According to pancomputationalism, everything is a computing system. In this paper, I distinguish between different varieties of pancomputationalism. I find that although some varieties are more plausible than others, only the strongest variety is relevant to the philosophy of mind, but only the most trivial varieties are true. As a side effect of this exercise, I offer a clarified distinction between computational modelling and computational explanation.<br><br>.

In this paper, I consider Hilary Putnam’s argument for the prima facie acceptance of robotic consciousness as deserving the status of mind. I argue that such an extension of consciousness renders the category fundamentally unintelligible, and we should instead understand robots as integral products of an extended human consciousness. To this end, I propose a test from conceptual object permanence, which can be applied not just to robots, but to the innumerable artifacts of consciousness that texture our existences.

Williamson’s Knowledge and its Limits is the most important philosophical discussion of knowledge in many years. It sets the agenda for epistemology for the next decade and beyond.

Some philosophers have conflated functionalism and computationalism. I reconstruct how this came about and uncover two assumptions that made the conflation possible. They are the assumptions that (i) psychological functional analyses are computational descriptions and (ii) everything may be described as performing computations. I argue that, if we want to improve our understanding of both the metaphysics of mental states and the functional relations between them, we should reject these assumptions. # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

widely held commitments: to phenomenal realism and to naturalism. Phenomenal realism is the view that we are phenomenally consciousness, and that there is no a priori or armchair sufficient condition for phenomenal consciousness that can be stated in nonphenomenal terms . 1,2 Block points out that while phenomenal realists reject.

In this volume, thirteen philosophers contribute new essays analyzing the criteria for personal identity and their import on ethics and the theory of action: it presents contemporary treatments of the issues discussed in Personal Identity, edited by John Perry (University of California Press, 1975).

This paper aims to propose and justify a framework for understanding the concept of personhood in both biological and artificial entities. The framework is based on a set of requirements that make up a suitable cognitive architecture for an entity to be considered a person, including the ability to have propositionally structured intentional states, having a form of sensory capabilities, and having a means of interacting with the environment. The case of individuals in a persistent vegetative state, as studied by (...) Owen, serves as an example to show the importance of each of these requirements and the possibility of a "hybridization" of personhood. The proposed set of requirements provide a complete framework for understanding the concept of personhood and highlight the significance of cognitive architecture in determining personhood. (shrink)

There are many new philosophical queries about the moral status and rights of artificial intelligences; questions such as whether such entities can be considered as morally responsible entities and as having special rights. Recently, the contemporary philosophy of mind philosopher, Eric Schwitzgebel, has tried to defend the possibility of equal rights of AIs and human beings (in an imaginary future), by designing a new argument (2015). In this paper, after an introduction, the author reviews and analyzes the main argument and (...) then deals with four criticisms witch Schwitzgebel himself has presented and rejected and ultimately, the author presents and explains two new critiques against the argument. According to the writer, though the argument regarding his new criticisms and some other probable critiques is not convincing, or at least needs to be corrected, however, it holds appeal and raises questions and may open a new horizon for future questions and research. (shrink)

The book provides an overview of the contemporary discussion of the mind-body problem. This discussion takes its modern form during the 17th century in the works of René Descartes. The book covers the most important points of view in modern philosophy of mind. An important thesis of the book is that contemporary debates are still heavily influenced by Descartes’ arguments, especially those related to the nature of consciousness. (Google translate).

In the past few years, the subject of AI rights—the thesis that AIs, robots, and other artefacts (hereafter, simply ‘AIs’) ought to be included in the sphere of moral concern—has started to receive serious attention from scholars. In this paper, I argue that the AI rights research program is beset by an epistemic problem that threatens to impede its progress—namely, a lack of a solution to the ‘Hard Problem’ of consciousness: the problem of explaining why certain brain states give rise (...) to experience. To motivate this claim, I consider three ways in which to ground AI rights—namely: superintelligence, empathy, and a capacity for consciousness. I argue that appeals to superintelligence and empathy are problematic, and that consciousness should be our central focus, as in the case of animal rights. However, I also argue that AI rights is disanalogous from animal rights in an important respect: animal rights can proceed without a solution to the ‘Hard Problem’ of consciousness. Not so with AI rights, I argue. There we cannot make the same kinds of assumptions that we do about animal consciousness, since we still do not understand why brain states give rise to conscious mental states in humans. (shrink)

