In this paper, we discuss the relation between recent philosophical discussions about meaning in life (from authors like Susan Wolf, Thaddeus Metz, and others) and the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI). Our goal is twofold, namely, to argue that considering the axiological category of meaningfulness can enrich AI ethics, on the one hand, and to portray and evaluate the small, but growing literature that already exists on the relation between meaning in life and AI ethics, on the other hand. We (...) start out our review by clarifying the basic assumptions of the meaning in life discourse and how it understands the term ‘meaningfulness’. After that, we offer five general arguments for relating philosophical questions about meaning in life to questions about the role of AI in human life. For example, we formulate a worry about a possible meaningfulness gap related to AI on analogy with the idea of responsibility gaps created by AI, a prominent topic within the AI ethics literature. We then consider three specific types of contributions that have been made in the AI ethics literature so far: contributions related to self-development, the future of work, and relationships. As we discuss those three topics, we highlight what has already been done, but we also point out gaps in the existing literature. We end with an outlook regarding where we think the discussion of this topic should go next. (shrink)

This is the second paper in a three-part series on the state of the enhancement debate. We report current trends and give an overview of established positions in the field of neuroenhancement. Unlike a number of articles on the bioethics of enhancement, we try to highlight connections between the contemporary debate and established positions in philosophical ethics. This specific perspective inspired the breakdown of our three-part series into consequentialist, deontological and virtue-ethical arguments.

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 73-112.

The focus of AI ethics has recently shifted towards the question of whether and how the use of AI technologies can promote sustainability. This new research question involves discerning the sustainability of AI itself and evaluating AI as a tool to achieve sustainable objectives. This article aims to examine the justifications that one might employ to advocate for promoting sustainable AI. Specifically, it concentrates on a dimension of often disregarded reasons — reasons of “meaning” or “meaningfulness” — as discussed more (...) recently in the “meaning in life” literature of analytic ethics. To proceed, the article first elucidates the working definitions of “sustainable AI” and “meaning in life”, while also setting the criteria for evaluating the plausibility of these reasons. Subsequently, it presents and scrutinises three arguments for the claim that one has reasons to care about sustainable AI from a perspective of meaning: the Meaning-conferring-action Argument, the Afterlife Argument, and the Harm Argument. In conclusion, this article asserts that only the Harm Argument presents a viable line of reasoning. However, it also outlines the presuppositions of this argument and the additional steps necessary to make it compelling. (shrink)

Das Thema des Beitrages bildet der „neue“ Non-Naturalismus, welcher exemplarisch am metaethischen Ansatz von Derek Parfit untersucht wird. Parfits Ansatz zeichnet sich durch das Ziel aus, eine neue Theorienoption zu ermöglichen, die einerseits von der Existenz normativer Tatsachen ausgeht, ohne jedoch andererseits auf die ontologischen Verpflichtungen der klassischen Vertreter des Non-Naturalismus festgelegt zu sein. Hierfür wird der Begriff der „nicht-ontologischen Existenz“ eingeführt und von robusten ontologischen Existenzweisen unterschieden. In diesem Beitrag wird dafür argumentiert, dass Parfit bisher nur Explikationen dieses zentralen (...) Begriffs geliefert hat, die a.) uninformativ sind, b.) mit dem Ziel der Ausgangstheorie in Konkurrenz geraten oder c.) den eigenen Absatz bereits unter der Hand aufgeben. Darüber hinaus werden die dialektischen Möglichkeiten durchgespielt, die Parfit bleiben, um auf diese Diagnose zu reagieren. In der Konsequenz wird aber auch diesbezüglich aufgezeigt, dass mit Blick auf deren Erfolgsaussichten eine gewisse Skepsis angebracht ist. (shrink)

Das allgemeine Thema des Artikels besteht darin, zwei Diskussionskreise miteinander zu verbinden, die in Isolation betrachtet gut erforscht sind, aber selten zusammengebracht werden: die Diskussion um das sogenannte Human Enhancement und die Debatte um das sinnvolle Leben. Hierbei wird insbesondere die Behauptung ins Blickfeld gerückt, dass Techniken des Human Enhancement einen negativen Einfluss auf den Sinn haben könnten. Ist diese These plausibel? In diesem Artikel wird die These verteidigt, dass diese Frage verneint werden muss. Methodisch werden hierfür drei Varianten untersucht, (...) in denen die Behauptung des negativen Einflusses vorgetragen werden können. Dabei wird aufgezeigt, dass entweder die Annahme eines negativen Einflusses aus empirischen Gründen wenig wahrscheinlich ist oder dass sie durch Modifikationen der Enhancement Techniken abgeschwächt werden können. (shrink)

