Monkeys, Moral Machines, and Persons

2021 ◽  
pp. 290-305
Author(s):  
David R. Lawrence ◽  
John Harris
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Machines ◽  
The Future

Debates over moral machines are often guilty of making wide assumptions about the nature of future autonomous entities, and frequently bypass the distinction between ‘agents’ and ‘actors’ to the detriment of their conclusions. The scope and limits of moral status are fundamentally linked to this distinction. We position non-Homo sapiens great apes as members of a particular moral status clade, which are treated in a similar fashion to that proposed for so-called ‘moral machines’. The principles by which we ultimately decide to treat great apes, and whether or not we decide to act upon our responsibilities to them as moral agents, are likely to be the same principles we use to decide our responsibilities to moral AI in the future.

scholarly journals Group Agency and Artificial Intelligence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian List
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Intelligent Systems ◽  
Group Agency ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Legal Personhood ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intentional Agents ◽  
Regulatory Challenges

AbstractThe aim of this exploratory paper is to review an under-appreciated parallel between group agency and artificial intelligence. As both phenomena involve non-human goal-directed agents that can make a difference to the social world, they raise some similar moral and regulatory challenges, which require us to rethink some of our anthropocentric moral assumptions. Are humans always responsible for those entities’ actions, or could the entities bear responsibility themselves? Could the entities engage in normative reasoning? Could they even have rights and a moral status? I will tentatively defend the (increasingly widely held) view that, under certain conditions, artificial intelligent systems, like corporate entities, might qualify as responsible moral agents and as holders of limited rights and legal personhood. I will further suggest that regulators should permit the use of autonomous artificial systems in high-stakes settings only if they are engineered to function as moral (not just intentional) agents and/or there is some liability-transfer arrangement in place. I will finally raise the possibility that if artificial systems ever became phenomenally conscious, there might be a case for extending a stronger moral status to them, but argue that, as of now, this remains very hypothetical.

scholarly journals Regulating the Tyrell Corporation: the Emergence of Novel Beings

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-434
Author(s):  
David R Lawrence ◽  
Sarah Morley
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Epochal Change ◽  
The Law

AbstractEmerging biotechnologies and advances in computer science promise the arrival of novel beings possessed of some degree of moral status, even potentially sentient or sapient life. Such a manifestation will constitute an epochal change, and perhaps threaten Homo sapiens’ status as the only being generally considered worthy of personhood and its contingent protections; as well as being the root of any number of social and legal issues. The law as it stands is not likely to be capable of managing or adapting to this challenge. This paper highlights the likely societal ramifications of novel beings and the gaps in the legislation which is likely to be relied upon to respond to these. In so doing, the authors make a case for the development of new regulatory structures to manage the moral issues surrounding this new technological upheaval.

From Experiential-based to Relational-based Forms of Social Organization: A Major Transition in the Evolution of Homo sapiens

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dwight Read
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Internal Structure ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Evolutionary Trajectory ◽  
Major Transition

The evolutionary trajectory from non-human to human forms of social organization involves change from experiential- to relational-based systems of social interaction. Social organization derived from biologically and experientially grounded social interaction reached a hiatus with the great apes due to an expansion of individualization of behaviour. The hiatus ended with the introduction of relational-based social interaction, culminating in social organization based on cultural kinship. This evolutionary trajectory links biological origins to cultural outcomes and makes evident the centrality of distributed forms of information for both the boundary and internal structure of human societies as these evolved from prior forms of social organization.

Human Evolution

1984 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 182-198
Author(s):  
Catherine Badgley
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Pan Paniscus ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Sister Group ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
Living Species ◽  
Single Living

The evolutionary history of humans is well understood in outline, compared to that of many other groups of mammals. But human evolution remains enigmatic in its details, and these are compelling both scientifically and personally because they relate to the biological uniqueness of humans. Humans are placed in the primate family Hominidae, which, in traditional classifications, contains a single living species, Homo sapiens. The closest living relatives of humans are great apes: the chimpanzees Pan paniscus and Pan troglodytes, the gorilla Gorilla gorilla, and the orangutan Pongo pygmaeus. These apes have traditionally been placed in the family Pongidae as the sister group of Hominidae. Living Hominidae and Pongidae, together with Hylobatidae (gibbons) comprise the modern representatives of the primate suborder Hominoidea.

Denying Corporate Rights and Punishing Corporate Wrongs

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (04) ◽  
pp. 517-534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy J. Sepinwall
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Corporate Rights ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Strategy I

ABSTRACT: Scholars addressing the moral status of corporations are motivated by a pair of conflicting anxieties: If corporations are not moral agents, we will be unable to blame them for their wrongs. But if corporations are moral agents, we will have to recognize corporate moral rights, and the legal rights that flow therefrom. In early and under-appreciated work, Tom Donaldson sought to allay both concerns at once: Corporations, he argued, are not moral persons, and so are not eligible for many of the rights that persons enjoy; but they are moral agents, and so ought to bear responsibility in many of the ways that persons do. This article offers a sympathetic critique of the Donaldsonian strategy. I argue that, as it has been elaborated, the strategy necessarily fails. Nonetheless the strategy embodies a worthy aim and so I seek to provide an alternative way to vindicate it.

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