Recent advancements in AI have prompted a large number of AI ethics guidelines published by governments and nonprofits. While many of these papers propose concrete or seemingly applicable ideas, few philosophically sound proposals are made. In particular, we observe that the line of questioning has often not been examined critically and underlying conceptual problems not always dealt with at the root. In this paper, we investigate the nature of ethical AI systems and what their moral status might be by first (...) turning to the notions of moral agency and patience. We find that their explication would come at a too high cost which is why we, second, articulate a different approach that avoids vague and ambiguous concepts or the problem of other minds. Third, we explore the impact of our philosophical and conceptual analysis on the regulatory landscape, make this link explicit, and finally propose a set of promising policy steps. (shrink)

Organisms receded from view in much of twentieth-century biology, only to undergo a sort of renaissance at the start of the twenty-first. The story of why this should be so is complicated and fascinating, but belongs primarily to the history of biology. On the other hand, to the extent that it is so, a question naturally arises: what, after all, are organisms? This question has a long and complicated history of its own, both within and without of biology; an investigation (...) of this history yields some guidance as to how organisms might yet be conceived today. One suggestion borne of these investigations is this: organisms are, for better or worse, normatively delineated unities. (shrink)

The main aim of this article is to pose and consider the following question: Does the reasoning that led to Kripkenstein’s sceptical paradox undermine all versions of materialism, including nonreductive materialism? First, I present other versions of materialism in the philosophy of mind. Then I point out that, according to nonreductive materialists, one can neither define mental properties in terms of physical properties nor derive psycho‑physical laws from the laws of physics. The presently‑understood thesis of materialism is confined by the (...) following claim: the same distribution of physical properties entails the same distribution of mental properties. In other words, the mental properties supervene upon physical properties. This account then leads to the following formulation of the main question: Assuming that Kripkenstein is right, do mental properties supervene upon physical properties? Taking into account that answering this question requires a discussion of the notions of supervenience and Kripkenstein’s paradox, I devote two parts of my paper to these topics. The conclusion which I reach is as follows: If the reasoning that led to Kripkenstein’s paradox is correct, mental properties can only globally supervene upon physical properties, and consequently no version of materialism can be empirically justified. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore artificial moral agency by reflecting upon the possibility of a Moral Turing Test and whether its lack of focus on interiority, i.e. its behaviouristic foundation, counts as an obstacle to establishing such a test to judge the performance of an Artificial Moral Agent. Subsequently, to investigate whether an MTT could serve as a useful framework for the understanding, designing and engineering of AMAs, we set out to address fundamental challenges within (...) the field of robot ethics regarding the formal representation of moral theories and standards. Here, typically three design approaches to AMAs are available: top-down theory-driven models and bottom-up approaches which set out to model moral behaviour by means of models for adaptive learning, such as neural networks, and finally, hybrid models, which involve components from both top-down and bottom-up approaches to the modelling of moral agency. With inspiration from Allen and Wallace as well as Prior, we elaborate on theoretically driven approaches to machine ethics by introducing deontic tense logic. Finally, within this framework, we explore the character of human interaction with a robot which has successfully passed an MTT. Design/methodology/approach – The ideas in this paper reflect preliminary theoretical considerations regarding the possibility of establishing a MTT based on the evaluation of moral behaviour, which focusses on moral reasoning regarding possible actions. The thoughts reflected fall within the field of normative ethics and apply deontic tense logic to discuss the possibilities and limitations of artificial moral agency. Findings – The authors stipulate a formalisation of logic of obligation, time and modality, which may serve as a candidate for implementing a system corresponding to an MTT in a restricted sense. Hence, the authors argue that to establish a present moral obligation, we need to be able to make a description of the actual situation and the relevant general moral rules. Such a description can never be complete, as the combination of exhaustive knowledge about both situations and rules would involve a God eye’s view, enabling one to know all there is to know and take everything relevant into consideration before making a perfect moral decision to act upon. Consequently, due to this frame problem, from an engineering point of view, we can only strive for designing a robot supposed to operate within a restricted domain and within a limited space-time region. Given such a setup, the robot has to be able to perform moral reasoning based on a formal description of the situation and any possible future developments. Although a system of this kind may be useful, it is clearly also limited to a particular context. It seems that it will always be possible to find special cases in which a given system does not pass the MTT. This calls for a new design of moral systems with trust-related components which will make it possible for the system to learn from experience. Originality/value – It is without doubt that in the near future we are going to be faced with advanced social robots with increasing autonomy, and our growing engagement with these robots calls for the exploration of ethical issues and stresses the importance of informing the process of engineering ethical robots. Our contribution can be seen as an early step in this direction. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 207 Seiten: 217-231.

The book presents the various theories of intentionality from Brentano and Husserl to present day (1997) theories on mental content, narrow and broad.

