An Afro-Communitarian Relational Theory of AI'S Moral Status

Individuals with ‘severe’ cognitive disabilities are primarily discussed in philosophy and bioethics to determine their moral status. In this paper it is argued that theories of moral status have limited relevance to the unjust ways in which people with cognitive disabilities are routinely treated in the actual world, which largely concerns their relegation to an inferior social status. I discuss three possible relationships between moral and social status, demonstrating that determinate answers about the moral status of individuals with ‘severe’ cognitive disabilities are neither necessary nor sufficient for defending the imperative that they be treated as our social equals.

Shelly Kagan has recently defended the view that it is morally worse for a human being to suffer some harm than it is for a lower animal (such as a dog or a cow) to suffer a harm that is equally severe (ceteris paribus). In this article, I argue that this view receives rather less support from our intuitions than one might at first suppose. According to Kagan, moreover, an individual’s moral status depends partly upon her ‘modal capacities.’ In this article, I argue that the most natural strategy for justifying Kagan’s theory faces some important challenges. More generally, I argue that philosophers who wish to defend the view that human beings have a higher moral status than that of the lower animals face a dilemma. Either their theory of moral status will imply (unacceptably) that some severely cognitively impaired human beings have a significantly lower moral status than that of typical human beings, or these philosophers will be forced to ground moral status in a set of properties so far removed from a subject’s actual capacities that it will become difficult to see why these kinds of properties should have such moral importance.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore whether information and information technology in certain cases ought to be valued as ends in themselves rather than as mere means to other ends. I will address this problem by proposing a theory of moral status: a theory of who or what has moral status in the sense that we, as moral agents, have an obligation to take their well-being into consideration when making ethical judgments. The proposed relational theory of moral status draws on insights from both classical Western and East Asian philosophy in order to question the exclusion of all nonliving entities in most theories of moral status. The relational properties constitutivity and irreplaceability are singled out as ethically relevant and are suggested as one possible way to ground the moral status of information and information technologies.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore whether information and information technology in certain cases ought to be valued as ends in themselves rather than as mere means to other ends. I will address this problem by proposing a theory of moral status: a theory of who or what has moral status in the sense that we, as moral agents, have an obligation to take their well-being into consideration when making ethical judgments. The proposed relational theory of moral status draws on insights from both classical Western and East Asian philosophy in order to question the exclusion of all nonliving entities in most theories of moral status. The relational properties constitutivity and irreplaceability are singled out as ethically relevant and are suggested as one possible way to ground the moral status of information and information technologies.

Many theories of moral status that are intended to ground pro-choice views on abortion tie full moral status to advanced cognitive capabilities. Extant accounts of this kind are inconsistent with the intuition that the profoundly cognitively disabled have full moral status. This paper improves upon these extant accounts by combining an anti-luck condition with Steinbock’s stratification of moral status into two levels. On the resulting view, a being has full moral status if and only if (1) she has moral status and (2) (a) has had advanced cognitive capacities, (b) has the potential to develop such capacities, or (c) would have had such capacities were it not for luck. I argue that modal accounts of luck provide a non-speciesist basis for attributing the lack of advanced cognitive capacities in humans to luck without doing the same for non-human animals.

In this article, we discuss Beauchamp and Childress's treatment of the issue of moral status. In particular, we (1) introduce the five different perspectives on moral status that Beauchamp and Childress consider in Principles of Biomedical Ethics and explain their alternative to those perspectives, (2) raise some critical questions about their approach, and (3) offer a different way to think about one of the five theories of moral status (the theory based on human properties) that is more in line with what we believe some of its leading advocates affirm.

Elizabeth Harman has recently proposed new theory of moral status, the Ever Conscious View. It is the view that a being has moral status at time just in case h is alive at that time and there is time in its life at which h is (Harman, 2007, 220). In other words, all and only beings that (1) are alive and (2) either were, are, or will be conscious have moral status. In the following, I examine Harman's defense of her Ever Conscious View, raise number of objections to h, and conclude that the Ever Conscious View is, as it stands, implausible.

Thad Metz defends what he considers to be a novel theory of moral status, i.e. an account about what beings are owed direct duties in virtue of their moral significance. Metz claims that his account is African, it is plausible and that it is worth taking seriously like other competing accounts in the Western philosophical tradition. In this article, I give four reasons why we should doubt, if not reject, these claims of plausibility. Firstly, I show how a theory that accounts for moral status by relying solely on some facet of human nature ultimately fails to grant intrinsic value to non-human components, and as such it will always prefer human interests over those of nonhuman components, and further it won’t have a moral-theoretical basis to assign intrinsic value to non-human components. Secondly, I hope to demonstrate that this theory will not be able to account for the moral status of Martians and in turn show that it does not secure the standing of animals from such beings. I also argue that his account does not give credible evidence for the intuition that severely injured human persons have greater moral status than animals with similar internal properties. Finally, I briefly indicate that this theory does not have the corpus to explain our duties to people who have died, or at least, their bodies.

