Modern health data practices come with many practical uncertainties. In this paper, I argue that data subjects’ trust in the institutions and organizations that control their data, and their ability to know their own moral obligations in relation to their data, are undermined by significant uncertainties regarding the what, how, and who of mass data collection and analysis. I conclude by considering how proposals for managing situations of high uncertainty might be applied to this problem. These emphasize increasing organizational (...) flexibility, knowledge, and capacity, and reducing hazard. (shrink)

In this paper I present an account of a distinctive form of ‘practical’ or ‘deliberative’ uncertainty that has been central in debates in both ethics and metaethics. Many writers have assumed that such uncertainty concerns a special normative question, such as what we ought to do ‘all things considered.’ I argue against this assumption and instead endorse an alternative view of such uncertainty, which combines elements of both metaethical cognitivism and non-cognitivism. A notable consequence of this (...) view is that even if there are objective and irreducible truths about how we ought to act, all things considered, the ‘central deliberative question,’ as it’s sometimes called, doesn’t concern such truths. Instead, that question doesn’t have a true answer. (shrink)

Moral reasoning is as fallible as reasoning in any other cognitive domain, but we often behave as if it were not. I argue for a form of epistemically-based moral humility, in which we downgrade our moral beliefs in the face of moral disagreement. My argument combines work in metaethics and moral intuitionism with recent developments in epistemology. I argue against any demands for deep self-sufficiency in moral reasoning. Instead, I argue that we need to take into account significant socially sourced (...) information, especially as a check for failures on our own moral intuitions and reasoning. -/- First, I argue for an epistemically plausible version of moral intuitionism, based on recent work in epistemic entitlement and epistemic warrant. Second, I argue that getting clear on the epistemic basis shows the defeasibility of moral judgment. Third, I argue the existence of moral disagreement is a reason to reduce our certainty in moral judgment. Fourth, I argue that this effect is not a violation of norms of autonomy for moral judgment. (shrink)

As a response to climate change, geoengineering with solar radiation management has the potential to result in unjust harm. Potentially, this injustice could be ameliorated by providing compensation to victims of SRM. However, establishing a just SRM compensation system faces severe challenges. First, there is scientific uncertainty in detecting particular harmful impacts and causally attributing them to SRM. Second, there is ethical uncertainty regarding what principles should be used to determine responsibility and eligibility for compensation, as well as (...) determining how much compensation ought to be paid. Significant challenges loom for crafting a just SRM compensation system. (shrink)

This paper discusses ethical issues surrounding Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) of the economic effects of climate change, and how climate economists acting as policy advisors ought to represent the uncertain possibility of catastrophe. Some climate economists, especially Martin Weitzman, have argued for a precautionary approach where avoiding catastrophe should structure climate economists’ welfare analysis. This paper details ethical arguments that justify this approach, showing how Weitzman’s “fat tail” probabilities of climate catastrophe pose ethical problems for widely used IAMs. The main (...) claim is that economists who ignore or downplay catastrophic risks in their representations of uncertainty likely fall afoul of ethical constraints on scientists acting as policy advisors. Such scientists have duties to honestly articulate uncertainties and manage (some) inductive risks, or the risks of being wrong in different ways. (shrink)

The financial turmoil of the past several years has caused many to question the integrity, stability, and very purpose of financial systems which, in today’s world, represent a unique blend of primarily capitalism but also aspects of socialism and collectivism as well. A key factor contributing to this sustained period of economic upheaval has been the uncertainty surrounding capital markets – the fuel that powers all modern economies. Capital markets have, in the minds of many, come to represent the (...) embodiment of greed, unrestrained egoism, and exploitation of the vulnerable – conceptions at complete odds with the central values of social justice as set forth in both Christian and Jewish primary sources: caring for the poor, protecting the weak, and the promotion of justice. -/- In this paper I argue that capital markets, rather than being a means for the powerful to exploit the weak, have in fact become a force for social good in the aggregate. Indeed capital markets are, in fact, a social contract and as such must be governed by a set of normative ethical principles – both self imposed, and imposed by government regulation. I explore the ethical difficulties that have led to the systemic problems and market failures that lead to not only this current financial crisis, but literally all financial crises over the past eight hundred years. Capital markets, left to their own devices and without both self and governmental oversight, quickly become hotbeds of manipulation and exploitation. In order for markets to function properly, principles of basic fairness must become normative. It is when capital markets become unfair and unjust, that they fail. Thus, these markets must be structured in such a way as to 1) promote Rawl’s “Justice as Fairness” principle and 2) align the interests of market participants to produce universally beneficial market efficiency and stability. -/- Finally, I propose concrete ways in which the power of capital markets may be harnessed to promote the central moral values of Christian tradition and be used by people of faith to promote the ideals of social justice. (shrink)

Given the deep disagreement surrounding population axiology, one should remain uncertain about which theory is best. However, this uncertainty need not leave one neutral about which acts are better or worse. We show that as the number of lives at stake grows, the Expected Moral Value approach to axiological uncertainty systematically pushes one towards choosing the option preferred by the Total and Critical Level views, even if one’s credence in those theories is low.

