What Makes Any Agent a Moral Agent? Reflections on Machine Consciousness and Moral Agency

Parthemore, Joel; Whitby, Blay

doi:10.1142/s1793843013500017

Cited by 34 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…First, moral competence is not to be equated with "moral agency"-the topic most heavily discussed in the current social robotics literature [27]- [29]. Scholars have suggested a variety of criteria for being an agent, including embodiment, consciousness, soul, free will-criteria that raise more conceptual questions than they are intended to answer [30].…”

Section: B Two Corollaries Of the Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Often a moral agent is characterized as an entity that can act according to what is right and wrong [27], [28] or could be held responsible for its actions [29]. These criteria mix several elements of moral competence: capacity for decision and action; mastery of norms; and properties that invite others to morally judge the agent's behavior.…”

Section: B Two Corollaries Of the Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

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When will people regard robots as morally competent social partners?

Malle

Scheutz

2015

2015 24th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)

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We propose that moral competence consists of five distinct but related elements: (1) having a system of norms;(2) mastering a moral vocabulary; (3) exhibiting moral cognition and affect; (4) exhibiting moral decision making and action; and (5) engaging in moral communication. We identify some of the likely triggers that may convince people to (justifiably) ascribe each of these elements of moral competence to robots. We suggest that humans will treat robots as moral agents (who have some rights, obligations, and are targets of blame) if they perceive them to have at least elements (1) and(2) and one or more of elements (3)-(5). ). examine whether robots with such emerging moral competence are in fact suitable and accepted as social partners [4]. The moral standing and abilities of machines will therefore emerge from, and be in part constrained by, the relations that people are willing to form with them [5]. II. ELEMENTS OF MORAL COMPETENCE A. The Framework in OverviewA competence is an aptitude, a qualification, a dispositional capacity to deal adequately with certain tasks. Uncontroversially, moral competence must deal with the task of moral decision making and action. From Aristotle to Kant to Kohlberg, morality has been about "doing the right thing." Similarly, recent questions about moral properties of robots have centered on decisions about life and death [6], often in action dilemmas [7], which have prominence in psychology and cognitive science as well [8]- [10].

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Section: B Two Corollaries Of the Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Two Corollaries Of the Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

When will people regard robots as morally competent social partners?

Malle

Scheutz

2015

2015 24th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)

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“…But a norm system is conceptually and linguistically demanding, requiring language for learning it, using it, and negotiating it. Thus, at its core, moral competence requires a network of moral norms and a language (and associated concepts) to represent and implement it [11].…”

Section: Norms and Moral Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…These components are in some sense weaker than what is often discussed under "moral agency" e.g.,[10],[11]; for example, they do not include a deep, reflective self-concept, and they don't presuppose "free will." But the components are also more extensive than typical moral agency demands, which rarely require social-cognitive and -communicative capacities.…”

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confidence: 99%

Moral competence in social robots

Malle

Scheutz

2014

2014 IEEE International Symposium on Ethics in Science, Technology and Engineering

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We propose that any robots that collaborate with, look after, or help humans-in short, social robotsmust have moral competence. But what does moral competence consist of? We offer a framework for moral competence that attempts to be comprehensive in capturing capacities that make humans morally competent and that therefore represent candidates for a morally competent robot. We posit that human moral competence consists of four broad components: (1) A system of norms and the language and concepts needed to communicate about these norms; (2) moral cognition and affect; (3) moral decision making and action; and (4) moral communication. We sketch what we know and don't know about these four elements of moral competence in humans and, for each component, ask how we could equip an artificial agent with these capacities.

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“…In Parthemore and Whitby [2013], we set out a number of conceptual requirements for possessing moral agency as well as grounds for appropriately attributing it, as a way of addressing the claims and counterclaims over so-called arti¯cial morality and machine consciousness. Our conclusion was that concerns over artifactual moral agency and consciousness were useful for initiating discussion but ultimately a distraction from the bigger question of what it takes for any agent to be a conscious moral agent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral Agency, Moral Responsibility, and Artifacts: What Existing Artifacts Fail to Achieve (and Why), and Why They, Nevertheless, Can (and Do!) Make Moral Claims upon Us

Parthemore

Whitby

2014

Int. J. Mach. Conscious.

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This paper follows directly from an earlier paper where we discussed the requirements for an artifact to be a moral agent and concluded that the artifactual question is ultimately a red herring. As before, we take moral agency to be that condition in which an agent can appropriately be held responsible for her actions and their consequences. We set a number of stringent conditions on moral agency. A moral agent must be embedded in a cultural and speci¯cally moral context and embodied in a suitable physical form. It must be, in some substantive sense, alive. It must exhibit self-conscious awareness. It must exhibit sophisticated conceptual abilities, going well beyond what the likely majority of conceptual agents possess: not least that it must possess a well-developed moral space of reasons. Finally, it must be able to communicate its moral agency through some system of signs: A \private" moral world is not enough. After reviewing these conditions and pouring cold water on recent claims for having achieved \minimal" machine consciousness, we turn our attention to a number of existing and, in some cases, commonplace artifacts that lack moral agency yet nevertheless require one to take a moral stance toward them, as if they were moral agents. Finally, we address another class of agents raising a related set of issues: autonomous military robots.

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What Makes Any Agent a Moral Agent? Reflections on Machine Consciousness and Moral Agency

Cited by 34 publications

References 36 publications

When will people regard robots as morally competent social partners?

When will people regard robots as morally competent social partners?

Moral competence in social robots

Moral Agency, Moral Responsibility, and Artifacts: What Existing Artifacts Fail to Achieve (and Why), and Why They, Nevertheless, Can (and Do!) Make Moral Claims upon Us

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