Abstract
The progress towards a society in which robots are our daily attendants seems to be inevitable. Sharing our workplaces, our homes and public squares with robots calls for an exploration of how we want and need to organize our cohabitation with these increasingly autonomous machines. Not only the question of how robots should treat humans or the surrounding world, but also the questions of how humans should treat robots, and how robots should treat each other, may and should be asked. Considering the Kantian idea that possessing dignity is based on autonomy and the fact that robots are becoming increasingly autonomous and rational, one of these questions might be whether robots can have dignity. Two issues must therefore be addressed before answering the question: 1. What are robots and why should we think about “robot dignity” at all? and 2. What is dignity? The answer to the first question is necessary to understand the object of investigation and will be considered briefly. The second more complex question requires a short glimpse on the existing theories and the history of the term before a proposal will be given on how to understand dignity. Finally, it will be explained why robots cannot be rightly seen as possessors of dignity.
Abstract
The impending introduction of self-driving cars poses a new stage of complexity not only in technical requirements but in the ethical challenges it evokes. The question of which ethical principles to use for the programming of crash algorithms, especially in response to so-called dilemma situations, is one of the most controversial moral issues discussed. This paper critically investigates the rationale behind rule utilitarianism as to whether and how it might be adequate to guide ethical behaviour of autonomous cars in driving dilemmas. Three core aspects related to the rule utilitarian concept are discussed with regards to their relevance for the given context: the universalization principle, the ambivalence of compliance issues, and the demandingness objection. It is concluded that a rule utilitarian approach might be useful for solving driverless car dilemmas only to a limited extent. In particular, it cannot provide the exclusive ethical criterion when evaluated from a practical point of view. However, it might still be of conceptual value in the context of a pluralist solution.
In order to understand Hegel’s form of philosophical reflection in general, we must read his ‘speculative’ sentences about spirit and nature, rationality and reason, the mind and its embodiment as general remarks about conceptual topics in topographical overviews about our ways of talking about ourselves in the world. The resulting attitude to traditional metaphysics gets ambivalent in view of the insight that Aristotle’s prima philosophia is knowledge of human knowledge, developed in meta-scientific reflections on notions like ‘nature’ and ‘essence’, ‘reality’ (or ‘being’) and ‘truth’, about ‘powers’ and ‘faculties’ – and does not lead by itself to an object-level theory about spiritual things like the soul. We therefore cannot just replace critical metaphysics of the human mind by empirical investigation of human behaviour as empiricist approaches to human cognition in naturalized epistemologies do and neuro-physiological explanations propose. Making transcendental forms and material presuppositions of conceptually informed perception and experience explicit needs some understanding of figurative forms of speech in our logical reflections and leads to other forms of knowledge than empirical observation and theory formation.
particular logic, could become a hindrance for philosophy if pursued merely for its own sake. Inquiry is, we contend, not only one of the many interesting aspects that one needs to investigate in order to get a complete picture of a philosopher or a philosophical era (such as, for instance, the various
are not (sufficiently) investigated and characterized. However, the ideas surveyed in this section continue to influence several contemporary philosophers working on collective intentionality. A particularly thorough investigation of these examples from early sociology can be found in the writings of
Vor dem Hintergrund einer humanistischen Anthropologie, die dem Menschen zutraut und zugleich zumutet, selbst Autor*in des eigenen Lebens zu sein, wird Gamification als durchaus problematische Manipulationsstrategie beschrieben, die kaum etwas mit dem Spiel zu tun hat und deren Einsatz nur unter bestimmten Bedingungen ethisch legitim ist. Denn, verabschieden wir uns nicht ein Stück weit von unserem Menschsein, wenn wir uns zurücklehnen und unser Leben in die Hände gamifizierter Anwendungen und Systeme legen, die uns durch ihre Spielmechanismen und Algorithmen gewissermaßen darauf programmieren, erwünschte Verhaltensweisen an den Tag zu legen? Schließlich sollten wir als autonome Subjekte in der Lage sein, selbst herauszufinden und umzusetzen, was wir für richtig und erstrebenswert halten.