Cases Ethic

Question 1

Vallour

Answer 1

How does technology transform activities that young people perform → reshaping social virtues and development of character
Honesty
Patience
Empathy
Conclusion: we ought to take into consideration how social media is harming these developments

Question 2

Tonkens

Answer 2

Kantian ethics either cannot or should not be built into explicit or full ethical agents, given what we want from them

Conclusions:
1. Cannot be Kanitan as they are programmed a certain way, meaning they lack free will.
2. Creating these moral robots would not be Kanitan in the first place, as it involves treating it as merely a means rather than an end

Question 3

Self-driving cars

Answer 3

Implicit or explicit ethical agents: we could build them to follow different moral codes depending on different cultures codes
Ethical relativism is shown in the differing opinions of self driving cars and their decision to hit or miss the pedestrian

Conclusion: overall, people wanted to buy cars that would protect the passenger at all costs, leaving us with a social dilemma: If everyone follows their self interest, everyone ends up worse off

Question 4

Moor

Answer 4

ethics and computability
Creates an objective welfare list: Core goods- health, happiness, ability, ect…
Evil: anything that contaminates a core good
Criticism of bentham: we don’t need to reduce everything to the value of pleasure and pain
Conclusion: the rule consequentialist robot is the most promising

Question 5

Talbot et al.

Answer 5

It should be that we should knowingly build robots according to a theory we think is false
The only moral claims that apply to robots are claims about the moral goodness or badness of the outcomes they cause
Therefore, they ought to act like perfect maximizing consequentialists
- Conclusion:
1. if intelligent robots were to create themselves, or appear from space, it would be best if they acted like percent maximizers (even if deontology is true)
2. If we can make perfect deontological robots then we ought to do so
3. Since we cannot, on part of the uncertainty of designers, they are required to create robots that act like consequencialists

Question 6

Hsu argument

Answer 6

Capitalism will save us, but needs a change and must strive for good environmental outcomes
Ex. taxing environmental harm or give incentive to reduce it -> methods should be left to the producer
Carbon tax, Cap-and-trade

Question 7

Hardin

Answer 7

tragedy of the commons
Overall argument: people are fated to do what is in their individual interest, unless coerced to do otherwise
Therefore, all the herders will be harmed unless they are coerced to do what is not in their individual interest

Conclusion: mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon

Nolt’s concern: power imbalance

Also considers privatization: land sold to buyers

Nolt concern: favours the wealthy, some commons cannot be privatized (atmosphere), could create political tensions

Question 8

Johnson

Answer 8

in tragedy of the commons, is each person ethically required to reduce their use of the commons to a sustainable level

Kantian answer: yes - universalizability: unless the earth can tolerate everyone using SUVs, no one should drive one

Conclusion: When there is no collective agreement, there is no reason (ethical or otherwise) for individuals to voluntarily reduce their use of the commons

Similar to hardin: we should adopt collective agreements (law or treaties)
- However, individuals have an obligation to work for a collective agreement

Question 9

Tragedy of the commons occurs when many independent agents derive benefits from a subtractable resource that is threatened by their aggregate use.

Answer 9

Subtractable- the resource supply of benefits can be depleted by overuse

aggregate- the commons is not threatened by each individual act, however once acts are added together, they become harmful

independent- agents don’t have a collective agreement