Die Hauptthese von Sinn im Leben (SIL) besagt, dass die individuelle Orientierung am Quadrivium des Wahren, Schönen, Guten und Moralischen den Kern dessen ausmacht, was wir als sinnvolles Leben begreifen. Das, was unserem Leben Sinn verleiht, sind unter anderem Handlungen, die darauf abzielen, zum wissenschaftlichen Fortschritt beizutragen, künstlerische Projekte zu verwirklichen, anderen Menschen zu helfen oder die Welt gerechter zu gestalten. In diesem Kontext ist es nicht überraschend, dass ich die wissenschaftliche Suche nach einer philosophisch gerechtfertigten Sinntheorie selbst als sinnstiftend (...) betrachte. Daher bin ich Beatrix Himmelmann und Christoph Horn dankbar dafür, dass sie durch ihre kritischen Nachfragen meine Suche angeregt und vertieft haben, um hoffentlich dadurch zum Diskurs über das sinnvolle Leben beizutragen. Um auf die unterschiedlichen Fragen einzugehen, habe ich meine Antworten in drei Themenbereiche unterteilt. Ich hoffe, damit die meisten strittigen Diskussionspunkte zu adressieren und meine eigene Sichtweise klarer darzustellen. Es sollte selbstverständlich sein, dass dies nur der Beginn einer Diskussion und nicht ihr Ende ist. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 22 Heft: 1 Seiten: 159-164.

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 22 Heft: 1 Seiten: 165-182.

Was genau ist eine Handlung? Wie unterscheidet sie sich von bloßem Verhalten und von Ereignissen? Und wie lassen sich Handlungsgründe analysieren? Und welche Rolle spielt der Handlungsbegriff etwa in der Metaethik, der Normativen Ethik und der Angewandten Ethik? Das Handbuch präsentiert die historischen sowie systematischen Grundlagen der Handlungstheorie und spannt einen weiten Bogen bis hin zu Fragen der Verantwortlichkeit, der Willensfreiheit oder der personalen Autonomie. Ein Kapitel zur Angewandten Ethik sowie ein Ausblick auf interdisziplinäre Perspektiven beschließen den Band.

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 65 Heft: 6 Seiten: 999-1024.

The debate on how an individual human life can be understood as being more or less meaningful has been pursued for a considerable time now. Despite extensive discussion some important aspects remain under-explored, namely the relation between meaningfulness and morality – even though many authors implicitly assume a connection between these two value dimensions. But how does morality contribute to a meaningful life? Is it a necessary condition? Or is it not necessary but sufficient or contributive? Or is there, when (...) explored further, no connection at all? This article discusses the relation between morality and meaning by outlining the central positions in the debate, explains the main arguments for and against, and offers some indications for future work in the field. (shrink)

Neuroenhancement concerns the improvement of a person’s mental properties, abilities, and performance. The various techniques of neuroenhancement offer new opportunities of such improvement, but also come with substantive perils. Neuroenhancement thus involves significant normative challenges for individual persons as well as for society as a whole. This expert report provides a concise overview of the contemporary debate on neuroenhancement. It discusses the definition, techniques and targets of neuroenhancement and examines arguments for and against it at the level of individual persons, (...) social interaction, and social policy. (shrink)

