scholarly journals The Moral Self and Moral Duties

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Albert Charlton Everett ◽  
Joshua August Skorburg ◽  
Julian Savulescu
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Care Home ◽  
Moral Character ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
Life Study ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
Recent Experimental Work ◽  
Influence Perceptions

Recent research has begun treating the perennial philosophical question, “what makes a person the same over time?” as an empirical question. A long tradition in philosophy holds that psychological continuity and connectedness of memories are at the heart of personal identity. More recent experimental work, following Strohminger & Nichols (2014), has suggested that persistence of moral character, more than memories, is perceived as essential for personal identity. While there is a growing body of evidence supporting these findings, a critique by Starmans & Bloom (2018) suggests that this research program conflates personal identity with mere similarity. To address this criticism, we explore how loss of someone’s morality or memories influence perceptions of identity change, and perceptions of moral duties towards the target of the change. We present participants with a classic ‘body switch’ thought experiment and after assessing perceptions of identity persistence, we present a moral dilemma, asking participants to imagine that one of the patients must die (Study 1) or be left alone in a care home for the rest of their life (Study 2). Our results highlight the importance of the continuity of moral character, suggesting lay intuitions are tracking (something like) personal identity, not just mere similarity.

scholarly journals More human than human: a Turing test for photographed faces

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jet Gabrielle Sanders ◽  
Yoshiyuki Ueda ◽  
Sakiko Yoshikawa ◽  
Rob Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Error Rate ◽  
Turing Test ◽  
Perceptual Task ◽  
Viewing Time ◽  
Facial Appearance ◽  
Theoretical Interest ◽  
Significant Performance ◽  
Recent Experimental Work

Abstract Background Recent experimental work has shown that hyper-realistic face masks can pass for real faces during live viewing. However, live viewing embeds the perceptual task (mask detection) in a powerful social context that may influence respondents’ behaviour. To remove this social context, we assessed viewers’ ability to distinguish photos of hyper-realistic masks from photos of real faces in a computerised two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) procedure. Results In experiment 1 (N = 120), we observed an error rate of 33% when viewing time was restricted to 500 ms. In experiment 2 (N = 120), we observed an error rate of 20% when viewing time was unlimited. In both experiments we saw a significant performance cost for other-race comparisons relative to own-race comparisons. Conclusions We conclude that viewers could not reliably distinguish hyper-realistic face masks from real faces in photographic presentations. As well as its theoretical interest, failure to detect synthetic faces has important implications for security and crime prevention, which often rely on facial appearance and personal identity being related.

scholarly journals Identity Theft: A Thought Experiment on the Fragility of Identity

Conatus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
David Menčik
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Identity Theft ◽  
Psychological Continuity ◽  
Temporal Proximity ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Prestige

This paper intends to discuss some aspects of what we conceive as personal identity: what it consists in, as well as its alleged fragility. First I will try to justify the methodology used in this paper, that is, the use of allegories in ontological debates, especialy in the form of thought experiments and science fiction movies. Then I will introduce an original thought experiment I call “Who am I actually?,” one that was coined with the intent to shed light on several aspects of the issue under examination, that is, the fragility of personal identity. Then I will move on to Christopher Nolan’s film The Prestige, as well as to Derek Parfit’s ‘divided minds’ thought experiment, to further discuss the fragility of personal identity; next to identity theft, the prospect of duplication is also intriguing, especially with regard to the psychological impact this might have on both the prototype and the duplicate. I will conclude with the view that spatial and temporal proximity or coexistence, especially when paired with awareness on behalf of the duplicates, would expectedly result in the infringement of the psychological continuity of one’s identity.

