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The Trolley Problem
The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ perceptions of their learning experience through engagement in an active learning strategy termed "deliberative activity," designed to foster the development of moral reasoning. This strategy was implemented in an elective ethics course within a higher education setting. To evaluate the experience, we conducted a pilot case study using two qualitative analysis instruments: an individual survey and a focus group to capture students' perspectives. The qualitative analysis identified three key themes: (1) Pedagogical Design; (2) Application of Ethics to Real-Life Contexts; and (3) Openness to Dialogue. The findings suggest that the proposed strategy could serve as an effective pedagogical tool for incorporating applied ethics into the higher education curriculum, especially in interdisciplinary contexts. Additionally, the results indicate that further research should focus on specific disciplinary contexts and emphasize the need to improve feedback practices during the development of the deliberative activity. This improvement could be achieved by adopting an assessment-for-learning approach, allowing for ongoing feedback throughout the learning process.
Cardiac vagal modulation indicates the self-regulatory activity of the autonomic nervous system and can thus be used to assess an individual’s ability to integrate physiological, cognitive, and emotional responses in the decision-making process. In this paper, cardiac vagal modulation, quantified by heart rate variability (HRV), was used to predict decision-making in two types of moral dilemmas: First, sacrificial dilemmas which create a moral conflict between utilitarian (acting to maximise aggregate well-being by sacrifice) and deontological (rejecting the sacrifice) alternatives; second, everyday dilemmas which create a conflict between altruistic (acting non-selfish) and egoistic (acting self-centered) alternatives. HRV was analysed in 112 healthy participants before, during, and after decision-making, allowing to assess not only self-regulatory ability (resting HRV) but also self-regulatory capacities (HRV during and after decision-making). HRV predicted concrete decisions, but effects were only found in women. In sacrificial dilemmas, deontological women showed a stronger vagal withdrawal but also a faster cardiac vagal recovery compared to high utilitarian women. In everyday moral dilemmas, altruism was associated with reduced vagal outflow and increased sympathetic activity. Findings suggest differences in the acquisition of self-regulatory capacities between decision-makers in both types of moral dilemmas, which can be measured by HRV.
Samples of English and Chinese people judged the likelihood that they would sacrifice the life (or health) of one person to save the life (or health) of five people by performing an impersonal action (flipping a switch) or a personal one (pushing someone over a bridge). They also judged how many people out of 100 would consider their choice to be morally acceptable. Judgments by people in the two cultures were similar in two ways. First and consistently with previous work, people in both groups were more likely to sacrifice one life to save five when the action was impersonal; however, they were no more likely to make that sacrifice to save the health of five people than to save the lives of those people. Second, the likelihood of people in both cultures deciding on a sacrificial action was less than their assessments of the likelihood that such an action was morally acceptable, a result that is the opposite of what has been previously found. This contrast can be explained by recognizing the difference between asking people to assess how acceptable moral choices are to participants themselves (previous reports) and asking them to judge how acceptable those choices are to other people (this report). The two cultures also differed in two ways. Chinese participants (a) showed a larger difference between the likelihood of people acting and their assessments of the likelihood that acting would be acceptable to others, and (b) were less likely to act in impersonal dilemmas. These cross-cultural differences imply that Chinese participants were more influenced by their judgments of what other people would think about sacrificial action.
This paper provides a novel defence of the philosophical use of examples drawn from literature, by comparison with thought experiments and real cases. Such fictional examples, subject to certain constraints, can play a similar role to real cases in establishing the generality of a social phenomenon. Furthermore, the distinct psychological vantage point offered by literature renders it a potent resource for elucidating intricate social dynamics. This advantage of the internal insight that fictional examples can (though do not always) possess helps explain their prevalence in certain areas of philosophy, such as ethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of emotion, in which we can require a more precise characterization of a subject's mental states. While the respective advantages of fictional examples, real cases, and thought experiments clearly depend on many contextual factors, the former have an important, and arguably underappreciated, role to play in philosophical inquiry.
Zusammenfassung
Unter Rückgriff auf einige der größten Friedensdenker der Philosophiegeschichte wird eine besondere Art des Pazifismus, nämlich ein moderater politischer Pazifismus, entwickelt, der nicht so sehr in Zeiten gerechtfertigter Kriege, sondern in Friedenszeiten verpflichtet: Dann nämlich muss man aus ethischen Gründen eine anspruchsvolle und weitreichende Politik des Friedens verfolgen, sodass die ethische Tragik des Krieges – selbst wenn Kriege im Einzelfall gerechtfertigt sein können – bestmöglich vermieden wird. Im eigentlichen Wortsinn von Pazifismus ist dies eine Lehre des Frieden-Machens. Positiven und stabilen Frieden schafft man nicht durch Gewaltlosigkeit gegenüber Aggressorinnen im Kriegsfall, sondern durch ein ehrliches Bemühen in Friedenszeiten.