Like all human activities, scientific research is infused with values. Scientific discovery can, for example, be valued as an end in itself. The phrase ethical values is an umbrella term for much of what people care about aside from knowledge for its own sake. Ethical values encompass reasons for caring about the harms caused by climate impacts or the injustice of how those harms are distributed. The closer that research gets to informing real-world actions, the more the design of that (...) research can be examined from the perspective of ethical values. Which societal challenges does the research aim to inform? From whose perspective does a policy analysis view potential outcomes? In this chapter we use a series of examples to illustrate how researchers’ choices regarding the treatment of uncertainties can have important consequences from the perspective of ethical values. Our aims in this chapter are: to familiarize readers with the key concept of coupled ethical–epistemic choices; to build capacity for recognizing such choices within the treatment of uncertainties; to encourage engagement with ethical values as a part of climate change research; and to offer some guidance on how to start doing so. (shrink)

We thank the commentators for their interesting and helpful feedback on our previously published target article (Svoboda and Irvine, 2014). One of our objectives in that article was to identify areas of uncertainty that would need to be addressed in crafting a just SRM compensation system. The commentators have indicated some possible ways of reducing such uncertainty. Although we cannot respond to all their points due to limitations of space, we wish to address here the more pressing criticisms (...) the commentators have offered. (shrink)

A challenge faced by defenders of the precautionary principle is to clarify when the evidence that a harmful event might occur suffices to regard this prospect as a real possibility. Plausible versions of the principle must articulate some epistemic threshold, orde minimisrequirement, which specifies when precautionary measures are justified. Critics have argued that formulating such a threshold is problematic in the context of the precautionary principle. First, this is because the precautionary principle appears to be ambiguous about the distinction between (...) risk and uncertainty: should the principle merely be invoked when evidential probabilities are absent, or also when probabilities have low epistemic credentials? Secondly, defenders of the precautionary principle face an aggregation puzzle: in judging whether or not thede minimisrequirement has been met, how should first-order evidential probabilities and their second-order epistemic standing be aggregated? This article argues that the ambiguity can be resolved, and the epistemological puzzle can be solved. Focusing on decisions in the context of climate uncertainty, I advance a version of the precautionary principle that serves as a plausible decision rule, to be adopted in situations where its main alternative—cost–benefit analysis—does not deliver. (shrink)

We are sometimes unsure of the moral status of our relationships with other entities. Recent case studies in this uncertainty include our relationships with artificial agents (robots, assistant AI, etc.), animals, and patients with “locked-in” syndrome. Do these entities have basic moral standing? Could they count as true friends or lovers? What should we do when we do not know the answer to these questions? An influential line of reasoning suggests that, in such cases of moral uncertainty, we (...) need meta-moral decision rules that allow us to either minimize the risks of moral wrongdoing or improve the choice-worthiness of our actions. One particular argument adopted in this literature is the “risk asymmetry argument,” which claims that the risks associated with accepting or rejecting some moral facts may be sufficiently asymmetrical as to warrant favoring a particular practical resolution of this uncertainty. Focusing on the case study of artificial beings, this article argues that this is best understood as an ethical-epistemic challenge. The article argues that taking potential risk asymmetries seriously can help resolve disputes about the status of human–AI relationships, at least in practical terms (philosophical debates will, no doubt, continue); however, the resolution depends on a proper, empirically grounded assessment of the risks involved. Being skeptical about basic moral status, but more open to the possibility of meaningful relationships with such entities, may be the most sensible approach to take. (shrink)

While the foundations of climate science and ethics are well established, fine-grained climate predictions, as well as policy-decisions, are beset with uncertainties. This chapter maps climate uncertainties and classifies them as to their ground, extent and location. A typology of uncertainty is presented, centered along the axes of scientific and moral uncertainty. This typology is illustrated with paradigmatic examples of uncertainty in climate science, climate ethics and climate economics. Subsequently, the chapter discusses the IPCC’s preferred (...) way of representing uncertainties and evaluates its strengths and weaknesses from a risk management perspective. Three general strategies for decision-makers to cope with climate uncertainty are outlined, the usefulness of which largely depends on whether or not decision-makers find themselves in a context of deep uncertainty. The chapter concludes by offering two recommendations to ease the work of policymakers, faced with the various uncertainties engrained in climate discourse. (shrink)

This paper develops a philosophical account of moral disruption. According to Robert Baker, moral disruption is a process in which technological innovations undermine established moral norms without clearly leading to a new set of norms. Here I analyze this process in terms of moral uncertainty, formulating a philosophical account with two variants. On the harm account, such uncertainty is always harmful because it blocks our knowledge of our own and others’ moral obligations. On the qualified harm account, there (...) is no harm in cases where moral uncertainty is related to innovation that is “for the best” in historical perspective or where uncertainty is the expression of a deliberative virtue. The two accounts are compared by applying them to Baker’s historical case of the introduction of mechanical ventilation and organ transplantation technologies, as well as the present-day case of mass data practices in the health domain. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce the nascent literature on Moral Uncertainty Theory and explore its application to the criminal law. Moral Uncertainty Theory seeks to address the question of what we ought to do when we are uncertain about what to do because we are torn between rival moral theories. For instance, we may have some credence in one theory that tells us to do A but also in another that tells us to do B. We examine how (...) we might decide whether or not to criminalize some conduct when we are unsure as to whether or not the conduct is morally permitted, and whether or not it is permissible to criminalize the conduct. We also look at how we might make sentencing decisions under moral uncertainty. We argue that Moral Uncertainty Theory can be an illuminating way to address these questions, but find that doing so is a lot more complicated than applying Moral Uncertainty Theory to individual conduct. (shrink)

This paper develops a philosophical account of moral disruption. According to Robert Baker (2013), moral disruption is a process in which technological innovations undermine established moral norms without clearly leading to a new set of norms. Here I analyze this process in terms of moral uncertainty, formulating a philosophical account with two variants. On the Harm Account, such uncertainty is always harmful because it blocks our knowledge of our own and others’ moral obligations. On the Qualified Harm Account, (...) there is no harm in cases where moral uncertainty is related to innovation that is “for the best” in historical perspective, or where uncertainty is the expression of a deliberative virtue. The two accounts are compared by applying them to Baker’s historical case of the introduction of mechanical ventilation and organ transplantation technologies, as well as the present-day case of mass data practices in the health domain. (shrink)

