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  1. Attributing Agency to Automated Systems: Reflections on Human–Robot Collaborations and Responsibility-Loci.Sven Nyholm - 2018 - Science and Engineering Ethics 24 (4):1201-1219.
    Many ethicists writing about automated systems attribute agency to these systems. Not only that; they seemingly attribute an autonomous or independent form of agency to these machines. This leads some ethicists to worry about responsibility-gaps and retribution-gaps in cases where automated systems harm or kill human beings. In this paper, I consider what sorts of agency it makes sense to attribute to most current forms of automated systems, in particular automated cars and military robots. I argue that whereas it indeed (...)
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  • Artificial Intelligence, Responsibility Attribution, and a Relational Justification of Explainability.Mark Coeckelbergh - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (4):2051-2068.
    This paper discusses the problem of responsibility attribution raised by the use of artificial intelligence technologies. It is assumed that only humans can be responsible agents; yet this alone already raises many issues, which are discussed starting from two Aristotelian conditions for responsibility. Next to the well-known problem of many hands, the issue of “many things” is identified and the temporal dimension is emphasized when it comes to the control condition. Special attention is given to the epistemic condition, which draws (...)
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  • Never Mind the Trolley: The Ethics of Autonomous Vehicles in Mundane Situations.Johannes Himmelreich - 2018 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21 (3):669-684.
    Trolley cases are widely considered central to the ethics of autonomous vehicles. We caution against this by identifying four problems. Trolley cases, given technical limitations, rest on assumptions that are in tension with one another. Furthermore, trolley cases illuminate only a limited range of ethical issues insofar as they cohere with a certain design framework. Furthermore, trolley cases seem to demand a moral answer when a political answer is called for. Finally, trolley cases might be epistemically problematic in several ways. (...)
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  • Why Trolley Problems Matter for the Ethics of Automated Vehicles.Geoff Keeling - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (1):293-307.
    This paper argues against the view that trolley cases are of little or no relevance to the ethics of automated vehicles. Four arguments for this view are outlined and rejected: the Not Going to Happen Argument, the Moral Difference Argument, the Impossible Deliberation Argument and the Wrong Question Argument. In making clear where these arguments go wrong, a positive account is developed of how trolley cases can inform the ethics of automated vehicles.
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  • Debunking (the) Retribution (Gap).Steven R. Kraaijeveld - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (3):1315-1328.
    Robotization is an increasingly pervasive feature of our lives. Robots with high degrees of autonomy may cause harm, yet in sufciently complex systems neither the robots nor the human developers may be candidates for moral blame. John Danaher has recently argued that this may lead to a retribution gap, where the human desire for retribution faces a lack of appropriate subjects for retributive blame. The potential social and moral implications of a retribution gap are considerable. I argue that the retributive (...)
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  • Doctrine of double effect.Alison McIntyre - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    The doctrine (or principle) of double effect is often invoked to explain the permissibility of an action that causes a serious harm, such as the death of a human being, as a side effect of promoting some good end. According to the principle of double effect, sometimes it is permissible to cause a harm as a side effect (or “double effect”) of bringing about a good result even though it would not be permissible to cause such a harm as a (...)
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  • Crash Algorithms for Autonomous Cars: How the Trolley Problem Can Move Us Beyond Harm Minimisation.Dietmar Hübner & Lucie White - 2018 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21 (3):685-698.
    The prospective introduction of autonomous cars into public traffic raises the question of how such systems should behave when an accident is inevitable. Due to concerns with self-interest and liberal legitimacy that have become paramount in the emerging debate, a contractarian framework seems to provide a particularly attractive means of approaching this problem. We examine one such attempt, which derives a harm minimisation rule from the assumptions of rational self-interest and ignorance of one’s position in a future accident. We contend, (...)
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  • Making AI Intelligible: Philosophical Foundations.Herman Cappelen & Josh Dever - 2021 - New York, USA: Oxford University Press.
    Can humans and artificial intelligences share concepts and communicate? Making AI Intelligible shows that philosophical work on the metaphysics of meaning can help answer these questions. Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever use the externalist tradition in philosophy to create models of how AIs and humans can understand each other. In doing so, they illustrate ways in which that philosophical tradition can be improved. The questions addressed in the book are not only theoretically interesting, but the answers have pressing practical implications. (...)
