The literature on ethics and user attitudes towards AVs discusses user concerns in relation to automation; however, we show that there are additional relevant issues at stake. To assess adolescents’ attitudes regarding the ‘car of the future’ as presented by car manufacturers, we conducted two studies with over 400 participants altogether. We used a mixed methods approach in which we combined qualitative and quantitative methods. In the first study, our respondents appeared to be more concerned about other aspects of AVs (...) than automation. Instead, their most commonly raised concerns were the extensive use of AI, recommender systems, and related issues of autonomy, invasiveness and personal privacy. The second study confirmed that several AV impacts were negatively perceived. The responses were, however, ambivalent. This confirms previous research on AV attitudes. On one hand, the AV features were perceived as useful, while on the other hand, their impacts were negatively assessed. We followed theoretical insights form futures studies and responsible research and innovation, which helped to identify that there are additional user concerns than what has been previously discussed in the literature on public attitudes and ethics of AVs, as well what has been envisioned by car manufactures. (shrink)

According to philosopher Paul Woodruff, reverent awe is a feeling of being limited or dwarfed by something larger than the human, usually accompanied by feelings of respect for fellow human beings. Drawing from Jean-Paul Sartre’s early philosophy, this article responds positively to the title question, showing how reverent awe is in bad faith yet is similar to anguish, and unique with respect to both. Especially remarkable in reverent awe is the feeling of connectedness to humankind. In section two, building on (...) this section one framework of how Sartrean consciousness can be reverent, the article explores how being-in-itself can be an object of reverent awe. (shrink)

​This book describes argumentative tools and strategies that can be used to guide policy decisions under conditions of great uncertainty. Contributing authors explore methods from philosophical analysis and in particular argumentation analysis, showing how it can be used to systematize discussions about policy issues involving great uncertainty. The first part of the work explores how to deal in a systematic way with decision-making when there may be plural perspectives on the decision problem, along with unknown consequences of what we do. (...) Readers will see how argumentation tools can be used for prioritizing among uncertain dangers, for determining how decisions should be framed, for choosing a suitable time frame for a decision, and for systematically choosing among different decision options. Case studies are presented in the second part of the book, showing argumentation in practice in the areas of climate geoengineering, water governance, synthetic biology, nuclear waste, and financial markets. In one example, argumentation analysis is applied to proposals to solve the climate problem with various technological manipulations of the natural climate system, such as massive dispersion of reflective aerosols into the stratosphere. Even after a thorough investigation of such a proposal, doubt remains as to whether all the potential risks have been identified. In such discussions, conventional risk analysis does not have much to contribute since it presupposes that the risks have been identified, whereas the argumentative approach to uncertainty management can be used to systematize discussions. (shrink)

Receiving information about threats to one’s health can contribute to anxiety and depression. In contemporary medical ethics there is considerable consensus that patient autonomy, or the patient’s right to know, in most cases outweighs these negative effects of information. Worry about the detrimental effects of information has, however, been voiced in relation to public health more generally. In particular, information about uncertain threats to public health, from—for example, chemicals—are said to entail social costs that have not been given due consideration. (...) This criticism implies a consequentialist argument for withholding such information from the public in their own best interest. In evaluating the argument for this kind of epistemic paternalism, the consequences of making information available must be compared to the consequences of withholding it. Consequences that should be considered include epistemic effects, psychological effects, effects on private decisions, and effects on political decisions. After giving due consideration to the possible uses of uncertain information and rebutting the claims that uncertainties imply small risks and that they are especially prone to entail misunderstandings and anxiety, it is concluded that there is a strong case against withholding of information about uncertain threats to public health. (shrink)

_Initiating Psychoanalysis_ presents an international collection of papers brought together by the Working Party on Initiating Psychoanalysis of the European Psychoanalytic Federation and addresses the specific clinical and technical issues involved in launching the processes that are at the core of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic treatment. Expert contributors provide introductions and commentaries on a selection of psychoanalytic papers, including one by Freud himself, which refer to beginning psychoanalytic treatment in a wide range of settings. Divided into four main sections, areas of (...) discussion include: historical and conceptual developments in the field practical, technical and ethical considerations unconscious transference and counter-transference dynamics of initial interviews internal factors that can help or hinder psychoanalysts in their work to initiate psychoanalysis. This book will be helpful to all psychoanalytical practitioners in thinking about their work in first interviews with prospective patients, as well as psychoanalysts and psychotherapists at all levels of experience, who will be able to use this book to enrich their own practice. (shrink)

