Artificial virtuous agents: from theory to machine implementation

Virtue ethics has many times been suggested as a promising recipe for the construction of artificial moral agents due to its emphasis on moral character and learning. However, given the complex nature of the theory, hardly any work has de facto attempted to implement the core tenets of virtue ethics in moral machines. The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate how virtue ethics can be taken all the way from theory to machine implementation. To achieve this goal, we critically explore the possibilities and challenges for virtue ethics from a computational perspective. Drawing on previous conceptual and technical work, we outline a version of artificial virtue based on moral functionalism, connectionist bottom–up learning, and eudaimonic reward. We then describe how core features of the outlined theory can be interpreted in terms of functionality, which in turn informs the design of components necessary for virtuous cognition. Finally, we present a comprehensive framework for the technical development of artificial virtuous agents and discuss how they can be implemented in moral environments.

Sentimentos e utilidade: uma investigação da moral em bases humeanas

The article main purpose is to develop an argument concerning the central problem of Hume's practical philosophy. The initial approach consists in determine the influence that reason and sentiments have on how moral judgments are ordinarily made. It will be argued that the base of moral distinctions is found in sentiments, with reason having an instrumental role in the process. In order to explain which principle offers a north to sentiments and is the moral compass of individuals, the second point developed in this article converges to investigating moral sentiments and utility from the humean argument about the natural virtue of benevolence and the artificial virtue of justice. To answer these questions, the argument will be grounded essentially on the Investigations on the Principles of Morals, using the Treatise of Human Nature and Hume’s commentators when is necessary to reinforce or clarify a specific point.

Law against Justice and Solidarity

Law and justice are in crucial ways against nature as well as against solidarity. As David Hume proclaimed, justice is an “artificial virtue” in contrast to the social bonds of family and community, which are affectively grounded in solidarity and manifestations of mutual sympathy. Law as a self-standing normative order propelled by its own inner logic remains too abstract to command heartfelt internalization or commitment. Moreover, law often stands against justice, as some laws are unjust and full justice ever elusive. Accordingly, difficult questions arise for jurisprudence. Derrida and Agamben confront these difficulties in the context of the nexus between the singular, the universal, and the plural. For Derrida, law cannot achieve justice, as there is tragically no way to reconcile the universal and the singular. For Agamben, in contrast, the gaps become masked by a ceremonial spectacle of religiously inspired harmony and acclamation by those subject to law and an unbridgeable gap between law and administration. This chapter situates and compares Derrida’s deconstruction of law with Agamben’s reconstruction, focusing on whether they complement one another and on whether they point to solutions that may open a way beyond despair or artifice.