Autonomous Vehicles and the Attribution of Moral Responsibility

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan M. McManus ◽  
Abraham M. Rutchick
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Fatal Accident ◽  
Attributions Of Blame ◽  
Influence Perceptions

With the imminent advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs) comes a moral dilemma: How do people assign responsibility in the event of a fatal accident? AVs necessarily create conditions in which “drivers” yield agency to a machine. The current study examines how people make attributions of blame and praise in this context. Varying the features of AV technology affected how responsible a “driver” (who purchased the vehicle) is perceived to be following a deadly crash. The findings provide support for agency and commission as crucial bases of moral judgment. They also raise questions about how morally contradictory actions are perceived and underscore the need for research examining how moral responsibility is distributed among multiple potentially culpable agents. Pragmatically, these findings suggest that regulating (or declining to regulate) how AVs are programmed may strongly influence perceptions of moral and legal culpability.

Trust in Autonomous Cars: Exploring the Role of Shared Moral Values, Reasoning, and Emotion in Safety-Critical Decisions

2020 ◽  
pp. 001872082093304
Author(s):  
Ryosuke Yokoi ◽  
Kazuya Nakayachi
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Value Similarity ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Intention To Adopt ◽  
Autonomous Cars ◽  
Greater Good ◽  
Risk Managers ◽  
Near Future

Objective Autonomous cars (ACs) controlled by artificial intelligence are expected to play a significant role in transportation in the near future. This study investigated determinants of trust in ACs. Background Trust in ACs influences different variables, including the intention to adopt AC technology. Several studies on risk perception have verified that shared value determines trust in risk managers. Previous research has confirmed the effect of value similarity on trust in artificial intelligence. We focused on moral beliefs, specifically utilitarianism (belief in promoting a greater good) and deontology (belief in condemning deliberate harm), and tested the effects of shared moral beliefs on trust in ACs. Method We conducted three experiments ( N = 128, 71, and 196, for each), adopting a thought experiment similar to the well-known trolley problem. We manipulated shared moral beliefs (shared vs. unshared) and driver (AC vs. human), providing participants with different moral dilemma scenarios. Trust in ACs was measured through a questionnaire. Results The results of Experiment 1 showed that shared utilitarian belief strongly influenced trust in ACs. In Experiment 2 and Experiment 3, however, we did not find statistical evidence that shared deontological belief had an effect on trust in ACs. Conclusion The results of the three experiments suggest that the effect of shared moral beliefs on trust varies depending on the values that ACs share with humans. Application To promote AC implementation, policymakers and developers need to understand which values are shared between ACs and humans to enhance trust in ACs.

Believing in Reincarnation

Philosophy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 87 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikel Burley
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Affirmative Answer ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Bodily Continuity ◽  
Meaningful Role

AbstractIs it absurd to believe that, in the absence of bodily continuity, personal identity could be retained? Bernard Williams argued for an affirmative answer to this question partly on the basis of a well-known thought experiment. Some other philosophers, including D. Z. Phillips, have accepted, or appear to have accepted, Williams’ conclusion. Yet the argument has the consequence of dismissing as absurd the sorts of reincarnation beliefs which, within their proper contexts, have a meaningful role in the lives of many millions of people. Drawing upon philosophical work by David Cockburn, and also on anthropological studies concerning reincarnation beliefs, this paper questions the extent to which ostensibly meaningful beliefs can be deemed unintelligible in the absence of careful attention to their cultural contexts.

scholarly journals The Duty of the Patient to Cooperate

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Löschke
Keyword(s):  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Patient Relationship ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Doctor Patient Relationship ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
Normative Dimension ◽  
Normative Implications

AbstractIn discussing the normative implications of the doctor-patient relationship, medical ethics has mostly focused on the duties of doctors to their patients. This focus neglects an important normative dimension of the doctorpatient- relationship, namely the duties of patients to doctors. Only few authors have discussed the content and ground of the moral duties of patients, and each of these accounts are wanting in some way. This paper discusses patients’ duties and argues that patients have a relationship-dependent obligation to cooperate with the doctor, because doctors have a morally justified interest in fulfilling their moral role obligations as doctors, and by not cooperating, patients make it more difficult for doctors to fulfill their moral obligations. In some cases, failing to cooperate might even create an avoidable moral dilemma for the doctor.