The major normative recommendations in the literature on food risk communication can be summarized in the form of seven practical principles for such communication: (1) Be honest and open. (2) Disclose incentives and conflicts of interest. (3) Take all available relevant knowledge into consideration. (4) When possible, quantify risks. (5) Describe and explain uncertainties. (6) Take all the public's concerns into account. (7) Take the rights of individuals and groups seriously. We show that each of these proposed principles can be (...) justified both in terms of more fundamental ethical principles and instrumentally in terms of the communicating agent's selfinterest. The mechanisms of this concordance of justifications are discussed. It is argued that the concordance is specific for areas such as food risks in which agents such as companies and public authorities are highly dependent on the public's trust and confidence. The implications of these findings both for moral philosophy and for practical food risk communication are discussed. (shrink)

Youth is a historical construction and an answer to a specific challenge of individualisation in biography. And, as a historical and social construction, youth has to be learned. This article focuses on youth development from an action or activity theory perspective and as a learning process. It demonstrates how different youth problems and forms of youth differentiation follow forms of youth learning. Moreover, it shows how late modern development creates the demand for a new non-formal learning perspective to secure the (...) development of new forms of competence. Based on Danish research concerning peer learning as a non-formal learning context, some perspectives of peer-learning competence are discussed. (shrink)

I extend cognitive science research to phenomenological philosophy to argue that there are three distinct organizational principles coordinate with three dimensions of attention.

Justification as Ignorance offers an original account of epistemic justification as both non-factive and luminous, vindicating core internalist intuitions without construing justification as an internal condition knowable by reflection alone. Sven Rosenkranz conceives of justification, in its doxastic and propositional varieties, as a kind of epistemic possibility of knowing and of being in a position to know. His account contrasts with recent alternative views that characterize justification in terms of the metaphysical possibility of knowing. Instead, he develops a suitable (...) non-normal multi-modal epistemic logic for knowledge and being in a position to know that respects the finding that these notions create hyperintensional contexts. He also defends his conception of justification against well-known anti-luminosity arguments, shows that the account allows for fruitful applications and principled solutions to the lottery and preface paradoxes, and provides a metaphysics of justification and its varying degrees of strength that is compatible with core assumptions of the knowledge-first approach and disjunctivist conceptions of mental states. (shrink)

Formal representations of values and norms are employed in several academic disciplines and specialties, such as economics, jurisprudence, decision theory and social choice theory. Sven Ove Hansson closely examines such foundational issues as the values of wholes and the values of their parts, the connections between values and norms, how values can be decision-guiding and the structure of normative codes with formal precision. Models of change in both preferences and norms are offered, as well as a method to base (...) the logic of norms on that of preferences. Hansson has developed a unified formal representation of values and norms that reflects both their static and their dynamic properties. This formalized treatment, carried out in terms of both informal value theory and precise logical detail, will contribute to the clarification of certain issues in the basic philosophical theory of values and norms. (shrink)

This paper discusses the robotization of the workplace, and particularly the question of whether robots can be good colleagues. This might appear to be a strange question at first glance, but it is worth asking for two reasons. Firstly, some people already treat robots they work alongside as if the robots are valuable colleagues. It is worth reflecting on whether such people are making a mistake. Secondly, having good colleagues is widely regarded as a key aspect of what can make (...) work meaningful. In discussing whether robots can be good colleagues, the paper compares that question to the more widely discussed questions of whether robots can be our friends or romantic partners. The paper argues that the ideal of being a good colleague has many different parts, and that on a behavioral level, robots can live up to many of the criteria typically associated with being a good colleague. Moreover, the paper also argues that in comparison with the more demanding ideals of being a good friend or a good romantic partner, it is comparatively easier for a robot to live up to the ideal of being a good colleague. The reason for this is that the “inner lives” of our friends and lovers are more important to us than the inner lives of our colleagues. (shrink)