Some philosophers have conflated functionalism and computationalism. I reconstruct how this came about and uncover two assumptions that made the conflation possible. They are the assumptions that (i) psychological functional analyses are computational descriptions and (ii) everything may be described as performing computations. I argue that, if we want to improve our understanding of both the metaphysics of mental states and the functional relations between them, we should reject these assumptions.

Brauchen Roboter moralische Kompetenz? Die Antwort lautet ja. Einerseits benötigen Roboter moralische Kompetenz, um unsere Welt aus Regeln, Vorschriften und Werten zu begreifen, andererseits um von ihrem Umfeld akzeptiert zu werden. Wie aber lässt sich moralische Kompetenz in Roboter implementieren? Welche philosophischen Herausforderungen sind zu erwarten? Und wie können wir uns und unsere Kinder auf Roboter vorbereiten, die irgendwann über moralische Kompetenz verfügen werden? André und Iga Maria Schmiljun skizzieren aus einer humanistisch-philosophischen Perspektive erste Antworten auf diese Fragen und entwickeln (...) einen didaktischen Einstieg in das Thema für die Grundschule. (shrink)

Robots are becoming more visible parts of our life, a situation which prompts questions about their place in our society. One group of issues that is widely discussed is connected with robots’ moral and legal status as well as their potential rights. The question of granting robots rights is polarizing. Some positions accept the possibility of granting them human rights whereas others reject the notion that robots can be considered potential rights holders. In this paper, I claim that robots will (...) never have all human rights, even if we accept that they are morally equal to humans. I focus on the role of embodiment in the content of the law. I claim that even relatively small differences in the ontologies of entities could lead to the need to create new sets of rights. I use the example of Neanderthals to illustrate that entities similar to us might have required different legal statuses. Then, I discuss the potential legal status of human-like robots. (shrink)

The first part (“Is there a future?”), discusses the idea of the future in the context of Carl Schmitt’s vision for the spatial revolutions of modernity, and then the idea of Anthropocene, as a synonym for an environmental crisis endangering the very survival of humankind. From this point of view, the conquest of space and the colonization of Mars at the center of futuristic and technocratic visions appear to be an attempt to escape from human responsibilities on Earth. The second (...) part (“AI and other hyperobjects”) discusses the extent of intellectual hubris expressed in computation, AI (Garvin Minsky e Ray Kurzweil), and the philosophy of computing and information (Eric Fredkin), involved in the elaboration of new theoretical assessments on the ultimate nature of reality. Their vision is then contrasted and made to interact with that of philosopher Timothy Morton. He has taken the perspective of global warming and the possibility of ecological catastrophe seriously, avoiding all the futuristic enthusiasms and instead emphasizing the radical nature of the transformations that humans experience in the present. In this perspective, AI becomes one of the “hyperobjects,” like the Internet or climate change, in which humans are immersed. Morton’s hyperobjects delineate an uncanny view of the future; this uncanniness is not related to the supernatural but to the environment. The third section (“More-than-human-humanism”) further reflects on the “uncanniness” that human perceive in the encounters with the manifestations of hyperobjects. It also seeks to understand the human position in the face of the radical technological transformations induced by cybernetics and AI. This section discusses Anti-humanism, Transhumanism, and Posthumanism within the broader category of more-than-human thought, which seems to be a more appropriate term to clarify the possible misunderstandings induced by the word “posthuman” and “transhuman.” The central question is not to empower (Transhumanism) or disempower (Posthumanism) humans, but to see them in relation to what is not human, including other animals, the environment, and the machine. The analysis considers the works of Cary Wolfe, Jane Bennet, Bryant Levi, among others, and introduces ethical debates on cyborgs, robots, and Autonomous weapons systems (AWS). The fourth section (“Ethical Perspectives”) continues this inquiry, concentrating on the non-standard ethical theories of Luciano Floridi (Computer and Information Ethics) and David Gunkel (The question of the Machine). It examines the opportunity and feasibility of including in the discussion on the ethics of our time - characterized by the pervasiveness of AI - the notions of consciousness as theorized by Emmanuel Levinas’s Humanism of the Other and Paul Ricoeur’s Oneself as Another. Finally, the last section (“The time of the end?”) reflects on how the hyperobject, Anthropocene, re-establishes a sense of limits in human history and confirms the special responsibility of human beings, and supports the need for a more-than-human-humanism. The latter, in other words, means intertwining ourselves with a unique ecosystem which cannot be overlooked and which restores meaning to our relationship with the past, present, and future. The awareness of the current challenges of technology can and must express itself in different forms of resistance to the adverse effects of AI in our lives. The ethical approach based on the persisting role of human consciousness is essential, but it must be coupled with human decision-making and political action. (shrink)

