The AI ethicist’s dilemma: fighting Big Tech by supporting Big Tech

Assume that a researcher uncovers a major problem with how social media are currently used. What sort of challenges arise when they must subsequently decide whether or not to use social media to create awareness about this problem? This situation routinely occurs as ethicists navigate choices regarding how to effect change and potentially remedy the problems they uncover. In this article, challenges related to new technologies and what is often referred to as ‘Big Tech’ are emphasized. We present what we refer to as the AI ethicist’s dilemma, which emerges when an AI ethicist has to consider how their own success in communicating an identified problem is associated with a high risk of decreasing the chances of successfully remedying the problem. We examine how the ethicist can resolve the dilemma and arrive at ethically sound paths of action through combining three ethical theories: virtue ethics, deontological ethics and consequentialist ethics. The article concludes that attempting to change the world of Big Tech only using the technologies and tools they provide will at times prove to be counter-productive, and that political and other more disruptive avenues of action should also be seriously considered by ethicists who want to effect long-term change. Both strategies have advantages and disadvantages, and a combination might be desirable to achieve these advantages and mitigate some of the disadvantages discussed.

Deontological or Utilitarian? An Eternal Ethical Dilemma in Outbreak

Both deontological ethics and utilitarian ethics are important theories that affect decision making in medical and health care. However, it has been challenging to reach a balance between these two ethical theories. When there is a conflict between these two ethical principles in the medical context, the conflict must be addressed in order to reach an appropriate solution for patients and others involved. To demonstrate decisions made in terms of deontological ethics and utilitarian ethics, the study will use the film Outbreak as example to further understand these two ethics in relation to epidemiology and public health. The paper will also analyze film scenarios to examine how deontological ethics and utilitarian ethics are involved and strike a balance with different pearspectives to reach an appropriate public health solution. To reach more just solutions, it is essential to determine how to make wise decisions by balancing deontological ethics and utilitarian ethics. However, the decision-making process is complicated because any solution must consider not only medical ethics but also political, environmental, and military issues. In order to reach an appropriate public health decision, those involved should be inclined toward empathy and contemplate things from different ethical perspectives to deal with ethical/moral dilemmas and create greater beneficence and justice for patients and humanity at large.

Value moves in multiple ways: Ethical values, the anthropology of Christianity, and an example of women and movement

How can anthropologists describe ethical values—that is, what emerges as important—in the social, material worlds of Christianity? This article considers the question by working along interfaces. The first part of the article discusses two diverging approaches to values in the anthropology of Christianity (realizing values and producing values) and situates these in relation to three groupings in the anthropology of ethics and morality (deontological ethics, first-person virtue ethics, and poststructuralist virtue ethics). The second part of the article follows one value—the value of movement—in a historical example: the writings of a group of Christian women in 1880s and 1890s Norway. I argue that ethical values move in multiple ways through this social world: people realize values, people produce values and people work on values.

Is Applied Ethics Morally Problematic?

This paper argues that applied ethics can itself be morally problematic. As illustrated by the case of Peter Singer’s criticism of social practice, morally loaded communication by applied ethicists can lead to protests, backlashes, and aggression. By reviewing the psychological literature on self-image, collective identity, and motivated reasoning three categories of morally problematic consequences of ethical criticism by applied ethicists are identified: serious psychological discomfort, moral backfiring, and hostile conflict. The most worrisome is moral backfiring: psychological research suggests that ethical criticism of people’s central moral convictions can reinforce exactly those attitudes. Therefore, applied ethicists unintentionally can contribute to a consolidation of precisely those social circumstances that they condemn to be unethical. Furthermore, I argue that the normative concerns raised in this paper are not dependent on the commitment to one specific paradigm in moral philosophy. Utilitarianism, Aristotelian virtue ethics, and Rawlsian contractarianism all provide sound reasons to take morally problematic consequences of ethical criticism seriously. Only the case of deontological ethics is less clear-cut. Finally, I point out that the issues raised in this paper provide an excellent opportunity for further interdisciplinary collaboration between applied ethics and social sciences. I also propose strategies for communicating ethics effectively.

Berkeley and Hobbes

By focusing on the exchange between Descartes and Hobbes on how the self is related to its activities, Berkeley draws attention to how he and Hobbes explain the forensic constitution of human subjectivity and moral/political responsibility in terms of passive obedience and conscientious submission to the laws of the sovereign. Formulated as the language of nature or as pronouncements of the supreme political power, those laws identify moral obligations by locating political subjects within those networks of sensible signs. When thus juxtaposed with Hobbes, Berkeley can be understood as endorsing a theologically inflected version of deontological ethics in which moral laws are linked directly to the constitution of the self.

Taking Principles Seriously: A Hybrid Approach to Value Alignment in Artificial Intelligence

An important step in the development of value alignment (VA) systems in artificial intelligence (AI) is understanding how VA can reflect valid ethical principles. We propose that designers of VA systems incorporate ethics by utilizing a hybrid approach in which both ethical reasoning and empirical observation play a role. This, we argue, avoids committing “naturalistic fallacy,” which is an attempt to derive “ought” from “is,” and it provides a more adequate form of ethical reasoning when the fallacy is not committed. Using quantified model logic, we precisely formulate principles derived from deontological ethics and show how they imply particular “test propositions” for any given action plan in an AI rule base. The action plan is ethical only if the test proposition is empirically true, a judgment that is made on the basis of empirical VA. This permits empirical VA to integrate seamlessly with independently justified ethical principles. This article is part of the special track on AI and Society.

Ethics of Security

This chapter aims to identify and analyse the ethical problems of security, particularly cyber and digital threats. The concepts of security and safety are defined based on existing literature. The chapter addresses the key results and research gaps in the field (i.e., security issues in different areas) and future challenges, both theoretical and empirical. Moreover, the discussion is linked to an analysis of the relationship between utilitarian ethics and deontological ethics, which brings a new perspective to the debate on security ethics in general and cybersecurity. Finally, comprehensive security and absolute safety ideas are discussed, which sheds new light on the complexity of security concerns.

Williams on the problem of moral integrity

In this paper, we have tried to point out the importance of the problem of moral integrity in ethical theory. The best way to make an introduction to ethical weighing when it comes to the problem of moral integrity is to analyze the dispute initiated by Bernard Williams. Namely, this is a critique of the act utilitarianism, whose essential weight is precisely on the topic of moral integrity. Williams conceived his objection as saying that there was no place for the value of moral integrity within the act utilitarianism. The treatment of moral integrity is the point of radical disagreement between utilitarianism and deontological ethics. In this way, deciding between utilitarianism and an alternative ethical position, we are actually deciding in favor or against the affirmation of the values of moral integrity. This is a very significant decision when it comes to ethical position. This paper is part of a broader topic on the place of moral integrity in ethical theory, where we have argued that utilitarianism is not the optimal ethical position, precisely because it does not affirm the value of the moral integrity of the individual. This paper is a preparation of such an attitude and has a more modest ambition - it deals with the re-examination of the perception of moral integrity within a utilitarian ethical position.