The AGM (Alchourrón-Gärdenfors-Makinson) model of belief change is extended to cover changes on sets of beliefs that are not closed under logical consequence (belief bases). Three major types of change operations, namely contraction, internal revision, and external revision are axiomatically characterized, and their interrelations are studied. In external revision, the Levi identity is reversed in the sense that one first adds the new belief to the belief base, and afterwards contracts its negation. It is argued that external revision represents an (...) intuitively plausible way of revising one's beliefs. Since it typically involves the temporary acceptance of an inconsistent set of beliefs, it can only be used in belief representations that distinguish between different inconsistent sets of belief. (shrink)

The paper explores a structural account of propositional justification in terms of the notion of being in a position to know and negation. Combined with a non-normal logic for being in a position to know, the account allows for the derivation of plausible principles of justification. The account is neutral on whether justification is grounded in internally individuated mental states, and likewise on whether it is grounded in facts that are already accessible by introspection or reflection alone. To this extent, (...) it is compatible both with internalism and with externalism about justification. Even so, the account allows for the proof of principles that are commonly conceived to depend on an internalist conception of justification. The account likewise coheres both with epistemic contextualism and with its rejection, and is compatible both with the knowledge-first approach and with its rejection. Despite its neutrality on these issues, the account makes propositional justification luminous and so is controversial. However, it proves quite resilient in the light of recent anti-luminosity arguments. (shrink)

According to T. M. Scanlon's 'buck-passing' analysis of value, x is good means that x has properties that provide reasons to take up positive attitudes vis-à-vis x. Some authors have claimed that this idea can be traced back to Franz Brentano, who said in 1889 that the judgement that x is good is the judgement that a positive attitude to x is correct ('richtig'). The most discussed problem in the recent literature on buckpassing is known as the 'wrong kind of (...) reason' problem (the WKR problem): it seems quite possible that there is sometimes reason to favour an object although that object is not good and possibly very evil. The problem is to delineate exactly what distinguishes reasons of the right kind from reasons of the wrong kind. In this paper we offer a Brentano-style solution. We also note that one version of the WKR problem was put forward by G. E. Moore in his review of the English translation of Brentano's Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis. Before getting to how our Brentano-style approach might offer a way out for Brentano and the buck-passers, we briefly consider and reject an interesting attempt to solve the WKR problem recently proposed by John Skorupski. (shrink)

This book argues that we need to explore how human beings can best coordinate and collaborate with robots in responsible ways. It investigates ethically important differences between human agency and robot agency to work towards an ethics of responsible human-robot interaction.

Dass Hegels Theorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft nicht nur von antiquarischem Interesse ist, belegt ihre Vorbildfunktion für Axel Honneths normative Rekonstruktion des Marktes. Sven Ellmers zeigt, dass sich Hegels anspruchsvoller Versuch, die atomistische Marktgesellschaft in seine Theorie der Sittlichkeit zu integrieren, als einerseits zwar wenig überzeugend erweist, andererseits aber dennoch instruktiv ist. Unter analytischen Gesichtspunkten ist Hegels Theorie Marx' Kritik der politischen Ökonomie unterlegen, unter normativen Gesichtspunkten bereichert sie die Diskussion um zwei Grundfragen kritischer Theorie: Welche Gründe sprechen gegen den (...) Kapitalismus, und welche Formen der Sozialität zeichnen die Wirtschaft eines freien Gemeinwesens aus? (shrink)

Large Language Models (LLMs) “assign probabilities to sequences of text. When given some initial text, they use these probabilities to generate new text. Large language models are language models u...

