The increasing workplace use of artificially intelligent (AI) technologies has implications for the experience of meaningful human work. Meaningful work refers to the perception that one’s work has worth, significance, or a higher purpose. The development and organisational deployment of AI is accelerating, but the ways in which this will support or diminish opportunities for meaningful work and the ethical implications of these changes remain under-explored. This conceptual paper is positioned at the intersection of the meaningful work and ethical AI (...) literatures and offers a detailed assessment of the ways in which the deployment of AI can enhance or diminish employees’ experiences of meaningful work. We first outline the nature of meaningful work and draw on philosophical and business ethics accounts to establish its ethical importance. We then explore the impacts of three paths of AI deployment (replacing some tasks, ‘tending the machine’, and amplifying human skills) across five dimensions constituting a holistic account of meaningful work, and finally assess the ethical implications. In doing so we help to contextualise the meaningful work literature for the era of AI, extend the ethical AI literature into the workplace, and conclude with a range of practical implications and future research directions. (shrink)

The psychological contract refers to the implicit and subjective beliefs regarding a reciprocal exchange agreement, predominantly examined between employees and employers. While contemporary contract research is investigating a wider range of exchanges employees may hold, such as with team members and clients, it remains silent on a rapidly emerging form of workplace relationship: employees’ increasing engagement with technically, socially, and emotionally sophisticated forms of artificially intelligent (AI) technologies. In this paper we examine social robots (also termed humanoid robots) as likely (...) future psychological contract partners for human employees, given these entities transform notions of workplace technology from being a tool to being an active partner. We first overview the increasing role of robots in the workplace, particularly through the advent of sociable AI, and synthesize the literature on human–robot interaction. We then develop an account of a human-social robot psychological contract and zoom in on the implications of this exchange for the enactment of reciprocity. Given the future focused nature of our work we utilize a thought experiment, a commonly used form of conceptual and mental model reasoning, to expand on our theorizing. We then outline potential implications of human-social robot psychological contracts and offer a range of pathways for future research. (shrink)

Using artificial intelligence (AI) to make decisions in human resource management (HRM) raises questions of how fair employees perceive these decisions to be and whether they experience respectful treatment (i.e., interactional justice). In this experimental survey study with open-ended qualitative questions, we examine decision making in six HRM functions and manipulate the decision maker (AI or human) and decision valence (positive or negative) to determine their impact on individuals’ experiences of interactional justice, trust, dehumanization, and perceptions of decision-maker role appropriate- (...) ness. In terms of decision makers, the use of human decision makers over AIs generally resulted in better perceptions of respectful treatment. In terms of decision valence, people experiencing positive over negative decisions generally resulted in better perceptions of respectful treatment. In instances where these cases conflict, on some indicators people preferred positive AI decisions over negative human decisions. Qualitative responses show how people identify justice concerns with both AI and human decision making. We outline implications for theory, practice, and future research. (shrink)

Artificially intelligent (AI) technologies are increasingly being used in many workplaces. It is recognised that there are ethical dimensions to the ways in which organisations implement AI alongside, or substituting for, their human workforces. How will these technologically driven disruptions impact the employee–employer exchange? We provide one way to explore this question by drawing on scholarship linking Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT) to the psychological contract (PC). Using ISCT, we show that the macrosocial contract’s ethical AI norms of beneficence, non-maleficence, (...) autonomy, justice, and explicability can feed into national- and organisational-level microsocial contracts. We also outline the role of employees’ technology frames in this process. We then use an illustrative example to demonstrate how this multilevel normative background helps to inform the content of individuals’ PCs in the context of working with AI technologies. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is increasingly inputting into various human resource management functions, such as sourcing job applicants and selecting staff, allocating work, and offering personalized career coaching. While the use of AI for such tasks can offer many benefits, evidence suggests that without careful and deliberate implementation its use also has the potential to generate significant harms. This raises several ethical concerns regarding the appropriateness of AI deployment to domains such as HRM, which directly deal with managing sometimes sensitive aspects of (...) individuals’ employment lifecycles. However, research at the intersection of HRM and technology continues to largely center on examining what AI can be used for, rather than focusing on the salient factors relevant to its ethical use and examining how to effectively engage human workers in its use. Conversely, the ethical AI literature offers excellent guiding principles for AI implementation broadly, but there remains much scope to explore how these principles can be enacted in specific contexts-of-use. By drawing on ethical AI and task-technology fit literature, this paper constructs a decision-making framework to support the ethical deployment of AI for HRM and guide determinations of the optimal mix of human and machine involvement for different HRM tasks. Doing so supports the deployment of AI for the betterment of work and workers and generates both scholarly and practical outcomes. (shrink)

