In “Why We Need Friendly AI”, Luke Muehlhauser and Nick Bostrom propose that for our species to survive the impending rise of superintelligent AIs, we need to ensure that they would be human-friendly. This discussion note offers a more natural but bleaker outlook: that in the end, if these AIs do arise, they won’t be that friendly.

This paper examines the institutional mechanisms supporting the ethical oversight of human participant research conducted by the United Nations (UN). The UN has served an instrumental role in shaping international standards on research ethics, which invariably require ethical oversight of all research studies with human participants. The authors’ experiences of conducting research collaboratively with UN agencies, in contrast, have led to concern that the UN frequently sponsors, or participates in, studies with human participants that have not received appropriate ethical oversight. (...) It is argued that the institutional mechanisms in place to prevent research with human participants from being undertaken by the UN without ethical oversight do not, at present, extend substantively beyond the provision of guidelines and online training offered by a minority of UN bodies. The WHO and UNICEF are identified as notable exceptions, having implemented various measures to prevent health research with human participants from being undertaken without ethical oversight. Yet, it is highlighted that the WHO and UNICEF are not the only UN bodies that undertake health research with human participants and there are countless actors under the umbrella of the UN system that are regularly involved in non-health research with human participants. Arguments for the pursuit of the highest standard of ethical oversight by UN bodies are presented. Moving forward, the paper asks the question: is it time for the UN to set the standards for the oversight of ethical oversight? (shrink)

The willingness of some scientists, futurists … and now philosophers to contemplate—or even actively pursue—their own obsolescence is a source of genuine wonder. Writers such as Hans Moravec,1 Ray Kurzweil2 and Nick Bostrom3 blithely maintain that we will soon be outclassed by our own cybernetic creations as though this were a prospect that could only be celebrated and not feared. In this context, one can only applaud Agar's clearheaded investigation4 of the prospects for creating ‘post-persons’ and his eminently sensible conclusion (...) that there might be good reasons to avoid doing so. His discussion of the significance of the difference between ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ thresholds in moral status and his inductive argument to the existence of higher levels of moral status than humans currently possess constitute significant advances in the philosophical literature on this topic. In these largely sympathetic remarks I will, however, argue both that post-persons are more easily conceived of than Agar suggests and that the threat posed by post-persons, should they eventuate, is greater than Agar allows.Agar's paper needs to be read in the context of Buchanan's discussion5 of the implications of post-personhood to which it is a response. Buchanan's discussion proceeds, for the most part, with reference to an essentially Kantian account of moral status as founded in the ability to engage in practical reasoning or practices of mutual accountability. Talk of ‘animals’, ‘persons’ …. (shrink)

Darwun, darwinism, and neo-darwinism; Genetic forces; neutralism and selection: a further synthesis; Natural selection; Genetic architecture; Species and macroevolution; Was darwin wrong after all; Envol.

This article is a general introduction to the psychology of reasoning. Specifically, it focuses on the dual process theory of human cognition. Proponents of the said two-system view hold that human cognition involves two processes (viz., System 1 and System 2). System 1 is an automatic, intuitive thinking process where judgments and reasoning rely on fast thinking and ready-to-hand data. On the other hand, System 2 is a slow, logical cognitive process where our judgments and reasoning rely on reflective, careful (...) analysis and data evaluation. Supposedly, these two cognitive processes are at play in every thinking task, and they sometimes work together and sometimes go against each other. (shrink)

This article contends that certain types of Autonomous Weapons Systems (AWS) are susceptible to Hume’s Law. Hume’s Law highlights the seeming impossibility of deriving moral judgments, if not all evaluative ones, from purely factual premises. If autonomous weapons make use of factual data from their environments to carry out specific actions, then justifying their ethical decisions may prove to be intractable in light of the said problem. In this article, Hume’s original formulation of the no-ought-from-is thesis is evaluated in relation (...) to the dominant views regarding it (viz., moral non-descriptivism and moral descriptivism). Citing the objections raised against these views, it is claimed that, if there is no clear-cut solution to Hume’s is-ought problem that presently exists, then the task of grounding the moral judgements of AWS would still be left unaccounted for. (shrink)

