Using placebos in day-to-day practice is an ethical problem. This paper summarises the available epidemiological evidence to support this difficult decision. Based on these data we propose to differentiate between placebo and “knowledge framing”. While the use of placebo should be confined to experimental settings in clinical trials, knowledge framing — which is only conceptually different from placebo — is a desired, expected and necessary component of any doctor-patient encounter. Examples from daily practice demonstrate both, the need to investigate the (...) effects of knowledge framing and its impact on ethical, medical, economical and legal decisions. (shrink)

I will challenge the manipulation argument, aiming to argue for the incompatibility of moral responsibility and determinism. By examining the intuition behind the first premise, stating that manipulated agents are not responsible, it will turn out that this statement can be traced to the manipulators themselves, who intentionally set up a plan against their subjects. The second premise, which states that there is no difference between determinism and manipulation concerning responsibility, will be argued to be false. In deterministic worlds, actions (...) are determined by blind causation. However, under the manipulation theory, agents are determined by the manipulator. I claim that the first premise is true, but the second premise is false. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new theory of moral responsibility that does not rely on any concept of human control. Since an understanding of determinism shapes the possible set of views one can take regarding control, and there is no account of control that could be held simultaneously by both compatibilists and libertarians, the “relational theory of responsibility” is meant to create a common ground between compatibilism and libertarianism which are held to be mutually exclusive. Since the relational account of responsibility (...) is to be a common ground, it must be neutral regarding the truth of determinism and indeterminism. Thus, it must also be indifferent concerning different concepts of control formed by compatibilists and libertarians. I argue that my view can be accepted by both compatibilists and incompatibilists. It makes the claim that, in order for a person to be responsible, she has to act in a certain type of situation that needs to be such that there is at least one relevantly similar situation in which the agent refrains from performing the action that was executed in the original case. A person cannot be held responsible for doing what she does if no person refrains from performing that action in a relevantly similar situation. I claim that the relational theory of responsibility itself is sufficient for grounding responsibility. Since the relational account expresses responsibility without relying on any concept of control, a choice between determinism and indeterminism does not have to be made in order to establish a proper concept of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Newcomb Dilemmas show a discrepancy between our rational reasoning—evidential and causal decision theory. In this paper, I provide three versions of the dilemma from the original highly technical and abstract one to two more mundane cases of it. I also account for the general schema of the dilemma possibly appearing in macroeconomic situations. Ahmed (2014) aims to provide a solution for macroeconomic cases that opens a room for forming a development management Newcomb Dilemma — an imaginary case of the electric (...) motor competition between Toyota and Tesla. I argue that Ahmed’s solution may solve the macroeconomic Newcomb Dilemma, but it cannot be applied for the development management dilemma. If I am right, similar Newcomb situations can be regular in development management, bringing about insoluble strategic decisions. It may create an inevitable pitfall of development management. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct a modal version of the ontological argument (MOA) in a two dimensionally extended way. This modification of MOA, I argue, might respond to Tooley’s (1981) and Findlay’s (1948) prominent objections against the argument. The MOA has two distinct key premises that are criticized by Tooley and Findley. According to Tooley, the structure of the argument allows to define further properties that exclude the existence of God-like beings. Findlay, however, argues against the proof (...) in a Kantian way by claiming that the very property of necessary existence is contradictory, therefore no being can possess it. In this paper, I am going to show how Tooley and Findlay’s critique re-frame the original ontological argument debate. I will provide a comprehensive map over all possible ways of refuting the MOA. Finally, I argue that, once we apply a two dimensional framework, we are in a position to refute Findlay’s criticism. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that the agnostic decision-maker may find himself in a Newcomb-type situation concerning the doctrine of Roman Catholicism. Consequently, if the agnostic wishes to decide according to the causal decision theory, he should refrain from living the Christian life, but if he follows the evidential decision theory, he should follow the Catholic life guidance. In the argument, I have cast the role of Newcomb’s predictive machine as Divine omniscience.

Although artificial intelligence has been given an unprecedented amount of attention in both the public and academic domains in the last few years, its convergence with other transformative technologies like cloud computing, robotics, and augmented/virtual reality is predicted to exacerbate its impacts on society. The adoption and integration of these technologies within industry and manufacturing spaces is a fundamental part of what is called Industry 4.0, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The impacts of this paradigm shift on the human operators (...) who continue to work alongside and symbiotically with these technologies in the industry bring with it novel ethical issues. Therefore, how to design these technologies for human values becomes the critical area of intervention. This paper takes up the case study of robotic AI-based assistance systems to explore the potential value implications that emerge due to current design practices and use. The design methodology known as Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is proposed as a sufficient starting point for designing these technologies for human values to address these issues. (shrink)