outcome variables of interest for its product brands? This study analyzes the relationship between perceived ethicality at a corporate level, and brand trust, brand affect and brand loyalty at a product level. A theoretical framework with hypothesized relationships is developed and tested in (...) order to answer the research question. Data have been collected for 45 product categories in the fast moving consumer goods sector using a panel of 4,027 Spanish consumers. The proposed relationships are tested using structural equations modeling. The results suggest there is a positive relationship between perceived ethicality of a brand and both brand trust and brand affect. Brand affect also positively influences brand trust. Further, brand trust and brand affect both show a positive relation with brand loyalty. The managerial and academic implications of the results are discussed. (shrink)

Open theists argue that God's relationship to time, as conceived in classical theism, is erroneous. They explain that it is contradictory for an atemporal being to act in a temporal universe, including experiencing its temporal successions. Contrary to the atemporalists, redemptive history has shown that God interacts with humans in time. This relational nature of God nullifies the classical notion of God as timelessly eternal. Therefore, it lacks a philosophical and theological basis. Because God is in time, He does (...) not know all future contingencies and, therefore, changes. This study examines open theism's appropriation of the A and B theories of time to the divine-human relationship. The study argues that divine temporality does not solve the tension of divine-human relationships, especially in relation to the future. Further, historical divine temporality does not negate the fact of divine atemporality. It mainly stems from God's choice to create temporal creatures and His relationship with them. Furthermore, if it is not logically and metaphysically contradictory for an omnipresent being to act in space, then it follows that an atemporal being can act in time. Whether time is understood from the metric or psychological point of view, it does not transcend God, and therefore, the limitation it places on human creatures with respect to the future does not apply to God. Lastly, although a few philosophers reject the notion of eternity as timelessly eternal, the doctrine has a philosophical and theological basis in the Scripture. (shrink)

Among ethicists and engineers within robotics there is an ongoing discussion as to whether ethical robots are possible or even desirable. We answer both of these questions in the positive, based on an extensive literature study of existing arguments. Our contribution consists in bringing together and reinterpreting pieces of information from a variety of sources. One of the conclusions drawn is that artifactual morality must come in degrees and depend on the level of agency, autonomy and intelligence of the machine. (...) Moral concerns for agents such as intelligent search machines are relatively simple, while highly intelligent and autonomous artifacts with significant impact and complex modes of agency must be equipped with more advanced ethical capabilities. Systems like cognitive robots are being developed that are expected to become part of our everyday lives in future decades. Thus, it is necessary to ensure that their behaviour is adequate. In an analogy with artificial intelligence, which is the ability of a machine to perform activities that would require intelligence in humans, artificial morality is considered to be the ability of a machine to perform activities that would require morality in humans. The capacity for artificial (artifactual) morality, such as artifactual agency, artifactual responsibility, artificial intentions, artificial (synthetic) emotions, etc., come in varying degrees and depend on the type of agent. As an illustration, we address the assurance of safety in modern High Reliability Organizations through responsibility distribution. In the same way that the concept of agency is generalized in the case of artificial agents, the concept of moral agency, including responsibility, is generalized too. We propose to look at artificial moral agents as having functional responsibilities within a network of distributed responsibilities in a socio-technological system. This does not take away the responsibilities of the other stakeholders in the system, but facilitates an understanding and regulation of such networks. It should be pointed out that the process of development must assume an evolutionary form with a number of iterations because the emergent properties of artifacts must be tested in real world situations with agents of increasing intelligence and moral competence. We see this paper as a contribution to the macro-level Requirement Engineering through discussion and analysis of general requirements for design of ethical robots. (shrink)

The word “Umwelt” is not translated as yet and can perhaps not be translated. In its orginal and well known sense, inaugurated byUexküll, it means of the relations of an organism to its surroundings only those going over the receptive organs and the effective organs, while vegetative relations to the medium,e.g. respiration are excluded. The “Umwelt”-conception of ecology has always been a wider one, but by feeling only, without definition. H.Weber has tried to develop a “general biological (...) class='Hi'>Umwelt-conception”, including a 11 relations. In spite of this claim he states, the “Umwelt” of a species be only those external conditions which are indispensable for its life. Here is demonstrated that this conception is quite insufficient, especially because it does not contain so fundamentally important relations as the enemies of an organism and the reactions of the organism upon its surroundings. Furthermore, that conception of “Umwelt” does not contain external conditions determinating the phenotype but not indispensable for the life of the species. A “general biological conception of Umwelt”, asWeber claims to have created, is impossible; the conception is divided in steps corresponding to its application in different branches of science. In physiologye.g. only the direct relations of an organism come in question, in epidemiology the vital relations only. The ecological conception is the most comprehensive, containing all those parts of the surroundings to which an organism has direct or definite indirect relations, and is the complex of them. (shrink)