In the field of machine consciousness, it has been argued that in order to build human-like conscious machines, we must first have a computational model of qualia. To this end, some have proposed a framework that supports qualia in machines by implementing a model with three computational areas (i.e., the subconceptual, conceptual, and linguistic areas). These abstract mechanisms purportedly enable the assessment of artificial qualia. However, several critics of the machine consciousness project dispute this possibility. For instance, Searle, in his (...) Chinese room objection, argues that however sophisticated a computational system is, it can never exhibit intentionality; thus, would also fail to exhibit consciousness or any of its varieties. This paper argues that the proposed architecture mentioned above answers the problem posed by Searle, at least in part. Specifically, it argues that we could reformulate Searle’s worries in the Chinese room in terms of the three-stage artificial qualia model. And by doing so, we could see that the person doing all the translations in the room could realize the three areas in the proposed framework. Consequently, this demonstrates the actualization of self-consciousness in machines. (shrink)

This article examines if bottom-up artificial moral agents are capable of making genuine moral judgements, specifically in light of David Hume’s is-ought problem. The latter underscores the notion that evaluative assertions could never be derived from purely factual propositions. Bottom-up technologies, on the other hand, are those designed via evolutionary, developmental, or learning techniques. In this paper, the nature of these systems is looked into with the aim of preliminarily assessing if there are good reasons to suspect that, on the (...) foundational level, their moral reasoning capabilities are prone to the no-ought-from-is thesis. The main hypothesis of the present work is that, by conceptually analysing the notion of bottom-up artificial moral agents, it would be revealed that their seeming moral judgements do not have proper philosophical basis. For one, the said kinds of artifacts arrive at the understanding of ethically-relevant ideas by means of culling data or facts from the environment. Thus, in relation to the is-ought problem, it may be argued that, even if bottom-up systems seem prima facie capable of generating apparent moral judgments, such are actually absent of good moral grounding, if not empty of any ethical value. (shrink)

In general, existential threats are those that may potentially result in the extinction of the entire human species, if not significantly endanger its living population. Among the said threats include, but not limited to, pandemics and the impacts of a technological singularity. As regards pandemics, significant work has already been done on how to mitigate, if not prevent, the aftereffects of this type of disaster. For one, certain problem areas on how to properly manage pandemic responses have already been identified, (...) like the following: (a) not being able to learn from previous experiences, (b) the inability to act on warning signals, and (c) the failure to reach a global consensus on a problem (i.e., in a timely manner). In terms of a singularity, however, it may be said that further research is still needed, specifically on how to aptly respond to its projected negative outcomes. In this paper, by treating the three problem areas noted above as preliminary assessment measures of a country’s capacity to coordinate a national response to large-scale disasters, we examine the readiness of the Philippines in preparing for an intelligence explosion. By citing certain instances of how the said country, specifically its national government, faced the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, it puts forward the idea that the likely Philippine disaster response towards a singularity needs to be worked on, appealing for a more comprehensive assessment of such for a more informed response plan. (shrink)

This article focuses on a particular issue under machine ethics—that is, the nature of Artificial Moral Agents. Machine ethics is a branch of artificial intelligence that looks into the moral status of artificial agents. Artificial moral agents, on the other hand, are artificial autonomous agents that possess moral value, as well as certain rights and responsibilities. This paper demonstrates that attempts to fully develop a theory that could possibly account for the nature of Artificial Moral Agents may consider certain philosophical (...) ideas, like the standard characterizations of agency, rational agency, moral agency, and artificial agency. At the very least, the said philosophical concepts may be treated as signposts for further research on how to truly account for the nature of Artificial Moral Agents. (shrink)

A constructivist approach to global public goods -- Accounting for tastes : the social construction of utility and preferences -- Utility, preferences, and the individual public goods decision -- Leadership and the global monetary system -- Collective security as a global public good -- The individual decision to provide collective security : Romania and the Kosovo campaign -- Human rights : consensus, norms, and public bads -- Identities, utilities, and public goods decisions.

This article examines who or what should be the target of feminist criticism. Throughout the discussion, the concept of memes is applied in analyzing systems such as patriarchy and feminism itself. Adapting Dawkins' theory on genes, this research puts forward the possibility that patriarchies and feminisms are memeplexes competing for the limited energy and memory space of humanity.