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  • The Ethical Knob: ethically-customisable automated vehicles and the law.Giuseppe Contissa, Francesca Lagioia & Giovanni Sartor - 2017 - Artificial Intelligence and Law 25 (3):365-378.
    Accidents involving autonomous vehicles raise difficult ethical dilemmas and legal issues. It has been argued that self-driving cars should be programmed to kill, that is, they should be equipped with pre-programmed approaches to the choice of what lives to sacrifice when losses are inevitable. Here we shall explore a different approach, namely, giving the user/passenger the task of deciding what ethical approach should be taken by AVs in unavoidable accident scenarios. We thus assume that AVs are equipped with what we (...)
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  • Self-Driving Cars and Engineering Ethics: The Need for a System Level Analysis.Jason Borenstein, Joseph R. Herkert & Keith W. Miller - 2019 - Science and Engineering Ethics 25 (2):383-398.
    The literature on self-driving cars and ethics continues to grow. Yet much of it focuses on ethical complexities emerging from an individual vehicle. That is an important but insufficient step towards determining how the technology will impact human lives and society more generally. What must complement ongoing discussions is a broader, system level of analysis that engages with the interactions and effects that these cars will have on one another and on the socio-technical systems in which they are embedded. To (...)
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  • Self-Driving Vehicles—an Ethical Overview.Sven Ove Hansson, Matts-Åke Belin & Björn Lundgren - 2021 - Philosophy and Technology 34 (4):1383-1408.
    The introduction of self-driving vehicles gives rise to a large number of ethical issues that go beyond the common, extremely narrow, focus on improbable dilemma-like scenarios. This article provides a broad overview of realistic ethical issues related to self-driving vehicles. Some of the major topics covered are as follows: Strong opinions for and against driverless cars may give rise to severe social and political conflicts. A low tolerance for accidents caused by driverless vehicles may delay the introduction of driverless systems (...)
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  • Automated cars meet human drivers: responsible human-robot coordination and the ethics of mixed traffic.Sven Nyholm & Jilles Smids - 2020 - Ethics and Information Technology 22 (4):335-344.
    In this paper, we discuss the ethics of automated driving. More specifically, we discuss responsible human-robot coordination within mixed traffic: i.e. traffic involving both automated cars and conventional human-driven cars. We do three main things. First, we explain key differences in robotic and human agency and expectation-forming mechanisms that are likely to give rise to compatibility-problems in mixed traffic, which may lead to crashes and accidents. Second, we identify three possible solution-strategies for achieving better human-robot coordination within mixed traffic. Third, (...)
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  • Experimental Philosophy of Technology.Steven R. Kraaijeveld - 2021 - Philosophy and Technology 34:993-1012.
    Experimental philosophy is a relatively recent discipline that employs experimental methods to investigate the intuitions, concepts, and assumptions behind traditional philosophical arguments, problems, and theories. While experimental philosophy initially served to interrogate the role that intuitions play in philosophy, it has since branched out to bring empirical methods to bear on problems within a variety of traditional areas of philosophy—including metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. To date, no connection has been made between developments in experimental philosophy (...)
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  • Distributive justice as an ethical principle for autonomous vehicle behavior beyond hazard scenarios.Manuel Dietrich & Thomas H. Weisswange - 2019 - Ethics and Information Technology 21 (3):227-239.
    Through modern driver assistant systems, algorithmic decisions already have a significant impact on the behavior of vehicles in everyday traffic. This will become even more prominent in the near future considering the development of autonomous driving functionality. The need to consider ethical principles in the design of such systems is generally acknowledged. However, scope, principles and strategies for their implementations are not yet clear. Most of the current discussions concentrate on situations of unavoidable crashes in which the life of human (...)
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  • Autonomous Driving and Public Reason: a Rawlsian Approach.Claudia Brändle & Michael W. Schmidt - 2021 - Philosophy and Technology 34 (4):1475-1499.