Big cities and growing industrial areas bring high risk of different kinds of pollutions which would implicate to the quality of life of the society. Discovering and monitoring of polluted areas using autonomous mobile robots is nowadays a frequently considered solution concerning both environmental and human safety problems. Being part of a distributed control system, such robots can help to improve the efficiency of the existing conventional pollution prevention systems. On the other hand, during the last decade, wireless sensor networks (...) have provoked the interest of specialists from different areas by imposing a large number of theoretical and practical challenges related to their implementation. This paper attempts to deal with both issues by presenting a possible way for building robotized WSNs that can be suitable for solving different environmental monitoring tasks. The goal is to transform the WSN into an adaptive sensor system with intelligent behavior that can be used to discover and track spots or areas where given monitored environmental parameters violate defined thresholds. The inclusion of robotized agents into the WSN structure can provide additional flexibility with respect to the installation of the network sensors and allow reliable information gathering and transfer. The proposed algorithmic methods have been tested on a pre-built laboratory prototype of a robotized WSN. The robotized agents have been built using iRobot Create mobile platforms that are additionally equipped with a single-chip computers Gumstix Verdex pro TM XL6P with various expansion modules. (shrink)

Today, when it comes to soul-body dualism, the view that comes to mind is the substance dualism that Descartes systematized. As the name suggests, this dualism implies that there are two different types of substances. Similarly, although Ibn Sīnā also adopted a kind of substance dualism by stating that the soul is a different type of substance than matter, his dualism differs from Descartes’ in important aspects. It can be said that the most important reason for this difference is that (...) both ideas belong to different traditions. While Ibn Sīnā’s dualism carries the traces of Aristotelian hylomorphism, Cartesian thought is built on the post-Newtonian understanding of the mechanical universe. This significant difference has deeply affected soul-body conception of both philosophers. The aim of this study is to reveal the fundamental differences between the dualistic understandings of these philosophers in the context of soul-body. Thus, it will become clearer where the Avicennian dualism stands in terms of contemporary philosophy of mind. In this context, the first question to be addressed here is whether, according to both philosophers, the immaterial part of man means the same thing. The answer to this question is negative. The functions that Ibn Sīnā and Descartes attribute to the immaterial substance are quite different from each other. According to Descartes, it can be said that the soul is actually identical with the mind. Because, he describes the soul as the substance whose essence is to think. Here, Descartes is not only referring to theoretical calculations by thinking. It also includes phenomenal consciousness, that is, conscious phenomena, which is also called qualia in contemporary philosophy of mind. Thus, according to the Cartesian tradition, the fundamental distinction between soul/mind (the immaterial substance) and body is phenomenal consciousness: A thing is a soul only if it can have phenomenal consciousness. Whereas, Ibn Sīnā does not see phenomenal consciousness, which is the most basic function that the present Cartesian dualist tradition attributes to the soul, as the basic function of the immaterial substance. In fact, he does not even see it as a function of the human nafs. In other words, according to him, the main function of the human nafs is not to feel/experience or to have phenomenal consciousness. Such functions can also be performed by animals that do not have an immaterial substance. According to Ibn Sīnā, the main functions of the human soul are theoretical or universal thinking and being self-conscious. One of the places where this distinction can be seen most clearly is their thoughts about animal souls. Both philosophers argue that animals do not have an immaterial substance in addition to their material bodies. However, while this means that animals are unconscious automatons for one philosopher (Descartes), it does not mean anything like that for the other. Because, according to Avicenna, an immaterial substance is not necessary to have consciousness or feeling. However, according to Descartes, for a being to be conscious or sentient requires it to have an immaterial substance. Since animals do not have such (substantial) souls, Descartes saw them as unconscious robots. Another point where the same difference can be observed is an argument put forward by Avicenna to prove this immaterial substance, which he addresses as the human soul. According to Avicenna’s argument, the existence of an immaterial substance is necessary for man’s access to universal knowledge, not for having consciousness. However, according to the argument used in the Cartesian tradition and known as the unity of consciousness argument, the existence of immaterial substance is necessary for the unity of consciousness (not knowledge). The aim of this study is to reveal the basic differences between the dualistic understandings of these philosophers in the context of soul and body. In order to reveal these differences, the following points will be discussed: The question of whether animals are conscious and Avicenna’s argument mentioned above. Because the differences in the handling of these two issues by both philosophers will guide us to reveal the fundamental differences in their dualistic understanding. In this study, it will be argued that the dualistic understanding of Avicenna and Descartes in the context of soul-body are radically different from each other, especially over these two issues. (shrink)

