This book addresses the fundamentals of machine ethics. It discusses abilities required for ethical machine reasoning and the programming features that enable them. It connects ethics, psychological ethical processes, and machine implemented procedures. From a technical point of view, the book uses logic programming and evolutionary game theory to model and link the individual and collective moral realms. It also reports on the results of experiments performed using several model implementations. Opening specific and promising inroads into the terra incognita of (...) machine ethics, the authors define here new tools and describe a variety of program-tested moral applications and implemented systems. In addition, they provide alternative readings paths, allowing readers to best focus on their specific interests and to explore the concepts at different levels of detail. Mainly written for researchers in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, robotics, philosophy of technology and engineering of ethics, the book will also be of general interest to other academics, undergraduates in search of research topics, science journalists as well as science and society forums, legislators and military organizations concerned with machine ethics. (shrink)

Source: "This book addresses the fundamentals of machine ethics. It discusses abilities required for ethical machine reasoning and the programming features that enable them. It connects ethics, psychological ethical processes, and machine implemented procedures. From a technical point of view, the book uses logic programming and evolutionary game theory to model and link the individual and collective moral realms. It also reports on the results of experiments performed using several model implementations. Opening specific and promising inroads into the terra incognita (...) of machine ethics, the authors define here new tools and describe a variety of program-tested moral applications and implemented systems. In addition, they provide alternative readings paths, allowing readers to best focus on their specific interests and to explore the concepts at different levels of detail. Mainly written for researchers in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, robotics, philosophy of technology and engineering of ethics, the book will also be of general interest to other academics, undergraduates in search of research topics, science journalists as well as science and society forums, legislators and military organizations concerned with machine ethics.". (shrink)

Epistemic naturalism holds that the results or methodologies from the cognitive sciences are relevant to epistemology, and some have maintained that scientific methods are more compatible with externalist theories of justification than with internalist theories. But practically all discussions about naturalized epistemology are framed exclusively in terms of cognitive psychology, which is only one of the cognitive sciences. The question addressed in this essay is whether a commitment to naturalism really does favor externalism over internalism, and we offer reasons for (...) thinking that naturalism in epistemology is compatible with both internalist and externalist conceptions of justification. We also argue that there are some distinctively internalist aims that are currently being studied scientifically and these notions, and others, should be studied by scientific methods. (shrink)

In this essay we advance the view that analytical epistemology and artificial intelligence are complementary disciplines. Both fields study epistemic relations, but whereas artificial intelligence approaches this subject from the perspective of understanding formal and computational properties of frameworks purporting to model some epistemic relation or other, traditional epistemology approaches the subject from the perspective of understanding the properties of epistemic relations in terms of their conceptual properties. We argue that these two practices should not be conducted in isolation. We (...) illustrate this point by discussing how to represent a class of inference forms found in standard inferential statistics. This class of inference forms is interesting because its members share two properties that are common to epistemic relations, namely defeasibility and paraconsistency. Our modeling of standard inferential statistical arguments exploits results from both logical artificial intelligence and analytical epistemology. We remark how our approach to this modeling problem may be generalized to an interdisciplinary approach to the study of epistemic relation. (shrink)

The impact of Cyberculture, of digital devices on young people as extensions of the body, can be seen in terms of the decreasing structuring of thoughts and information, increasing impulsivity in perception and action, and the development of more primitive defense mechanisms. These adverse impacts result in the feeling of isolation and devaluation, frustration of present and uncertainty of the future, exteriorization and floating identities, mimetic and adhesive identifications, less cohesion of the self, and decreasing tolerance of the other. This (...) paper focuses on the following themes: Symbiosis versus syncretism: The affirmations of symbiosis. The dilutions of syncretism. Synopsis: Too much syncretism, too little symbiosis. Lack of a deeper co-construction of knowledge, more lasting, and sustainable. Lack of increased more independent personal cognitive deepening. Lack of ability to be alone. Causality and free will: Symbiotic versus syncretic causality. Conclusions: Cyber-selfs—either distributed or not at all? (shrink)

Human beings have been aware of the risks associated with knowledge or its associated technologies since the dawn of time. Not just in Greek mythology, but in the founding myths of Judeo-Christian religions, there are signs and warnings against these dangers. Yet, such warnings and forebodings have never made as much sense as they do today. This stems from the emergence of machines capable of cognitive functions performed exclusively by humans until recently. Besides those technical problems associated with its design (...) and conceptualization, the cognitive revolution, brought about by the development of AI also gives rise to social and economic problems that directly impact humanity. Therefore, it is vital and urgent to examine AI from a moral point of view. The moral problems are two-fold: on the one hand, those associated with the type of society we wish to promote through automation, complexification and power of data processing available today; on the other, how to program decision-making machines according to moral principles acceptable to those humans who will share knowledge and action with them. (shrink)

