Should Violence Against Robots be Banned?

This paper addresses the following question: “Should violence against robots be banned?” Such a question is usually associated with a query concerning the moral status of robots. If an entity has moral status, then concomitant responsibilities toward it arise. Despite the possibility of a positive answer to the title question on the grounds of the moral status of robots, legal changes are unlikely to occur in the short term. However, if the matter regards public violence rather than mere violence, the issue of the moral status of robots may be avoided, and legal changes could be made in the short term. Prohibition of public violence against robots focuses on public morality rather than on the moral status of robots. The wrongness of such acts is not connected with the intrinsic characteristics of robots but with their performance in public. This form of prohibition would be coherent with the existing legal system, which eliminates certain behaviors in public places through prohibitions against acts such as swearing, going naked, and drinking alcohol.

Environmental Ethics

This chapter begins Part III, which argues that the relational moral theory of rightness as friendliness is a strong competitor to Western principles in many applied ethical contexts. Chapter 8 articulates and defends a novel, relational account of moral status, according to which an entity is owed moral consideration roughly to the degree that it is capable of being party to a communal relationship. One of its implications is that many animals have a moral status but not one as high as ours, which many readers will find attractive, but which utilitarianism and Kantianism cannot easily accommodate. Relational moral status also grounds a promising response to the ‘argument from marginal cases’ that animals have the same moral status as incapacitated humans: even if two beings have identical intrinsic properties, they can differ in the extent to which they can relate and hence differ in their degree of moral status.

Conclusion

Chapter 13 concludes the book. It first highlights some of the communal ethic’s advantages compared to standard utilitarian and Kantian moral theories, recalling how it uniquely grounds judgements such as: animals have a moral status, albeit one less than that of humans; persons have a dignity of a sort that plausibly explains why reducing their quality of life matters morally; and despite people’s dignity’s demanding impartial consideration, an agent has duties to do more for those who have been in relationship with her. Then, the chapter sketches three projects it would be sensible to undertake, supposing the book’s central ideas have been worth taking seriously. Whereas the book focuses on prescriptive matters pertaining to right action in interpersonal contexts, it is also worth considering how well communality describes morality, whether it grounds an attractive account of good character, and what it entails for justice in legal, political, and economic institutions.

論胚胎的道德地位——儒家倫理的視角

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. For 40 years, international rules have limited human embryo research to the first 14 days of embryonic development. On May 26, 2021, in its latest guidelines for stem cell research and its medical applications, the International Society for Stem Cell Research eased the 14-day restriction. This raises myriad ethical issues. At their core is the debate over the moral status of embryos, which exposes ethical conflicts between cultural perspectives. This article discusses the moral status of embryos and argues from the perspective of Confucian ethics that the 14-day limit should not be waived at the present moment.

對〈新興人體胚胎研究技術、 十四天規則和胚胎的特殊地位〉一文的回應

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. This paper responds to “Emerging Human Embryo Research Technologies, the 14-Day Rule, and the Special Status of the Embryo” by analyzing the moral status of the embryo. We hold that the embryo has a limited moral status that is influenced by local ethical and cultural factors. The moral status of the embryo can be evaluated according to its potential value to and relationship with society within the specific ethical and cultural context. On whether the embryo should be used in research, we recommend that researchers follow the principle of permission, i.e., seek consent from the agents who best represent the interests of the embryo (usually the parents).

Animal Rights: A Philosophical Evaluation

Animal right is one of the most controversial issues in the contemporary world. A number of scholars have been discussing on whether the animals have rights like human beings or not. Through this debate, their opinions can be put into three groups; those who deny animal moral status, those who give some moral considerations to animals but deny them a fuller moral status, and those who extend rights to animals. This paper then gives a general overview on ‘Do Animals have Rights?’ It gives the meaning of the term “right” and explains whether the term right applies to animals too. It also portrays a drama whereby animals complain against sufferings imposed on them by human beings and a response given by a human being. It is also followed by philosophical debate on animal rights: pro and cons arguments. The Christian perspective is not left out. Finally, the paper ends with critical evaluations and conclusion. In evaluation of the debate on animal rights, the study found that, animals deserve to be treated well based on the argument that they have rights as animals. The main recommendation is that human beings should change their perception concerning animals by respecting animal.

Suspicious Minds: The Link Between Stress and Perceptions of Agency

<p>How do we perceive other minds? Research shows that people intuitively think about other minds in terms of two dimensions: agency (the capacity to think and act) and experience (the capacity to sense and feel). Perceiving a mind in another entity can alter how people interact it because mind perception implies moral status. There is evidence that stress alters the treatment of others, including contributing to dehumanization (the failure to perceive a humanlike mind in another person), but the effect of stress on mind perception is unknown. Based on previous research about the effects of stress on psychological phenomena related to the dimensions of agency and experience, I hypothesized that stress increases perceptions of agency and reduces perceptions of experience. To test these hypotheses, I conducted four studies combining two different measures of mind perception and two different methodological approaches. The results were inconsistent from one study to the next, but a tentative pattern emerged when taking all studies together. Participants who reported high levels of pre-existing stress tended to perceive more agency across a range of different entities, while inducing stress in the laboratory caused participants to attribute agency more readily to inanimate human faces. These results were weak and inconsistent, but they suggest that stress might increase perceptions of agency. The results for experience were inconclusive. I discuss some possible implications of my findings for mind perception and morality.</p>