    In this paper, we argue that solutions to normative challenges associated with autonomous driving, such as real-world trolley cases or distributions of risk in mundane driving situations, face the problem of reasonable pluralism: Reasonable pluralism refers to the fact that there exists a plurality of reasonable yet incompatible comprehensive moral doctrines within liberal democracies. The corresponding problem is that a politically acceptable solution cannot refer to only one of these comprehensive doctrines. Yet a politically adequate solution to the normative challenges (...)
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  • Killing by Autonomous Vehicles and the Legal Doctrine of Necessity.Filippo Santoni de Sio - 2017 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20 (2):411-429.
    How should autonomous vehicles be programmed to behave in the event of an unavoidable accident in which the only choice open is one between causing different damages or losses to different objects or persons? This paper addresses this ethical question starting from the normative principles elaborated in the law to regulate difficult choices in other emergency scenarios. In particular, the paper offers a rational reconstruction of some major principles and norms embedded in the Anglo-American jurisprudence and case law on the (...)
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  • Safety requirements vs. crashing ethically: what matters most for policies on autonomous vehicles.Björn Lundgren - forthcoming - AI and Society:1-11.
    The philosophical–ethical literature and the public debate on autonomous vehicles have been obsessed with ethical issues related to crashing. In this article, these discussions, including more empirical investigations, will be critically assessed. It is argued that a related and more pressing issue is questions concerning safety. For example, what should we require from autonomous vehicles when it comes to safety? What do we mean by ‘safety’? How do we measure it? In response to these questions, the article will present a (...)
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  • Do Automated Vehicles Face Moral Dilemmas? A Plea for a Political Approach.Javier Rodríguez-Alcázar, Lilian Bermejo-Luque & Alberto Molina-Pérez - 2020 - Philosophy and Technology 34:811-832.
    How should automated vehicles (AVs) react in emergency circumstances? Most research projects and scientific literature deal with this question from a moral perspective. In particular, it is customary to treat emergencies involving AVs as instances of moral dilemmas and to use the trolley problem as a framework to address such alleged dilemmas. Some critics have pointed out some shortcomings of this strategy and have urged to focus on mundane traffic situations instead of trolley cases involving AVs. Besides, these authors rightly (...)
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  • Automated Vehicles and Transportation Justice.Shane Epting - 2019 - Philosophy and Technology 32 (3):389-403.
    Despite numerous ethical examinations of automated vehicles, philosophers have neglected to address how these technologies will affect vulnerable people. To account for this lacuna, researchers must analyze how driverless cars could hinder or help social justice. In addition to thinking through these aspects, scholars must also pay attention to the extensive moral dimensions of automated vehicles, including how they will affect the public, nonhumans, future generations, and culturally significant artifacts. If planners and engineers undertake this task, then they will have (...)
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  • Autonomous Driving Ethics: from Trolley Problem to Ethics of Risk.Maximilian Geisslinger, Franziska Poszler, Johannes Betz, Christoph Lütge & Markus Lienkamp - 2021 - Philosophy and Technology 34 (4):1033-1055.
    In 2017, the German ethics commission for automated and connected driving released 20 ethical guidelines for autonomous vehicles. It is now up to the research and industrial sectors to enhance the development of autonomous vehicles based on such guidelines. In the current state of the art, we find studies on how ethical theories can be integrated. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no framework for motion planning has yet been published which allows for the true implementation of any practical (...)
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  • The Future of Transportation: Ethical, Legal, Social and Economic Impacts of Self-driving Vehicles in the Year 2025.Mark Ryan - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (3):1185-1208.
    Self-driving vehicles offer great potential to improve efficiency on roads, reduce traffic accidents, increase productivity, and minimise our environmental impact in the process. However, they have also seen resistance from different groups claiming that they are unsafe, pose a risk of being hacked, will threaten jobs, and increase environmental pollution from increased driving as a result of their convenience. In order to reap the benefits of SDVs, while avoiding some of the many pitfalls, it is important to effectively determine what (...)
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  • What Do We Have to Lose? Offloading Through Moral Technologies: Moral Struggle and Progress.Lily Eva Frank - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (1):369-385.
