As AI Systems become increasingly autonomous, they are expected to engage in decision-making processes that have moral implications. In this research we integrate theoretical and empirical lines of thought to address the matters of moral reasoning and moral uncertainty in AI Systems. We reconceptualize the metanormative framework for decision-making under moral uncertainty and we operationalize it through a latent class choice model. The core idea being that moral heterogeneity in society can be codified in terms of a small number of (...) classes with distinct moral preferences and that this codification can be used to express moral uncertainty of an AI. Choice analysis allows for the identification of classes and their moral preferences based on observed choice data. Our reformulation of the metanormative framework is theory-rooted and practical in the sense that it avoids runtime issues in real time applications. To illustrate our approach we conceptualize a society in which AI Systems are in charge of making policy choices. While one of the systems uses a baseline morally certain model, the other uses a morally uncertain model. We highlight cases in which the AI Systems disagree about the policy to be chosen, thus illustrating the need to capture moral uncertainty in AI systems. (shrink)

Within moral psychology, theories focusing on the conceptualization and empirical measurement of people’s morality in terms of general moral values –such as Moral Foundation Theory- (implicitly) assume general moral values to be relevant concepts for the explanation and prediction of behavior in everyday life. However, a solid theoretical and empirical foundation for this idea remains work in progress. In this study we explore this relationship between general moral values and daily life behavior through a conceptual analysis and an empirical study. (...) Our conceptual analysis of the moral value-moral behavior relationship suggests that the effect of a generally endorsed moral value on moral behavior is highly context dependent. It requires the manifestation of several phases of moral decision-making, each influenced by many contextual factors. We expect that this renders the empirical relationship between generic moral values and people’s concrete moral behavior indeterminate. Subsequently, we empirically investigate this relationship in three different studies. We relate two different measures of general moral values -the Moral Foundation Questionnaire and the Morality As Cooperation Questionnaire- to a broad set of self-reported morally relevant daily life behaviors (including adherence to COVID-19 measures and participation in voluntary work). Our empirical results are in line with the expectations derived from our conceptual analysis: the considered general moral values are poor predictors of the selected daily life behaviors. Furthermore, moral values that were tailored to the specific context of the behavior showed to be somewhat stronger predictors. Together with the insights derived from our conceptual analysis, this indicates the relevance of the contextual nature of moral decision-making as a possible explanation for the poor predictive value of general moral values. Our findings suggest that the investigation of morality’s influence on behavior by expressing and measuring it in terms of general moral values may need revision. (shrink)

The Chorus scheme could be an important step in the search for solutions to the symbol grounding problem (Harnad 1990), but Edelman does not address the potential difficulties inherent in downgrading differences in favor of similarities in a categorization device. Isomorphism rather than representation is a more coherent way of thinking about Chorus whose modules are probably analytic rather than holistic.

The relationship between the choruses of Seneca's tragedies and the action of the plays in which they occur is one of the least understood and most controversial aspects of the Roman dramatist's work. It is often asserted that Seneca's choral odes are mere act-dividers, that their relationship with the play's action is loose and unconvincing. I would not care to assert that the handling of the chorus is flawless in all instances in Seneca's tragedies , but in his best (...) works it is, I believe, masterly. In this paper I propose to illustrate the close and complex interconnection between ode and action in Senecan tragedy through an analysis of the choruses of Thyestes. (shrink)

The relationship between the choruses of Seneca's tragedies and the action of the plays in which they occur is one of the least understood and most controversial aspects of the Roman dramatist's work. It is often asserted that Seneca's choral odes are mere act-dividers, that their relationship with the play's action is loose and unconvincing. I would not care to assert that the handling of the chorus is flawless in all instances in Seneca's tragedies, but in his best works (...) it is, I believe, masterly. In this paper I propose to illustrate the close and complex interconnection between ode and action in Senecan tragedy through an analysis of the choruses of Thyestes. (shrink)

The irregular division of vv. 35 sqq. between two semi-choruses seems to bo widely accepted and approved.2 I wish first to discuss the obvious objection that such an irregular division is unparalleled in a strophic chorus,3 and secondly to show that the reasons advanced for the division are themselves insufficient.