Artificially intelligent (AI) technologies are increasingly being used in many workplaces. It is recognised that there are ethical dimensions to the ways in which organisations implement AI alongside, or substituting for, their human workforces. How will these technologically driven disruptions impact the employee–employer exchange? We provide one way to explore this question by drawing on scholarship linking Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT) to the psychological contract (PC). Using ISCT, we show that the macrosocial contract’s ethical AI norms of beneficence, non-maleficence, (...) autonomy, justice, and explicability can feed into national- and organisational-level microsocial contracts. We also outline the role of employees’ technology frames in this process. We then use an illustrative example to demonstrate how this multilevel normative background helps to inform the content of individuals’ PCs in the context of working with AI technologies. (shrink)

Forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are already being deployed into clinical settings and research into its future healthcare uses is accelerating. Despite this trajectory, more research is needed regarding the impacts on patients of increasing AI decision making. In particular, the impersonal nature of AI means that its deployment in highly sensitive contexts-of-use, such as in healthcare, raises issues associated with patients’ perceptions of (un) dignified treatment. We explore this issue through an experimental vignette study comparing individuals’ perceptions of being (...) treated in a dignified and respectful way in various healthcare decision contexts. Participants were subject to a 2 (human or AI decision maker) x 2 (positive or negative decision outcome) x 2 (diagnostic or resource allocation healthcare scenario) factorial design. We found evidence of a “human bias” (i.e., a preference for human over AI decision makers) and an “outcome bias” (i.e., a preference for positive over negative outcomes). However, we found that for perceptions of respectful and dignified interpersonal treatment, it matters more who makes the decisions in diagnostic cases and it matters more what the outcomes are for resource allocation cases. We also found that humans were consistently viewed as appropriate decision makers and AI was viewed as dehumanizing, and that participants perceived they were treated better when subject to diagnostic as opposed to resource allocation decisions. Thematic coding of open-ended text responses supported these results. We also outline the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (shrink)

This article provides a history of private sector tracking technologies, examining how the advent of commercial surveillance centered around a logic of data capitalism. Data capitalism is a system in which the commoditization of our data enables an asymmetric redistribution of power that is weighted toward the actors who have access and the capability to make sense of information. It is enacted through capitalism and justified by the association of networked technologies with the political and social benefits of online community, (...) drawing upon narratives that foreground the social and political benefits of networked technologies. I examine its origins in the wake of the dotcom bubble, when technology makers sought to develop a new business model to support online commerce. By leveraging user data for advertising purposes, they contributed to an information environment in which every action leaves behind traces collected by companies for commercial purposes. Through analysis of primary source materials produced by technology makers, journalists, and business analysts, I examine the emergence of data capitalism between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s and its central role in the contemporary information economy. (shrink)

Concerns that people would be disinclined to voluntarily undergo moral enhancement have led to suggestions that an incentivised programme should be introduced to encourage participation. This paper argues that, while such measures do not necessarily result in coercion or undue inducement (issues with which one may typically associate the use of incentives in general), the use of incentives for this purpose may present a taboo tradeoff. This is due to empirical research suggesting that those characteristics likely to be affected by (...) moral enhancement are often perceived as fundamental to the self; therefore, any attempt to put a price on such traits would likely be deemed morally unacceptable by those who hold this view. A better approach to address the possible lack of participation may be to instead invest in alternative marketing strategies and remove incentives altogether. (shrink)

This 2004 book was the first intellectual biography of one of the very first English women philosophers. At a time when very few women received more than basic education, Lady Anne Conway wrote an original treatise of philosophy, her Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, which challenged the major philosophers of her day - Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza. Sarah Hutton's study places Anne Conway in her historical and philosophical context, by reconstructing her social and intellectual milieu. She (...) traces her intellectual development in relation to friends and associates such as Henry More, Sir John Finch, F. M. van Helmont, Robert Boyle and George Keith. And she documents Conway's debt to Cambridge Platonism and her interest in religion - an interest which extended beyond Christian orthodoxy to Quakerism, Judaism and Islam. Her book offers an insight into both the personal life of a very private woman, and the richness of seventeenth-century intellectual culture. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 86-88.

