Given the metaphysical and explanatory stalemate between Embedded and Extended cognition, different authors proposed moral arguments to overcome such a deadlock in favor of EXT. Farina and Lavazza attribute to EXT and EMB a substantive moral content, arguing in favor of the former by virtue of its progressiveness and inclusiveness. In this treatment, I criticize four of their moral arguments. In Sect. 2, I focus on the argument from legitimate interventions and on the argument from extended agency. Section 3 concerns (...) the argument from better protection and the argument from better treatment. Sections 4 and 5 are dedicated to counterarguments against each respectively. By distinguishing between EXT and the extended view, I argue that it is sufficient to use this second version for directly addressing and evaluating moral problems on normative grounds, independently of the causal or constitutive cognitive influence of the external resource on the agents’ minds. Moreover, I argue that the arguments and assumptions used by EXT theorists do not foster values of progressiveness and inclusiveness. To conclude, in Sect. 6, I show that the analysis of each argument converges on the conclusion that EXT does not have substantive moral content and implications per se, since they always depend on further assumptions. (shrink)

According to virtue epistemology, the main aim of education is the development of the cognitive character of students (Pritchard, 2014, 2016). Given the proliferation of technological tools such as ChatGPT and other LLMs for solving cognitive tasks, how should educational practices incorporate the use of such tools without undermining the cognitive character of students? Pritchard (2014, 2016) argues that it is possible to properly solve this ‘technology-education tension’ (TET) by combining the virtue epistemology framework with the theory of extended cognition (...) (EXT) (Clark and Chalmers, 1998). He argues that EXT enables us to consider tools as constitutive parts of the students’ cognitive system, thus preserving their cognitive character from technologically induced cognitive diminishment. The first aim of this paper is to show that this solution is not sufficient to solve the TET. Second, I aim to offer a complementary and more encompassing framework of tool-use to address the TET. Then, I apply it to the educational uses of ChatGPT as the most notable example of LLM, although my arguments can be extended to other generative AI systems. To do so, in Sect. 1.1, I present Pritchard’s framework of cognitive character and virtue epistemology applied in education, to which I am committed in this treatment. In Sects. 2 and 3, I respectively illustrate Pritchard’s (2014) solution to the TET, and I highlight the general limitations of his proposal. Thus, in Sect. 4.1 I characterize ChatGPT as a computational cognitive artifact using Fasoli’s (2017, 2018) taxonomy of cognitive artifacts. In Sect. 4.2, I introduce my proposal, which combines Pritchard’s account of virtue epistemology with Fasoli’s (2017, 2018) taxonomy of cognitive artifacts to address the TET. Finally, in Sect. 5.1, I present some epistemically virtuous uses of ChatGPT in educational contexts. To conclude, I argue in favor of a multidisciplinary approach for analyzing educational activities involving AI technologies such as ChatGPT. (shrink)