Um diese These herzuleiten, werden zunächst verschiedene pazifistische Positionen kritisiert. Pazifismus im Sinne einer ausnahmslosen Ablehnung aller Kriege lässt sich ethisch nicht rechtfertigen, weil er selbst in Extremfällen die gewaltsame Verteidigung Unschuldiger nicht ermöglicht und so in Wertungsprobleme gerät. Darauf aufbauend wird gezeigt, dass ein wohlverstandener politischer Pazifismus, der nicht im Widerspruch zur Theorie des gerechten Krieges steht, für diese ein wichtiges Pendant bildet, insofern er den herausragenden Wert des Friedens und die sich ergebenden ethischen Forderungen, insbesondere in Friedenszeiten, betont.
Moral dilemmas arise when individuals must navigate conflicts between competing moral principles. Sacrificial dilemmas are widely used to examine factors influencing decision-making (DM). This study explored how proximity affects moral DM using computer-based interactive videos depicting variations of the Footbridge Dilemma, aiming to clarify how contextual factors shape moral evaluations. In Study 1, scenarios required varying levels of physical proximity between the decision-maker and the victim, mirroring real-world behavioural patterns. Participants' choices (utilitarian vs. deontological), response times (RTs), and emotional responses (factual and counterfactual) were analysed. Study 2 controlled for action type while manipulating only the visual representation of distance, allowing for an isolated examination of perceived proximity's impact. The findings suggest that significant differences in physical perceived distance influence moral choices, whereas minor variations do not meaningfully affect decisions. Counterfactual emotions emerged as key drivers of moral judgment, shaping participants' responses to dilemmas. Future research should extend these findings to non-hypothetical contexts. The implications span clinical practice, legal systems, and artificial intelligence, offering insights for both theoretical advancements and practical applications.
Humans tend to align their behaviors and beliefs with their group peers. Establishing alignment between group members is crucial for group unity, yet the mechanisms underlying its emergence are under-explored. Here we examined the extent to which the brains of group members synchronize during deliberation on moral issues, and how interbrain synchrony supports alignment in their moral beliefs. We scanned 200 participants, who were divided into groups of four, using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) during discussions on moral dilemmas. Behavioral results show that following group deliberations, members aligned their beliefs by adjusting their private beliefs towards the collective sentiment. Critically, neuroimaging results reveal that increased interbrain synchrony in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) between group members predicts the degree of alignment post-deliberation. These findings indicate that the human tendency to align with group members extends to moral beliefs and reveal that regions related to mirroring and semantic sequence processing work across brains in coordination, to promote shared moral beliefs.
Benchmarks are seen as the cornerstone for measuring technical progress in artificial intelligence (AI) research and have been developed for a variety of tasks ranging from question answering to emotion recognition. An increasingly prominent research area in AI is ethics, which currently has no set of benchmarks nor commonly accepted way for measuring the ‘ethicality’ of an AI system. In this paper, drawing upon research in moral philosophy and metaethics, we argue that it is impossible to develop such a benchmark. As such, alternative mechanisms are necessary for evaluating whether an AI system is ‘ethical’. This is especially pressing in light of the prevalence of applied, industrial AI research. We argue that it makes more sense to talk about ‘values’ (and ‘value alignment’) rather than ‘ethics’ when considering the possible actions of present and future AI systems. We further highlight that, because values are unambiguously relative, focusing on values forces us to consider explicitly what the values are and whose values they are. Shifting the emphasis from ethics to values therefore gives rise to several new ways of understanding how researchers might advance research programmes for robustly safe or beneficial AI.
Mongolian pastoralists have social norms for using different pastures in different seasons, which contributes to the sustainable utilization of grasslands. However, as the economy develops, individuals’ morals may change, such that the social norms for the use of grassland resources may not be maintained. This study explores how economic development in Mongolia relates to pastoralists’ moral judgments and how it relates to the social norms regarding the use of communal grasslands. We collected data from 480 households in four areas close to an urban area where the market economy is more developed and in four remote areas of Mongolia. Using these data, we estimated econometric models showing the factors affecting moral judgments and their effects on social norms. The results show that better access to urban areas is associated with more consequentialist and libertarian herders and less deontology and communitarian herders and consequentialist and libertarian morals are negatively associated with social norms for grassland use. These results suggest that as market economies penetrate rural areas, people’s morality changes, and social norms based on traditional communal cohesion and mutual aid will be less likely to be maintained. These findings suggest that policymakers should apply intervention methods acceptable to libertarians and consequentialists, who are increasing with economic development.