    Moral bioenhancement, nudge-designed environments, and ambient persuasive technologies may help people behave more consistently with their deeply held moral convictions. Alternatively, they may aid people in overcoming cognitive and affective limitations that prevent them from appreciating a situation’s moral dimensions. Or they may simply make it easier for them to make the morally right choice by helping them to overcome sources of weakness of will. This paper makes two assumptions. First, technologies to improve people’s moral capacities are realizable. Second, such (...)
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  • The Promise of Pragmatism: Richard Rorty and Business Ethics.Sareh Pouryousefi & R. Edward Freeman - 2021 - Business Ethics Quarterly 31 (4):572-599.
    Pragmatists believe that philosophical inquiry must engage closely with practice to be useful and that practice serves as a source of social norms. As a growing alternative to the analytic and continental philosophical traditions, pragmatism is well suited for research in business ethics, but its role remains underappreciated. This article focuses on Richard Rorty, a key figure in the pragmatist tradition. We read Rorty as a source of insight about the ethical and political nature of business practice in contemporary global (...)
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  • Solving the Single-Vehicle Self-Driving Car Trolley Problem Using Risk Theory and Vehicle Dynamics.Rebecca Davnall - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (1):431-449.
    Questions of what a self-driving car ought to do if it encounters a situation analogous to the ‘trolley problem’ have dominated recent discussion of the ethics of self-driving cars. This paper argues that this interest is misplaced. If a trolley-style dilemma situation actually occurs, given the limits on what information will be available to the car, the dynamics of braking and tyre traction determine that, irrespective of outcome, it is always least risky for the car to brake in a straight (...)
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  • Self-driving Cars in Dilemmatic Situations: An Approach Based on the Theory of Justification in Criminal Law.Ivó Coca-Vila - 2018 - Criminal Law and Philosophy 12 (1):59-82.
    This article puts forward solutions to some of the ethical and legal dilemmas posed in the current discussion on how to program crash algorithms in autonomous or self-driving cars. The first part of the paper defines the scope of the problem in the criminal legal field, and the next section gives a critical analysis of the proposal to always prioritise the interest of the occupant of the vehicle in situations with conflict of interests. The principle of minimizing social damage as (...)
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  • Ethical Decision Making in Autonomous Vehicles: The AV Ethics Project.Katherine Evans, Nelson de Moura, Stéphane Chauvier, Raja Chatila & Ebru Dogan - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (6):3285-3312.
    The ethics of autonomous vehicles has received a great amount of attention in recent years, specifically in regard to their decisional policies in accident situations in which human harm is a likely consequence. Starting from the assumption that human harm is unavoidable, many authors have developed differing accounts of what morality requires in these situations. In this article, a strategy for AV decision-making is proposed, the Ethical Valence Theory, which paints AV decision-making as a type of claim mitigation: different road (...)
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  • Of trolleys and self-driving cars: What machine ethicists can and cannot learn from trolleyology.Peter Königs - 2023 - Utilitas 35 (1):70-87.
    Crashes involving self-driving cars at least superficially resemble trolley dilemmas. This article discusses what lessons machine ethicists working on the ethics of self-driving cars can learn from trolleyology. The article proceeds by providing an account of the trolley problem as a paradox and by distinguishing two types of solutions to the trolley problem. According to an optimistic solution, our case intuitions about trolley dilemmas are responding to morally relevant differences. The pessimistic solution denies that this is the case. An optimistic (...)
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  • What has the Trolley Dilemma ever done for us (and what will it do in the future)? On some recent debates about the ethics of self-driving cars.Andreas Wolkenstein - 2018 - Ethics and Information Technology 20 (3):163-173.
    Self-driving cars currently face a lot of technological problems that need to be solved before the cars can be widely used. However, they also face ethical problems, among which the question of crash-optimization algorithms is most prominently discussed. Reviewing current debates about whether we should use the ethics of the Trolley Dilemma as a guide towards designing self-driving cars will provide us with insights about what exactly ethical research does. It will result in the view that although we need the (...)
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  • Ethical dilemmas are really important to potential adopters of autonomous vehicles.Tripat Gill - 2021 - Ethics and Information Technology 23 (4):657-673.