Die Kategorie des Sinns oder des Sinnvollen findet in der jüngeren Diskussion um die normative Theorie des guten Lebens erhöhte Aufmerksamkeit. Viele Autoren gehen mittlerweile davon aus, dass eine umfassende Bestimmung des guten Lebens nicht mehr ohne die Erwähnung und Erläuterung der Wertdimension des sinnvollen Lebens auskommt. Typischerweise wird dieses Syntagma so verstanden, dass damit ein Wertaspekt des Teil- oder Gesamtlebens eines Individuums gemeint ist, welches in einer bestimmten, von anderen Wertdimensionen des guten Lebens noch abzugrenzenden Hinsicht als lobenswert, bedeutsam (...) oder bewundernswert ausgezeichnet wird. Umstritten ist dabei jedoch zum einen, ob das sinnvolle Leben eine eigenständige Wertkategorie innerhalb des guten Lebens darstellt, und zum anderen, falls dem so wäre, wie diese Kategorie dann genau zu explizieren wäre, nicht zuletzt im Verhältnis zu den etablierten Wertkategorien innerhalb des guten Lebens, wie etwa dem Wohlergehen. Die in diesem Schwerpunkt versammelten Aufsätze unternehmen den Versuch, zum Verständnis der vielschichtigen und kontrovers diskutierten Dimension des Sinns beizutragen. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Das sinnvolle Leben ist seit geraumer Zeit Gegenstand einer lebendigen internationalen Debatte. Dabei erhält neuerdings ein Aspekt zunehmende Aufmerksamkeit, welcher bisher weitestgehend ausgespart wurde: das Verhältnis zwischen Sinn und Moral. Einerseits wird das sinnvolle Leben oft deutlich von der Sphäre der Moral abgegrenzt, andererseits gilt moralisches Handeln vielen Autoren als integraler Bestandteil desselbigen. Doch wie genau trägt Moral zu einem sinnvollen Leben bei? Ist es notwendig, hinreichend, sogar beides? Oder ist es vielleicht doch irrelevant? Dieser Artikel bietet einen Überblick (...) über die verschiedenen in der Debatte vorgeschlagenen Verhältnisbestimmungen, ihre Beziehungen untereinander sowie die wesentlichen Argumente dafür und dagegen. (shrink)

Unterschiedlichste Anwendungsformen künstlicher Intelligenz bestimmen schon heute den Alltag vieler Menschen – von Einsatz von KI-Systeme in Finanzgeschäften über die Vergabe von Studienplätzen bis hin zur Steuerung von Pflegerobotern, Autos und Waffensystemen. Diese vielfältigen neuen Möglichkeiten und Visionen wecken einerseits Hoffnungen auf persönlichen und gesellschaftlichen Nutzen und Fortschritt; andererseits rufen sie aber auch Bedenken, Ängste und gelegentlich auch grundsätzliche Ablehnung hervor. Angesichts dieser Ambivalenz sind ethische Analysen gefordert, die ausloten, wie ein verantwortungsvoller Umgang mit KI gestaltet werden sollte. Der Band (...) greift viele dieser Probleme auf und unterzieht sie einer eingehenden philosophischen Analyse. Die Auseinandersetzung ist nach klassischen Teilbereichen der Philosophie gegliedert, aus deren Perspektive heraus jeweils spezielle Teilaspekte oder einzelne Anwendungsformen von KI beleuchtet werden. Das Themenspektrum reicht entsprechend von Fragen der Handlungstheorie und Philosophie des Geistes über wissenschaftstheoretische Problemstellungen bis hin zu ethischen Fragen die beispielsweise den Einsatz von KI in der Medizin und im Wirtschafts- und Arbeitsleben betreffen. In Auseinandersetzung mit aktuellen Debatten werden eigenständige Positionen entwickelt. (shrink)

Most people, including philosophers, tend to classify human motives as falling into one of two categories: the egoistic or the altruistic, the self-interested or the moral. According to Susan Wolf, however, much of what motivates us does not comfortably fit into this scheme. Often we act neither for our own sake nor out of duty or an impersonal concern for the world. Rather, we act out of love for objects that we rightly perceive as worthy of love--and it is these (...) actions that give meaning to our lives. Wolf makes a compelling case that, along with happiness and morality, this kind of meaningfulness constitutes a distinctive dimension of a good life. Written in a lively and engaging style, and full of provocative examples, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters is a profound and original reflection on a subject of permanent human concern. (shrink)