This book shows how such an approach fails to interrogate the precise terms, such as "Nature" or "life", that Nietzsche used in place of "being," and to ask the meaning of this substitution.

With recent controversies surrounding the eligibility of athletes with disorders of sex development and hyperandrogenism, as well as continued discussion of the conditions transgender athletes must meet to compete in high-performance sport, a wide array of scholars representing a diverse range of disciplines have weighed in on both the appropriateness of classifying athletes into the female and male categories and the best practices of doing so. In response to cases of high-profile athletes’ sex being called into question, the International Olympic (...) Committee, the International Association of Athletics Federations, and the National Collegiate Athletics Association, among others, published or updated policies addressing who is eligible to compete in the women’s sport category and under what conditions. This paper addresses the areas in which philosophical reasoning and ethical analysis can contribute to reopened debates about the surveillance of the women’s category in sport. Emphasis is placed on determining where the onus of responsibility should fall for ensuring the new policies are followed. (shrink)

In this article I set out to trace some of the implications of recharging the political potency of nature in more-than-human terms. This shifts attention from a biopolitical focus on the inventiveness of the life sciences and what this means in terms of the emergence of ‘cyborg’ political subjects to an onto-political focus on the inventiveness of knowledge controversies and what these mean for techno-political practices. Specifically, the article examines the onto-politics of ‘natural’ hazard events and their capacity to force (...) thought in those affected by them, and so to place new demands on research practices in terms of rendering such events affective and amenable to political interrogation. I work these arguments through the demanding experimental ethos of the philosopher Isabelle Stengers, for whom scientific practices produce reliable knowledge claims only in so far as the questions they address are at risk of being redefined by the phenomena mobilized in them, and who extends this ethos to elaborate an understanding of, even a test for, an adequate political theory and practice. I do so with reference to a recent research experiment in which I collaborated with social and natural scientists and people affected by flooding in the UK. (shrink)

What is the best model of epistemic agency for virtue epistemology? Insofar as the intellectual and moral virtues are similar, it is desirable to develop models of agency that are similar across the two realms. Unlike Aristotle, the Stoics present a model of the virtues on which the moral and intellectual virtues are unified. The Stoics’ materialism and determinism also help to explain how we can be responsible for our beliefs even when we cannot believe otherwise. In this paper I (...) show how a neo-Stoic model of epistemic agency can address common objections to treating epistemic and moral agency similarly and allow a robust explanatory role for character in determining our actions and beliefs. The picture of epistemic responsibility that flows from this model also explains why we often deserve credit for our knowledge, while demonstrating that the truth of our beliefs is not something for which we are epistemically responsible. (shrink)

Throughout 2019, retired athletes Martina Navratilova, Sharron Davies, Kelly Holmes and Paula Radcliffe all spoke publically about what they perceive to b...

Ecological weed management (EWM) is a scientifically established management approach that uses ecological patterns to reduce weed seedbanks. Such an approach can save organic farmers time and labor costs and reduce the need for repeated cultivation practices that may pose risks to soil and water quality. However, adoption of effective EWM in the organic farm community is perceived to be poor. In addition, communication and collaboration between the scientific community, extension services, and the organic farming community in the US is (...) historically weak. In order to uncover the most persistent obstacles to promoting effective weed management in organic agroecosystems, we use the mental models approach to generate an expert model based on interviews with experts (e.g., weed scientists, weed ecologists, and extension personnel) and theories from the behavioral sciences. The expert model provides two main insights: (1) EWM is a complex strategy that may cause farmers to use heuristics in management decisions and (2) the long-term benefits of EWM, rather than the risks, need to be emphasized in communication with and outreach to organic farmers. The basis for new research topics and outreach material that incorporates these insights from the expert model are discussed. We briefly explain how the expert model is an incomplete picture of on-farm practices, but provides the basis for the second step of our mental models research, the farmer interviews and farmer decision model development. (shrink)