In this paper we show the embedding of Hybrid Probabilistic Logic Programs into the rather general framework of Residuated Logic Programs, where the main results of (definite) logic programming are validly extrapolated, namely the extension of the immediate consequences operator of van Emden and Kowalski. The importance of this result is that for the first time a framework encompassing several quite distinct logic programming semantics is described, namely Generalized Annotated Logic Programs, Fuzzy Logic Programming, Hybrid Probabilistic Logic Programs, and Possibilistic (...) Logic Programming. Moreover, the embedding provides a more general semantical structure paving the way for defining paraconsistent probabilistic reasoning with a logic programming semantics. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One major problem in the process of knowledge assimilation is how to deal with inconsistency of new knowledge and the existing knowledge base. In this paper we present a formal, provably correct and yet computational methodology for assimilation of new knowledge into knowledge bases about actions and changes based on the slogan: what is believed is what is explained. Technically, we employ Gelfond and Lifschitz' action description language A to describe domains of actions. The knowledge bases on domains of (...) actions are defined and obtained by a new translation from domain descriptions in A into abductive normal logic programs, where a time dimension is incorporated. The knowledge bases are shown to be both sound and complete with respect to their domain descriptions. In particular, we propose a possible causes approach (PCA) to knowledge assimilation about evolving domains of actions, in contrast to Ginsberg's possible worlds approach (PWA) and Winslett's possible models approach (PMA). A possible cause of new knowledge consists of abduced occurrences of actions and value propositions about the initial state of the domain of actions, that would allow to derive the new knowledge. We show how to compute possible causes with abductive logic programming, and present some techniques to improve search efficiency. We use examples to compare our possible causes approach with syntax-based approaches, such as Ginsberg's possible worlds approach, and semantics-based approaches, such as Winslett's possible models approach, to belief revision/update. (shrink)

This book presents the refereed proceedings of the Sixth European Workshop on Logics in Artificial Intelligence, JELIA '96, held in Evora, Portugal in September/October 1996. The 25 revised full papers included together with three invited papers were selected from 57 submissions. Many relevant aspects of AI logics are addressed. The papers are organized in sections on automated reasoning, modal logics, applications, nonmonotonic reasoning, default logics, logic programming, temporal and spatial logics, and belief revision and paraconsistency.

Psychological experiments have shown that humans do not reason according to classical logic. Therefore, we might argue that logic-based approaches in general are not suitable for modeling human reasoning. Yet, we take a different view and are convinced that logic can help us as an underlying formalization of a cognitive theory, but claim rather that classical logic is not adequate for this purpose. In this chapter we investigate abduction and its link to human reasoning. In particular we discuss three different (...) variations we have explored and show how they can be adequately modeled within a novel computational and integrated, cognitive theory, the Weak Completion Semantics. (shrink)

O presente trabalho tem como tema a influência das mudanças climáticas nos conflitos do Sudão, em especial em Darfur. Desde a conquista da independência, em 1956, o Sudão teve de lidar com disputas tanto na região Sul (que culminou com a separação do Sudão do Sul, em 2011), quanto em Darfur, resultando em um conflito aberto em 2003. Nos últimos dois decênios, as mudanças climáticas passaram a ser consideradas crescentemente como potenciais fatores de exacerbação dessas tensões locais. Diante disso, busca-se (...) responder à seguinte questão: quais são as implicações das mudanças climáticas para o panorama securitário do Sudão, particularmente em Darfur? Em termos teóricos, o artigo adota a perspectiva crítica de segurança, com a finalidade de compreender o caráter multidimensional das fontes não tradicionais de ameaça à segurança do país, como a ameaça climática. Em termos metodológicos, fez-se uso de uma abordagem qualitativa e hermenêutica, com a análise de relatórios de órgãos da ONU, de documentos do governo sudanês e de outras obras. Embora os fenômenos climáticos tenham contribuído para a exacerbação da instabilidade no Sudão e das disputas em Darfur, conclui-se que sua influência ocorreu de forma indireta, em conjugação com outras dimensões sociais, econômicas e políticas. Entende-se, porém, que a inclusão dos aspectos climáticos seria uma ferramenta importante para se reduzir a instabilidade local. (shrink)