This book examines the moral luck paradox, relating it to Kantian, consequentialist and virtue-based approaches to ethics. It also applies the paradox to areas in medical ethics, including allocation of scarce medical resources, informed consent to treatment, withholding life-sustaining treatment, psychiatry, reproductive ethics, genetic testing and medical research. If risk and luck are taken seriously, it might seem to follow that we cannot develop any definite moral standards, that we are doomed to moral relativism. However, Dickenson offers (...) strong counter-arguments to this view that enable us to think in terms of universal standards. (shrink)

Trust is a topic of longstanding philosophical interest. It is indispensable to every kind of coordinated human activity, from sport to scientific research. Even more, trust is necessary for the successful dissemination of knowledge, and by extension, for nearly any form of practical deliberation and planning. Without trust, we could achieve few of our goals and would know very little. Despite trust’s fundamental importance in human life, there is substantial philosophical disagreement about what trust is, and further, how trusting is (...) normatively constrained and best theorized about in relation to other things we value. This entry is divided into three sections, which explore key (and sometimes interconnected) ethical and epistemological themes in the philosophy of trust: (1) The Nature of Trust; (2) The Normativity of Trust, and (3) The Value of Trust. (shrink)

In this paper I present an argument in favour of a parental duty to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). I argue that if embryos created in vitro were able to decide for themselves in a rational manner, they would sometimes choose PGD as a method of selection. Couples, therefore, should respect their hypothetical choices on a principle similar to that of patient autonomy. My thesis shows that no matter which moral doctrine couples subscribe to, they ought to conduct the PGD (...) procedure in the situations when it is impossible to implant all of the created embryos and if there is a significant risk for giving birth to a child with a serious condition. (shrink)

Defenders of deontological constraints in normative ethics face a challenge: how should an agent decide what to do when she is uncertain whether some course of action would violate a constraint? The most common response to this challenge has been to defend a threshold principle on which it is subjectively permissible to act iff the agent's credence that her action would be constraint-violating is below some threshold t. But the threshold approach seems arbitrary and unmotivated: what would possibly determine (...) where the threshold should be set, and why should there be any precise threshold at all? Threshold views also seem to violate ought agglomeration, since a pair of actions each of which is below the threshold for acceptable moral risk can, in combination, exceed that threshold. In this paper, I argue that stochastic dominance reasoning can vindicate and lend rigor to the threshold approach: given characteristically deontological assumptions about the moral value of acts, it turns out that morally safe options will stochastically dominate morally risky alternatives when and only when the likelihood that the risky option violates a moral constraint is greater than some precisely definable threshold (in the simplest case, .5). I also show how, in combination with the observation that deontological moral evaluation is relativized to particular choice situations, this approach can overcome the agglomeration problem. This allows the deontologist to give a precise and well-motivated response to the problem of uncertainty. (shrink)

Current environmental problems and technological risks are a challenge for a new institutional arrangement of the value spheres of Science, Politics and Morality. Distinguished authors from different European countries and America provide a cross-disciplinary perspective on the problems of political decision making under the conditions of scientific uncertainty. cases from biotechnology and the environmental sciences are discussed. The papers collected for this volume address the following themes: (i) controversies about risks and political decision making; (ii) concepts of science for (...) policy; (iii) the use of social science in the policy making process; (iv) ethical problems with developments in science and technology; (v) public and state interests in the development and control of technology. (shrink)

This paper argues that the plethora of experiments with decentralized social technologies (DSTs)—clusters of which are sometimes called “the Web 3.0 ecosystem” or “the Fediverse”—have brought us to a constitutional moment. These technologies enable radical innovations in social, economic, and political institutions and practices, with the potential to support transformative approaches to political economy. They demand governance innovation. The paper develops a framework of prudent vigilance for making ethical choices in this space that help to both grasp positive opportunities for (...) transformation and avoid the potentially problematic consequences. Most of our specific examples and concerns come from the blockchain/Web3 universe, as this has received the greatest investment, attention, and adoption to date. However, we aim to offer a framework for governance decision-making in conditions of uncertainty that applies more broadly to other DSTs. Specifically, under the framework of prudent vigilance, we propose a pragmatic, democratic, and pluralist approach to navigating bold experimentation with social practices and political economy enabled by these technologies. Our overarching goal is to provide a framework open to transformative improvement and constrained by guardrails and guiding values supportive of democracy, freedom, and pluralism. We take a relatively strong position, rather than simply laying out ethical issues and potential approaches. We seek to be provocative in order to spur further work and hope this paper will serve as a first bridge between academic philosophy and the DST community, which have hardly interacted to date. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of moral uncertainty in explaining the morally disruptive character of new technologies. We argue that existing accounts of technomoral change do not fully explain its disruptiveness. This explanatory gap can be bridged by examining the epistemic dimensions of technomoral change, focusing on moral uncertainty and inquiry. To develop this account, we examine three historical cases: the introduction of the early pregnancy test, the contraception pill, and brain death. The resulting account highlights what we (...) call “differential disruption” and provides a resource for fields such as technology assessment, ethics of technology, and responsible innovation. (shrink)