Book synopis: A collection of more than 30 specially commissioned essays, this volume surveys the work of the 17th-century philosopher-scientist commonly regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, while integrating unique essays detailing the context and impact of his work. Covers the full range of historical and philosophical perspectives on the work of Descartes Discusses his seminal contributions to our understanding of skepticism, mind-body dualism, self-knowledge, innate ideas, substance, causality, God, and the nature of animals Explores the philosophical significance of (...) his contributions to mathematics and science Concludes with a section on the impact of Descartes's work on subsequent philosophers. (shrink)

Last year, more than seven million Americans participated in yoga or tai chi classes.Yet despite its popularity the real nature of yoga remains shrouded in mystery. A diverse range of practitioners range from white-bearded Indian mystics to celebrities like Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. Positioning Yoga provides an overview of the development of yoga, from its introduction to Western audiences by the Indian Swami Vivekananda at the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago to forms of modern practice. What makes (...) yoga practitioners affiliated with Swami Sivananda's Divine Life Society of Rishikesh, India unique--whether they hail from Indian, North America, or Europe? What values around the world have supported the surging popularity of yoga over the past century? This absorbing book considers how lifestyle values have made yoga a global industry and shows how this popular "lifestyle" is produced and disseminated across boundaries. (shrink)

This paper examines the pedagogical values inherent in various traditions of philosophy education, from the ancient Greeks to current practices in Ontario high schools, and asks whether our current educational practices are imparting the philosophical values we wish to bestow upon our learners. I compare the approaches of Socrates, Descartes, and Dewey on the nature of philosophy and the pedagogical frameworks they defend for transmitting the “spirit” of philosophy, and then examine the Ontario curriculum guidelines for the teaching of philosophy. (...) In past philosophical traditions, dynamic growth, free questioning, and social responsibility are considered essential to the practice of philosophy. Certain factors in today’s educational institutions limit students’ abilities to achieve those values, although the appeal to these values is the same. I end with recommendations for amendments to the Ontario curriculum expectations that would help put the philosophical development of the individual student more clearly at the centre of these guidelines. (shrink)

Cet article analyse le rôle des vêtements dans la métamorphose d’esclaves afro-américains en soldats de l’Union pendant la Guerre civile (1861-1865). Il explore la manière et la raison pour laquelle les uniformes militaires portent un tel poids narratif dans les portraits de ces hommes. Les textes, images, objets, gravures et photographies sont étudiés dans le contexte de la perception du corps au xixe siècle et des nouvelles théories de l’anthropologie physique et de la phrénologie. L’article souligne le rôle de ces (...) images dans la construction d’un discours cohérent sur la rédemption de l’esclavage et d’une catégorie « homme » plus inclusive, plus universelle, fondée sur le service militaire. (shrink)

Most learning models assume, either implicitly or explicitly, that the goal of learning is to acquire a complete and veridical representation of the world, but this view assumes away the possibility that pragmatic goals can play a central role in learning. We propose instead that people are relatively frugal learners, acquiring goal-relevant information while ignoring goal-irrelevant features of the environment. Experiment 1 provides evidence that learning is goal-dependent, and that people are relatively frugal when given a specific, practical goal. Experiment (...) 2 investigates possible mechanisms underlying this effect, and finds evidence that people exhibit goal-driven attention allocation, but not goaldriven reasoning. We conclude by examining how frugality can be integrated into Bayesian models of learning. (shrink)

Deux textes parus dans "Critique" et un dans "Poétique 5" sont à l'origine de ce travail exposé en 1969-1970 au séminaire de Jacques Derrida sur la métaphore.

Research on human causal learning has largely focused on strength learning, or on computational-level theories; there are few formal algorithmic models of how people learn causal structure from covariations. We introduce a model that learns causal structure in a local manner via prediction-error learning. This local learning is then integrated dynamically into a unified representation of causal structure. The model uses computationally plausible approximations of rational learning, and so represents a hybrid between the associationist and rational paradigms in causal learning (...) research. We conclude by showing that the model provides a good fit to data from a previous experiment. (shrink)

Escalating demands for limited food supplies at America’s food banks and pantries during the COVID-19 pandemic have raised ethical concerns underlying “first-come, first-served” distributions strategies. A series of model ethical principles are designed to guide ethical allocations of these resources to assure greater access among persons facing food insecurity.