The human visual system is capable of learning both abstract and specific mappings to underlie shape recognition. How could dissimilar shapes be mapped to the same location in visual representation space, yet similar shapes be mapped to different locations? Without fundamental changes, Chorus, like other single-system models, could not accomplish both mappings in a manner that accounts for recent evidence.

It is proposed to conceive of representation as an emergent phenomenon that is supervenient on patterns of activity of coarsely tuned and highly redundant feature detectors. The computational underpinnings of the outlined concept of representation are (1) the properties of collections of overlapping graded receptive fields, as in the biological perceptual systems that exhibit hyperacuity-level performance, and (2) the sufficiency of a set of proximal distances between stimulus representations for the recovery of the corresponding distal contrasts between stimuli, as in (...) multidimensional scaling. The present preliminary study appears to indicate that this concept of representation is computationally viable, and is compatible with psychological and neurobiological data. (shrink)

Choral Identity and the Chorus of Elders in Greek Tragedy challenges the commonly held view that choruses are marginalized by the roles they play in classical Athenian tragedy. Focusing on those tragedies that feature a chorus representing old men who are elders of the community where the action is taking place, Dhuga argues that these elders, as elders, are not necessarily marginal and can even become in some ways central to the represented action.

The history of Attic comedy after the fifth century is not simple. The comic fragments are obscure, because they are fragments: and the ancient interpreters, because they are determined to interpret. But the subject still remains interesting and important, especially in so far as it is concerned with Middle Comedy, which filled the gap between Aristophanes and Menander. Formally and materially, Menander was a modern, while Aristophanes was not: and it was during the fourth century that the ground was being (...) prepared for the change. Now one of the most noticeable differences between Old and New Comedy was the altered position of the chorus; and although the very mixed assortment of facts available makes coherent conclusions difficult, I think it worth enquiring how much can be known of the chorus after Aristophanes. (shrink)

Obwohl Nietzsches Quellen für Die Geburt der Tragödie schon weitestgehend erforscht wurden, hat ihre Verwendung durch Nietzsche bisher noch nicht die ihr gebührende Aufmerksamkeit erfahren. Gefordert ist eine 'kritische Quellenforschung', die ier in Hinischt auf die Bedeutung des Chors in GTy und 8 durchgeführt wird. Im Vergleich zu den Quellen erweist sich GT als eine systematische Fehllektüre, deren Ziel die Überwindung des Gegensatzes von Antike und Modern ist. Bei der Behandlung der Rolle des Chors verändert, ertweitert und entstellt Nietzsche frühere (...) Theorien und gibt eine gewagte eigene Darstellung Diese geht über Nietzsches Quellen hinaus, wenn er dem Chor eine wesentliche Bedeutung für die Wiedergeburt der Tragödie in der Moderne zuschreibt. Mit dieser Fehllektüre bezweckt er eine ähnliche Kritik der philologischen Methode, wie sie auss den Fragmenten "Wir Philologen" bekannt ist. Indem er die angemaßte Objektivität der Philologie travestiert, behauptet er die Unmöglichkeit einer wissenschaftlichen Erforschung der Antike. Seine Kritik des Gegenstands anhand der Methode deutet auf eine zentrale These seine späteren Werks hin, nämlich auf die Unmöglichkeit von Wissen, das frei von jeder subjektiven Perspektive sien soll.Though Nietzsche's sources for Die geburt de Tragödie have been researched thoroughly, the use he makes of those sources has not received the attention it deserves. This requires a 'critical Quellenforschung', which is developed in relation to the account of the chorus in GT 7 and 8. In comparison with its sources, GT reveals a systematic misreading, aimed at collapsing the opposition of antiquity and modernity. In discussing the chorus, Nietzsche alters, extends, and misrepresents previous theories to create a daring new account. Though recognizably indebted to others, Nietzsche's description goes far beyond his sources in presenting the chorus as essential to the rebirth of tragedy in modernity. The aim of these misreadings is a critique of philological method similar to that found in fragments known as "Wir Philologen". Travestying the presumed objectivity of his discipline, Nietzsche performs the impossibility of a scientific study of antiquity. In expressing critique through the method of its object, Nietzsche points, as he will in his later work, to the impossibility of knowledge freed from subjective perspective. (shrink)