This book provides a critical examination of how the choice of what to believe is represented in the standard model of belief change. In particular the use of possible worlds and infinite remainders as objects of choice is critically examined. Descriptors are introduced as a versatile tool for expressing the success conditions of belief change, addressing both local and global descriptor revision. The book presents dynamic descriptors such as Ramsey descriptors that convey how an agent’s beliefs tend to be changed (...) in response to different inputs. It also explores sentential revision and demonstrates how local and global operations of revision by a sentence can be derived as a special case of descriptor revision. Lastly, the book examines revocation, a generalization of contraction in which a specified sentence is removed in a process that may possibly also involve the addition of some new information to the belief set. (shrink)

An alarming number of philosophers and cognitive scientists have argued that mind extends beyond the brain and body. This book evaluates these arguments and suggests that, typically, it does not. A timely and relevant study that exposes the need to develop a more sophisticated theory of cognition, while pointing to a bold new direction in exploring the nature of cognition Articulates and defends the “mark of the cognitive”, a common sense theory used to distinguish between cognitive and non-cognitive processes Challenges (...) the current popularity of extended cognition theory through critical analysis and by pointing out fallacies and shortcoming in the literature Stimulates discussions that will advance debate about the nature of cognition in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Ethicists have investigated ethical problems in other disciplines, but there has not been much discussion of the ethics of their own activities. Research in ethics has many ethical problems in common with other areas of research, and it also has problems of its own. The researcher’s integrity is more precarious than in most other disciplines, and therefore even stronger procedural checks are needed to protect it. The promotion of some standpoints in ethical issues may be socially harmful, and even our (...) decisions as to which issues we label as “ethical” may have unintended and potentially harmful social consequences. It can be argued that ethicists have an obligation to make positive contributions to society, but the practical implications of such an obligation are not easily identified. This article provides an overview of ethical issues that arise in research into ethics and in the application of such research. It ends with a list of ten practical proposals for how these issues should be dealt with. (shrink)

Sven Bernecker presents an analysis of the concept of propositional (or factual) memory, and examines a number of metaphysical and epistemological issues crucial to the understanding of memory. -/- Bernecker argues that memory, unlike knowledge, implies neither belief nor justification. There are instances where memory, though hitting the mark of truth, succeeds in an epistemically defective way. This book shows that, contrary to received wisdom in epistemology, memory not only preserves epistemic features generated by other epistemic sources but also (...) functions as a source of justification and knowledge. According to the causal theory of memory argued for in this book, the dependence of memory states on past representations supports counterfactuals of the form: if the subject hadn't represented a given proposition in the past he wouldn't represent it in the present. The book argues for a version of content externalism whereupon the individuation of memory contents depends on relations the subject bears to his past physical or social environment. Moreover, Bernecker shows that memory doesn't require identity, but only similarity, of past and present attitudes and contents. The notion of content similarity is explicated in terms of the entailment relation. (shrink)

The global method safety account of knowledge states that an agent’s true belief that p is safe and qualifies as knowledge if and only if it is formed by method M, such that her beliefs in p and her beliefs in relevantly similar propositions formed by M in all nearby worlds are true. This paper argues that global method safety is too restrictive. First, the agent may not know relevantly similar propositions via M because the belief that p is the (...) only possible outcome of M. Second, there are cases where there is a fine-grained belief that is unsafe and a relevantly similar coarse-grained belief that is safe and where both beliefs are based on the same method M. Third, the reliability of conditional reasoning, a basic belief-forming method, seems to be sensitive to fine-grained contents, as suggested by the wide variation in success rates for thematic versions of the Wason selection task. (shrink)

Many ethicists writing about automated systems attribute agency to these systems. Not only that; they seemingly attribute an autonomous or independent form of agency to these machines. This leads some ethicists to worry about responsibility-gaps and retribution-gaps in cases where automated systems harm or kill human beings. In this paper, I consider what sorts of agency it makes sense to attribute to most current forms of automated systems, in particular automated cars and military robots. I argue that whereas it indeed (...) makes sense to attribute different forms of fairly sophisticated agency to these machines, we ought not to regard them as acting on their own, independently of any human beings. Rather, the right way to understand the agency exercised by these machines is in terms of human–robot collaborations, where the humans involved initiate, supervise, and manage the agency of their robotic collaborators. This means, I argue, that there is much less room for justified worries about responsibility-gaps and retribution-gaps than many ethicists think. (shrink)

In non-technical contexts, the word “risk” refers, often rather vaguely, to situations in which it is possible but not certain that some undesirable event will occur. In technical contexts, the word has many uses and specialized meanings. The most common ones are the following.

