David Hume’s legal theory has normally been interpreted as bearing close affinities to the English common law theory of jurisprudence. I argue that this is not accurate. For Hume, it is the nature and functioning of a country’s legal system, not the provenance of that system, that provides the foundation of its authority. He judges government by its ability to protect property in a reliable and equitable way. His positions on the role of equity in the law, on artificial reason (...) and the esoteric nature of the law, and on the role of judges in the legal system are all at odds with those of the common lawyers. (shrink)

We are about to see the emergence of religions devoted to the worship of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Such religions pose acute risks, both to their followers and to the public. We should require their creators, and governments, to acknowledge these risks and to manage them as best they can. However, these new religions cannot be stopped altogether, nor should we try to stop them if we could. We must accept that AI worship will become part of our culture, and we (...) must learn to live with it. Indeed, we should do much more than this. We should value it as a new source of meaning in a rapidly-changing world. AI-based religions deserve respect and recognition alongside other, more established ones, and they should be granted the same level of legal protection. (shrink)

Hume uses the adjectives “civilized” and “barbarous” in a variety of ways, and in a variety of contexts. He employs them to describe individuals, societies, historical eras, and forms of government. These various uses are closely related. Hume thinks that cultural and political development are intimately connected, and are mutually dependent. Civilized government goes together with civilized society. A wise ruler cannot emerge before “refinements have taken place” in the society at large and “science [becomes] known in the world.” At (...) the same time, the policy of a monarch who is “ignorant and uninstructed … for ever prevents all improvements.”. (shrink)

What constitutes a scientific discovery? What role do discoveries play in science, its dynamics and social practices? Must every discovery be attributed to an individual discoverer (or a small number of discoverers)? The paper explores these questions by first critically examining extant philosophical explications of scientific discovery—the models of scientific discovery, propounded by Kuhn, McArthur, Hudson, and Schindler. As a simple, natural and powerful alternative, we proffer the “change-driver model”: in a nutshell, it takes discoveries to be cognitive scientific (...) results that have epistemically advanced science. The model overcomes the shortcomings of its precursors, whilst preserving their insights. We demonstrate its intensional and extensional superiority, especially with respect to the link between scientific discoveries and the dynamics of science, as well as the award system of science. Both as an illustration, and as an application to a recent scientific and political controversy, we apply the considered models of discovery to one of the most momentous discoveries of science: the expansion of the universe. We oppose the 2018 proposal of the International Astronomers’ Union as too simplistic vis-`a-vis the historical complexity of the episode. The change- driver model yields a more nuanced and circumspect verdict: (i) The redshift-distance relation shouldn’t be named the “Hubble-Lemaître Law”, but “Slipher-Lundmark-Hubble-Humason Law”; (ii) Its interpretation in terms of an expanding universe, however, Lemaître ought to be given credit for; but (iii) The establishment of the expansion of the universe, as an evidentially sufficiently warranted result, is a communal achievement, emerging in the 1950s or 1960s. (shrink)

Sex is an important part of human life. It is a source of pleasure and intimacy, and is integral to many people’s self-identity. This chapter examines the opportunities and challenges posed by the use of AI in how humans express and enact their sexualities. It does so by focusing on three main issues. First, it considers the idea of digisexuality, which according to McArthur and Twist (2017) is the label that should be applied to those ‘whose primary sexual identity (...) comes through the use of technology’, particularly through the use of robotics and AI. While agreeing that this phenomenon is worthy of greater scrutiny, the chapter questions whether it is necessary or socially desirable to see this as a new form of sexual identity. Second, it looks at the role that AI can play in facilitating human-to-human sexual contact, focusing in particular on the use of self-tracking and predictive analytics in optimising sexual and intimate behaviour. There are already a number of apps and services that promise to use AI to do this, but they pose a range of ethical risks that need to be addressed at both an individual and societal level. Finally, it considers the idea that a sophisticated form of AI could be an object of love. Can we be truly intimate with something that has been ‘programmed’ to love us? Contrary to the widely-held view, this chapter argues that this is indeed possible. (shrink)