Agency, Teleological Control and Robust Causation

Usher, Marius

doi:10.1111/phpr.12537

Cited by 10 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…This is because responsibility for an outcome requires a reliable causal connection between the agent's intention to reach or avoid the outcome and the outcome in fact being reached or avoided (cf. Björnsson and Persson, 2012;2013;Grinfeld et al, 2020;Usher, 2020). If candidate A intends to get a government job, but has no idea how they should polish their competences in order to qualify, the reliability of the correlation between her intending so and her achieving her goal should be expected to decrease.…”

Section: Causal Explanation and Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

AI, Opacity, and Personal Autonomy

Vaassen

2022

Philos. Technol.

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Advancements in machine learning have fuelled the popularity of using AI decision algorithms in procedures such as bail hearings, medical diagnoses and recruitment. Academic articles, policy texts, and popularizing books alike warn that such algorithms tend to be opaque: they do not provide explanations for their outcomes. Building on a causal account of transparency and opacity as well as recent work on the value of causal explanation, I formulate a moral concern for opaque algorithms that is yet to receive a systematic treatment in the literature: when such algorithms are used in life-changing decisions, they can obstruct us from effectively shaping our lives according to our goals and preferences, thus undermining our autonomy. I argue that this concern deserves closer attention as it furnishes the call for transparency in algorithmic decision-making with both new tools and new challenges.

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Section: Causal Explanation and Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

AI, Opacity, and Personal Autonomy

Vaassen

2022

Philos. Technol.

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“…Additionally, philosophers have recently relied on interventionism to defend compatibilism from manipulation arguments. Oisín Deery and Eddy Nahmias (henceforth DN) (2017) formulate an interventionist theory of causal sourcehood, while Marius Usher (2018) presents an interventionist account of teleological control, in response to manipulation arguments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Though we focus on DN's view of causal sourcehood in this essay, many of our criticisms apply toUsher's (2018) account of teleological control as well, which we highlight in footnote 15. We also criticize one of Usher's objections to DN in footnote 5.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Interestingly,Usher (2018), whose response to manipulation arguments also relies on an interventionist approach to causation, defends a hard-line response to the Diana case. He claims that because Diana acts 30 years before the theft occurs, "…if we are to make any intervention on background circumstances (say bringing about rain on the day of the theft), there is nothing that Diana could do to "ensure" that Manny steals the wallet"(2018: 19).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Desperately seeking sourcehood

Tierney

Glick

2018

Philos Stud

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In a recent essay, Oisín Deery and Eddy Nahmias (2017) utilize interventionism about causation to develop an account of causal sourcehood in order to defend compatibilism about free will and moral responsibility from manipulation arguments. In this paper, we criticize Deery and Nahmias' analysis of sourcehood by drawing a distinction between two forms of causal invariance that can come into conflict on their account. We conclude that any attempt to resolve this conflict will either result in counterintuitive attributions of moral responsibility or will undermine their response to manipulation arguments.

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“… See, e.g., Björnnson (2017),Coates and Swenson (2013),Nelkin (2016),Guerrero (2017),Tierney (2019),Usher (2020), andKaiserman (Forthcoming). An important challenge that arises for such views is that, if one wants to offer a comprehensive view of responsibility as a scalar notion, there are different dimensions that bear on an agent's responsibility and that would have to be weighed against each other: how much control the agent had, how much the agent knew, how good/bad the agent's intention was, etc.…”

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confidence: 99%

The concept of responsibility in the ethics of self-defense and war

Sartorio

2021

Philos Stud

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The focus of this paper is an influential family of views in the ethics of self-defense and war: views that ground the agent's liability to be attacked in selfdefense in the agent's moral responsibility for the threat posed (''Responsibility Views''). I critically examine the concept of responsibility employed by such views, by looking at potential connections with the contemporary literature on moral responsibility. I start by uncovering some of the key assumptions that Responsibility Views make about the relevant concept of responsibility, and by scrutinizing those assumptions under the lens of more general theorizing about responsibility. I identify an important conflict that arises at that point. The problem is that the concept presupposed by Responsibility Views is in tension with the standard way of understanding the connection between the neutral and non-neutral forms of moral responsibility. I draw attention to a particular strategy that could be used to address this challenge, but I also identify some important obstacles that stand in the way.

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Agency, Teleological Control and Robust Causation

Cited by 10 publications

References 63 publications

AI, Opacity, and Personal Autonomy

AI, Opacity, and Personal Autonomy

Desperately seeking sourcehood

The concept of responsibility in the ethics of self-defense and war

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