This paper considers what liberal philosopher Michael Sandel coins the ‘moral limits of markets’ in relation to the idea of paying people for data about their biometrics and emotions. With Sandel arguing that certain aspects of human life (such as our bodies and body parts) should be beyond monetisation and exchange, others argue that emerging technologies such as Personal Information Management Systems can enable a fairer, paid, data exchange between the individual and the organisation, even regarding highly personal data about (...) our bodies and emotions. With the field of data ethics rarely addressing questions of payment, this paper explores normative questions about data dividends. It does so by conducting a UK-wide, demographically representative online survey to quantitatively assess adults’ views on being paid for personal data about their biometrics and emotions via a Personal Information Management System, producing a data dividend, a premise which sees personal data through the prism of markets and property. The paper finds diverse attitudes based on socio-demographic characteristics, the type of personal data sold, and the type of organisation sold to. It argues that (a) Sandel’s argument regarding the moral limits of markets has value in protecting fundamental freedoms of those in society who are arguably least able to (such as the poor); but (b) that contexts of use, in particular, blur moral limits regarding fundamental freedoms and markets. (shrink)

The circumscribed quadrature of professional ethics aims to show the necessary shift from deontology to professional ethics, from deontological codes to ethical codes. While deontology and the deontological codes that materialise from it set their sights on professionals' responsibilities, professional ethics and the ethical codes that should derive from it would set their sights on the professional act, on its successful performance. In this way, the stress comes to be placed not only on the professional's responsibility, although that too, but (...) also on the necessary orchestration of the responsibilities shared at numerous levels by everyone involved in the performance of the professional act. The author identifies and typifies five elements present in the professional act. Four of them involve direct the protagonism of the professional, the recipient of the professional service, the institution that makes the service possible and from which the professionals' service is offered, and finally the human factor, the people who are behind the aforementioned factors and their nature, the professional, the recipient of the services and institutions. And each of these factors paves the way for a series of diversified protagonisms: inter-professional cooperation, receiver of professional services and their human environment around them, macro and micro institutions, diverse human profiles. However, all of this takes place within the framework of the fifth important element in professional ethics: a given, specific society as a circumscription of the four elements cited above, which sets the moral bar, a set of convictions and desired collective ethics which unquestionably also affect the performance of professional acts. With this reflection, we take note of the necessary co-responsibility in the provision of professional services, a co-responsibility which we could express simply in healthcare terms: it is not enough to merely have sound healthcare professionals if we do not have good patients with favourable affective environments, nor sound healthcare institutions, nor serious people who are socially committed to their work and their role, nor a society that believes in and fosters given identifiers of the personal and professional health to which we aim. The reflections in this proposal embark on a pathway of reflection which, we believe, deserves to be further explored. (shrink)

The current paradigm of Artificial Intelligence emerged as the result of a series of cultural innovations, some technical and some social. Among them are apparently small design decisions, that led to a subtle reframing of the field’s original goals, and are by now accepted as standard. They correspond to technical shortcuts, aimed at bypassing problems that were otherwise too complicated or too expensive to solve, while still delivering a viable version of AI. Far from being a series of separate problems, (...) recent cases of unexpected effects of AI are the consequences of those very choices that enabled the field to succeed, and this is why it will be difficult to solve them. In this chapter we review three of these choices, investigating their connection to some of today’s challenges in AI, including those relative to bias, value alignment, privacy and explainability. We introduce the notion of “ethical debt” to describe the necessity to undertake expensive rework in the future in order to address ethical problems created by a technical system. (shrink)

Athanasius of Alexandria (about 300-373) commented on the book of Psalms, as Jerome stated in 393. This exegesis has not been preserved directly, but it appeared from the sixth century in the Greek catena, and in an unusual form. The commentary, which includes all the Psalms, is divided into 22 centuries, each century being a series of hundred passages. In all there are 2,161 passages, numbered with great precision in a 10th century Constantinopolitan manuscript, the Vaticanus Gracus 754. This division (...) can be dated back to the sixth century, because the text in this form is confirmed by four oriental versions and by a Byzantine anthology from the end of the 11th century. (shrink)

The automated parsing of 130,213 news articles about the 2012 US presidential elections produces a network formed by the key political actors and issues, which were linked by relations of support and opposition. The nodes are formed by noun phrases and links by verbs, directly expressing the action of one node upon the other. This network is studied by applying insights from several theories and techniques, and by combining existing tools in an innovative way, including: graph partitioning, centrality, assortativity, hierarchy (...) and structural balance. The analysis yields various patterns. First, we observe that the fundamental split between the Republican and Democrat camps can be easily detected by network partitioning, which provides a strong validation check of the approach adopted, as well as a sound way to assign actors and topics to one of the two camps. Second, we identify the most central nodes of the political camps. We also learnt that Clinton played a more central role than Biden in the Democrat camp; the overall campaign was much focused on economy and rights; the Republican Party is the most divisive subject in the campaign, and is portrayed more negatively than the Democrats; and, overall, the media reported positive statements more frequently for the Democrats than the Republicans. This is the first study in which political positions are automatically extracted and derived from a very large corpus of online news, generating a network that goes well beyond traditional word-association networks by means of richer linguistic analysis of texts. (shrink)