Hassoun argues that the poor in the world have a right to health and that the Global Health Impact Index provides consumers in well-off countries with the opportunity to ensure that more people have access to essential medicines. Because of this, these consumers would be ethically obliged to purchase Global Health Impact Index-labeled products in the face of existing global inequalities. In presenting her argument, Hassoun rejects the so-called democratic account of ethical consumption in favor of the positive change account. (...) Two versions of the democratic change account are relevant. One underscores the importance of democratic procedures and institutions, while the other stresses our fundamental moral equality. While at least one prominent institutionalist account has problems, revised versions would be less vulnerable to Hassoun’s counterexamples. Furthermore, institutionalist accounts come with the epistemological gains from democratic procedures and deliberations, which may be especially important under uncertainty. Finally, and perhaps more challenging for the Global Health Impact index project, this measure may place the burden unfairly on those who need to buy medicines. This is a pivotal insight from the non-institutionalist version of the democratic account of ethical consumption. (shrink)

Epistemic states of uncertainty play important roles in ethical and political theorizing. Theories that appeal to a “veil of ignorance,” for example, analyze fairness or impartiality in terms of certain states of ignorance. It is important, then, to scrutinize proposed conceptions of ignorance and explore promising alternatives in such contexts. Here, I study Lerner’s probabilistic egalitarian theorem in the setting of imprecise probabilities. Lerner’s theorem assumes that a social planner tasked with distributing income to individuals in a population is (...) “completely ignorant” about which utility functions belong to which individuals. Lerner models this ignorance with a certain uniform probability distribution, and shows that, under certain further assumptions, income should be equally distributed. Much of the criticism of the relevance of Lerner’s result centers on the representation of ignorance involved. Imprecise probabilities provide a general framework for reasoning about various forms of uncertainty including, in particular, ignorance. To what extent can Lerner’s conclusion be maintained in this setting? (shrink)

This paper explores the role of speculative anticipation in ethics during the COVID-19 pandemic and provides a structure to think about ethical decision-making in times of extreme uncertainty. We identify three different but interwoven domains within which speculative anticipation can be found: global, local, and projective anticipation. Our analysis aims to open possibilities of seeing the situatedness of others both locally and globally in order to address larger social issues that have been laid bare by the presence of (...) SARS-CoV-2. Our account of speculative anticipation builds on the analyses of the gendered impact of anticipation in technoscience by Vincanne Adams, Michelle Murphy and Adele Clarke; studies in cultural anthropology by Ann Laura Stoler; and the recent research on speculative fiction by Esther Jones. Like theirs, ours is intended to be useful. We offer it as a tool to recast questions and revisit assumptions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is hoped that by using the frame of the ethics of speculative anticipation, one might be able to consider how to avoid those futures that reproduce inequity, and instead actively and responsibly envision those futures that are informed by equity and sustainability. (shrink)

Risk communication has been generally categorized as a warning act, which is performed in order to prevent or minimize risk. On the other side, risk analysis has also underscored the role played by information in reducing uncertainty about risk. In both approaches the safety aspects related to the protection of the right to health are on focus. However, it seems that there are cases where a risk cannot possibly be avoided or uncertainty reduced, this is for instance valid (...) for the declaration of side effects associated with pharmaceutical products or when a decision about drug approval or retirement must be delivered on the available evidence. In these cases, risk communication seems to accomplish other tasks than preventing risk or reducing uncertainty. The present paper analyzes the legal instruments which have been developed in order to control and manage the risks related to drugs – such as the notion of “development risk” or “residual risk” – and relates them to different kinds of uncertainty. These are conceptualized as epistemic, ecological, metric, ethical, and stochastic, depending on their nature. By referring to this taxonomy, different functions of pharmaceutical risk communication are identified and connected with the legal tools of uncertainty management. The purpose is to distinguish the different functions of risk communication and make explicit their different legal nature and implications. (shrink)

Genetically engineered (GE) insects, such as the GE OX513A Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, have been designed to suppress their wild-type populations so as to reduce the transmission of vector-borne diseases in humans. Apart from the ecological and epidemiological uncertainties associated with this approach, such biotechnological approaches may be used by individual governments or the global community of nations to avoid addressing the underlying structural, systemic causes of those infections... We discuss here key ethical questions raised by the use of GE mosquitoes, (...) with the aim of fostering discussion between the public, researchers, policy makers, healthcare organizations, and regulatory agencies at the local, national, and international levels. We affect that goal by outlining a procedural approach to decision-making about the use of the “biotechnology” that goes beyond “community engagement.” The protocol we advocate for entails informed deliberations and decision-making at the community level. It is designed to ensure that the voices of the marginalized and vulnerable groups that would be disproportionately affected by the decision are heard during the community-wide discussions. Moreover, we make the case that the values embedded in the risk assessment should be identified so that the community can make an informed decision about the use of GE insects. In addition, we advocate for the involvement of a variety of actors whose responsibility would be to ensure that the community has the opportunity to make an informed decision based on deliberations about the use of the “biotechnology.”. (shrink)