A key question in contemporary metaphilosophy of thought experiments is the “wheat from chaff” problem: How can we separate the good and trustworthy thought experiments from the untrustworthy ones? This article examines this problem by viewing thought experimentation as a form of mental simulation. It argues that we should approach the limitations of thought experiments in light of the general shortcomings of our capacity to run mental simulations. Furthermore, the article proposes an answer to the wheat from chaff problem by presenting three danger signals for untrustworthy thought experiments. These are (1) high counterfactuality of the imagined scenario, (2) complexity of the imagined scenario, and (3) a large psychological distance to the imagined scenario.
Many philosophers believe that intentions are relevant to the justification of harm—they believe that intentional harms, or harms that result from intentionally affecting or using another person, are harder to justify than harms that are merely foreseen. How does this idea work in cases in which we are uncertain about what will happen—for example, about who will be harmed, in what way they will be harmed, or how much they will be harmed? All potential harms count against an action in evidence‐relative justification, but which potential harms should count as intended, and which as merely foreseen? Must all potential harms be one or the other? In investigating these questions, I try to show two things. First, it is plausible that not one intention, but rather several distinct intentions, matter to the justification of harm. This only becomes clear under uncertainty. Second, several of the things that matter are best understood as scalar, and so no account of the moral relevance of intentions can escape appealing to some version of the controversial notion of ‘closeness.’ Even if closeness can be avoided under conditions of certainty, it reappears once we consider more realistic uncertainty cases.
This chapter provides an overview of moral concepts, theories, and principles that can be serve as a philosophical framework for making decisions involving dilemmas and issues in research with human subjects. The theories and ideas discussed in this chapter include the difference between science and ethics; moral justification and knowledge; reflective equilibrium; moral relativism and subjectivism; divine command theory; virtue ethics; natural law theory; natural rights theory; social contract theory; utilitarianism; Kantianism; Rawls’ principles of justice; feminist ethics; and principlism. The chapter observes that each of the moral theories examined have strengths and weaknesses and emphasize different aspects of morality. The chapter argues that principlism is the most reasonable approach to moral theory because it is better able to accommodate conflicting intuitions concerning moral values than the other approaches and has a workable decision procedure. The principles defended in this chapter include respect for human dignity, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice. Principlism, like other moral theories, must still deal with the problem of priority-setting when conflicts arise among principles. In the following chapter, I argue that an additional principle, the principle of trust, can help resolve conflict among the other moral principles.
To several critics of the philosophical method of cases—Robert Cummins, Jonathan Weinberg and his colleagues, and Avner Baz—the fact that philosophical intuitions cannot be calibrated means that we cannot rule out the skeptical hypothesis that the outcome of our theorizing based on these intuitions is deeply distorted by our cognitive artifacts. Moreover, they take this hypothesis to license the negative conclusion that we are unable to have much of the armchair knowledge we typically attribute to ourselves when philosophizing based on appeal to philosophical intuitions. This paper addresses this skeptical argument and shows how this negative conclusion can be resisted.
Philosophers have tried to find an intuitively plausible principle that explains puzzling patterns in people’s moral judgments on ethical dilemmas. Moral psychologists have shed light on the cognitive processes of moral judgment by using neuroscientific techniques. Joshua Greene integrates a dual-process theory of moral judgment with a mental representation theory of action plans and proposes the modular myopia hypothesis that explains how people make moral judgments in trolley dilemmas. We provide a microeconomic foundation for the dual-process representation model of moral judgment, in which his hypothesis is represented by three real-valued functions. This study suggests that each of the three real-valued functions would be physiologically related to activity in a brain region, while his hypothesis is falsifiable without checking against neuroimaging data. Furthermore, we extend the dual-process representation model of moral judgment to address a general moral problem other than the trolley problem.
The chapter deals with three aspects of the relationship between human dignity and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. One, the growing body of academic journal articles on COVID-19 shows remarkable appreciation of human dignity as guidance for public responses to the pandemic. Two, the “corona triage” (Lübbe, Corona triage. A commentary on the triage recommendations by Italian SIAARTI medicals regarding the corona crisis, 2020) can be regarded as a modern version of the trolley problem (Thomson, Yale Law J 94:1395–1485, 1985) when the differentiating valuing of human lives is combined with ideas about killing and letting die: Human dignity demands that corona triage situations be avoided. Referring to Ubuntu, the sub-Saharan version of human dignity, the chapter demonstrates why “flattening the curve” (social distancing, mouth-nose-coverings, travel restrictions, lockdowns) was a collective effort to protect human dignity and also a manifestation of human dignity. Three, the protests against public responses to COVID-19—often associated with contempt for the government, scientists, and media—should not be explained only with disdain for “covidiots.” Rather the loss of agency imposed by COVID-19 rules encroached on human dignity.