Autonomous mechanisms have been proposed to regulate certain aspects of society and are already being used to regulate business organisations. We take seriously recent proposals for algorithmic regulation of society, and we identify the existing technologies that can be used to implement them, most of them originally introduced in business contexts. We build on the notion of 'social machine' and we connect it to various ongoing trends and ideas, including crowdsourced task-work, social compiler, mechanism design, reputation management systems, and social (...) scoring. After showing how all the building blocks of algorithmic regulation are already well in place, we discuss possible implications for human autonomy and social order. The main contribution of this paper is to identify convergent social and technical trends that are leading towards social regulation by algorithms, and to discuss the possible social, political, and ethical consequences of taking this path. (shrink)

Autonomous mechanisms have been proposed to regulate certain aspects of society and are already being used to regulate business organisations. We take seriously recent proposals for algorithmic regulation of society, and we identify the existing technologies that can be used to implement them, most of them originally introduced in business contexts. We build on the notion of ‘social machine’ and we connect it to various ongoing trends and ideas, including crowdsourced task-work, social compiler, mechanism design, reputation management systems, and social (...) scoring. After showing how all the building blocks of algorithmic regulation are already well in place, we discuss the possible implications for human autonomy and social order. The main contribution of this paper is to identify convergent social and technical trends that are leading towards social regulation by algorithms, and to discuss the possible social, political, and ethical consequences of taking this path. (shrink)

Il pensiero morale al tempo del Rosmini -- I fondamenti teoretici della morale rosminiana -- Disegno generale della morale rosminiana -- La legge morale -- Il bene soggettivo, oggettivo, morale -- Il soggetto della morale -- Errore e peccato -- La coscienza morale -- Morale naturale e morale soprannaturale.

Interactions between an intelligent software agent and a human user are ubiquitous in everyday situations such as access to information, entertainment, and purchases. In such interactions, the ISA mediates the user’s access to the content, or controls some other aspect of the user experience, and is not designed to be neutral about outcomes of user choices. Like human users, ISAs are driven by goals, make autonomous decisions, and can learn from experience. Using ideas from bounded rationality, we frame these interactions (...) as instances of an ISA whose reward depends on actions performed by the user. Such agents benefit by steering the user’s behaviour towards outcomes that maximise the ISA’s utility, which may or may not be aligned with that of the user. Video games, news recommendation aggregation engines, and fitness trackers can all be instances of this general case. Our analysis facilitates distinguishing various subcases of interaction, as well as second-order effects that might include the possibility for adaptive interfaces to induce behavioural addiction, and/or change in user belief. We present these types of interaction within a conceptual framework, and review current examples of persuasive technologies and the issues that arise from their use. We argue that the nature of the feedback commonly used by learning agents to update their models and subsequent decisions could steer the behaviour of human users away from what benefits them, and in a direction that can undermine autonomy and cause further disparity between actions and goals as exemplified by addictive and compulsive behaviour. We discuss some of the ethical, social and legal implications of this technology and argue that it can sometimes exploit and reinforce weaknesses in human beings. (shrink)

La scorciatoia - Come le macchine sono diventate intelligenti senza pensare in modo umano -/- Le nostre creature sono diverse da noi e talvolta più forti. Per poterci convivere dobbiamo imparare a conoscerle Vagliano curricula, concedono mutui, scelgono le notizie che leggiamo: le macchine intelligenti sono entrate nelle nostre vite, ma non sono come ce le aspettavamo. Fanno molte delle cose che volevamo, e anche qualcuna in più, ma non possiamo capirle o ragionare con loro, perché il loro comportamento è (...) in realtà guidato da relazioni statistiche ricavate da quantità sovrumane di dati. Eppure possono essere in certi casi più potenti di noi: ci osservano continuamente, e prendono decisioni al nostro posto. E allora come incorporarle nella nostra società senza rischi ed effetti collaterali? Questo libro - rigoroso, pungente, originale nell'approccio - ci spiega come siamo arrivati sin qui, e indica il percorso che ci aspetta prima di poterci fidare di questi nuovi agenti «alieni». La tecnologia non basta, occorre un dialogo tra scienze naturali e umane: è il passaggio cruciale per una convivenza sicura con questa nuova forma di intelligenza. (Il Mulino). (shrink)

We explore the question of whether machines can infer information about our psychological traits or mental states by observing samples of our behaviour gathered from our online activities. Ongoing technical advances across a range of research communities indicate that machines are now able to access this information, but the extent to which this is possible and the consequent implications have not been well explored. We begin by highlighting the urgency of asking this question, and then explore its conceptual underpinnings, in (...) order to help emphasise the relevant issues. To answer the question, we review a large number of empirical studies, in which samples of behaviour are used to automatically infer a range of psychological constructs, including affect and emotions, aptitudes and skills, attitudes and orientations (e.g. values and sexual orientation), personality, and disorders and conditions (e.g. depression and addiction). We also present a general perspective that can bring these disparate studies together and allow us to think clearly about their philosophical and ethical implications, such as issues related to consent, privacy, and the use of persuasive technologies for controlling human behaviour. (shrink)

The New World reveals a warning of the great change coming to our world and a prophetic vision of a future world for which we must prepare. It is a warning from God about humanity's rapid depletion and degradation of the Earth and the urgent action we must take, individually and collectively, to both restore our planet and prepare for the future.