The research of Professor J. D. Roberts has interested me for several years. It has interested me because he has been working in a really rich area of intellectual history. Even before Professor Whitehead taught us to speak of the seventeenth century as the "century of genius," many of us looked with wonder on the creativity of the men who produced religious and philosophical literature in that period of contro versy and of power. It was, in a most unusual way, (...) a flowering time of the human spirit. The present volume is devoted to one fascinating chapter in the history of ideas. We know now, far better than we knew a generation ago, how incendiary Puritan ideas really were. They had tremendous consequences, many of which continue to this day, in spite of the absurd caricature of Puritanism, which is popularly accepted. The best of Milton's contemporaries were great thinkers as well as great doers. (shrink)

Provides an introduction for those engaged in the study of theology whose knowledge of philosophy is felt less than suitable for maximizing their studies. Explores the earliest philosophers, classical Greek philosophy and the ways it developed during the early Christian centuries, and how philosophy continued to develop into the twentieth century.

Beckwith‐Wiedemann syndrome is a human congenital disorder characterized by a wide variety of growth abnormalities, including developmental defects and predisposition to certain tumors. Genetic evidence has suggested a role for p57KIP2, a member of a family of cell cycle inhibitory genes, in Beckwith‐Wiedemann syndrome. Two independent groups(1,2) have reported the generation and characterization of mice lacking functional p57KIP2, These mice demonstrate a number of abnormal phenotypes which overlap with, although do not completely recapitulate, Beckwith‐Wiedemann syndrome. These findings advance the molecular (...) characterization of a human disorder, and provide insight into the interplay between regulation of cell division and development. (shrink)

This article surveys different philosophical theories about the nature of truth. We give much importance to truth; some demand to know it, some fear it, and others would even die for it. But what exactly is truth? What is its nature? Does it even have a nature in the first place? When do we say that some truth-bearers are true? Philosophers offer varying answers to these questions. In this article, some of these answers are explored and some of the problems (...) raised against them are presented. (shrink)

In elementary logic textbooks, Venn diagrams are used to analyze and evaluate the validity of syllogistic arguments. Although the method of Venn diagrams is shown to be a powerful analytical tool in these textbooks, it still has limitations. On the one hand, such method fails to represent singular statements of the form, “a is F.” On other hand, it also fails to represent identity statements of the form, “a is b.” Because of this, it also fails to give an account (...) of the validity of some obviously valid arguments that contain these types of statements as constituents. In this paper, owing to the developments in the literature on Venn diagrams, we offer a way of supplementing the rules of the Venn diagram found in textbooks, and show how this retooled Venn diagram technique could account for the problem cases. (shrink)

Generation Y is a cohort of the population larger than the baby boom generation. Consisting of approximately 80 million people born between 1981 and 2000, Generation Y is the most recent cohort to enter the workforce. Workplaces are being redefined and organizations are being pressed to adapt as this new wave of workers is infused into business environments. One critical aspect of this phenomenon not receiving sufficient research attention is the impact of Gen Y ethical beliefs and ethical conduct in (...) workplace contexts. It is widely accepted that distinct generational experiences shape ethical ideologies and ethical ideologies in turn affect the way people function in the workplace. Thus, Gen Y’s unique cohort experiences are likely to shape their ethical ideologies and consequent workplace judgments and actions. In this article, we examine Gen Y’s ethical ideology and study its impact on workplace functioning regarding leadership style, teamwork, and judgments about ethical violations. Our analyses indicate that Gen Y’ers tend toward situationalism (high idealism and high relativism), and their socially connected orientation produces more lenient judgments of collaborative vs. unilateral ethical violations. However, Gen Y’ers do exhibit individual variation. Relativist Gen Y’ers are more tolerant of ethical violations, whereas, Gen Y Idealists are less tolerant of ethical violations. High Idealists also show stronger teamwork and leadership characteristics. In addition, Gen Y’ers possessing servant leader traits exhibit incrementally better teamwork, and greater perceived unacceptability of ethical violations. We conclude by discussing implications of these findings for managing ethical climates and conduct. (shrink)