What It Is Like for Two to Become One

2019 ◽  
pp. 270-293
Author(s):  
Luke Roelofs
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
The Other ◽  
Gradual Shift ◽  
The People

This chapter considers in depth a particularly perplexing thought experiment that has puzzled theorists of personal identity, namely person-fusion. Philosophers have wondered: if two people were to go through a process of brain-interfacing that gradually changed them into a single, integrated, person combining the traits of both, should that be regarded as the destruction or the survival of the original subjects of experience? The chapter discusses this question, and tries to think through what this process might be like for the people involved: how they might experience a gradual shift from recognizably interpersonal ways of relating to the other person, to relations more like those that hold within a single person’s consciousness.

6. Helping the helper

2018 ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Michael Dunn ◽  
Tony Hope
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Care Home ◽  
Cognitively Impaired ◽  
Home Setting ◽  
Psychological Continuity ◽  
Ethics Support ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Healthcare Practice ◽  
Embodied Agent ◽  
Philosophical Questions

‘Helping the helper’ shows how ethics support can be introduced to shape ethical understanding and good healthcare practice using an example from a care home setting where everyday care is provided to people with dementia. This case is one example of an ethical issue that arises frequently in the care of people with dementia: how to balance the person’s previous preferences and values with their current interests, when these conflict. This discussion raises some difficult philosophical questions about how a person’s identity should be understood when that person is cognitively impaired. Two concepts of personal identity are discussed: the psychological continuity account and the situated-embodied-agent account.

The Early Reception of Bernard Williams’ Reduplication Argument (1956–62)

2017 ◽  
Vol 99 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-345
Author(s):  
Andrea Sauchelli
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
History Of

Abstract:The reduplication argument advanced by Bernard Williams in 1956 has greatly stimulated the contemporary debate on personal identity. The argument relies on a famous thought experiment that, although not new in the history of philosophy, has engaged some of the most influential contemporary philosophers on the topic. I propose here an interpretation of the argument and a reconstruction of the early reception that Williams’ paper had in the 6 years immediately after its publication. The works discussed include papers by C. B. Martin, G. C. Nerlich, R. Coburn, and J. M. Shorter.

scholarly journals Conflicting notions of language in metalinguistic discourses in Lithuania, Norway and Serbia

2015 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Vuk Vukotić
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Language Ideology ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Online News ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Difference ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Standard Language Ideology

The article analyses the notions of language and their elements in metalinguistic comments taken from comment sections in online news portals from Lithuania, Norway and Serbia. The aim is to find and categorize different types of language notions. The goals were to analyse the elements of the notions of language and categorize them according to the metaphors found in the discourse. The empirical data was taken from comments under three news (three for each country), approximately 1640 comments were collected and the ones that contained metaphorical representations of language were analysed, 257 in total. The results show eight different notions of language, which are called: prescriptivist / authoritarian, instrumentalist, ethnolinguistic, communicative, essentialist, „personal identity“, elitist and constructivist. The last three notions are specific for only one of the environments and are discussed in greater detail. From the users’ perspective, the difference between the notions is based on several elements, most importantly: the place of language in society (what is the relationship to standard and non-standard varieties) perception of change and function and functionality of language. The results also show that notions of ‘pure language’ are connected not only to the ethnolinguistic notion of language (language as a part of the identity, change is understood as decay), but also with other varieties of language are connected with different (even opposing) ideals and practical concerns (language as a neutral tool of communication, as a separate organism, substance etc.), and, finally, those notions of language, where the differentiation between the varieties of language is not important, is only connected with the communicative function (communicative notion of language – language is communication). Speaking about language ideologies in general, results show that there are of language in which standard language ideology (according to Milroy 2001) is negatively valued.

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