El artículo viene a completar las anteriores investigaciones del autor sobre las fuentes de la antropología agustiniana. Entre éstas se ha subrayado el influjo del modelo antropológico de Antíoco de Ascalón, conocido a través de Varrón y Cicerón. Este ensayo rastrea las huellas del "De philosophia" de Varrón en los escritos de Agustín anteriores a "De ciuitate Dei", para evaluar la medida y el peso de esta presencia.

El artículo versa sobre las fuentes inspiradoras del modelo antropológico presentado por Agustín en el libro I de las "Confesiones", que no son las de los filósofos neoplatónicos, sino las de la Antigua Academia, según la versión particular dada por Antíoco de Ascalón, entremezclado con muchos elementos peripatéticos y estoicos, y transmitido a la cultura latina por Cicerón y Varrón. Y para demostrarlo, se hace el estudio de diversos pasajes del libro I de las "Confesiones".

El artículo pretende demostrar que el pensamiento de san Agustín sobre el tema "acción y contemplación" se ve a la luz de un modelo antropológico que se remonta a Antíoco de Ascalón, y que Agustín conoce a través de las obras de Varrón y de Cicerón. Según tal modelo, el hombre está compuesto de alma y cuerpo y no sólo de alma racional; el alma es impulsada a la acción por un "appetitus" natural, como naturalmente es llevada también a vivir, (...) a conocer con los sentidos y el intelecto, en la vida humana, estos "appetitus" se satisfacen de manera diversa, según el progreso de la edad, de modo que en cada edad se alcanza o se debe alcanzar un acuerdo, una especie de "coniugium" entre los "appetitus" y el alma, y entre el conocimiento y la acción. (shrink)

El artículo intenta demostrar la inspiración tertuliana del De libero arbitrio, para ayudar a una mejor comprensión de la obra en cuestión y de todo el pensamiento del primer Agustín.

El artículo estudia una de las fuentes de la moral pelagiana, concretamente la de la escuela y los tratados de retórica, como lugar donde Pelagio pudo asimilar los principios constitutivos de la "paideia" antigua, adaptando a ellos, en algún modo, las novedades de la fe cristiana.

El artículo trata los aspectos literarios de los seis libros conservados del "Ad Florum", de Juliano de Eclana, para señalar cómo san Agustín, por su progresiva profundización en la fé cristiana, llegó a asumir una actitud cada vez más crítica ante los modelos culturales clásicos, mientras que Juliano siguió sólidamente anclado en ellos.

El artículo versa sobre la polémica cristológica entre San Agustín y Juliano de Eclana, y se estudian tres asuntos: si son exactos los conocimientos que sobre el apolinarismo tenía Juliano; si es posible descubrir la fuente de estas informaciones, y si esta fuente es el camino por el que llegaron a Juliano algunos conceptos aristotélicos, característicos de sus argumentaciones teológicas.

El artículo se propone demostrar que la concepción agustiniana del matrimonio está inspirada fuertemente por Aristóteles, a quien llegó a conocer mediante las obras de autores latinos, como Varrón y Cicerón. No se hace una exposición completa y detallada del pensamiento agustiniano sobre el matrimonio, sino que el artículo se limita a llamar la atención sobre algunos puntos en que se deja sentir con mayor claridad el eco de la enseñanza aristotélica, como es el tema del carácter social y amistoso (...) del matrimonio, entre otros. (shrink)

El artículo trata sobre la idea de san Agustín, presente en algunas obras escritas entre los años 394 y 395, de la autónoma posibilidad de la voluntad humana de comenzar el camino de la salvación con la fe y la plegaria, basando la admisión de esta parcial autonomía de la voluntad en las preocupaciones suscitadas en él por el problema de la predestinación. Señala que las probables fuentes literarias son el comentario del Ambrosiáster a la carta a los Romanos y (...) el comentario de Hilario de Poitiers a los salmos. Asimismo se presenta como más verosímil la hipótesis sugerida por la cita de c. ep. Pel. 4.7 y sostenida por alguno, según los cuales los comentarios paulinos atribuidos hoy al Ambrosiáster circulaban bajo el nombre de un cierto Hilario, al que Agustín identificó erróneamente con el obispo galo de Poitiers. La identificación se hizo posible también a causa de la coincidencia de sus doctrinas sobre la gracia y sobre la predestinación. (shrink)

El artículo aborda la cuestión del influjo de los escritos de Mario Victorino en la reflexión trinitaria agustiniana, particularmente en los Diálogos de Casiciaco, en De fide et symbolo y en De Trinitate.