Previous research suggests that emotion words elicit lower emotional reactivity in languages acquired later in life (LX), prompting bilinguals to make less emotional decisions when responding to emotionally charged moral dilemmas in the LX compared to their first language (L1). This study investigated the influence of word emotionality on bilinguals' moral judgements by manipulating the degree of emotiveness of moral questions (i.e., emotive versus neutral conditions) accompanying different types of moral dilemmas (i.e., personal/sacrificial versus impersonal/realistic). Mixed effects logistic regression models revealed that the use of an LX increased the number of utilitarian decisions in both the emotive and the neutral conditions, but only in the sacrificial moral dilemmas. Moreover, the emotive questions led to more deontological moral judgements than the neutral questions but only in the L1. Taken together, these findings provide further insight into the impact of emotion on bilinguals' moral decision-making.
This paper puts forward a new formulation of the experimentalist challenge to the method of cases. Unlike previous attempts to articulate the challenge, the one proposed is based on a clear characterization of the targeted philosophical methodology. The method of cases is explicated as a form of thought experimentation aimed at testing philosophical hypotheses with a distinctive modal force. Given this explication, the empirical evidence gathered by experimental philosophers concerning the instability of case judgments is shown to constitute a stumbling block for the validation of the method as a rational form of hypothesis testing. The experimental challenge is presented as the challenge to compellingly indicate how this stumbling block can be removed, and the method of cases validated as a form of thought experimentation suitable for rationally testing philosophical hypotheses. The challenge, as presented in the text, is shown to be free from all the main criticisms leveled at previous versions of it and as one not yet met.
In three studies (total N = 622), the effects of threat to con- trol on subsequent moral judgement were examined. After recalling a lack-of-control experience, participants evalu- ated the morality of a protagonist's decisions in a series of incongruent moral dilemmas. We found that a control- threatening reminder made moral judgements more utili- tarian on the deontological–utilitarian dimension, which is consistent with the control motivation theory. However, this effect depended on the type of judgement and the dura- tion of control deprivation. It emerged only when evaluating moral legitimacy, not overall moral acceptability, and only under brief control-threatening situations, not long ones. Thus, control threat made moral reasoning more utilitarian only when factors promoting more careful, exhaustive story processing were at play. Presumably, under these conditions, the non-specific motivation to regain control—by prompt- ing effortful processing—allowed participants to weigh the moral pros and cons before reaching a final judgement.
The context of a Not in my backyard (NIMBY) facility, a type of public goods, can be established as a NIMBY dilemma because it includes the moral dilemma that requires an ethical judgment, the rightness or wrongness of a utilitarian choice to save the majority at the expense of the minority. This study examined the effects of moral judgment, empathic concern, and relational mobility on people's judgments in the NIMBY dilemma. Participants who evaluated an utilitarian choice as right in the moral dilemma also rated them as right in the NIMBY dilemma. Ethical evaluation in the moral dilemma was also found to be a positive determinant for ethical evaluation and utilitarian behavioral intention in the NIMBY dilemma. Furthermore, empathic concern was negatively related to utilitarian intentions in the NIMBY dilemma, while inference about the ethical evaluation of others had positive relations. These suggested that intuitive processes, such as moral judgment and empathic concern, intervene decision making in the NIMBY dilemma. We discussed the moral tragedy in which individual moral judgment and empathic concern may lead to collective consequences that undermine public goods.
Bilinguals’ decision-making may be affected by the linguistic context, depending on whether the scenario to be evaluated is presented in their first or second language. This phenomenon is known as the (moral) Foreign Language Effect (FLe/MFLE). To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to investigate whether a difference can also be observed between decisions taken by multilinguals in their second (L2) vs third languages (L3). Expectedly, akin to the L2 Status Factor hypothesis, the results of a survey experiment showed no significant distinctions in scenario evaluations across non-native languages, suggesting that the “foreign status” of these renders similar emotionality and/or exemption from social normativity. The few nuances that do emerge are traceable to the specific scenarios used in FLe research.
With the rapid expansion of parameters in large language models (LLMs) and the application of Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF), there has been a noticeable growth in the moral competence of LLMs. However, several questions warrant further exploration: Is it really possible for LLMs to fully align with human values through RLHF? How can the current moral growth be philosophically contextualized? We identify similarities between LLMs’ moral growth and Deweyan ethics in terms of the discourse of human moral development. We then attempt to use Dewey’s theory on an experimental basis to examine and further explain the extent to which the current alignment pathway enables the development of LLMs. A beating experiment serves as the foundational case for analyzing LLMs’ moral competence across various parameters and stages, including basic moral cognition, moral dilemma judgment, and moral behavior. The results demonstrate that the moral competence of the GPT series has seen a significant improvement, and Dewey’s Impulse-Habit-Character theory of moral development can be used to explain this: the moral competence of LLMs has been enhanced through experience-based learning, supported by human feedback. Nevertheless, LLMs’ moral development through RLHF remains constrained and does not reach the character stage described by Dewey, possibly due to their lack of self-consciousness. This fundamental difference between humans and LLMs underscores both the limitations of LLMs’ moral growth and the challenges of applying RLHF for AI alignment. It also emphasizes the need for external societal governance and legal regulation.