Ethicists, policy-makers, and the general public have questioned whether artificial entities such as robots warrant rights or other forms of moral consideration. There is little synthesis of the research on this topic so far. We identify 294 relevant research or discussion items in our literature review of this topic. There is widespread agreement among scholars that some artificial entities could warrant moral consideration in the future, if not also the present. The reasoning varies, such as concern for the effects on (...) artificial entities and concern for the effects on human society. Beyond the conventional consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethicist ethical frameworks, some scholars encourage “information ethics” and “social-relational” approaches, though there are opportunities for more in-depth ethical research on the nuances of moral consideration of artificial entities. There is limited relevant empirical data collection, primarily in a few psychological studies on current moral and social attitudes of humans towards robots and other artificial entities. This suggests an important gap for psychological, sociological, economic, and organizational research on how artificial entities will be integrated into society and the factors that will determine how the interests of artificial entities are considered. (shrink)

Williamson’s Knowledge and its Limits is the most important philosophical discussion of knowledge in many years. It sets the agenda for epistemology for the next decade and beyond.

Purpose– This paper aims to explore human technology relations through the lens of sci-fi movies within the life cycle of the ETHICOMP conference series. Here, different perspectives on artificial intelligent agents, primarily in the shape of robots, but also including other kinds of intelligent systems, are explored. Hence, IT-ethical issues related to humans interactions with social robots and artificial intelligent agents are illustrated with reference to: Alex Proyas’ I, Robot; James Cameron’s Terminator; and the Wachowski brothers’ Matrix. All three movies (...) present robots cast in the roles of moral agents capable of doing good or evil. Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence, A.I. gives rise to a discussion of the robot seen as a moral patient and furthermore reflects on possibilities for care and trust relations between robots and humans. Andrew Stanton’s Wall-E shapes a discussion of robots as altruistic machines in the role as facilitators of a flourishing society. Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report allows for a discussion of knowledge-discovering technology and the possibility for balancing data utility and data privacy.Design/methodology/approach– Observations of themes in sci-fi movies within the life span of the ETHICOMP conference series are discussed with the purpose of illustrating ways in which science fiction reflects (science) faction. In that sense, science fiction does not express our worries for a distant future, but rather casts light over questions, which is of concern in the present time.Findings– Human technology interactions are addressed and it is shown how sci-fi films highlight philosophical questions that puzzle us today, such as which kind of relationships can and ought to be formed with robots, and whether the roles they play as social actors demand that one ought to assign moral standing to them. The paper does not present firm answers but instead pays attention to the selection and framing of questions that deserve attention.Originality/value– To relate sci-fi movies to topics raised during the past 20 years of the ETHICOMP conference series, seemed to be an appropriate way of celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the ETHICOMP conference series. (shrink)

In the dialectic of debates about the extension of life, one witnesses a predictably repeating pattern: one side appeals to a motley of variegated criteria for something’s qualifying as a living system, only to find an opposite side taking issue with the individual necessity or collective sufficiency of the proposed criteria. Some of these criteria tend to cluster with one another, while others do not: metabolism, growth and reproduction; self-organization and homeostasis; an ability to decrease internal entropy by the appropriation (...) of free energy; stimulus response suited to self-preservation and propagation; and adaptation. In competing approaches to the extension of life, these sundry criteria thus jockey for authority, with one group of theorists promoting some subset of them as essential for life, where the appeal to essence is as likely as not to be a simple modal sine qua non , and another denying that the nominated criteria are really necessary at all. The debate then stalls, because there seems to be no shared methodology for adjudicating such disputes. We may address this unhappy situation successfully by coming to appreciate that life is what we may call a core-dependent homonym. (shrink)

In this lecture I describe the path by which I was led to the “semantic externalism” for which I was honoured with the Rolf Schock Prize. Although my interest in linguistics goes back as far as my undergraduate days, it was conversations with Jerrold Katz and Jerry Fodor at MIT (where all three of us taught at the time) in the 1960s that first led to an effort by all three of us to develop semantic theories. My own direction was (...) a false one, by my present lights; at that time all three of us defended the “internalist” view that the meaning of a word is fixed by a “battery of semantical rules” implicitly known by each speaker. I describe how I was led to the realization that this could not be right, and finally to the views I defended in “The Meaning of ‘Meaning' ”. (shrink)

In L. Frank Baum's story, Ozma of Oz, which is a sequel to Baum's much more famous story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her companion come upon a wound-down mechanical man bearing a label on which are printed the following words: Smith and Tinker's Patent Double-Action, Extra-Responsive, Thought-Creating Perfect-Talking MECHANICAL MAN Fitted with our Special Clock-Work Attachment Thinks, Speaks, Acts, and Does Everything but Live As Dorothy and her companion are made to discover when they wind up this (...) man, he is indeed capable of doing all the things of which his label boasts—acting, speaking and even thinking. But as Tik-Tok himself insists, and no one in the story casts doubt on the matter, he is not alive. (shrink)

It has recently become quite fashionable for one to defend a functionalist theory of mental states. However, as with most trends, functionalism has come under fire in certain philosophical quarters. In this paper, I shall not take up the question of whether any version of functionalism is true. I shall instead discuss a particular objection to a specific brand of functionalism.