Few people ever stop to ask themselves: “Why do I matter morally? Why should anyone else treat me with even the most basic or minimal respect? Why should the government take my interests or wishes into account in its decision making?” We take for granted that we are morally significant beings and that others owe us moral duties – at the least, negative duties to forbear from harming us in various ways. Our moral status seems self-evident, perhaps just because we grew up in a culture that treats all people as morally important, and in fact as the most important type of beings on earth. We might find it quite difficult to articulate exactly why we are of any moral significance. Were we to ask ourselves these questions, one answer that might come to mind is that we all just agree to respect each other. I am owed respect because I respect others, and my interests count because I acknowledge that others' interests count also. On further reflection, though, this contract-invoking answer is likely to prove unsatisfying as an explanation of our moral considerability. For one thing, it would seem to imply that any being incapable of giving respect is thereby rendered undeserving of receiving any moral regard. I generally do not place much weight on settled specific intuitions, but I suggest at the outset that any theory of moral status that implies infanticide does no wrong to an infant (who cannot now and might never become able to assent to a moral contract) or that torturing a dog (who will never so assent) does no wrong to the dog would need an exceedingly strong argument in its favor to appear plausible.

Metz’s contribution to environmental ethics is a novel theory of moral status, which he argues explains the intuition that although we have direct moral duties to some nonhuman animals, our duties to fellow human beings are always weightier. The theory takes the moral status of an individual to depend on it being the subject and object of friendly relations with human. This paper argues that the account of moral status explains the intuition about the existence and relative weight of duties to nonhuman animals only if evidence of human-nonhuman animal cooperation is ignored. The paper argues additionally that a focus on the moral status of individual nonhuman animals offers no insight into one the most pressing environmental problems of our time, the threat of mass species extinction. Finally, the duties that would seem to follow from the account of moral status are contrary a traditional environmental concern of nature preservation.

Embryonic stem cell research is morally and politically controversial because the process of deriving the embryonic stem (ES) cells kills embryos. If embryos are, as some would claim, human beings like you and me, then ES cell research is clearly impermissible. If, on the other hand, the blastocysts from which embryonic stem cells are derived are not yet human beings, but rather microscopic balls of undifferentiated cells, as others maintain, then ES cell research is probably morally permissible. Whether the research can be justified depends on such issues as its cost, chance of success, and numbers likely to benefit. But this is an issue for any research project, not just ES cell research. What makes the debate over ES cell research controversial is that it, like the debate over abortion, raises “questions that politicians cannot settle: when does human life begin, and what is the moral status of the human embryo?” This paper looks at several theories of moral status and their implications for embryo research.

Medical stem cell research is currently the cause of much moral controversy. Those who would confer the same moral status to embryos as we do to humans consider that harvesting such embryonic cells entails sacrificing embryos. In this paper, the author analyses critically the arguments given for such a perspective. Finally, a theory of moral status is outlined that coherently and plausibly supports the use of embryonic stem cells in therapeutic research.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) systems raises dilemmas regarding their moral and legal status. Can artificial intelligence possess moral status (significance)? And under what conditions? Can one speak of the dignity of artificial intelligence as the basis of its moral status? According to some authors, if there are entities who have the capacities on which the dignity of human beings is based, they would also possess intrinsic dignity. If dignity is not an exclusive feature of human beings, such status also could be recognised by artificial intelligence entities. The first part of the paper deals with the problem of moral status of artificial intelligence and the conditions that must be fulfilled for such a status to be recognised. A precondition for the existence of moral status of artificial intelligence is its ability to make autonomous decisions. This part of the paper considers whether developing autonomous AI is justified, or, as some authors suggest, the creation of AI agents capable of autonomous action should be avoided. The recognition of the moral status of artificial intelligence would reflect on its legal status. The second part of the paper deals with the question of justifiability of ascribing legal personhood to the AI agents. Under what conditions would recognition of legal personhood by the artificial intelligence be justified and should its legal subjectivity be recognised in full scope or only partially (by ascribing to the AI agents a “halfway-status,” as some authors suggest)? The current state of the legal regulation of artificial intelligence will be observed as well.

At first sight, it might seem that moral status has nothing to do with how we feel about entities, let alone with religion or spirituality. Standard approaches to moral status often explicitly aim to find a rational justification of moral status. The properties approach, in particular, can be understood as a way to rationally determine the moral status of an entity by examining its properties. As I said in the first part of this book, this is a scientific approach to moral status. Science and philosophy-as-science are what we may call outgrowths of the habit of rational thinking. For example, Singer's approach proposes to base justification of moral status on the property 'sentience', and utilitarianism, as a moral philosophy, is a scientific approach par excellence. The purpose of such philosophies is that of the rationalistic strand of the Enlightenment movement: liberate people from their dogmatic beliefs and let the truth shine. With regard to moral status, it implies that Singer and others try to help us to think about moral status in a rational way, by using our faculty of reason, rather than relying on our feelings and intuitions — let alone "superstitious" beliefs. Viewed in this way, most standard theories of moral status can be seen as heirs of the history of secularization and rationalization, which is a history of de-spiritualization.

Do status incentives undermine morality-based status attainment? Investigating the mediating role of perceived authenticity