Self-driving vehicles are one of today’s most significant disruptive technologies. This research is dedicated to the ethical discourse of specific unavoidable accident scenarios, addressing the ethical design of crash algorithms. Building on a critique of existing approaches, an alternative perspective is outlined which integrates contextual factors, decision-theoretical parameters, and metaethical arguments. It utilises concepts from ethics of risk in order to emphasize normative implications for previously unresolved ethical questions. Finally, drawing upon a deontological framework from ethics of risk, the reasonableness and fairness of reciprocal risk imposition are justified as central criteria of a coherent risk practice.
Veritism is the idea that what makes a belief epistemically rational is that it is a fitting response to the value of truth. This idea promises to serve as the foundation for an elegant and systematic treatment of epistemic rationality, one that illuminates the importance of distinctively epistemic normative standards without sacrificing extensional adequacy. But this article proposes that veritism cannot fulfill this promise. It goes on to explain why not, in part by showing that three radically different developments of veritism—one consequentialist, one deontological, and one virtue-theoretic—face eerily similar problems. This article also attempts to provide a general explanation of why any version of veritism is doomed to fail. If these arguments are successful, their upshot is that we must look beyond the value of truth if we want to understand the nature and significance of epistemic rationality.
While research on donor reactions to nonprofit scandals has increased recently, the reaction of volunteers remains understudied. Therefore, this study addresses the impact of nonprofit scandals on volunteer behavior. Drawing on the moral reasoning framework, this research examines how the moral reasoning strategies of moral rationalization, moral decoupling, and moral coupling affect volunteers' responses to nonprofit scandals. This study considers volunteers' time and cash donation behavior as response variables. Furthermore, our model integrates moral intensity and cognitive dissonance as drivers of volunteers' support behavior. The empirical study is based on cross‐sectional data and uses a structural equation approach for data analysis. This study provides insights into the dynamics of volunteer behavior in situations where the behavior of nonprofit organizations can be classified as unethical.
The deployment of autonomous vehicles (AVs) on the roads opens moral and ethical issues related to their ‘behaviour’ in daily traffic situations. A debated question is how individuals perceive the choices taken by AVs in life-threatening scenarios, and whether the same or different moral standards are applied to humans’ and AVs’ decisions. In an online experiment, a questionnaire was submitted to an international sample (N = 353). The aim was to test whether the actions made by an AV or a human driver in realistic road-accident scenarios were judged according to a different perspective. We manipulated the decision maker, the decision, the number of pedestrians crossing the road and the number of occupants inside the vehicle, to assess the importance of utilitarian principles and the role of self-sacrifice in moral evaluations.
The results highlight a preference for humans’ decisions over AVs’ ones and suggest a difference in the importance of utilitarian principles in the assessment of humans and AVs. The human self-sacrifice attitude is appreciated to a different degree, according to the type of individuals saved (pedestrians or occupants). Further investigations are needed to disentangle a human-bias from the effect of self-sacrifice on the moral evaluations of humans’ and AVs’ actions.
How can we examine human decision-making in extreme situations? Previous studies often show limitations in realism and flexibility of the experiment environment. Here, we propose a novel virtual paradigm involving multi-staged moral decision-making under time pressure in a realistic scenario, in which participants need to decide whom to save. This paradigm allows for detailed, controlled investigations of fundamental aspects of moral decision-making, including correlations with personality traits, self-sacrifice, and moral thresholds. We also discuss pilot results that attest good realism and establish interesting trends for decision-making related to psychopathy and utilitarian personality traits as well as environmental features, showcasing the potential of our paradigm.
Value alignment is essential for ensuring that AI systems act in ways that are consistent with human values. Existing approaches, such as reinforcement learning with human feedback and constitutional AI, however, exhibit power asymmetries and lack transparency. These “authoritarian” approaches fail to adequately accommodate a broad array of human opinions, raising concerns about whose values are being prioritized. In response, we introduce the Dynamic Value Alignment approach, theoretically grounded in the principles of parallel constraint satisfaction, which models moral reasoning as a dynamic process that balances multiple value principles. Our approach also enhances users’ moral and epistemic agency by granting users greater control over the values that influence AI behavior. As a more user-centric, transparent, and participatory framework for AI ethics, our approach not only addresses the democratic deficits inherent in current practices but also ensures that AI systems are flexibly aligned with a diverse array of human values.
