tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post384600572524400709..comments2024-03-28T05:47:54.177+00:00Comments on Philosophical Disquisitions: Robots and the Expanding Moral CircleJohn Danaherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-19056199915791284842020-11-16T10:12:33.852+00:002020-11-16T10:12:33.852+00:00I discuss this a little bit in one of my papers - ...I discuss this a little bit in one of my papers - 'Welcoming Robots into the Moral Circle' - maybe in a footnote somewhere (can't remember exactly). I guess I would say two things:<br /><br />(1) I intend ethical behaviourism as a theory regarding what is sufficient for moral status and not what is necessary for it. So it could well be that other entities have moral status for other reasons.<br /><br />(2) Notwithstanding (1), I suppose I do have a hunch that theories of moral status that cannot point to any obvious evidence or objective criteria for establishing moral status are problematic. I think this is one reason why I tend to avoid pure sentience based theories. Generally speaking, I agree that sentience grounds moral status (ontologically speaking) but if we have no way of knowing whether an entity is sentient, then I'm not sure what to do with that. This is also something that Jeff Sebo discusses in his paper 'The Moral Problem of Other Minds' (I interviewed him about it on my podcast, if you are interested.)/John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-4144333200585538462020-11-15T21:30:12.502+00:002020-11-15T21:30:12.502+00:00John,
Don't you worry about false negatives r...John,<br /><br />Don't you worry about false negatives resulting from this ethical behaviorist approach?<br /><br />If consciousness is some complex form of information processing, then presumably this information processing could occur within an entity without the entity possessing actuators (arms, legs, etc.) But if the entity lacks actuators, then it cannot ever live up to our performative equivalency standard. So we would fail to ascribe moral status to all of these conscious beings, despite the fact that, as you say, consciousness is the thing we are fundamentally concerned about.<br /><br />You might think that behavior is the only way to determine consciousness, but this doesn't seem right on an information processing account. On this account, presumably we could get some sort of insight into the algorithm an entity is running. Then we could check to see whether this algorithm is doing the sort of stuff that we think amounts to/gives rise to consciousness.<br /><br />Best,<br />SeanSean Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11757378219413474938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-30191440296153510742018-10-18T22:23:20.210+01:002018-10-18T22:23:20.210+01:00This might interest you: Robots, Slaves, and the P...This might interest you: Robots, Slaves, and the Paradox of the Human Condition in Isaac Asimov’s Robot Stories<br /> http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-5b79c396-921d-44f9-ab18-1e29ab9d6028 PRBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15914373648824919381noreply@blogger.com