This 44-chapter volume tackles a quickly-evolving field of inquiry, mapping the existing discourse as part of a general attempt to place current developments in historical context; at the same time, breaking new ground in taking on novel subjects and pursuing fresh approaches. The term "A.I." is used to refer to a broad range of phenomena, from machine learning and data mining to artificial general intelligence. The recent advent of more sophisticated AI systems, which function with partial or full autonomy and (...) are capable of tasks which require learning and 'intelligence', presents difficult ethical questions, and has drawn concerns from many quarters about individual and societal welfare, democratic decision-making, moral agency, and the prevention of harm. This work ranges from explorations of normative constraints on specific applications of machine learning algorithms today-in everyday medical practice, for instance-to reflections on the (potential) status of AI as a form of consciousness with attendant rights and duties and, more generally still, on the conceptual terms and frameworks necessarily to understand tasks requiring intelligence, whether "human" or "A.I.". (shrink)

In very general terms, an agent is a being with the capacity to act, and 'agency' denotes the exercise or manifestation of this capacity. The philosophy of action provides us with a standard conception and a standard theory of action. The former construes action in terms of intentionality, the latter explains the intentionality of action in terms of causation by the agent’s mental states and events. From this, we obtain a standard conception and a standard theory of agency. There are (...) alternative conceptions of agency, and it has been argued that the standard theory fails to capture agency. Further, it seems that genuine agency can be exhibited by beings that are not capable of intentional action, and it has been argued that agency can and should be explained without reference to causally efficacious mental states and events. Debates about the nature of agency have flourished over the past few decades in philosophy and in other areas of research. In philosophy, the nature of agency is an important issue in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of psychology, the debates on free will and moral responsibility, in ethics, meta-ethics, and in the debates on the nature of reasons and practical rationality. For the most part, this entry focuses on conceptual and metaphysical questions concerning the nature of agency. In the final sections, it provides an overview of empirically informed accounts of the sense of agency and of various empirical challenges to the commonsense assumption that our reasons and our conscious intentions make a real difference to how we act. (shrink)

The argument from inductive risk is considered to be one of the strongest challenges for value-free science. A great part of its appeal lies in the idea that even an ideal epistemic agent—the “perfect scientist” or “scientist qua scientist”—cannot escape inductive risk. In this paper, I scrutinize this ambition by stipulating an idealized Bayesian decision setting. I argue that inductive risk does not show that the “perfect scientist” must, descriptively speaking, make non-epistemic value-judgements, at least not in a way that (...) undermines the value-free ideal. However, the argument is more successful in showing that there are cases where the “perfect scientist” should, normatively speaking, use non-epistemic values. I also show that this is possible without creating problems of illegitimate prescription and wishful thinking. Thus, while inductive risk does not refute value-freedom completely, it still represents a powerful critique of value-free science. (shrink)

I argue that Kant acknowledges two models of spontaneous self-determination that rational beings are capable of. The first model involves absolute unconditional necessity and excludes any form of contingency. The second model involves (albeit not as a matter of definition) a form of contingency which entails alternative possibilities for determining oneself. The first model would be exhibited by a divine being; the second model is exhibited by human beings. Human beings do, however, partake in the divine model up to an (...) extent, namely, as far as the legislative spontaneity of their law-giving faculties are concerned. I conclude by suggesting that for Kant, the mechanistic principle that we are exclusively determined by natural causes poses a twofold threat for human agency. In one respect (in relation to the second model), it threatens us with the obliteration of contingency, or with the universality of hypothetical necessity. But in another respect (in relation to the first model), it threatens us (and our putative "laws") with the obliteration of absolute necessity, or with the universality of contingency. (shrink)

Moral philosophers and psychologists often assume that people judge morally lucky and morally unlucky agents differently, an assumption that stands at the heart of the Puzzle of Moral Luck. We examine whether the asymmetry is found for reflective intuitions regarding wrongness, blame, permissibility, and punishment judg- ments, whether people’s concrete, case-based judgments align with their explicit, abstract principles regarding moral luck, and what psychological mechanisms might drive the effect. Our experiments produce three findings: First, in within-subjects experiments favorable to reflective (...) deliberation, the vast majority of people judge a lucky and an unlucky agent as equally blameworthy, and their actions as equally wrong and permissible. The philosophical Puzzle of Moral Luck, and the challenge to the very possibility of systematic ethics it is frequently taken to engender, thus simply do not arise. Second, punishment judgments are significantly more outcome- dependent than wrongness, blame, and permissibility judgments. While this constitutes evidence in favor of current Dual Process Theories of moral judgment, the latter need to be qualified: punishment and blame judgments do not seem to be driven by the same process, as is commonly argued in the literature. Third, in between-subjects experiments, outcome has an effect on all four types of moral judgments. This effect is mediated by negligence ascriptions and can ultimately be explained as due to differing probability ascriptions across cases. (shrink)