Cette étude se propose de mettre en relief plusieurs analogies structurelles entre la conception spinoziste et la conception fonctionnaliste, développée par Hilary Putnam, de l'activité mentale. Ces conceptions, l'une classique, l'autre contemporaine, en marge de leurs divergences manifestes, paraissent toutes deux récuser aussi bien le dualisme substantiel qu'une lecture physicaliste de l'activité mentale, représentée en particulier par la théorie de l'identité entre états mentaux et états cérébraux. La confrontation entre la philosophie de Spinoza et celle de Putnam, dans l'ordre de (...) la théorie de l'esprit, s'établit en trois points. Est d'abord examiné le postulat de l'autonomie explicative du mental. Le second point concerne la résolution du problème de l'union du corps et de l'esprit, par le recours aux notions d'organisation et d'isomorphisme fonctionnel, au principe de la thèse d'une identité psychophysique non substantielle. L'étude s'achève sur l'évocation du modèle mécanique de l'esprit, et de son identification à un dispositif automatique abstrait, automate spirituel selon Spinoza, machine de Turing selon Putnam. (shrink)

It has recently become quite fashionable for one to defend a functionalist theory of mental states. However, as with most trends, functionalism has come under fire in certain philosophical quarters. In this paper, I shall not take up the question of whether any version of functionalism is true. I shall instead discuss a particular objection to a specific brand of functionalism.

Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is here criticized from the perspective of a more naturalistic and less compromising form of materialism. Parallels are explored between the problem of cognitive activity and the somewhat more settled problem of vital activity. The lessons drawn suggest that functionalism in the philosophy of mind may be both counterproductive as a research strategy, and false as a substantive position.

The principal critical objective of this dissertation is to examine three contemporary theories about the mind-body problem: dualism, anomalous monism, and functionalism. The dualism examined is closely linked to Cartesian dualism, while functionalism is a form of materialism. Anomalous monism is a kind of dual aspect view. All these theories have a long tradition with different formulations and exponents. I examine three contemporary exponents of these views: Saul Kripke, a dualist, Donald Davidson, an anomalous monist, and Daniel Dennett, a functionalist. (...) ;I argue that each of these theories is incorrect or has serious difficulties. The chief difficulty for dualism is in giving an account of mind-body interaction. The chief difficulty for anomalous monism is that internal tensions within the theory relating to Davidson's conception of physical events and scientific laws have the consequence that anomalous monism applies to the entities of physics and chemistry but not to events in the brain. The most serious difficulty for functionalism is in accounting for the qualities of subjective experience. ;I then discuss two criteria for identifying mental phenomena: incorrigibility and intentionality. I consider the problem of mind-body interaction as a problem for dualism. I argue that the mind-body problem is misconceived in that it is supposed that a univocal definition of 'physical' can be given. I state three different definitions of this term: one containing a scientific conception, one an objective conception, and one a personal conception. ;In my final chapter, I formulate a plural aspect view that accounts for mind-body interaction. On this view, mind is an aspect of body and body is an aspect of mind. This plural aspect view can be derived from a more general theory I call Viewpoint Pluralism. (shrink)

This paper briefly presents an account, partially based upon Ryle’s approach, of the functions of intentional psychological terms as they are used in ordinary language. According to this account, intentional psychological terms describe known patterns of behavior that are determined by selective mechanisms of causation. That is, these terms describe relations between certain responses, selected on the basis of the consequences they produce in the environment, and contexts of their occurrence, to which they become associated. Intentional psychological terms do not (...) point to inner causes of a given behavior, but can explain it only in the sense of stating that it could be expected to occur, if we can identify its behavior pattern and the context in which it occurs. We proceed then to examine three main objections that have been raised against Ryle’s position, namely: (a) Davidson’s challenge to the non-causal accounts of reason-explanations; (b) Armstrong’s worries about “leaving the counterfactuals hanging in the air”; and (c) the holistic objection to the (wrongly) presumed Ryle’s atomism. We aim at showing that none of these objections pose serious problems to the proposed account. (shrink)