My doctoral project is a study of epistemological and ethical issues in Evidence-Based Medicine, a movement in medicine which emphasizes the use of randomized controlled trials. Much of the research on EBM suggests that, for a large part of the movement's history, EBM considered expertise, mechanisms, and values to be forces contrary to its goals and has sought to remove them, both from medical research and from the clinical encounter. I argue, however, that expertise, mechanisms and values have important epistemological (...) and ethical roles to play and can be incorporated into the current EBM movement. (shrink)

Descartes first invokes the errors of the senses in the Meditations to generate doubt; he suggests that because the senses sometimes deceive, we have reason not to trust them. This use of sensory error to fuel a sceptical argument fits a traditional interpretation of the Meditations as a work concerned with finding a form of certainty that is proof against any sceptical doubt. If we focus instead on Descartes's aim of using the Meditations to lay foundations for his new science, (...) his appeals to sensory error take on a different aspect. Descartes's new science is based on ideas innate in the intellect, ideas that are validated by the benevolence of our creator. Appeals to sensory error are useful to him in undermining our naïve faith in the senses and guiding us to an appreciation of innate ideas. However, the errors of the senses pose problems in the context of Descartes's appeals to God's goodness to validate innate ideas and natural propensities to belief. A natural tendency to sensory error is hard to reconcile with the benevolence of our creator. This paper explores Descartes's responses to the problems of theodicy posed by various forms of sensory error. It argues that natural judgements involved in our visual perception of distance, size and shape pose a problem of error that resists his usual solutions. (shrink)

This book studies the phenomenon of freethinking in medieval Islam, as exemplified in the figures of Ibn al-Rāwandī and Abū Bakr al-Rāzī. It reconstructs their thought and analyzes the relations of the phenomenon to Islamic prophetology and its repercussions in Islamic thought.

The purpose of this paper is to review critically Julian Savulescu's principle of 'Procreative Beneficence,' which holds that prospective parents are morally obligated to select, of the possible children they could have, those with the greatest chance of leading the best life. According to this principle, prospective parents are obliged to use the technique of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to select for the 'best' embryos, a decision that ought to be made based on the presence or absence of both disease (...) traits and non-disease traits such as intelligence. While several articles have been written in response to Savulescu's principle, none has systematically explored its philosophical underpinnings to demonstrate where it breaks down. In this paper I argue that the examples that Savulescu employs to support his theory in fact fail to justify it. He presents these examples as analogous to PGD, when in fact they differ from it in subtle but morally relevant ways. Specifically, Savulescu fails to acknowledge the fact that his examples evoke deontological and virtue ethics concerns that are absent in the context of PGD. These differences turn out to be crucial, so that, in the end, the analogies bear little support for his theory. Finally, I lay out the implications of this analysis for reproductive ethics. (shrink)

This chapter highlights and assesses an important form of argument that has often been deployed in debates over moral demandingness. 'They can’t take that away from me' arguments claim to identify something which morality cannot ask us to give up — something which morality allegedly cannot take away from us. Does any argument of this kind succeed? This chapter investigates that question by sketching and critiquing three such arguments from the contemporary literature, including a well-known argument of Bernard Williams’. It (...) also considers a further impediment to the scope or power of such arguments, namely how little they show even if they succeed. The closing suggestion is that those eager to resist extreme moral demands ought to object at an earlier stage to the arguments which seem to generate such demands. (shrink)

Artificial insemination was the first conceptive technology to be widely used in agriculture. Whereas at the beginning of the twentieth century all cows in England and Wales were mated to bulls, by the end of the 1950s 60% conceived through artificial insemination. By then a national network of ‘cattle breeding centres’ brought AI within the reach of every farmer. In this paper I explore how artificial insemination, which had few supporters in the 1920s and 1930s, was transformed into an ‘indispensable’ (...) method for reproducing cattle. I discuss the factors that made organised AI possible , including changes in cultures of cattle breeding, novel State involvement in bovine reproduction, the rise of new ‘animal breeding research’ centres at Cambridge, Edinburgh and Reading universities, war preparations and central planning by the Milk Marketing Board . I go on to show that the unprecedented focus on bovine reproduction set in motion by the AI centres effectively generated new networks of reproductive research, through these the ‘biopower’ of the farm was incorporated into the clinic. The example of AI shows that by combining the history of reproductive technology in agriculture and medicine we can give a richer account of modern reproduction. (shrink)