In the middle of the 1980s, logical tools were discovered that make it possible to model changes in belief and knowledge in entirely new ways. These logical tools turned out to be applicable both to human beliefs and to the contents of databases. This is the first textbook in this new area. It contains both discursive chapters with a minimum of formalism and formal chapters in which proofs and proof methods are presented. By using different selections from the formal section (...) the book can be used on all levels of University education. (shrink)

The paper introduces ten open problems in belief revision theory, related to the representation of the belief state, to different notions of degrees of belief, and to the nature of change operations. It is argued that these problems are all issues in philosopical logic, in the strong sense of requiring inputs from both logic and philosophy for their solution.

This article develops a notion of the ‘politics of time’ in order to analyse the effects that imaginations of future emergencies have in the fields of law and economy. Building on Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social time, it focuses on the multiplex temporalities in contemporary society, which are shown to interact differently with the ‘emergency imaginary’. We demonstrate that the apprehension of the future in terms of sudden, unpredictable and potentially catastrophic events reinforces current modes of producing financial futurity, while (...) it undermines the procedural rhythm and retroactive sentencing of liberal law. As a whole, the article supplements the analysis of the ‘politics of truth’ prevalent in the current debate about precaution and pre-emption with a theoretical perspective on social temporality. (shrink)

Objective To examine medical students’ views on conscientious objection and controversial medical procedures.Methods Questionnaire study among Norwegian 5th and 6th year medical students.Results Five hundred and thirty-one of 893 students responded. Respondents object to a range of procedures not limited to abortion —notably euthanasia, ritual circumcision for boys, assisted reproduction for same-sex couples and ultrasound in the setting of prenatal diagnosis. A small minority would object to referrals for abortion. In the case of abortion, up to 55% would tolerate conscientious (...) refusals, whereas 42% would not. Higher proportions would tolerate refusals for euthanasia or ritual circumcision for boys.Discussion A majority of Norwegian medical students would object to participation in euthanasia or ritual circumcision for boys. However, in most settings, many medical students think doctors should not be able to refuse participation on grounds of conscience. A minority would accept conscientious refusals for procedures they themselves do not object to personally. Most students would not accept conscientious refusals for referrals.Conclusions Conscientious objection remains a live issue in the context of several medical procedures not limited to abortion. Although most would want a right to object to participation in euthanasia, tolerance towards conscientious objectors in general was moderate or low. (shrink)

Drawing on insights from robotics, psychology, and human-computer interaction, developers of sex robots are currently aiming to create emotional bonds of attachment and even love between human users and their products. This is done by creating robots that can exhibit a range of facial expressions, that are made with human-like artificial skin, and that possess a rich vocabulary with many conversational possibilities. In light of the human tendency to anthropomorphize artefacts, we can expect that designers will have some success and (...) that this will lead to the attribution of mental states to the robot that the robot does not actually have, as well as the inducement of significant emotional responses in the user. This raises the question of whether it might be ethically problematic to try to develop robots that appear to love their users. We discuss three possible ethical concerns about this aim: first, that designers may be taking advantage of users’ emotional vulnerability; second, that users may be deceived; and, third, that relationships with robots may block off the possibility of more meaningful relationships with other humans. We argue that developers should attend to the ethical constraints suggested by these concerns in their development of increasingly humanoid sex robots. We discuss two different ways in which they might do so. (shrink)

This paper attempts to answer the question of what defines mnemonic confabulation vis-à-vis genuine memory. The two extant accounts of mnemonic confabulation as “false memory” and as ill-grounded memory are shown to be problematic, for they cannot account for the possibility of veridical confabulation, ill-grounded memory, and wellgrounded confabulation. This paper argues that the defining characteristic of mnemonic confabulation is that it lacks the appropriate causal history. In the confabulation case, there is no proper counterfactual dependence of the state of (...) seeming to remember on the corresponding past representation. (shrink)

This paper argues that Sosa’s virtue perspectivism fails to combine satisfactorily internalist and externalist features in a single theory. Internalism and externalism are reconciled at the price of creating a Gettier problem at the level of “reflective” or second-order knowledge. The general lesson to be learned from the critique of virtue perspectivism is that internalism and externalism cannot be combined by bifurcating justification and knowledge into an object-level and a meta-level and assigning externalism and internalism to different levels.