Three studies were designed to explore a major criticism of sacrificial dilemmas, namely that their potential humorous aspects may distort moral decision-making. We collected moral responses (i.e. moral judgment and choice of action) but also asked participants to rate the funniness of moral dilemmas, in order to combine humour assessment and moral responses. In addition, the emotional responses to moral dilemmas were recorded for both men and women (including emotions related to humour), and the potential effect of individuals' need for humour was also considered. Overall, three main results were reported. Firstly, the dilemmas used in our studies were not rated as funny at all. Secondly, reading moral dilemmas increased negative emotions (i.e. sadness, disgust, guilt) and decreased positive emotions associated with humour (i.e. joy, amusement, and mirth), with gender effects since women experienced stronger negative emotions than men. Thirdly, funniness ratings of sacrificial dilemmas did not vary according to gender and need for humour. This series of studies does not report empirical evidence to support the humorous aspects of trolley-type dilemmas, but invites a more systematic examination of how sacrificial dilemmas are perceived by participants who have to produce moral responses.
There are some cases where it appears permissible to perform a rescue at someone’s expense, and other cases where it appears impermissible to do so. Existing explanations for our asymmetric moral judgments about such cases either fail to provide intuitive moral verdicts or lack a satisfying rationale. In this article, I propose a new explanation of what is morally problematic about certain rescues that is subject to neither issue. My proposal is a version of the means principle which adds the essential caveat that there is no moral presumption against using someone as a means to benefit herself. By attributing moral significance to the victim’s relationship to the beneficiary rather than the agent alone, my solution points to a new underlying rationale for the means principle as well as extensional and explanatory inadequacies in competing theories.
It is widely held that deontological moral theories are agent-relative because they include prohibitions on actions such as killing, or breaking promises, which cannot be understood as giving the same goal to different agents. They are thus thought to be inconsistent with consequentialism, in its traditional, agent-neutral form. However, the standard argument for this claim is incomplete, a problem which has led some to make the surprising claim that consequentialism and deontology can be reconciled. I defend the orthodox view, by developing a novel way of establishing agent-relativity, which involves showing that a moral theory admits of interpersonal dilemmas: possible situations where, whatever everyone does, someone must have acted wrongly.
Článek zkoumá axiologická východiska lidských práv a argumentuje ve prospěch tezí, že jím musí být jedna hodnota a že seriózním kandidátem na její pozici může být nejen autonomie, ale i potěšení. Přiklání se tedy k myšlence monistického základu lidských práv a usiluje o rehabilitaci hédonistického přístupu v této oblasti. Východiskem mu je projekt konsekvencializace, který se velmi diskutuje v současné filozofii. Článek jej nejprve přibližuje čtenáři, aby následně ukázal, že je možné jej aplikovat i na teorie lidských práv. Úspěch tohoto projektu přitom vede k rozostření hranice mezi jejich deontologickým a konsekvencialistickým ospravedlněním a podtrhuje význam jejich hodnotové báze. Otázce, jaká konkrétní hodnota zakládá tato práva, přitom nelze uniknout s pomocí Rawlsovy ideje překrývajícího se konsenzu. Na základě různých hodnotových východisek se sice můžeme shodnout na velmi obecných formulacích v lidskoprávních katalozích, nikoliv však již na jejich aplikacích v konkrétních případech. Ty vyžadují přinejmenším implicitní příklon k nějakému konkrétnímu axiologickému přístupu. Ideu monistického základu lidských práv dále podporuje i to, že se pravidelně dostávají do vzájemných kolizí, které jsme schopni úspěšně řešit, což předpokládá, že jejich významné aspekty dokážeme uchopit prostřednictvím jedné škály. Pokud odmítneme jejich pluralistické východisko, bývá jako tradiční kandidát na pozici jejich hodnotového základu vnímána autonomie. Článek ji ve své poslední části konfrontuje s hodnotou potěšení a ukazuje, že i ona má v této oblasti svou relevanci.