Have invisible barriers for women been broken in 2007, or do we still have to break through medicine's glass ceiling? Data from two of the most prestigious university hospitals in Barcelona with 700-800 beds, Hospital Clínic (HC) and Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau (HSCSP) address this issue. In the HSCSP, 87% of the department chairs are men and 85% of the department unit chiefs are also men. With respect to women, only 5 (13%) are in (...) the top position (department chair) and 4 (15%) are department unit chiefs. Similar statistics are also found at the HC: 87% of the department chairs and 89% of the department unit chiefs are men. Currently, only 6 women (13%) are in the top position and 6 (11%) are department unit chiefs. Analysis of the 2002 data of internal promotions in HC showed that for the first level (senior specialist) sex distribution was similar. Nevertheless, for the second level (consultant) only 25% were women, and for the top level (senior consultant) only 8% were women. These proportions have not changed in 2007 in spite of a 10% increase in leadership positions during this period. Similar proportions were found in HSCSP where 68% of the top promotions were held by men. The data obtained from these two different medical institutions in Barcelona are probably representative of other hospitals in Spain. It would be ethically desirable to have males and females in leadership positions in the medical profession. (shrink)

Considerable progress is being made in robotics, with robots being developed for many different areas of life: there are service robots, industrial robots, transport robots, medical robots, household robots, sex robots, exploration robots, military robots, and many more. As robot development advances, an intriguing question arises: should robots also encompass religious functions? Religious robots could be used in religious practices, education, discussions, and ceremonies within religious buildings. This article delves into two pivotal questions, combining perspectives from philosophy and religious (...) studies: can and should robots have religious functions? Section 2 initiates the discourse by introducing and discussing the relationship between robots and religion. The core of the article (developed in Sects. 3 and 4) scrutinizes the fundamental questions: can robots possess religious functions, and should they? After an exhaustive discussion of the arguments, benefits, and potential objections regarding religious robots, Sect. 5 addresses the lingering ethical challenges that demand attention. Section 6 presents a discussion of the findings, outlines the limitations of this study, and ultimately responds to the dual research question. Based on the study’s results, brief criteria for the development and deployment of religious robots are proposed, serving as guidelines for future research. Section 7 concludes by offering insights into the future development of religious robots and potential avenues for further research. (shrink)

The distinction between propositional and doxastic justification is the distinction between having justification to believe P (= propositional justification) versus having a justified belief in P (= doxastic justification). The focus of this paper is on doxastic justification and on what conditions are necessary for having it. In particular, I challenge the basing demand on doxastic justification, i.e., the idea that one can have a doxastically justified belief only if one’s belief is based on an epistemically appropriate reason. This (...) demand has been used to refute versions of coherentism and conservatism about perceptual justification as well as to defend phenomenal “conservatism” and other views besides. In what follows I argue that there is virtually no reason to think there is a basing demand on doxastic justification. I also argue that even if the basing demand were true, it would still fail to serve the dialectical purposes for which it has been employed in arguments concerning coherentism, conservatism, and phenomenal “conservatism”. I conclude by discussing the fact that knowledge has a basing demand and show why this needn’t raise the same sort of problems for coherentism and conservatism that doxastic justification’s basing demand seemed to. (shrink)

