There is an emerging planetary awareness which is likely to fundamentally change our politics and culture. Chapter 1 introduces a banyan tree metaphor to show four major areas which intertwine to weave this new pattern of consciousness, namely geophysiology; ecofeminism; mythology; and deep ecology. ;Chapter 2 explores geophysiology and James Lovelock's work. It looks at glaciations, changes in the Earth's geosphere, and galactic forces that affect overall planetary health. Many scientists are looking at the Earth as a physical mechanism rather (...) than seeing it as spiritual. ;Chapter 3 describes the ecofeminist movement . More than just a movement, ecofeminism is an organic belief structure and has to do with a woman's religion which extends to the Cosmos itself. Gaia is seen as the Great Goddess immanent in all, and not only as the nurturing mother, but also as Kali the destroyer. ;Chapter 4 is about images of Gaia in mythology, particularly psychological archetypes and ancient motifs/artifacts. This Great Mother represents an underlying psychic template which reflects a million years of experience on Earth--a collective recollection of symbols with potential for formation in our dreams and unconscious. ;Chapter 5 covers the deep ecology movement and discusses "primary" cultures as a source of organic values and greater Gaian consciousness. Other sources include environmentalism and a literary and cultural tradition of naturalism and pastoralism in the U.S. The image stresses a violent, predative aspect of Life, just "part of being an animal." ;Chapter 6--"Seven Tomorrows of Gaia"--synthesizes some of the major ideas, cross-currents, and contradictions of the past and present. The final chapter addresses the convergence of the four branches of Gaia consciousness and their "thickness," or overlap, which includes: the emerging theology of ecology and women; Patriarchy; the evolution of consciousness; and, the passing of industrial power structures and industrial modes of thought. The focus on political "thickness" points to potentially fundamental political transformations of the industrial worldview and a shift to an organic/feminist worldview. (shrink)

Interactions between an intelligent software agent and a human user are ubiquitous in everyday situations such as access to information, entertainment, and purchases. In such interactions, the ISA mediates the user’s access to the content, or controls some other aspect of the user experience, and is not designed to be neutral about outcomes of user choices. Like human users, ISAs are driven by goals, make autonomous decisions, and can learn from experience. Using ideas from bounded rationality, we frame these interactions (...) as instances of an ISA whose reward depends on actions performed by the user. Such agents benefit by steering the user’s behaviour towards outcomes that maximise the ISA’s utility, which may or may not be aligned with that of the user. Video games, news recommendation aggregation engines, and fitness trackers can all be instances of this general case. Our analysis facilitates distinguishing various subcases of interaction, as well as second-order effects that might include the possibility for adaptive interfaces to induce behavioural addiction, and/or change in user belief. We present these types of interaction within a conceptual framework, and review current examples of persuasive technologies and the issues that arise from their use. We argue that the nature of the feedback commonly used by learning agents to update their models and subsequent decisions could steer the behaviour of human users away from what benefits them, and in a direction that can undermine autonomy and cause further disparity between actions and goals as exemplified by addictive and compulsive behaviour. We discuss some of the ethical, social and legal implications of this technology and argue that it can sometimes exploit and reinforce weaknesses in human beings. (shrink)

We argue that while digital health technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence, smartphones, and virtual reality) present significant opportunities for improving the delivery of healthcare, key concepts that are used to evaluate and understand their impact can obscure significant ethical issues related to patient engagement and experience. Specifically, we focus on the concept of empowerment and ask whether it is adequate for addressing some significant ethical concerns that relate to digital health technologies for mental healthcare. We frame these concerns using five key (...) ethical principles for AI ethics (i.e. autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and explicability), which have their roots in the bioethical literature, in order to critically evaluate the role that digital health technologies will have in the future of digital healthcare. (shrink)

Common mental health disorders are rising globally, creating a strain on public healthcare systems. This has led to a renewed interest in the role that digital technologies may have for improving mental health outcomes. One result of this interest is the development and use of artificial intelligence for assessing, diagnosing, and treating mental health issues, which we refer to as ‘digital psychiatry’. This article focuses on the increasing use of digital psychiatry outside of clinical settings, in the following sectors: education, (...) employment, financial services, social media, and the digital well-being industry. We analyse the ethical risks of deploying digital psychiatry in these sectors, emphasising key problems and opportunities for public health, and offer recommendations for protecting and promoting public health and well-being in information societies. (shrink)

