Is it OK to lie to Siri? Is it bad to mistreat a robot for our own pleasure? Under what condition should we grant a moral status to an artificial intelligence (AI) system? This paper looks at different arguments for granting moral status to an AI system: the idea of indirect duties, the relational argument, the argument from intelligence, the arguments from life and information, and the argument from sentience. In each but the last case, we find unresolved issues with (...) the particular argument, which leads us to move to a different one. We leave the idea of indirect duties aside since these duties do not imply considering an AI system for its own sake. The paper rejects the relational argument and the argument from intelligence. The argument from life may lead us to grant a moral status to an AI system, but only in a weak sense. Sentience, by contrast, is a strong argument for the moral status of an AI system—based, among other things, on the Aristotelian principle of equality: that same cases should be treated in the same way. The paper points out, however, that no AI system is sentient given the current level of technological development. (shrink)

Is it OK to lie to Siri? Is it bad to mistreat a robot for our own pleasure? Under what condition should we grant a moral status to an artificial intelligence system? This paper looks at different arguments for granting moral status to an AI system: the idea of indirect duties, the relational argument, the argument from intelligence, the arguments from life and information, and the argument from sentience. In each but the last case, we find unresolved issues with the (...) particular argument, which leads us to move to a different one. We leave the idea of indirect duties aside since these duties do not imply considering an AI system for its own sake. The paper rejects the relational argument and the argument from intelligence. The argument from life may lead us to grant a moral status to an AI system, but only in a weak sense. Sentience, by contrast, is a strong argument for the moral status of an AI system—based, among other things, on the Aristotelian principle of equality: that same cases should be treated in the same way. The paper points out, however, that no AI system is sentient given the current level of technological development. (shrink)

ABSTRACT : According to the most popular version of virtue ethics (Hursthouse, 1991; Zagzebsk,i 1996), the right action in a given situation is the action that a fully virtuous agent would do given the circumstances. However, this criterion raises two objections: in some situations, it does not determine the right action correctly, and in other situations, it does not determine any right action at all. In this article, we argue that these objections stem from either simple imaginative resistance or a (...) question-begging stance. We propose thereby to modify the criterion in such a way as to exclude the character of the non-virtuous agent from the morally relevant circumstances. Finally, we examine the implications of our proposal for the issue of moral development. (shrink)

La morale n'est pas seulement affaire de raison. Elle engage aussi l'imagination. Tout ce qui compte moralement dans une situation ne se donne pas d'emblee, au premier coup d'oeil. Pour percevoir ce qui importe, il faut changer de perspective, recadrer la situation ou la comparer avec des alternatives contrefactuelles. L'imagination nous permet ainsi de voir les choses autrement et d'elargir notre perception morale. Elle enrichit notre connaissance, comme le montre encore le recours aux experiences de pensee. Quels sont les mecanismes (...) psychologiques a l'oeuvre? Comment en tenir compte dans nos deliberations? Martin Gibert propose de repenser le role de l'imagination en morale a la lumiere des recherches les plus recentes en ethique et en psychologie. (shrink)