The ethical challenges associated with the performance of the autopsy are among the most complex in the practice of pathology. The ethical dilemmas that are frequently encountered in medicolegal death investigation systems include family opposition to autopsy, presenting pathological evidence in court, duties of the forensic pathologist, organ retention and post-mortem organ donation. Yet there is a lack of systematic ethical analysis in the literature examining these challenging medicolegal ethical dilemmas in the post-mortem context. Ethical scholarship in medicine has largely focused on the antemortem context, specifically examining the doctor–patient relationship, the healthcare needs of the individual patient and understanding the physician’s duty to their patient. Death investigation systems reverse the priorities of the individual by rebalancing individual interests in favour of collective welfare, which is counter to the current state of ethics. In this context, there is no agreed-upon framework, body of work or meta-analysis for ethical dilemmas that arise in medicolegal death investigation. This distinguishing feature, in comparison with other areas of medicine, arises from the notion that pathologists perform an autopsy on the decedent for the benefit of society, rather than for the individual who has died. Furthermore, the authority to perform an autopsy comes from legislative powers rather than the previously expressed consent of the decedent. A paucity of ethical reasoning, recognition of ethical issues and a shared sense of how to engage in ethical dilemmas that are particular to medicolegal death investigation puts forensic pathologists, and those who operate in medicolegal death investigation systems, at risk to know which ethic to apply. The solution is the creation of a nascent field of ethical scholarship, referred to as death investigation bioethics, which focuses on the post-mortem context of healthcare to assist in the ever-present ethical dilemmas that arise in the medicolegal investigation of death. This chapter seeks to develop this area of scholarship by providing awareness of ethical issues that arise in medicolegal death investigation systems and summarize ethical theories that may be used as tools to deal with ethical issues. Analysis of these issues is in its infancy and requires more scholars, ethicists, forensic pathologists, medical examiners, coroners and others to consider these difficult ethical dilemmas.
This paper presents results from a pre-registered online experiment (N = 317) on the harm-made mind phenomenon (i.e., people’s tendency to perceive mind in seemingly mindless agents, such as robots, when they are harmed). To address inconsistent findings on this phenomenon, we study the harm-made mind through a dual-processing perspective. We propose that the harm-made mind of a robot is (a) positively mediated by perceived capacity for pain and (b) negatively mediated by objectifying dehumanization. By manipulating information processing, we explore how different processing types (Type 1 vs. Type 2) impact the mediation of the harm-made mind through perceived capacity for pain and dehumanization. The results of the online experiment showed that when people gave rapid answers under cognitive load (i.e., when Type 1 processing was encouraged), watching a harmful interaction with a robot (compared to a no-harm condition) resulted in (a) a positive indirect effect on mind perception through perceived capacity for pain and (b) a positive rather than the assumed negative indirect effect on mind perception through a decrease in dehumanization. While the mediation effect of harm on mind perception through perceived capacity for pain was significant across processing types, the mediation effect of harm on mind perception through dehumanization was no longer significant when people were asked to deliberate on their answers (i.e., when Type 2 thinking was encouraged).
Ethical theories are explanatory. But do ethical theories themselves include explanatory content? The direct model holds that they do. The indirect model denies this, maintaining instead that, if true, ethical theories can be employed to provide explanations of the phenomena they concern. The distinction between these models is left implicit in much of ethics. The choice between them, however, has significant methodological and other consequences. I provide two arguments for the direct model and suggest that ethical theories do contain explanatory content. I then respond to three objections, connecting this neglected issue to others concerning property-identity and the nature of explanation and theory confirmation in ethics.
Данная научная статья посвящена философскому исследованию экзистенциальных рисков, связанных с развитием искусственного интеллекта (ИИ) и цифрового сознания. В эпоху стремительного технологического прогресса, когда ИИ все глубже проникает в различные сферы человеческой деятельности, возникает необходимость осмысления потенциальных угроз, которые он может представлять для существования человечества. В статье рассматриваются такие аспекты проблемы, как возможность создания сверхинтеллекта, способного превзойти человеческий контроль, непредвиденные последствия развития ИИ, а также возможность возникновения конфликта ценностей между человеком и машиной. Особое внимание уделяется философскому анализу проблемы контроля над сверхинтеллектом и этическим аспектам разработки и внедрения ИИ. Актуальность исследования обусловлена необходимостью выработки стратегий минимизации экзистенциальных рисков и обеспечения ответственного развития технологий ИИ. Целью работы является философское осмысление проблемы экзистенциальных рисков, связанных с ИИ, и выявление путей ее решения.
This scientific article is devoted to the philosophical study of existential risks associated with the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital consciousness. In an era of rapid technological progress, when AI penetrates deeper and deeper into various spheres of human activity, there is a need to understand the potential threats that it may pose to the existence of mankind. The article examines such aspects of the problem as the possibility of creating a superintelligence capable of surpassing human control, the unforeseen consequences of the development of AI, as well as the possibility of a conflict of values between man and machine. Special attention is paid to the philosophical analysis of the problem of superintelligence control and the ethical aspects of AI development and implementation. The relevance of the research is due to the need to develop strategies to minimize existential risks and ensure responsible development of AI technologies. The aim of the work is to philosophically comprehend the problem of existential risks associated with AI and identify ways to solve it.