O que é ser “mulher”? Como se reconhece alguém que se identifica como mulher? Há diferenças entre mulheres? O significado da palavra mulher “do latim mulĭer, uma mulher é uma pessoa do sexo feminino. Trata-se de um termo que se utiliza em contraste a homem, conceito que nomeia o ser humano do sexo masculino”. A construção da mulher parece depender da existência do homem, a quem se opõe. Mulher: “pessoa do sexo feminino que já tendo chegado à sua puberdade ou (...) à idade adulta. Por conseguinte, a menina passa a ser mulher, de acordo com os padrões culturais, a partir da sua primeira menstruação”. Além do significado biológico, há também a construção do “ser mulher” em diferentes áreas do conhecimento e da cultura. (shrink)

David Luban identifies a tension between Arendt's conception of ethnic identification in a context of persecution and her conception of humanity. That tension pertains to the reality—or realities—that Arendt addresses: the moral reality of her Bildung that appears throughout her work, and is centered on the “dignity of man,” on the one hand, and the divisive, “political” reality that she was forced to face when “attacked as a Jew,” on the other. By implicitly accepting that in a context of persecution (...) one cannot escape the framing relevance of the “political” —an idea that is also present in her imaginary condemnation speech of Eichmann—Arendt betrays a fundamental theme of her work: “forgiveness” and the inherent possibility of a “new beginning.”. (shrink)

A partir da temática abordada no filme Gattaca - a experiência genética, que trata de uma sociedade adepta da eugenia; mostraremos quais são as implicações morais que essa prática pode ocasionar em uma sociedade, bem como as diversas discriminações. Em contra-argumento a essa prática, abordaremos a teoria de Peter Singer em prol do princípio da igual consideração de interesses, demonstrando que dessa maneira teríamos sociedades menos discriminatórias. Enfim, queremos mostrar que caso não nos alertemos para as questões abordadas por Singer, (...) nós, agentes morais, faremos emergir uma sociedade preconceituosa, tal como vemos no filme Gattaca.: From selected themes in the movie Gattaca - A genetic experiment that describes a eugenics society, we will show what are the moral implications of the eugenic practice to the society as well as its several kinds of discrimination. We will argue against such practice by appropriating Peter Singer’s theory on behalf of the principle of equal consideration of interests by showing that societies based on it would be less discriminatory. Finally, we show that if we do not consider the issues raised by Singer we, moral agents, will make emerge a prejudiced society similar to that narrated by the movie Gattaca. Key words: Moral, Equality, Eugenie, discrimination. (shrink)

We prove that a combinatorial consequence of the negation of the PCF conjecture for intervals, involving free subsets relative to set mappings, is not implied by even the strongest known large cardinal axiom.

We address the impingement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on logic, by examining the requirements posed on logic by knowledge representation and reasoning issues which A I has addressed. We then outline some of AI's contributions, via Logic Programming, to more dynamic forms of logic, in order to deal with knowledge in flux, namely: incomplete and contradictory information; hypotheses making through abduction; argumentation; diagnosis and debugging; updating; and learning. Along the way we delve into implications for the philosophy of knowledge.

We address the impingement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on logic, by examining the requirements posed on logic by knowledge representation and reasoning issues which A I has addressed. We then outline some of AI's contributions, via Logic Programming, to more dynamic forms of logic, in order to deal with knowledge in flux, namely: incomplete and contradictory information; hypotheses making through abduction; argumentation; diagnosis and debugging; updating; and learning. Along the way we delve into implications for the philosophy of knowledge.

This article presents the results of a systematic literature review on religiosity and spirituality, particularly in the work context. We aimed to verify the state-of-the-art of scientific production related to these themes. To achieve the proposed objective, we identified 312 articles published in journals in the period between 1960 and 2018 using a rigourous method of analysis and sorting, which resulted in 52 appropriate studies. The analyses presented are based on the three bibliometric laws: those of Lotka, Bradford and Zipf. (...) This article brings contributions that encompass four approaches: measurement scales of spirituality and religiosity; behavioural benefits of religiosity in individuals; insertion of religiosity and spirituality in social service practice; and research directions. This research presents technical and managerial implications to provide theoretical support for the creation of programmes and/or practices of spirituality and religion in the workplace as an effective strategy, towards ethical attitudes. Also, this study contributes to the methodological achievement of SLRs in the field of religion in the workplace, highlighting an effective method for thematic mapping, and holistically identifying new research topics and directions, especially because of the several guidelines presented. (shrink)

