In recent years, autonomous systems have become an important research area and application domain, with a significant impact on modern society. Such systems are characterized by different levels of autonomy and complex communication infrastructures that allow for collective decision-making strategies. There exist several publications that tackle ethical aspects in such systems, but mostly from the perspective of a single agent. In this paper we go one step further and discuss these ethical challenges from the perspective of an aggregate of autonomous (...) systems capable of collective decision-making. In particular, in this paper, we propose the Caesar approach through which we model the collective ethical decision-making process of a group of actors—agents and humans, as well as define the building blocks for the agents participating in such a process, namely Caesar agents. Factors such as trust, security, safety, and privacy, which affect the degree to which a collective decision is ethical, are explicitly captured in Caesar. Finally, we argue that modeling the collective decision-making in Caesar provides support for accountability. (shrink)

In standard Albanian studies and Western scholarship, including either any interested religious and political activism or less 'interested' lay people, endeavours of historical and textual fact-finding have been relevant for only to re-confirm and indeed perpetuate the very meaning of a myth, according to which the thinking of Naim Frasheri was formed and dominated by Bektashism and that his 'Albanianism' had a Bektashi foundation. In this paper I intend to scrutinize and disprove this, arguing that while Frasheri did (...) indeed have a religious cast of thought, his religious thinking went far beyond Bektashism in its heterodoxy, being a kind of liberation theology and pantheism which generated an all-inclusive attitude to Albanian identity, not one limited in any special way to Bektashism. Methodologically, such a picture must arise if we submit the available empirical evidence to critical analysis from the perspective of social theoretical approaches to religion developed in sociology and anthropology. (shrink)

In the standard tradition of both Albanian studies and Western scholarship, including either any interested religious and political activism or less 'interested' lay people, endeavours of historical and textual fact-finding have been relevant only to re-confirm and indeed perpetuate the very meaning of a myth, according to which the thinking of Naim Frashëri was formed and dominated by Bektashism and his 'Albanianism' had a Bektashi foundation. In an earlier paper this myth was shown to be unreliable by arguing that Frashëri's (...) religious thinking was shaped by religious dualism. This paper argues further that Naim Frashëri went far beyond Bektashism in his heterodoxy, not only in a kind of liberation theology, but also by embracing a comprehensive pantheism which generated an active and all-inclusive attitude to Albanian identity, not necessarily limited in any special way to Bektashism. Methodologically, such a new picture must arise if the analysis of the historical and literary contextualization of Frashëri's major works is submitted to the perspective of social theoretical approaches to religion developed in sociology and anthropology. (shrink)