This article revisits the issue of female choruses in Classical Athens and aims to provide an alternative to the common pessimistic view that emphasizes the restriction of female choreia by the gender ideology of the democracy. We agree that Athens did not have the kind of female choral culture that is documented for Sparta or Argos, but a review of the evidence suggests that women did dance regularly both in the city itself and elsewhere in Attica, although not at the (...) ideologically most marked occasions such as the City Dionysia. The latter part of the article turns from actual choruses to their representation in textual and iconographic sources. An important reason why modern scholarship sometimes underestimates the extent of female choreia in Athens, we suggest, is that Athenian sources are often purposefully elusive in their representation of female choruses. (shrink)

This article questions a longtime credo concerning Plato’s Laws, namely that the three choruses introduced in Book 2 are institutions of the dialogue’s political project. A detailed analysis of relevant passages shows that the evidence is insufficent. Rather, it is argued, this part of Book 2 is essentially plurivalent: on three separate semantic layers, the choruses illustrate political, moral-psychological and key educational issues of the Laws. Apart from explaining the disappearance of the choruses after Book 2, the proposed reading aims (...) to bring to light an impressively artful philosophical and literary strategy of Plato’s. (shrink)

This commentary discusses three main requirements for models of vision, namely, translation and scale invariance, scalability, and hierarchy. Edelman's Chorus model falls short of fulfilling these requirements because it ignores the highly dynamic nature of vision. Incorporating an attentional mechanism and assuming geon-like prototype representations may enhance Chorus's plausibility as a model of human object recognition.

This article discusses the artist, filmmaker, and writer Lana Lin’s “revisioning” of Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals (1980) to consider how the poetic encounter between two artists from different generations exemplifies the relational praxis that Lorde pursued throughout her life. In revealing the ways in which Lorde opens acoustic sensory spaces for contemporary readers and listeners of her work, I specifically focus on the political and aesthetic dynamic of recitation in Lin’s experimental documentary The Cancer Journals Revisited (2018). I trace (...) how recitation becomes a coalitional practice of feminist chorus through which readers and listeners embody the sonorous space they co-create through and with Lorde. The article further looks into the ways Lin pairs recitation performance with visceral images of body parts on the screen to argue that the film’s visuals dwell in and extend the form of the chorus; which is to say, the film expands the meaning and practice of chorus beyond the realm of the sonic. The bodies on the screen extend the chorus, immersing the audience in a participatory rethinking of the experience of cancer (particularly breast cancer) not merely as an individual misfortune or an aesthetic concern. In adjoining textual, visual, and acoustic elements, Lin’s film provides a powerful transformative sensory environment, reverberating through the reciters and the audience. (shrink)

The Birds of Aristophanes is unique among his extant plays in that it employs a chorus in which each member has an individual identity, that is, in which each chorus-member represents a different kind of bird. The consequent variety of costume must have been a great visual embellishment to the play, and one is led to wonder how commonly the device employed in Birds featured in Old Comedy in general. Two parallels are frequently cited in the choruses of (...) Eupolis' and Ameipsias' , both of which will be considered below, but, although those plays do indeed provide our best evidence outside Birds, I wish to argue here that we may reasonably suspect that some other old comedies known to us had choruses of the type in question, which I designate ‘individualized’ or ‘multiform’ choruses. (shrink)

As is often the case with healthcare treatment dilemmas, it matters in what “voice” an ethical difficulty is related. In this instance, the voice of the healthcare team is clearly heard as the patient’s medical condition is described. The voice of the patient is heard as she cries out in pain. The patient’s son’s voice is heard as he identifies the religious guidelines that must be observed in his mother’s care. Finally, it is the voice of the Hospital Ethics Committee (...) that is heard as it deliberates the questions brought to it. (shrink)