Counterfactuals are conjectures about what would have happened, had an alternative event occurred. It provides lessons for the future by virtue of contemplating alternatives; it permits thought debugging; it supports a justification why different alternatives would have been worse or not better. Typical expressions are: “If only I were taller …”, “I could have been a winner …”, “I would have passed, were it not for …”, “Even if... the same would follow”. Counterfactuals have been well studied in Linguistics, Philosophy, (...) Physics, Ethics, Psychology, Anthropology, and Computation, but not much within Critical Thinking. The purpose of this study is to illustrate counterfactual thinking, through logic program abduction and updating, and inspired by Pearl’s structural theory of counterfactuals, with an original application to morality, a common concern for critical thinking. In summary, we show counterfactual reasoning to be quite useful for critical thinking, namely about moral issues. (shrink)

We consider simplified representation theorems in pcf-theory and, in particular, we prove that if ${\aleph_{\omega}^{\aleph_{0}} > \aleph_{\omega_{1}}\cdot2^{\aleph_{0}}}$ then there are cofinally many sequences of regular cardinals such that ${\aleph_{\omega_{1}+1}}$ is represented by these sequences modulo the ideal of finite subsets, using a topological approach to the pcf-structure.

En este artículo se presenta una propuesta formativa utilizando el cine como material cultural y fuente de conocimiento. Una película como Babel permite trabajar la globalización y la educación de la ciudadanía, con planteamientos que exigen un nuevo humanismo, una nueva relación interpersonal, conscientes de los problemas de comunicación, prejuicios y choques culturales derivados del desarrollo tecnológico. La película cuestiona esta existencia en un mundo global interrelacionado, evocando el viejo mito bíblico de la Torre de Babel haciendo énfasis en identificaciones (...) erróneas, malentendidos y oportunidades fallidas, como manos invisibles que nos guían; o el fin cuyo destino se nos escapa.Babel hace comprender la realidad de la globalización. Nos permite observar cuatro lugares tan distantes como Estados Unidos, Méjico, Marruecos y Japón, no sólo distanciados físicamente. Los cuatro países representan estilos culturales diferentes, tres formas de realización humana. Asistimos al choque, a la incomunicación personal, al aislamiento por la diferencia de cultura y la ficticia proximidad tecnológica. Vivimos juntos, pero aislados los unos de los otros. (shrink)

This article gives a conceptual review of the e-value, ev(H|X) – the epistemic value of hypothesis H given observations X. This statistical significance measure was developed in order to allow logically coherent and consistent tests of hypotheses, including sharp or precise hypotheses, via the Full Bayesian Significance Test (FBST). Arguments of analysis allow a full characterization of this statistical test by its logical or compositional properties, showing a mutual complementarity between results of mathematical statistics and the logical desiderata lying at (...) the foundations of this theory. (shrink)

Este relato de experiência apresenta resultados da pesquisa sobre a Saúde em Santo Amaro: a partir dos saberes tradicionais das rezadeiras/benzedeiras que teve por objetivo analisar as práticas medicinais e espirituais com o sagrado. A pesquisa etnográfica foi realizada com as rezadeiras, dessa forma, estabelecendo fronteiras com os rituais de cura, fé e devoção, nos processos de aprendizagem, aos mais variados tipos de doenças, as rezas e as curas, sendo assim, realizadas por elas. As rezadeiras/benzedeiras são mulheres cujo valor histórico, (...) tornando-se as suas benzeduras símbolo de resistência humana, na sua prática sobre as benzeduras. Entretanto, vale fomentar na pesquisa, sobretudo, as suas práticas também estão relacionadas a conhecimentos católicos, indígena, africana, com seus “cânticos” e “rezas” religiosas, trazendo consigo o desejo da fé de resultar o seu trabalho por alcances estabelecidos nas suas práticas reverenciadas assim as pessoas que procuram por elas. O objeto é tentar caminhar ao longo da história, em conjunto com as práticas religiosas, percebendo as inúmeras implicações produzidas pela sociedade. O contexto etnográfico da pesquisa foi na cidade de Santo Amaro. Palavras-chave: Saúde, Benzedeira, Espiritualidade. (shrink)

Este artigo propõe os sermões da Baixa Idade Média ocidental como parte da linguagem política das comunas italianas. Junto com os discursos de assembleia, os sermões compunham uma retórica de natureza religiosa com validade cívica apta para os governos citadinos e para o modo de vida urbano. Estuda-se a Summa de Arte Praedicatoria, de Alain de Lille, os Li livres dou Trésor, de BrunettoLatini, os sermões de Giordano de Pisa e a Crônica de Rolandino de Pádua para mostrar como, de (...) um ponto de vista político e cívico, os sermões eram peças importantes do ordenamento social e da resolução de conflitos. (shrink)