Ethical Reasoning and Moral Principles

Author(s):  
John Janzekovic
AI Magazine ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 57-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Scheutz

Morality is a fundamentally human trait which permeates all levels of human society, from basic etiquette and normative expectations of social groups, to formalized legal principles upheld by societies. Hence, future interactive AI systems, in particular, cognitive systems on robots deployed in human settings, will have to meet human normative expectations, for otherwise these system risk causing harm. While the interest in “machine ethics” has increased rapidly in recent years, there are only very few current efforts in the cognitive systems community to investigate moral and ethical reasoning. And there is currently no cognitive architecture that has even rudimentary moral or ethical competence, i.e., the ability to judge situations based on moral principles such as norms and values and make morally and ethically sound decisions. We hence argue for the urgent need to instill moral and ethical competence in all cognitive system intended to be employed in human social contexts.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Scalvini

<p>This study focuses on the contradiction between the alleged inclusivity and diversity that TikTok promotes and its apparent indifference for ethical standards. Specifically, the goal is to explore how social media users think in individualistic, moral and ethical terms about their online participation when they talk about TikTok. Relatively little research has focused on moral and ethical reasoning in the use of social media and no study to date has provided the opportunity to voice a user’s own experience with moral issues as they perceive them through their use of TikTok. A thematic analysis of 47 in-depth interviews is applied to identify three dimensions of moral reasoning. First, interviewees talk about themselves as being an individual worthy of receiving moral esteem and stress the fact that they have the correct moral motivations. Second, interviewees locate the focus of morality in their own actions, whereas they justify their ethical decision by expressing themselves as a holder of moral virtues. Third, interviewees are aware of the ethical problems that have been discussed in the news, but they do not abandon their moral principles while participating on the platform. In order to reconciliate the conflict, they provide moral rationalizations which highlight TikTok’s positive, inclusive functions for the individual or society. This aspect is confirmed by how they link authenticity to the concepts of inclusivity and diversity. </p>


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanne M. Watkins ◽  
Simon M. Laham

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-45
Author(s):  
Michael Clunn

Foundationalism states that philosophy must begin from basic building blocks and construct arguments based on these. The axioms of existence, consciousness, and identity are three primary axioms which cannot be denied without being self-defeating. These axioms are also common to all human life. This paper explores ways to construct moral principles and virtues from these foundational cornerstones.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
João Carlos Brum Torres

O artigo tem por objeto o exame de três registros de gritantes e distintos paradoxos na Doutrina do Direito de Kant. Registros feitos em tempos e contextos históricos diferentes por Friedrich Bouterwek, Marcus Willaschek e Balthazar Barbosa Filho. Bouterwek atribuiu a Kant a mais paradoxal das proposições jamais enunciadas por qualquer autor, a de que a mera ideia de soberania deve obrigar-nos a obedecer como a nosso inquestionável senhor a quem quer que se haja estabelecido como tal, sem que caiba indagar quem lhe deu o direito de comandar-nos. Willaschek aponta a incompatibilidade de duas teses centrais da doutrina kantiana: a do caráter externo dos vínculos jurídicos e a da incondicionalidade obrigacional do direito positivo, pois não é possível entender como é possível termo-nos como obrigados por imperativos jurídicos e, ao mesmo, vermo-nos internamente isentados do dever de obedecê-los. O ponto crítico de Balthazar é alegar que não pode haver na filosofia kantiana uma crítica da razão político e jurídica, simplesmente porque o conceito de imputação, base da normatividade própria dessas esferas, pressupõe uma pluralidade de agentes livres que, justamente, só pode ser uma pressuposição, pois nosso acesso à normatividade prática só pode ter lugar em primeira pessoa. No exame a que o artigo submete essas alegações, o artigo argumenta, em objeção à tese de Balthazar, que o caráter universal e categórico da força que vincula o sujeito quando confrontado com a lei moral em primeira pessoa necessariamente se desvaneceria se, ao mesmo tempo, ele não fosse tomado pela evidência de que a realidade objetiva dos princípios morais é não só instanciável, mas assegurada pela múltipla instanciação. Com relação às dificuldades levantadas por Willaschek e Bouterwek, o artigo argumenta que o princípio exeundum e statu naturali, enquanto norma metapositiva, anterior à divisão do domínio prático entre doutrina do direito e doutrina da virtude, permite ao mesmo tempo compreender a exigência de obediência ao poder constituído e a restrição das obrigações jurídico-políticas exclusivamente ao foro externo.AbstractThe object of the article is to examine three claims about three distinct and allegedly blatant paradoxes in Kant's Doctrine of Right. These three critical points had been made in distinct times and contexts by Friedrich Bouterwek, Marcus Willaschek e Balthazar Barbosa Filho. Bouterwek attributed to Kant the most paradoxical of all paradoxical propositions, the statement that by the mere idea of sovereignty we are obliged to obey as our lord who has imposed himself upon us, without questioning from where he got such right. Willaschek points out the incompatibility of two main theses of Kantian doctrine of right: the claims that the legal bounds are of external character and that they are the source of unconditional obligations, since it seems impossible to understand how it would be possible to be obliged by juridical norms and decisions and at the same time to be exempted of the internal duty of compliance. The radical objection of Professor Balthazar is the claim that in the context of Kantian Philosophy it is impossible to admit a critique of the juridical and political reason because the concept of imputation, ground of the normativity in these domains, requires not only the presupposition of free agents, but a true and secure epistemic access to them, which is, according to him, impossible considering that the moral law and the other practical principles are accessible for us only in the first person. In the course of the appraisal of such claims, the article contest that objection arguing that the universal and categorical force of the normative bound experienced by the subject when confronted with the moral law in the first person would ineluctably vanish if, at the same time, he had not been taken by the evidence that the objective reality of the moral principles is secured by multiple instancing. Regarding the difficulties raised by Willaschek and Bouterwek, the article argues that the principle exeundum e statu naturali, as a norm of meta-positive character, prior to the division of practical domains between the doctrine of right and the doctrine of virtue, is the cue both to the understanding of the requirement of unquestioning obedience to the constituted power and to the restriction of the validity of this requirement only in foro externo.


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