In his paper, Jakob Hohwy outlines a theory of the brain as an organ for prediction-error minimization, which he claims has the potential to profoundly alter our understanding of mind and cognition. One manner in which our understanding of the mind is altered, according to PEM, stems from the neurocentric conception of the mind that falls out of the framework, which portrays the mind as “inferentially-secluded” from its environment. This in turn leads Hohwy to reject certain theses of embodied cognition. (...) Focusing on this aspect of Hohwy’s argument, we first outline the key components of the PEM framework such as the “evidentiary boundary,” before looking at why this leads Hohwy to reject certain theses of embodied cognition. We will argue that although Hohwy may be correct to reject specific theses of embodied cognition, others are in fact implied by the PEM framework and may contribute to its development. We present the metaphor of the “body as a laboratory” in order to highlight wha... (shrink)

This chapter serves as an introduction to the edited collection of the same name, which includes chapters that explore digital well-being from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, psychology, economics, health care, and education. The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide a short primer on the different disciplinary approaches to the study of well-being. To supplement this primer, we also invited key experts from several disciplines—philosophy, psychology, public policy, and health care—to share their thoughts on what they (...) believe are the most important open questions and ethical issues for the multi-disciplinary study of digital well-being. We also introduce and discuss several themes that we believe will be fundamental to the ongoing study of digital well-being: digital gratitude, automated interventions, and sustainable co-well-being. (shrink)

This chapter serves as an introduction to the edited collection of the same name, which includes chapters that explore digital well-being from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, psychology, economics, health care, and education. The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide a short primer on the different disciplinary approaches to the study of well-being. To supplement this primer, we also invited key experts from several disciplines—philosophy, psychology, public policy, and health care—to share their thoughts on what they (...) believe are the most important open questions and ethical issues for the multi-disciplinary study of digital well-being. We also introduce and discuss several themes that we believe will be fundamental to the ongoing study of digital well-being: digital gratitude, automated interventions, and sustainable co-well-being. (shrink)

This article presents the first thematic review of the literature on the ethical issues concerning digital well-being. The term ‘digital well-being’ is used to refer to the impact of digital technologies on what it means to live a life that is good for a human being. The review explores the existing literature on the ethics of digital well-being, with the goal of mapping the current debate and identifying open questions for future research. The review identifies major issues related to several (...) key social domains: healthcare, education, governance and social development, and media and entertainment. It also highlights three broader themes: positive computing, personalised human–computer interaction, and autonomy and self-determination. The review argues that three themes will be central to ongoing discussions and research by showing how they can be used to identify open questions related to the ethics of digital well-being. (shrink)

This article presents the first thematic review of the literature on the ethical issues concerning digital well-being. The term ‘digital well-being’ is used to refer to the impact of digital technologies on what it means to live a life that isgood fora human being. The review explores the existing literature on the ethics of digital well-being, with the goal of mapping the current debate and identifying open questions for future research. The review identifies major issues related to several key social (...) domains: healthcare, education, governance and social development, and media and entertainment. It also highlights three broader themes: positive computing, personalised human–computer interaction, and autonomy and self-determination. The review argues that three themes will be central to ongoing discussions and research by showing how they can be used to identify open questions related to the ethics of digital well-being. (shrink)

A cognitivist account of decision-making views choice behaviour as a serial process of deliberation and commitment, which is separate from perception and action. By contrast, recent work in embodied decision-making has argued that this account is incompatible with emerging neurophysiological data. We argue that this account has significant overlap with an embodied account of predictive processing, and that both can offer mutual development for the other. However, more importantly, by demonstrating this close connection we uncover an alternative perspective on the (...) nature of decision-making, and the mechanisms that underlie our choice behaviour. This alternative perspective allows us to respond to a challenge for predictive processing, which claims that the satisfaction of distal goal-states is underspecified. Answering this challenge requires the adoption of an embodied perspective. (shrink)