In many situations, people are unsure in their moral judgements. In much recent philosophical literature, this kind of moral doubt has been analysed in terms of uncertainty in one’s moral beliefs. Non-cognitivists, however, argue that moral judgements express a kind of conative attitude, more akin to a desire than a belief. This paper presents a scientifically informed reconciliation of non-cognitivism and moral doubt. The central claim is that attitudinal ambivalence—the degree to which one holds conflicting attitudes towards the same (...) object—can play the role of moral doubt for non-cognitivists. I will demonstrate that ambivalence has all of the features that we would expect it to have in order to play the role of moral doubt. It is gradable, can vary through time, covaries with strength of motivation, and is suitably distinct from the other features of our moral judgements. As well as providing a defence of non-cognitivism, this insight poses a new challenge for the view: deciding how to act under moral ambivalence. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, there was an upsurge of research and innovation in biotechnology and related fields, leading to exciting new discoveries in areas such as the engineering of biological processes, gene editing, stem cell research, CRISPR-Cas9 technology, Synthetic Biology, recombinant DNA, LMOs and GMOs, to mention only a few. At the same time, these advances generated concerns about biosafety, biosecurity and adverse impacts on biodiversity and the environment, leading to the establishment of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) at (...) Higher Education and Research Institutions dedicated to reviewing research with implications for biosafety and the environment. -/- These Biosafety and Environment Research Ethics Committees, referred to as EBRECs, are in the early stages of their establishment and formalisation, and there is much uncertainty about their composition, scope, procedures of decision-making and the principles that should guide their deliberations and assessments. In many respects, EBRECs are venturing into uncharted territory, facing a very wide range of complex research fields, far-reaching research practices and deep concerns new to Review Boards, raising the question to what extent EBRECs can fall back on the fairly well-established principles and procedures of RECs focusing on Human, Health or Animal research, and to what extent they need new or adapted principles and procedures. -/- Against this background, I set out to answer the following three main research questions in this thesis: 1. What is the current state of ethical principles for ethics reviews in the field of environmental and biosafety research ethics? Which principles are currently used in this context, and how? 2. What are the shortcomings of the current principles used by EBRECs and how can they be overcome? 3. What ethical principles must be adopted by environmental and biosafety research ethics committees and guide them in their decision-making? -/- In order to prepare the ground and set the scene for my discussion of these questions, I also formulated four supporting research questions: i. What is environmental research ethics in action? ii. What is biosafety research ethics in action? iii. How are environmental and biosafety ethics related to one another? iv. How should the guidelines and ethical principles related to these two overlapping fields be implemented in the ethics review process? Following my introduction and problem statement in Chapter 1, I devoted Chapters 2 and 3 to an overview of my supporting questions to set the scene for Environmental and Biosafety Research Ethics. In Chapter 4, I turned to my main research question with a discussion of national and international declarations, frameworks and legislation and an investigation of principles in the different research areas to get a picture of applicable principles that can guide EBRECs. -/- The main finding of my thesis is that due to the complexity of EBR, different categories of principles could be the solution for EBRECs. I elaborate on this in Chapter 5, my concluding chapter, in which I also propose a list of core principles that can serve as an accessible and easy-to-use guide for EBRECs in their decision-making. In this proposal, I cluster different kinds of principles in terms of four categories: 1. Principles as a Moral Concept 2. Principles as a Social Concept 3. Principles as a Legal Concept 4. Principles as a Safety Concept . (shrink)

What proper role should considerations of risk, particularly to research subjects, play when it comes to conducting research on human enhancement in the military context? We introduce the currently visible military enhancement techniques (1) and the standard discussion of risk for these (2), in particular what we refer to as the ‘Assumption’, which states that the demands for risk-avoidance are higher for enhancement than for therapy. We challenge the Assumption through the introduction of three categories of enhancements (3): therapeutic, preventive, (...) and pure enhancements. This demands a revision of the Assumption (4), alongside which we propose some further general principles bearing on how to balance risks and benefits in the context of military enhancement research. We identify a particular type of therapeutic enhancements as providing a more responsible path to human trials of the relevant interventions than pure enhancement applications. Finally, we discuss some possible objections to our line of thought (5). While acknowledging their potential insights, we ultimately find them to be unpersuasive, at least provided that our proposal is understood as fully non-coercive towards the candidates for such therapeutic enhancement trials. (shrink)

Why should moral philosophers, moral psychologists, and machine ethicists care about computational complexity? Debates on whether artificial intelligence (AI) can or should be used to solve problems in ethical domains have mainly been driven by what AI can or cannot do in terms of human capacities. In this paper, we tackle the problem from the other end by exploring what kind of moral machines are possible based on what computational systems can or cannot do. To do so, we analyze normative (...) ethics through the lens of computational complexity. First, we introduce computational complexity for the uninitiated reader and discuss how the complexity of ethical problems can be framed within Marr’s three levels of analysis. We then study a range of ethical problems based on consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, with the aim of elucidating the complexity associated with the problems themselves (e.g., due to combinatorics, uncertainty, strategic dynamics), the computational methods employed (e.g., probability, logic, learning), and the available resources (e.g., time, knowledge, learning). The results indicate that most problems the normative frameworks pose lead to tractability issues in every category analyzed. Our investigation also provides several insights about the computational nature of normative ethics, including the differences between rule- and outcome-based moral strategies, and the implementation-variance with regard to moral resources. We then discuss the consequences complexity results have for the prospect of moral machines in virtue of the trade-off between optimality and efficiency. Finally, we elucidate how computational complexity can be used to inform both philosophical and cognitive-psychological research on human morality by advancing the moral tractability thesis. (shrink)

This chapter of the Handbook of Utility Theory aims at covering the connections between utility theory and social ethics. The chapter first discusses the philosophical interpretations of utility functions, then explains how social choice theory uses them to represent interpersonal comparisons of welfare in either utilitarian or non-utilitarian representations of social preferences. The chapter also contains an extensive account of John Harsanyi's formal reconstruction of utilitarianism and its developments in the later literature, especially when society faces uncertainty rather (...) than probabilistic risk. (shrink)

