Autonomous reboot: Aristotle, autonomy and the ends of machine ethics

Abstract

Tonkens (Mind Mach, 19, 3, 421-438, 2009) has issued a seemingly impossible challenge, to articulate a comprehensive ethical framework within which artificial moral agents (AMAs) satisfy a Kantian inspired recipe-"rational" and "free"while also satisfying perceived prerogatives of machine ethicists to facilitate the creation of AMAs that are perfectly and not merely reliably ethical. Challenges for machine ethicists have also been presented by Anthony Beavers and Wendell Wallach. Beavers pushes for the reinvention of traditional ethics to avoid "ethical nihilism" due to the reduction of morality to mechanical causation. Wallach pushes for redoubled efforts toward a comprehensive account of ethics to guide machine ethicists on the issue of artificial moral agency. Options, thus, present themselves: reinterpret traditional ethics in a way that affords a comprehensive account of moral agency inclusive of both artificial and natural agents, or give up on the possibility and "muddle through" regardless. This series of papers pursues the first option, meets Tonkens' "challenge" and pursues Wallach's ends through Beavers' proposed means, by "landscaping" traditional moral theory in resolution of a comprehensive account of moral agency. This first paper sets out the challenge and establishes the tradition that Kant had inherited from Aristotle, briefly entertains an Aristotelian AMA, fields objections, and ends with unanswered questions. The next paper in this series responds to the challenge in Kantian terms, and argues that a Kantian AMA is not only a possibility for Machine ethics research, but a necessary one.

Autonomous technologies in human ecologies: enlanguaged cognition, practices and technology

“…Even if (for technical reasons) there can never be an 'ethical' technology, few deny that the use of technology should be regulated by law. For Tonkens (2009), ethics speak against building autonomous machines and, as defended here, White (2020a; takes the contrary view. Conversely, if drones and robots can undertake ethical decision-making, as shown by the White-Lassiter debate, the architecture matters: While a Kantian agent might enact individual, even religious, concerns an Aristotelian one would balance judgements of what is right with its responsibility as a citizen.…”