Robots are with us, but law and legal systems are not ready. This book identifies the issues posed by human-robot interactions in substantive law, procedural law, and law's narratives, and suggests how to address them. When human-robot interaction results in harm, who or what is responsible? Part I addresses substantive law, including the issues raised by attempts to impose criminal liability on different actors. And when robots perceive aspects of an alleged crime, can they be called as a sort of witness? Part II addresses procedural issues raised by human-robot interactions, including evidentiary problems arising out of data generated by robots monitoring humans, and issues of reliability and privacy. Beyond the standard fare of substantive and procedural law, and in view of the conceptual quandaries posed by robots, Part III offers chapters on narrative and rhetoric, suggesting different ways to understand human-robot interactions, and how to develop coherent frameworks to do that. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The present paper argues that abortion ban advocates can justify an exception for rape. Recently, Blackshaw offered an interesting argument that if abortion ban advocates modified their position along the lines of Thomson’s analysis of rights, they could make an exception for rape. However, doing so would require making concessions they would be unlikely to make, the crucial one being subscribing to an absurd view that abortion in the case of rape is permissible but only if it is performed in a certain way, that is, in a way that withdraws life support from the fetus. Agreeing first with Blackshaw’s premises, we argue that the view in question is hardly absurd. Thus, relying on Boonin’s acknowledgment that although very rare, a position according to which abortion should be legal but only if it is performed in a way that lets the fetus die rather than kills it is a possible position, we argue, first, that it is Blackshaw’s position that is inconsistent, second, that since deontology sees permissibility of a given result as path-dependent, deontologically oriented abortion ban advocates should find the view in question appealing rather than absurd and, third, that although there are indeed scenarios in which withdrawing life support is morally equivalent to killing, extraction abortions in the case of rape are not amongst them. Since in the case of rape the fetus is not entitled to life support, extraction abortions are better classified as permissible non-omissive allowings than impermissible killings. Thus, there is nothing absurd in the view that abortion in the case of rape is permissible but only if it is performed in a certain way. Accordingly, adopting this view does not seem to be much of a concession for abortion ban advocates who can therefore make an exception for rape.
Ethical dilemmas facing respondents with a choice between sacrificing the lives of a smaller number of people to save a larger number, formulated in correspondence to the famous Trolley Problem, have been of enduring interest since Philippa Foot’s presentation of the canonical version of this problem. In more recent literature, and especially in publications reporting the results of empirical research, decisions of answerers declaring abstention from taking action that would result in saving a larger group of potential victims at the cost of sacrificing the lives of fewer people have come to be referred to as “deontological” choices. On the other hand, declarations of readiness to take such actions are referred to as “utilitarian” or (less frequently) “consequentialist” choices. The aim of the article is to demonstrate the shortcomings of using the aforementioned labels. The argumentation is supported by empirical material collected in the years 2020–2022 among students of the University of Łódź (N = 302). The analysis of justifications explaining the motives behind both types of decisions left by the respondents shows that in numerous cases, “deontological” decisions, that is, passive decisions, actually stemmed from premises much closer to consequentialist ethics than deontological attitudes. Similarly, active behaviour was not always the outcome of utilitarian motives. The results of our research clearly indicate that the dominant, simplified perception of these choices in the literature leads to a distorted picture of the moral attitudes of respondents, thus posing the danger of drawing false conclusions. We claim that distinguishing between attitudes adopted by respondents in dilemmas based on the Trolley Problem should not refer to ethical doctrines. Instead, judging the moral attitudes of respondents requires an analysis of the motives behind the decisions they make, at the very least.
Purpose: The Moral Foreign Language Effect (MFLE) is characterized by an increase in utilitarian responding when moral dilemmas are presented in a foreign language. Renewed interest in this psycholinguistic phenomenon has led to investigation of its boundary conditions and the modulatory influence of separable dimensions of foreign language experience. However, even when accounting for these additional differences, considerable variability in the MFLE is observed across participants. Recently, cognitive control, a set of mental processes that regulate thinking and behavior, has been identified as a potential modulator of the MFLE. To date, no studies have investigated whether differences in cognitive control influence the emergence of the MFLE. The present study aimed to directly explore this topic in a sample of Mandarin-English bilingual university students in Mainland China.
Methodology: Participants responded to a set of moral dilemmas presented in either their native or foreign language and completed a Simon task to assess cognitive control.
Findings: We report a dilemma and language context specific modulatory role for cognitive control on the MFLE. Specifically, when presented in a foreign language, higher levels of cognitive control were associated with higher rates of utilitarian decisions on the classic Trolley dilemma.
Originality: This study marks the first empirical investigation of the influence of cognitive control on the MFLE.
Significance: Findings from this work highlight the role of cognitive control in moral decision-making and chart a course for future investigations on this topic.
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