Intellectual humility is an interesting but underexplored disposition. The claim “I am (intellectually) humble” seems paradoxical in that someone who has the disposition in question would not typically volunteer it. There is an explanatory gap between the meaning of the sentence and the meaning the speaker expresses by uttering it. We therefore suggest analyzing intellectual humility semantically, using a psycholexical approach that focuses on both synonyms and antonyms of ‘intellectual humility’. We present a thesaurus-based method to map the semantic space (...) of intellectual humility as a heuristic to support philosophical and psychological analysis of this disposition. We find three semantic clusters that compose intellectual humility: the sensible self, the discreet self, and the inquisitive self; likewise, we find three clusters that compose its contraries: the overrated self, the underrated other, and the underrated self. (shrink)

'Der Mensch ist nur Mensch durch Sprache' - Ausgehend von diesem Satz Wilhelm von Humboldts wird noch einmal die Frage nach der sprachlichen Verfasstheit des Menschen aufgeworfen. Für Wilhelm von Humboldt war die Sprachlichkeit des Menschen die zentrale anthropologische Konstante: Der Mensch produziert sein Denken in der Dimension des Anderen mittels der Sprache, die Vielfalt der menschlichen Denkmöglichkeiten zeigt sich in der Vielfalt der Sprachen, und dies konstituiert den Menschen als Menschen. Ist diese Annahme noch aktuell? Oder muss sie vor (...) dem Hintergrund aktueller Entwicklungen unserer Kultur, die die Relevanz des Sprachlichen infrage stellen, revidiert werden? In Humboldts Satz steckt heute ein erhebliches Diskussionspotential. Die Beiträge diskutieren die Sprachlichkeit des Menschen aus unterschiedlichen philosophischen, kulturtheoretischen und sprachwissenschaftlichen Perspektiven. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei die Frage, wie es sich mit Humboldts sprachzentriertem Menschenbild in unserer Kultur verhält. (shrink)

I identify two reasons for believing in the objectivity of mathematical knowledge: apparent objectivity and applications in science. Focusing on arithmetic, I analyze platonism and cognitive nativism in terms of explaining these two reasons. After establishing that both theories run into difficulties, I present an alternative epistemological account that combines the theoretical frameworks of enculturation and cumulative cultural evolution. I show that this account can explain why arithmetical knowledge appears to be objective and has scientific applications. Finally, I will argue (...) that, while this account is compatible with platonist metaphysics, it does not require postulating mind-independent mathematical objects. (shrink)

The paper develops an account of minimal traces devoid of representational content and exploits an analogy to a predictive processing framework of perception. As perception can be regarded as a prediction of the present on the basis of sparse sensory inputs without any representational content, episodic memory can be conceived of as a “prediction of the past” on the basis of a minimal trace, i.e., an informationally sparse, merely causal link to a previous experience. The resulting notion of episodic memory (...) will be validated as a natural kind distinct from imagination. This trace minimalist view contrasts with two theory camps dominating the philosophical debate on memory. On one side, we face versions of the Causal Theory that hold on to the idea that episodic remembering requires a memory trace that causally links the event of remembering to the event of experience and carries over representational content from the content of experience to the content of remembering. The Causal Theory, however, fails to account for the epistemic generativity of episodic memory and is psychologically and information-theoretically implausible. On the other side, a new camp of simulationists is currently forming up. Motivated by empirical and conceptual deficits of the Causal Theory, they reject not only the necessity of preserving representational content, but also the necessity of a causal link between experience and memory. They argue that remembering is nothing but a peculiar form of imagination, peculiar only in that it has been reliably produced and is directed towards an episode of one’s personal past. Albeit sharing their criticism of the Causal Theory and, in particular, rejecting its demand for an intermediary carrier of representational content, the paper argues that a causal connection to experience is still necessary to fulfill even the minimal requirements of past-directedness and reliability. (shrink)