We explore the question of whether machines can infer information about our psychological traits or mental states by observing samples of our behaviour gathered from our online activities. Ongoing technical advances across a range of research communities indicate that machines are now able to access this information, but the extent to which this is possible and the consequent implications have not been well explored. We begin by highlighting the urgency of asking this question, and then explore its conceptual underpinnings, in (...) order to help emphasise the relevant issues. To answer the question, we review a large number of empirical studies, in which samples of behaviour are used to automatically infer a range of psychological constructs, including affect and emotions, aptitudes and skills, attitudes and orientations (e.g. values and sexual orientation), personality, and disorders and conditions (e.g. depression and addiction). We also present a general perspective that can bring these disparate studies together and allow us to think clearly about their philosophical and ethical implications, such as issues related to consent, privacy, and the use of persuasive technologies for controlling human behaviour. (shrink)

Lake et al. propose three criteria which, they argue, will bring artificial intelligence (AI) systems closer to human cognitive abilities. In this paper, we explore the application of these criteria to a particular domain of human cognition: our capacity for moral reasoning. In doing so, we explore a set of considerations relevant to the development of AI moral decision-making. Our main focus is on the relation between dual-process accounts of moral reasoning and model-free/model-based forms of machine learning. We also discuss (...) how work in embodied and situated cognition could provide a valu- able perspective on future research. (shrink)

Decision-making has traditionally been modelled as a serial process, consisting of a number of distinct stages. The traditional account assumes that an agent first acquires the necessary perceptual evidence, by constructing a detailed inner repre- sentation of the environment, in order to deliberate over a set of possible options. Next, the agent considers her goals and beliefs, and subsequently commits to the best possible course of action. This process then repeats once the agent has learned from the consequences of her (...) actions and subsequently updated her beliefs. Under this interpretation, the agent’s body is considered merely as a means to report the decision, or to acquire the relevant goods. However, embodied cognition argues that an agent’s body should be understood as a proper part of the decision-making pro- cess. Accepting this principle challenges a number of commonly held beliefs in the cognitive sciences, but may lead to a more unified account of decision-making. This thesis explores an embodied account of decision-making using a recent frame- work known as predictive processing. This framework has been proposed by some as a functional description of neural activity. However, if it is approached from an embodied perspective, it can also offer a novel account of decision-making that ex- tends the scope of our explanatory considerations out beyond the brain and the body. We explore work in the cognitive sciences that supports this view, and argue that decision theory can benefit from adopting an embodied and predictive perspective. (shrink)

This article offers several contributions to the interdisciplinary project of responsible research and innovation in data science and AI. First, it provides a critical analysis of current efforts to establish practical mechanisms for algorithmic auditing and assessment to identify limitations and gaps with these approaches. Second, it provides a brief introduction to the methodology of argument-based assurance and explores how it is currently being applied in the development of safety cases for autonomous and intelligent systems. Third, it generalises this method (...) to incorporate wider ethical, social, and legal considerations, in turn establishing a novel version of argument-based assurance that we call ‘ethical assurance.’ Ethical assurance is presented as a structured method for unifying the myriad practical mechanisms that have been proposed. It is built on a process-based form of project governance that enlists reflective innovation practices to operationalise normative principles, such as sustainability, accountability, transparency, fairness, and explainability. As a set of interlocutory governance mechanisms that span across the data science and AI lifecycle, ethical assurance supports inclusive and participatory ethical deliberation while also remaining grounded in social and technical realities. Finally, this article sets an agenda for ethical assurance, by detailing current challenges, open questions, and next steps, which serve as a springboard to build an active (and interdisciplinary) research programme as well as contribute to ongoing discussions in policy and governance. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to explore two possible directions of interaction between normative folk psychology and decision theory. In one direction, folk psychology plays a regulative role that constrains practical decision‐making. In the other direction, decision theory provides novel tools and norms that shape folk psychology. We argue that these interactions could lead to the emergence of an iterative “decision theoretic spiral," where folk psychology influences decision‐making, decision‐making is studied by decision theory, and decision theory influences folk psychology. (...) Understanding these interactions is important both for the theoretical study of social cognition and decision theory, and also for thinking about how to implement practical interventions into real‐world decision‐making. (shrink)

Learning is fundamentally about action, enabling the successful navigation of a changing and uncertain environment. The experience of pain is central to this process, indicating the need for a change in action so as to mitigate potential threat to bodily integrity. This review considers the application of Bayesian models of learning in pain that inherently accommodate uncertainty and action, which, we shall propose are essential in understanding learning in both acute and persistent cases of pain.