Background: SNOMED CT is a large terminology system designed to represent all aspects of healthcare. Its current form and content result from decades of bottom-up evolution. Due to SNOMED CT’s formal descriptions, it can be considered an ontology. The Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) is a foundational ontology that proposes a small set of disjoint, hierarchically ordered classes, supported by relations and axioms. In contrast, as a typical top-down endeavor, BFO was designed as a foundational framework for domain ontologies in the (...) natural sciences and related disciplines. Whereas it is mostly assumed that domain ontologies should be created as extensions of foundational ontologies, a post-hoc harmonization of consolidated domain ontologies in use, such as SNOMED CT, is known to be challenging. Methods: We explored the feasibility of harmonizing SNOMED CT with BFO, with a focus on the SNOMED CT Clinical Finding hierarchy. With more than 100,000 classes, it accounts for about one third of SNOMED CT’s content. In particular, we represented typical SNOMED CT finding/disorder concepts using description logics under BFO. Three representational patterns were created and the logical entailments analyzed. Results: Under a first scrutiny, the clinical intuition that diseases, disorders, signs and symptoms form a homogeneous ontological upper-level class appeared incompatible with BFO’s upper-level distinction into continuants and occurrents. The Clinical finding class seemed to be an umbrella for all kinds of entities of clinical interest, such as material entities, processes, states, dispositions, and qualities. This suggests the conclusion that Clinical finding would not be a suitable upper-level class from an BFO perspective. On closer inspection of the taxonomic links within this hierarchy and the implicit meaning derived thereof, it became clear that Clinical finding classes do not characterize the entity (e.g. a fracture, allergy, tumor, pain, hemorrhage, seizure, fever) in a literal sense but rather the condition of a patient having that fracture, allergy, pain etc. This gives sense to the current characteristic of the Clinical Finding hierarchy, in which complex classes are modeled as subclasses of their constituents. Most of these taxonomic links are inferred, as the consequence of the ‘role group’ design pattern, which is ubiquitous in SNOMED CT and has often been subject of controversy regarding its semantics. Conclusion: Our analyses resulted in the proposal of (i) equating SNOMED CT’s ‘role group’ property with the reflexive and transitive BFO relation ‘has occurrent part’; and (ii) reinterpreting Clinical Findings as Clinical Occurrents, i.e. temporally extended entities in an organism, having one or more occurrents as temporal parts that occur in continuants. This re-interpretation was corroborated by a manual analysis of classes under Clinical Finding, as well as the identification of similar modeling patterns in other ontologies. As a result, SNOMED CT does not require any content redesign to establish compatibility with BFO, apart from this re-interpretation, and a suggested re-labeling. Regarding the feasibility of harmonizing terminologies with principled foundational ontologies post-hoc, our results provide support to the assumption that this does not necessarily require major redesign efforts, but rather a careful analysis of the implicit assumptions of terminology curators and users. (shrink)

This study examines a moderated/mediated model of ethical leadership on follower job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. We proposed that managers have the potential to be agents of virtue or vice within organizations. Specifically, through ethical leadership behavior we argued that managers can virtuously influence perceptions of ethical climate, which in turn will positively impact organizational members’ flourishing as measured by job satisfaction and affective commitment to the organization. We also hypothesized that perceptions of interactional justice would moderate the ethical (...) leadership-to-climate relationship. Our results indicate that ethical leadership has both a direct and indirect influence on follower job satisfaction and affective commitment. The indirect effect of ethical leadership involves shaping perceptions of ethical climate, which in turn, engender greater job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. Furthermore, when interactional justice is perceived to be high, this strengthens the ethical leadership-to-climate relationship. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Regulatory focus theory is proposed as offering an explanation for the influence of ethical leadership on organizational citizenship behaviors and employee commitments. The prevention focus mindset of an employee is argued to be the mechanism by which an ethical leader influences extra-role compliance behavior as well as normative commitment, whereas the promotion focus mindset of an employee is argued to be the mechanism by which an ethical leader influences extra-role voice behavior as well as affective commitment. Moreover, leader-member exchange is (...) proposed as a moderator of the relationship of ethical leadership to regulatory focus mindsets and employee behavior and commitments. Using the data collected in two waves from 250 working adults, we tested the proposed relationships with moderated mediation bootstrap procedures. The findings generally support the hypothesized relationships and point toward important implications for ethical leadership in work settings. (shrink)

This eye-opening book reveals how little we've understood about the ongoing pitched battles between the sciences and the humanities--and how much may be at ...