This paper addresses the possibility of robots engaging in sports. Recently, several movies like Ex-Machina, Chappi, and Transcendence challenge the spectator to think of the consequences of creating artificial intelligences. Although we refer to athletes who have outstanding sporting performances as machines, for example, in cycling people say ‘the cyclist looked like a machine with wheels,’ the potential participation of such AI in sport has not been addressed. For our argument’s sake, we will assume that the creation of human-like (...) robots who will mirror human athletes’ behavior in the playing field will be possible. Recent advances in cybernetics and robotics point in this way. As argued in the literature on philosophy of mind, the fact that intelligent robots seem to be doing something does not imply they are actually doing it. Understood in this way, sport can be conceived as a particular ‘imitation game’ or Turing test, which permits us to distinguish between an artificial intelligence... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXI, Number 1, April 1995, pp. 57-74 Does Hume Have an Instrumental Conception of Practical Reason? JEAN HAMPTON Many philosophers and social scientists regard the instrumental theory of practical reason as highly plausible, and standardly credit David Hume as the first philosopher to formulate this conception of reason clearly. Yet I will argue in this paper that Hume does not advocate the instrumental (...) conception of practical reason as that conception is normally understood by contemporary theorists who endorse it. Although it is often thought that Hume's position on reason is the "common-sense" one, I will argue that in a very fundamental way, his view of reason defies common-sense. The Instrumental Conception of Reason Consider the following definition of an instrumental theory of reason, understood normatively: 1) An action is rational to the extent that an agent believes (reasonably)1 that it furthers the attainment of an end; and 2) Human reasoning involves the determination of means to achieve ends, in a way described by the theory (I will say, henceforth, that using reason to determine the extent to which an action is a means to an end is an instrumental use of reason); and 3) These ends are in no way fixed by reason operating non-instrumentally; i.e., what makes them our ends is something other than reason. Jean Hampton is at the Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona, Tuscon, AZ 85721 USA. 58 Jean Hampton In this article I will consider as instrumental all and only theories that accept these three theses.2 Thesis 3 is normally understood as the hallmark of the instrumental theory. Hume's famous remark "Reason is...the slave of the passions" (T 415) is a clear endorsement of this thesis. In contrast, theories of reason that do not count as instrumental maintain that reason not only pursues means to ends, but also defines ends of action, thereby denying thesis 3. On this sort of view, it is reason that is, at least sometimes, the master. For example, Kant portrays reason as concerned both with the efficiency and the morality of an action, and as that faculty which determines whether any proposed course of action is acceptable. So for Kant, reason "constructs" the ends of action insofar as it picks out from among the goals proposed by our desires those which are appropriate for us to pursue: it is the final determiner of what our ends of action ought to be. Moreover, after approving these ends, Kant says that reason provides a motivation to achieve them in virtue of the fact that it has approved them, a motivation which, if it directs a moral action, is always sufficient to determine that action, if the agent chooses to let it.3 So on Kant's view, practical reason is a master that issues directives, provides the impetus for obeying them, and calculates how best to do so. There are two reasons why philosophers have been troubled by the Kantian type of view. First, it is a conception of reason that seems unacceptable from the standpoint of science. What special "sight" or access to normative reality can we realistically ascribe to human reason, such that it can tell us our ends in life? And how does a scientific world view permit us to believe that there are unmotivated ends which we are rationally compelled to pursue? Science, after all, does not recognize such objects or properties with inherent prescriptive power. J. L. Mackie calls such objects and properties "queer"—indeed, too queer, given the strictures of science, for us to believe they obtain.4 Moreover, no scientific description of human beings has identified a rational capacity within us that can determine these objects, respond to their inherent prescriptivity, and motivate action in compliance with their requirements. The other problem facing any non-instrumental account of reason concerns motivation. Most theorists believe that whereas the question "Why be moral?" is deeply troubling, the question "Why be rational?" does not seem to be. Yet if reason is developed along Kantian lines, it becomes so expansive, and its directives so wide-ranging and divergent from interests the individual is readily able to... (shrink)

A number of authors have agued the case that there is empirical evidence that the universe (or particular configurations within it) must be the outcome of intelligent design. Recent books by William Dembski and Dean Overman, though different in style and level of argumentation, reach a similar conclusion: the universe, or certain forms within it, cannot be explained without appeal to design as a mode of causation. But exactly what is the operative definition for intelligent design in these works? (...) And how convincing is their case for the necessity of appealing to this type of design in causal explanations? (shrink)

In this essay I will explore an understanding of the potential moral agency of robots; arguing that the key characteristics of physical embodiment; adaptive learning; empathy in action; and a teleology toward the good are the primary necessary components for a machine to become a moral agent. In this context; other possible options will be rejected as necessary for moral agency; including simplistic notions of intelligence; computational power; and rule-following; complete freedom; a sense of God; and an immaterial soul. I (...) argue that it is likely that such moral machines may be able to be built; and that this does not diminish humanity or human personhood. (shrink)

This article is a first attempt to line out the conditions under which executives might have a real self-interest in pursuing a broad stakeholder management (SM) orientation to enlarge their power. We suggest that managers have wider latitude of action under an SM approach, even when this is instrumental to financial performance. The causally ambiguity of the performance effects of idiosyncratic relationships with stakeholders not only makes SM strategy difficult for competitors to imitate but also increases managerial discretion. (...) When managers use this situation for their own benefit, they can undermine the purported goals of the SM approach. By analyzing some of the factors that might lead to such disfunctionalities, this article advances a theory of the potential dark side of SM. (shrink)