Book review of Danks, D. (2014) Unifying the Mind: Cognitive Representations as Graphical Models.

Healthcare systems across the globe are struggling with increasing costs and worsening outcomes. This presents those responsible for overseeing healthcare with a challenge. Increasingly, policymakers, politicians, clinical entrepreneurs and computer and data scientists argue that a key part of the solution will be ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) – particularly Machine Learning (ML). This argument stems not from the belief that all healthcare needs will soon be taken care of by “robot doctors.” Instead, it is an argument that rests on the classic (...) counterfactual definition of AI as an umbrella term for a range of techniques that can be used to make machines complete tasks in a way that would be considered intelligent were they to be completed by a human. Automation of this nature could offer great opportunities for the improvement of healthcare services and ultimately patients’ health by significantly improving human clinical capabilities in diagnosis, drug discovery, epidemiology, personalised medicine, and operational efficiency. However, if these AI solutions are to be embedded in clinical practice, then at least three issues need to be considered: the technical possibilities and limitations; the ethical, regulatory and legal framework; and the governance framework. In this article, we report on the results of a systematic analysis designed to provide a clear overview of the second of these elements: the ethical, regulatory and legal framework. We find that ethical issues arise at six levels of abstraction (individual, interpersonal, group, institutional, sectoral, and societal) and can be categorised as epistemic, normative, or overarching. We conclude by stressing how important it is that the ethical challenges raised by implementing AI in healthcare settings are tackled proactively rather than reactively and map the key considerations for policymakers to each of the ethical concerns highlighted. (shrink)

The issue of genetic inheritance, and particularly the contradictory rights of donors, recipients and donor offspring as to the disclosure of donor identities, is ethically complicated. Donors, donor offspring and parents of donor offspring may appeal to individual rights for confidentiality or disclosure within legal systems based on liberal rights discourse. This paper explores the ethical issues of non-disclosure of genetic inheritance by contrasting two principle models used to articulate the problem—liberal and communitarian ethical models. It argues that whilst the (...) latter provides a more constructive avenue to providing an ethics for donation than the competing and contradictory positions represented in a liberal rights approach, it raises issues of ethical judgement and authority that remain problematic. This ethical discussion is supported by a field study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, exploring the perceptions and experiences of recipients of donor sperm and their partners towards donor anonymity. The field study provides the empirical basis of an argument for making ethical judgements on the grounds of the community good rather than individual rights, that nevertheless recognises that both are inherently problematic. (shrink)

In an age where issues like climate change and the unintended consequences of technological innovation are high on the ethical and political agenda, questions about the nature and extent of our responsibilities to future generations have never been more important, yet simultaneously so difficult to answer. This book takes a unique approach to the problem by drawing on diverse traditions of thinking about care (including developmental psychology, phenomenology and feminist ethics) to explore the nature and meaning of our relationship with (...) the future. Demonstrating that many influential perspectives on intergenerational ethics, including positions advanced by John Rawls, Brian Barry, and Ulrich Beck are undermined by problems relating to uncertainty, it shows that an approach based on care ethics can confront the uncertain future successfully and give a viable account of the nature and scope of future-oriented responsibilities. (shrink)

Fiction and truth : ancient stories about Pythagoras -- In search of the historical Pythagoras -- The Pythagorean secret society -- Thinkers influenced by Pythagoras and his pupils.

Suppose we believe that God created the world. Then surely we want it to be the case that he intended, in some sense at least, to create THIS world. Moreover, most theists want to hold that God didn't just guess or hope that the world would take one course or another; rather, he KNEW precisely what was going to take place in the world he planned to create. In particular, of each person P, God knew that P was to exist. (...) Call this the "standard" conception. Most theists find the standard conception appealing. Unfortunately, the view seems to conflict with the equally appealing idea — call it "temporal actualism" — that there are no "future" individuals beyond those that already exist in the present moment. For, on this view, for any historical person P, prior to creation, there was no such person as P and hence nothing about P for God to know. Hence, in particular, God couldn't have known that P was to exist. This is of course not a new problem. But past solutions to it are highly problematic. In this paper, after canvassing previous approaches, I will propose a solution that seems to preserve both temporal actualism and a suitably robust form of the standard conception while avoiding the pitfalls of the past. (shrink)

