[Wittrs] Re: Robots and Ethical Choices
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:44:41 -0700 (PDT)
... the questions that are deep, if any, are political, social, cultural, etc.
They are not philosophical.
Let us suppose that Star Trek's Data saved a dog from dying in the street. And
let us suppose that someone said, "how ethical!" And let us suppose that
another person said, "it cannot be ethical because a machine did it." And still
a third person said, "he's not a machine."
What philosophical issue exists?
How is this different from one who says "the pope is a bachelor" and one who
says "no he is not"?
In each instance, the state of affairs is not in question. The only thing one
could do is see whether the use of "ethics" was facile in the respective
offerings. Let's imagine someone said "marriage is between a husband and wife."
And so we ask the person, what do you call marriage not between a husband and
wife when it involves humans over 18? If they answered responsively and not
dogmatically, their lexicon would have a word for it. (civil union). In fact,
language would permit either of them to say that civil unions are nothing but
marriages of different types -- because this, in effect, is their grammar. (You
can't hide from grammar). Although there is a political and social and cultural
issue here -- people try to attach a lower status to one kind of marriage
-- there is no philosophical problem.
For you to say that X is ethical -- be it from a dog or robot -- is to say
something only about your program for speaking of ethics. It would be the same
as one who played a Jack of cards in a particular kind of game. Someone might
say of your play, "wow, talking this way has real communicative benefits." But
if another came along and said X was "not ethical" -- and where they held that
Y was -- the issue would only be that they played the Queen in the
situation. For this is so because in each instance, the state of affairs is not
in question -- only the way we want to characterize it. In each case, the use
needs conjugated.
The only philosophic issue is conjugation. Wittgenstein ended "philosophy."
(P.S. -- on your last point, you are politicking for Data. You are doing what
lawyers do. "Include him because he meets the stated criteria." Were we to
accept this as "philosophy," we would be back to the days of reasoning from a
received authority, like Aristotelian classicism -- like medieval days of
making the world fit the received form.).
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
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