    The ethical dilemma of whether autonomous vehicles should protect the passengers or pedestrians when harm is unavoidable has been widely researched and debated. Several behavioral scientists have sought public opinion on this issue, based on the premise that EDs are critical to resolve for AV adoption. However, many scholars and industry participants have downplayed the importance of these edge cases. Policy makers also advocate a focus on higher level ethical principles rather than on a specific solution to EDs. But conspicuously (...)
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  • Irresponsibilities, inequalities and injustice for autonomous vehicles.Hin-Yan Liu - 2017 - Ethics and Information Technology 19 (3):193-207.
    With their prospect for causing both novel and known forms of damage, harm and injury, the issue of responsibility has been a recurring theme in the debate concerning autonomous vehicles. Yet, the discussion of responsibility has obscured the finer details both between the underlying concepts of responsibility, and their application to the interaction between human beings and artificial decision-making entities. By developing meaningful distinctions and examining their ramifications, this article contributes to this debate by refining the underlying concepts that together (...)
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  • New Moralities for New Media? Assessing the Role of Social Media in Acts of Terror and Providing Points of Deliberation for Business Ethics.Ateeq Abdul Rauf - 2020 - Journal of Business Ethics 170 (2):229-251.
    New media and technologies such as social media and online platforms are disrupting the way businesses are run and how society functions. This article advises that scholars consider the morality of new media as an area of investigation. While prior literature has given much attention to how social media provides benefits, how it affects society generally, and how it can be used efficiently, research on the ethical aspects of new media has received relatively less attention. In an age where matters (...)
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  • African Reasons Why Artificial Intelligence Should Not Maximize Utility.Thaddeus Metz - 2021 - In Beatrice Dedaa Okyere-Manu (ed.), African Values, Ethics, and Technology: Questions, Issues, and Approaches. Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 55-72.
    Insofar as artificial intelligence is to be used to guide automated systems in their interactions with humans, the dominant view is probably that it would be appropriate to programme them to maximize (expected) utility. According to utilitarianism, which is a characteristically western conception of moral reason, machines should be programmed to do whatever they could in a given circumstance to produce in the long run the highest net balance of what is good for human beings minus what is bad for (...)
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  • Mind the gaps: Assuring the safety of autonomous systems from an engineering, ethical, and legal perspective.Simon Burton, Ibrahim Habli, Tom Lawton, John McDermid, Phillip Morgan & Zoe Porter - 2020 - Artificial Intelligence 279 (C):103201.
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  • The value alignment problem: a geometric approach.Martin Peterson - 2019 - Ethics and Information Technology 21 (1):19-28.
    Stuart Russell defines the value alignment problem as follows: How can we build autonomous systems with values that “are aligned with those of the human race”? In this article I outline some distinctions that are useful for understanding the value alignment problem and then propose a solution: I argue that the methods currently applied by computer scientists for embedding moral values in autonomous systems can be improved by representing moral principles as conceptual spaces, i.e. as Voronoi tessellations of morally similar (...)
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  • Autonomous vehicles: How perspective-taking accessibility alters moral judgments and consumer purchasing behavior.Rose Martin, Petko Kusev & Paul van Schaik - 2021 - Cognition 212 (C):104666.
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  • Ethical Decision-Making for Self-Driving Vehicles: A Proposed Model & List of Value-Laden Terms that Warrant (Technical) Specification.Franziska Poszler, Maximilian Geisslinger & Christoph Lütge - 2024 - Science and Engineering Ethics 30 (5):1-31.
    Self-driving vehicles (SDVs) will need to make decisions that carry ethical dimensions and are of normative significance. For example, by choosing a specific trajectory, they determine how risks are distributed among traffic participants. Accordingly, policymakers, standardization organizations and scholars have conceptualized what (shall) constitute(s) ethical decision-making for SDVs. Eventually, these conceptualizations must be converted into specific system requirements to ensure proper technical implementation. Therefore, this article aims to translate critical requirements recently formulated in scholarly work, existing standards, regulatory drafts and (...)
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  • Ethics of Self-driving Cars: A Naturalistic Approach.Selene Arfini, Davide Spinelli & Daniele Chiffi - 2022 - Minds and Machines 32 (4):717-734.