The first contribution, by Mercedes Valmisa, begins by repositioning the Zhuangzi 莊子 as a whole within pre-Qin thought under the impact of newly excavated materials. Moving away from the traditional classification of texts according to schools, it focuses instead on varying approaches to life issues. Centering the discussion on life situations and changes we have no control over, including the unpredictable vagaries of fate (ming 命), it outlines several typical responses. One is adaptation, finding ways to go along with what (...) life demands, and even availing oneself of the new opportunities it brings about. Another is a turning inward, a focus on the inner self, holding on to ethical and other standards and making sure on does the right thing regardless of the outcomes of one's actions. While the former appears in several chapters of the Zhuangzi, notably in chapter 6, the latter is central to the Qiongda yishi 窮達以時 (Failure and Success Depend on Opportunity), a manuscript excavated at Guodian. However tempting it may be to characterize one approach as Daoist and the other as Confucian, they both appear within the Zhuangzi together with a third approach to fate, showing the fluidity of philosophical discussion and the futility of thinking along the lines of traditional boundaries. (shrink)

In 2008, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was initiated to address the historical and contemporary injustices and impacts of Indian Residential Schools. Of the many goals of the TRC, I focus on reconciliation and how the TRC aims to promote this through public education and engagement. To explore this, I consider two questions: 1) who does the TRC include in the process of reconciliation? And 2) how might I, as someone who is not Indigenous (specifically, as someone (...) who is “white”), be engaged by the TRC? Ethical queries arise which speak to broader concerns about the TRC’s capability to fulfill its public education goals. I raise several concerns about whether the TRC’s plan to convoke the collective will result in over-simplifying the process by relying on blunt, poorly defined identity categories that erase the heterogeneity of those residing in Canada, as well as the complexity of the conflict among us. I attempt to situate myself in-between proclamations of “success” or “failure” of the TRC, to better understand what can be learned from contested truths and experiences of uncertainty. (shrink)

Life after retirement is to some people the most dreaded period of their life because of the uncertainty that surrounds it. Even with proper planning by way of contributory pension scheme during one’s active period in service, the uncertainty of both the political and economic policies in the country makes the future of pensioners and the aged very bleak and unpredictable. The delay in payment and the administrative bottle neck creates an atmosphere of fear and insecurity physically, psychologically, (...) economically, socially and emotionally among most employees in Nigeria. Their fear is justified by the incessant corruption scam that has bedeviled the pension scheme in Nigeria over the years. The paper investigated Some Socio-Ethical Implications of Corruption on Retirees, using the management of the Pension Scheme in Nigeria as a case study. The study discovered the multiple negative effect of corruption on retirees to include frustration, depression and poverty that has led to untimely death of many pensioners who gave their all to the nation and were neglected and abandoned after retirement. Many died because their gratuities were not paid; even their monthly pensions that they depended so much on were scarcely paid on time. Some of their adult children who would have taken care of them are unemployed, some are married and taking care of their own families and their responsibility does not allow them take care of their parents as it was in the African traditional setting. The study recommended that the appointment of pension manager should be apolitical and that persons of credible, impeccable and uncompromising track record of honesty and sincerity be appointed as pension manager to reduce the plight of the aged in Nigeria. (shrink)

One objection to conventional AI ethics is that it slows innovation. This presentation responds by reconfiguring ethics as an innovation accelerator. The critical elements develop from a contrast between Stability AI’s Diffusion and OpenAI’s Dall-E. By analyzing the divergent values underlying their opposed strategies for development and deployment, five conceptions are identified as common to acceleration ethics. Uncertainty is understood as positive and encouraging, rather than discouraging. Innovation is conceived as intrinsically valuable, instead of worthwhile only (...) as mediated by social effects. AI problems are solved by more AI, not less. Permissions and restrictions governing AI emerge from a decentralized process, instead of a unified authority. The work of ethics is embedded in AI development and application, instead of functioning from outside. Together, these attitudes and practices remake ethics as provoking rather than restraining artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Some consequentialists argue that ordinary individuals are obligated to act in specific, concrete ways to address large-scale harms. For example, they argue that we should each refrain from meat-eating and avoid buying sweatshop-made clothing. The case they advance for such prescriptions can seem intuitive and compelling: by acting in those ways, a person might help prevent serious harms from being produced at little or no personal cost, and so one should act in those ways. But I argue that such reasoning (...) often relies on an overly simplistic assessment of the costs and benefits of those prescriptions, one that misconstrues or neglects important issues. Indeed, a closer look at those costs and benefits reveals just how little we often know about a number of real-world matters that bear on the expected consequences of the prescribed individual actions. Our predicament is one of radical uncertainty: we currently lack a sound basis for concluding that the relevant actions are more likely to do good than to backfire. I distinguish this empirically grounded objection from others, which are not convincing—including one based on the mere conceivability of the actions in question backfiring and another based on the supposition that such actions cannot make a difference in addressing the massive problems at issue. The upshot is that, at least for now, consequentialist arguments for many specific individual actions aimed at addressing large-scale harms are inconclusive. (shrink)

The AGI alignment problem has a bimodal distribution of outcomes with most outcomes clustering around the poles of total success and existential, catastrophic failure. Consequently, attempts to solve AGI alignment should, all else equal, prefer false negatives (ignoring research programs that would have been successful) to false positives (pursuing research programs that will unexpectedly fail). Thus, we propose adopting a policy of responding to points of philosophical and practical uncertainty associated with the alignment problem by limiting and choosing necessary (...) assumptions to reduce the risk of false positives. Herein we explore in detail two relevant points of uncertainty that AGI alignment research hinges on---meta-ethical uncertainty and uncertainty about mental phenomena---and show how to reduce false positives in response to them. (shrink)