_Philosophy of Mathematics_ is an excellent introductory text. This student friendly book discusses the great philosophers and the importance of mathematics to their thought. It includes the following topics: * the mathematical image * platonism * picture-proofs * applied mathematics * Hilbert and Godel * knots and nations * definitions * picture-proofs and Wittgenstein * computation, proof and conjecture. The book is ideal for courses on philosophy of mathematics and logic.

Thought experiments provide us with scientific understanding and theoretical advances which are sometimes quite significant, yet they do this without new empirical input, and possibly without any empirical input at all. How is this possible? The challenge to empiricism is to give an account which is compatible with the traditional empiricist principle that all knowledge is based on sensory experience. Thought experiments present an enormous challenge to empiricist views of knowledge; so much so that some of us have thrown in (...) the towel and embraced good old fashioned platonism. I'll try to explain why one brand of empiricism, namely John Norton's argument view of thought experiments, won't work. (shrink)

There is sufficient evidence that intellectual property rights are corrupting medical research. One could respond to this from a moral or from an epistemic point of view. I take the latter route. Often in the sciences factual discoveries lead to new methodological norms. Medical research is an example. Surprisingly, the methodological change required will involve political change. Instead of new regulations aimed at controlling the problem, the outright socialization of research seems called for, for the sake of better science. I (...) appeal to an analogy between socialized medicine and socialized research. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5R 2M8, Canada; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

This study addresses a central theme in current philosophy: Platonism vs Naturalism and provides accounts of both approaches to mathematics, crucially discussing Quine, Maddy, Kitcher, Lakoff, Colyvan, and many others. Beginning with accounts of both approaches, Brown defends Platonism by arguing that only a Platonistic approach can account for concept acquisition in a number of special cases in the sciences. He also argues for a particular view of applied mathematics, a view that supports Platonism against Naturalist alternatives. Not only does (...) this engaging book present the Platonist-Naturalist debate over mathematics in a comprehensive fashion, but it also sheds considerable light on non-mathematical aspects of a dispute that is central to contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

In response to recent critics, this is a vigorous defence of realism. The roles of abstraction, abstract objects and a priori methods are explored, demonstrating the ways in which science mirrors the world.

Newton's bucket, Einstein's elevator, Schrödinger's cat – these are some of the best-known examples of thought experiments in the natural sciences. But what function do these experiments perform? Are they really experiments at all? Can they help us gain a greater understanding of the natural world? How is it possible that we can learn new things just by thinking? In this revised and updated new edition of his classic text _The Laboratory of the Mind_, James Robert Brown continues (...) to defend apriorism in the physical world. This edition features two new chapters, one on “counter thought experiments” and another on the development of inertial motion. With plenty of illustrations and updated coverage of the debate between Platonic rationalism and classic empiricism, this is a lively and engaging contribution to the field of philosophy of science. (shrink)

Feynman diagrams have fascinated physicists and philosophers since they were introduced to the world about 70 years ago. Clearly, they help in calculation; they have allowed nearly impossible problems to be solved with relative ease. This is agreed by all, but that is probably where the consensus ends. Are they pictures of physical processes? Are they just devices for keeping track of mathematical formulae, that do the real work? Are they some sort of mix of both?They are almost as famous (...) as representations of the Bohr atom, even though most people could not give even a sketchy account of what they do. In spite of this they have taken on a role as a cultural icon. Feynman used them to decorate his own van.... (shrink)

Francis Bacon, the English philosopher, statesman and jurist, is best known for developing the empiricist method which forms the basis of modern science. Bacon's writings concentrated on philosophy and judicial reform. His most significant work is the Instauratio Magna comprising two parts - The Advancement of Learning and the Novum Organum. The first part is noteworthy as the first major philosophical work published in English. James Spedding and his co-editors arranged this fourteen-volume edition, published in London between 1857 and (...) 1874, not in chronological order but by subject matter, so that different volumes would appeal to different audiences. The material is divided into three parts: philosophy and general literature; legal works; and letters, speeches and tracts relating to politics. Volume 1, published 1857, contains the biography by Bacon's secretary, William Rawley, and part 1 of the philosophical works included in the Instauratio Magna. (shrink)