    The potential development of self-driving cars (also known as autonomous vehicles or AVs – particularly Level 5 AVs) has called the attention of different interested parties. Yet, there are still only a few relevant international regulations on them, no emergency patterns accepted by communities and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), and no publicly accepted solutions to some of their pending ethical problems. Thus, this paper aims to provide some possible answers to these moral and practical dilemmas. In particular, we focus on (...)
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  • The Trolley Problem in the Ethics of Autonomous Vehicles.Norbert Paulo - 2023 - Philosophical Quarterly 73 (4):1046-1066.
    In 2021, Germany passed the first law worldwide that regulates dilemma situations with autonomous cars. Against this background, this article investigates the permissibility of trade-offs between human lives in the context of self-driving cars. It does so by drawing on the debate about the traditional trolley problem. In contrast to most authors in the relevant literature, it argues that the debate about the trolley problem is both directly and indirectly relevant for the ethics of crashes with self-driving cars. Drawing on (...)
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  • No wheel but a dial: why and how passengers in self-driving cars should decide how their car drives.Johannes Himmelreich - 2022 - Ethics and Information Technology 24 (4):1-12.
    Much of the debate on the ethics of self-driving cars has revolved around trolley scenarios. This paper instead takes up the political or institutional question of who should decide how a self-driving car drives. Specifically, this paper is on the question of whether and why passengers should be able to control how their car drives. The paper reviews existing arguments—those for passenger ethics settings and for mandatory ethics settings respectively—and argues that they fail. Although the arguments are not successful, they (...)
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  • The European Commission report on ethics of connected and automated vehicles and the future of ethics of transportation.Filippo Santoni de Sio - 2021 - Ethics and Information Technology 23 (4):713-726.
    The paper has two goals. The first is presenting the main results of the recent report Ethics of Connected and Automated Vehicles: recommendations on road safety, privacy, fairness, explainability and responsibility written by the Horizon 2020 European Commission Expert Group to advise on specific ethical issues raised by driverless mobility, of which the author of this paper has been member and rapporteur. The second is presenting some broader ethical and philosophical implications of these recommendations, and using these to contribute to (...)
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  • How to program autonomous vehicle (AV) crash algorithms: an Islamic ethical perspective.Ezieddin Elmahjub & Junaid Qadir - 2023 - Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society 21 (4):452-467.
    Purpose Fully autonomous self-driving cars not only hold the potential for significant economic and environmental advantages but also introduce complex ethical dilemmas. One of the highly debated issues, known as the “trolley problems,” revolves around determining the appropriate actions for a self-driving car when faced with an unavoidable crash. Currently, the discourse on autonomous vehicle (AV) crash algorithms is primarily shaped by Western ethical traditions, resulting in a Eurocentric bias due to the dominant economic and political influence of the West. (...)
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  • Driving in the Dark: Designing Autonomous Vehicles for Reducing Light Pollution.Taylor Stone, Filippo Santoni de Sio & Pieter E. Vermaas - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (1):387-403.
    This paper proposes that autonomous vehicles should be designed to reduce light pollution. In support of this specific proposal, a moral assessment of autonomous vehicles more comprehensive than the dilemmatic life-and-death questions of trolley problem-style situations is presented. The paper therefore consists of two interrelated arguments. The first is that autonomous vehicles are currently still a technology in development, and not one that has acquired its definitive shape, meaning the design of both the vehicles and the surrounding infrastructure is open-ended. (...)
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  • The Ethics of Automated Vehicles: Why Self-driving Cars Should not Swerve in Dilemma Cases.Rob Lawlor - 2021 - Res Publica 28 (1):193-216.
    In this paper, I will argue that automated vehicles should not swerve to avoid a person or vehicle in its path, unless they can do so without imposing risks onto others. I will argue that this is the conclusion that we should reach even if we start by assuming that we should divert the trolley in the standard trolley case. In defence of this claim, I appeal to the distribution of moral and legal responsibilities, highlighting the importance of safe spaces, (...)
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  • How should we theorize algorithms? Five ideal types in analyzing algorithmic normativities.Lotta Björklund Larsen & Francis Lee - 2019 - Big Data and Society 6 (2).