This paper aims to analyze the ethical challenges in experimental drug use during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, using Germany as a case study. In Germany uniform ethical guidelines were available early on nationwide, which was considered as desirable by other states to reduce uncertainties and convey a message of unity. The purpose of this ethical analysis is to assist the preparation of future guidelines on the use of medicines during public health emergencies. The use of hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir (...) and COVID-19 convalescent plasma in clinical settings was analyzed from the perspective of the ethical principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, justice and autonomy. We observed that drug safety and drug distribution during the pandemic affects all four ethical principles. We therefore recommend to establish ethical guidelines (i) to discuss experimental treatment options with patients from all population groups who are in urgent need, (ii) to facilitate the recording of patient reactions to drugs in off-label use, (iii) to expand inclusion criteria for clinical studies to avoid missing potentially negative effects on excluded groups, and (iv) to maintain sufficient access to repurposed drugs for patients with prior conditions. (shrink)

How can someone reconcile the desire to eat meat, and a tendency toward vegetarian ideals? How should we reconcile contradictory moral values? How can we aggregate different moral theories? How individual preferences can be fairly aggregated to represent a will, norm, or social decision? Conflict resolution and preference aggregation are tasks that intrigue philosophers, economists, sociologists, decision theorists, and many other scholars, being a rich interdisciplinary area for research. When trying to solve questions about moral uncertainty a meta understanding (...) of the concept of normativity can help us to develop strategies to deal with norms themselves. 2nd-order normativity, or norms about norms, is a hierarchical way to think about how to combine many different normative structures and preferences into a single coherent decision. That is what metanormativity is all about, a way to answer: what should we do when we don’t know what to do? In this study, we will review a decision-making strategy dealing with moral uncertainty, Maximization of Expected Choice-Worthiness. This strategy, proposed by William MacAskill, allows for the aggregation and inter-theoretical comparison of different normative structures, cardinal theories, and ordinal theories. In this study, we will exemplify the metanormative methods proposed by MacAskill, using has an example, a series of vegetarian dilemmas. Given the similarity to this metanormative strategy to expected utility theory, we will also show that it is possible to integrate both models to address decision-making problems in situations of empirical and moral uncertainty. We believe that this kind of ethical-mathematical formalism can be useful to help develop strategies to better aggregate moral preferences and solve conflicts. (shrink)

When it comes to social robotics (robots that engage human social responses via “eyes” and other facial features, voice-based natural-language interactions, and even evocative movements), ethicists, particularly in European and North American traditions, are divided over whether and why they might be morally considerable. Some argue that moral considerability is based on internal psychological states like consciousness and sentience, and debate about thresholds of such features sufficient for ethical consideration, a move sometimes criticized for being overly dualistic in its framing (...) of mind versus body. Others, meanwhile, focus on the effects of these robots on human beings, arguing that psychological impact alone can qualify an entity for moral status. What both sides overlook is the importance for ordinary moral reasoning of integrating questions about an entity’s “inner life,” and its psychological effect on us. Turning to accounts of relationships in virtue ethics, especially those of the Confucian tradition, we find a more nuanced theory that can provide complex guidance on the moral considerability of social robots, including ethical considerations about whether and how to question this to begin with. (shrink)

The research has three objectives: 1) to study the concept of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, 2) to study the concept of reality and knowledge in Buddhist philosophy, and 3) to analyze the concept of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in Buddhist philosophical perspective. This is documentary research. In this research, it was found that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle refers to the experiment of thought while studying physical reality on smaller particles than atoms where at the present no theory of Physics can (...) clearly explain such properties. In this respect, the mentioned principle is utilized to predict the pairs of a certain attribute of physics, position, and momentum, for instance. The accuracy of position, however, cannot be precisely yielded in advance by such a principle. In other words, it is impossible to measure the position and momentum of a quantum particle at the same time. In the study of the ultimate reality on the matter in the Buddhist philosophy, it showed that corporeality in nature is conditioned by cause and effect and thereby falling under the three common characteristics: 1) impermanence, 2) state of suffering, and 3) state of non-substantiality. In the study of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in the Buddhist philosophical perspective, this research was found that the processes in acquiring certain knowledge of Heisenberg and Buddhist philosophy are by one another in the sense that such knowledge is methodologically acquired through experience, rationality, and intuition because both see the Reality in the same manners, that is, the physical reality is viewed by Heisenberg as the thing that goes under changing state of wave-particle all the times, and the matter is seen by Buddhist philosophy as the impermanence and change depending upon its factors involved and thereby is not-self. However, in the different aspect, on the one hand, Buddhist philosophy utilizes the knowledge on the matter to develop the morality and ethics by which the cessation of suffering could be respectively made, but on the other hand, Heisenberg somehow applies the certain knowledge on physical objects into quantum technology to accommodate the physical comfortability in living life. Suggestions in the application of knowledge gained from this research into benefit were that while Buddhist philosophy can make use of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to provide certain help at the time of explanation of three common characteristics being done through the scientific method, science also can utilize knowledge gained from Buddhist philosophy to expand the framework of scientific knowledge which is aimed at studying only the physical objects to be able to study the mental objects through the integration of three epistemological methods as well. (shrink)

Growing technological advances in intelligent artifacts and bitter experiences of the past have emphasized the need to use and operate ethics in this field. Accordingly, it is vital to discuss the ethical integrity of having intelligent artifacts. Concerning the method of gathering materials, the current study uses library and documentary research followed by attribution style. Moreover, descriptive analysis is employed in order to analyze data. Explaining and criticizing the opposing views in this field and reviewing the related literature, it (...) is concluded that the proof of the ethical integrity of the intelligent artifacts is possible due to the specific features of these artifacts and their own moral system. (shrink)

When faced with uncertainty, consequentialists often advocate choosing the option with the largest expected utility, as calculated using the arithmetic average. I provide some arguments to suggest that instead, one should consider choosing the option with the largest geometric average of utility. I explore the difference between these two approaches in a variety of ethical dilemmas and argue that geometric averaging has some appealing properties as a normative decision-making tool.