    The power of algorithms has become a familiar topic in society, media, and the social sciences. It is increasingly common to argue that, for instance, algorithms automate inequality, that they are biased black boxes that reproduce racism, or that they control our money and information. Implicit in many of these discussions is that algorithms are permeated with normativities, and that these normativities shape society. The aim of this editorial is double: First, it contributes to a more nuanced discussion about algorithms (...)
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  • Moral Gridworlds: A Theoretical Proposal for Modeling Artificial Moral Cognition.Julia Haas - 2020 - Minds and Machines 30 (2):219-246.
    I describe a suite of reinforcement learning environments in which artificial agents learn to value and respond to moral content and contexts. I illustrate the core principles of the framework by characterizing one such environment, or “gridworld,” in which an agent learns to trade-off between monetary profit and fair dealing, as applied in a standard behavioral economic paradigm. I then highlight the core technical and philosophical advantages of the learning approach for modeling moral cognition, and for addressing the so-called value (...)
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  • Is tomorrow’s car appealing today? Ethical issues and user attitudes beyond automation.Darja Vrščaj, Sven Nyholm & Geert P. J. Verbong - 2020 - AI and Society 35 (4):1033-1046.
    The literature on ethics and user attitudes towards AVs discusses user concerns in relation to automation; however, we show that there are additional relevant issues at stake. To assess adolescents’ attitudes regarding the ‘car of the future’ as presented by car manufacturers, we conducted two studies with over 400 participants altogether. We used a mixed methods approach in which we combined qualitative and quantitative methods. In the first study, our respondents appeared to be more concerned about other aspects of AVs (...)
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  • Autonomous Driving and Perverse Incentives.Wulf Loh & Catrin Misselhorn - 2019 - Philosophy and Technology 32 (4):575-590.
    This paper discusses the ethical implications of perverse incentives with regard to autonomous driving. We define perverse incentives as a feature of an action, technology, or social policy that invites behavior which negates the primary goal of the actors initiating the action, introducing a certain technology, or implementing a social policy. As a special form of means-end-irrationality, perverse incentives are to be avoided from a prudential standpoint, as they prove to be directly self-defeating: They are not just a form of (...)
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  • A causal modeler's guide to double effect reasoning.Gerard J. Rothfus - 2025 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 109 (3):986-1008.
    Trolley problems and like cases are often thought to show the inadequacy of purely consequentialist moral theories. In particular, they are often taken to reveal that consequentialists unduly neglect the moral significance of the causal structure of decision problems. To precisify such critiques and one sort of deontological morality they motivate, I develop a formal modeling framework within which trolley problems can be represented as suitably supplemented structural causal models and various consequentialist and double effect-inspired moral theories can be viewed (...)
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  • Recognize Everyone’s Interests: An Algorithm for Ethical Decision-Making about Trade-Off Problems.Tobey K. Scharding - 2021 - Business Ethics Quarterly 31 (3):450-473.
    This article addresses a dilemma about autonomous vehicles: how to respond to trade-off scenarios in which all possible responses involve the loss of life but there is a choice about whose life or lives are lost. I consider four options: kill fewer people, protect passengers, equal concern for survival, and recognize everyone’s interests. I solve this dilemma via what I call the new trolley problem, which seeks a rationale for the intuition that it is unethical to kill a smaller number (...)
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  • Wenn Ethik zum Programm wird: Eine risikoethische Analyse moralischer Dilemmata des autonomen Fahrens.Vanessa Schäffner - 2020 - Zeitschrift Für Ethik Und Moralphilosophie 3 (1):27-49.
    Wie sollen sich autonome Fahrzeuge verhalten, wenn ein Unfall nicht mehr abwendbar ist? Die Komplexität spezifischer moralischer Dilemmata, die in diesem Kontext auftreten können, lässt bewährte ethische Denktraditionen an ihre Grenzen stoßen. Dieser Aufsatz versteht sich als Versuch, neue Lösungsperspektiven mithilfe einer risikoethischen Sichtweise auf die Problematik zu eröffnen und auf diese Weise deren Relevanz für die Programmierung von ethischen Unfallalgorithmen aufzuzeigen. Im Zentrum steht dabei die Frage, welche Implikationen sich aus einer Auffassung von Dilemma-Situationen als risikoethische Verteilungsprobleme im Hinblick (...)
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