The article is a plea for ethicists to regard probability as one of their most important concerns. It outlines a series of topics of central importance in ethical theory in which probability is implicated, often in a surprisingly deep way, and lists a number of open problems. Topics covered include: interpretations of probability in ethical contexts; the evaluative and normative significance of risk or uncertainty; uses and abuses of expected utility theory; veils of ignorance; Harsanyi’s aggregation theorem; population size (...) problems; equality; fairness; giving priority to the worse off; continuity; incommensurability; nonexpected utility theory; evaluative measurement; aggregation; causal and evidential decision theory; act consequentialism; rule consequentialism; and deontology. (shrink)

Automated decision making for sentencing is the use of a software algorithm to analyse a convicted offender’s case and deliver a sentence. This chapter reviews the moral arguments for and against employing automated decision making for sentencing and finds that its use is in principle morally permissible. Specifically, it argues that well-designed automated decision making for sentencing will better approximate the just sentence than human sentencers. Moreover, it dismisses common concerns about transparency, privacy and bias as unpersuasive or inapplicable. The (...) chapter also notes that moral disagreement about theories of just sentencing are plausibly resolved by applying the principle of maximising expected moral choiceworthiness, and that automated decision making is better suited to the resulting ensemble model. Finally, the chapter considers the challenge posed by penal populism. The dispiriting conclusion is that although it is in theory morally desirable to use automated decision-making for criminal sentencing, it may well be the case that we ought not to try. (shrink)

The research has three objectives: 1) to study the concept of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, 2) to study the concept of reality and knowledge in Buddhist philosophy, and 3) to analyze the concept of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in Buddhist philosophical perspective. This is documentary research. In this research, it was found that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle refers to the experiment of thought while studying physical reality on smaller particles than atoms where at the present no theory of Physics can (...) clearly explain such properties. In this respect, the mentioned principle is utilized to predict the pairs of a certain attribute of physics, position, and momentum, for instance. The accuracy of position, however, cannot be precisely yielded in advance by such a principle. In other words, it is impossible to measure the position and momentum of a quantum particle at the same time. In the study of the ultimate reality on the matter in the Buddhist philosophy, it showed that corporeality in nature is conditioned by cause and effect and thereby falling under the three common characteristics: 1) impermanence, 2) state of suffering, and 3) state of non-substantiality. In the study of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in the Buddhist philosophical perspective, this research was found that the processes in acquiring certain knowledge of Heisenberg and Buddhist philosophy are by one another in the sense that such knowledge is methodologically acquired through experience, rationality, and intuition because both see the Reality in the same manners, that is, the physical reality is viewed by Heisenberg as the thing that goes under changing state of wave-particle all the times, and the matter is seen by Buddhist philosophy as the impermanence and change depending upon its factors involved and thereby is not-self. However, in the different aspect, on the one hand, Buddhist philosophy utilizes the knowledge on the matter to develop the morality and ethics by which the cessation of suffering could be respectively made, but on the other hand, Heisenberg somehow applies the certain knowledge on physical objects into quantum technology to accommodate the physical comfortability in living life. Suggestions in the application of knowledge gained from this research into benefit were that while Buddhist philosophy can make use of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to provide certain help at the time of explanation of three common characteristics being done through the scientific method, science also can utilize knowledge gained from Buddhist philosophy to expand the framework of scientific knowledge which is aimed at studying only the physical objects to be able to study the mental objects through the integration of three epistemological methods as well. (shrink)

Against the background of continuing inadequacy in global efforts to address climate change and apparent social and political inertia, ever greater interest is being generated in the idea that geoengineering may offer some solution to this problem. I do not take a position, here, on whether or not geoengineering could ever be morally justifiable. My goal in this paper is more modest – but also has broader implications. I aim to show that even if some form of geoengineering might be (...) ethically acceptable in certain specific circumstances, lab-based research into such techniques could nevertheless have morally problematic consequences. I support this claim by explaining that our current state of uncertainty regarding how the impacts of geoengineering interventions could be geographically distributed may help to promote international agreement on fair rules for the governance of geoengineering. In these circumstances of scientific uncertainty, international actors also face uncertainty regarding who the winners and losers could be with respect to potential rules of geoengineering governance, thereby obstructing the pursuit of self-interest in the selection of such rules. Instead of a research first approach, then, we have reason to take a governance first approach – ensuring that fair international institutions to regulate geoengineering activities are established before further research is conducted into how the costs and benefits of such interventions could be distributed. (shrink)

Population axiology concerns how to evaluate populations in terms of their moral goodness, that is, how to order populations by the relations “is better than” and “is as good as”. The task has been to find an adequate theory about the moral value of states of affairs where the number of people, the quality of their lives, and their identities may vary. So far, this field has largely ignored issues about uncertainty and the conditions that have been discussed mostly (...) pertain to the ranking of risk-free outcomes. Most public policy choices, however, are decisions under uncertainty, including policy choices that affect the size of a population. Here, we shall address the question of how to rank population prospects—that is, alternatives that contain uncertainty as to which population they will bring about—by the relations “is better than” and “is as good as”. We start by illustrating how well-known population axiologies can be extended to population prospect axiologies. And we show that new problems arise when extending population axiologies to prospects. In particular, traditional population axiologies lead to prospect-versions of the problems that they praised for avoiding in the risk-free settings. Finally, we identify an intuitive adequacy condition that, we contend, should be satisfied by any population prospect axiology, and show how given this condition, the impossibility theorems in population axiology can be extended to (non-trivial) impossibility theorems for population prospect axiology. (shrink)