Connectionist models provide a promising alternative to the traditional computational approach that has for several decades dominated cognitive science and artificial intelligence, although the nature of connectionist models and their relation to symbol processing remains controversial. Connectionist models can be characterized by three general computational features: distinct layers of interconnected units, recursive rules for updating the strengths of the connections during learning, and “simple” homogeneous computing elements. Using just these three features one can construct surprisingly elegant and powerful models of (...) memory, perception, motor control, categorization, and reasoning. What makes the connectionist approach unique is not its variety of representational possibilities or its departure from explicit rule-based models, or even its preoccupation with the brain metaphor. Rather, it is that connectionist models can be used to explore systematically the complex interaction between learning and representation, as we try to demonstrate through the analysis of several large networks. (shrink)

Moral error theories are often rejected by appeal to ‘companions in guilt’ arguments. The most popular form of companions in guilt argument takes epistemic reasons for belief as a ‘companion’ and proceeds by analogy. I show that this strategy fails. I claim that the companions in guilt theorist must understand epistemic reasons as evidential support relations if her argument is to be dialectically effective. I then present a dilemma. Either epistemic reasons are evidential support relations or they are not. If (...) they are not, then the companions in guilt argument fails. If they are, then a reduction of epistemic reasons to evidential support relations becomes available and, consequently, epistemic reasons cease to be a viable ‘companion’ for moral reasons. I recommend this structure of argument over existing strategies within the literature and defend my claims against recent objections from companions in guilt theorists. (shrink)

In the present paper we give a functional interpretation of Aczel's constructive set theories CZF − and CZF in systems T ∈ and T ∈ + of constructive set functionals of finite types. This interpretation is obtained by a translation × , a refinement of the ∧ -translation introduced by Diller and Nahm 49–66) which again is an extension of Gödel's Dialectica translation. The interpretation theorem gives characterizations of the definable set functions of CZF − and CZF in terms of (...) constructive set functionals. In a second part we introduce constructive set theories in all finite types. We expand the interpretation to these theories and give a characterization of the translation × . We further show that the simplest non-trivial axiom of extensionality is not interpretable by functionals of T ∈ and T ∈ + . We obtain this result by adapting Howard's notion of hereditarily majorizable functionals to set functionals. Subject of the last section is the translation ∨ that is defined in Burr for an interpretation of Kripke-Platek set theory with infinity. (shrink)

We define classes Φnof formulae of first-order arithmetic with the following properties:(i) Everyφϵ Φnis classically equivalent to a Πn-formula (n≠ 1, Φ1:= Σ1).(ii)(iii)IΠnandiΦn(i.e., Heyting arithmetic with induction schema restricted to Φn-formulae) prove the same Π2-formulae.We further generalize a result by Visser and Wehmeier. namely that prenex induction within intuitionistic arithmetic is rather weak: After closing Φnboth under existential and universal quantification (we call these classes Θn) the corresponding theoriesiΘnstill prove the same Π2-formulae. In a second part we consideriΔ0plus collection-principles. We (...) show that both the provably recursive functions and the provably total functions ofare polynomially bounded. Furthermore we show that the contrapositive of the collection-schema gives rise to instances of the law of excluded middle and hence. (shrink)

Social constructionism emerged in social psychology in the 1970s and 1980s, taking up many of the issues raised as part of the earlier “crisis” in social psychology and becoming a critical voice challenging the agenda of mainstream psychology. In particular, it challenged psychology’s individualistic, essentialist, and intrapsychic model of the person, replacing it with a radically social account of personhood in which language is key. Viewed through the constructionist lens, the person ceases to be a unified ensemble of stable psychological (...) structures and traits and becomes a fluid, fractured, and changeable assemblage, distributed across and produced through social interactions and relationships. Social constructionism’s critical focus has meant that its research agenda is also radically different from that of mainstream psychology and social psychology. Social constructionist research rejects the mainstream psychological experimental paradigm and turned attention to the constructive force of language and discourse, opening up new lines of research and developments in a number of methods referred to as discourse analysis. (shrink)

We aim, in this paper, to discuss how far the ethical framework for assessing medical research, generalized into other institutional settings, is also appropriate for social science research, particularly qualitative research. Recently, researchers have raised concerns about ‘ethics creep’, incompatibility with participatory methodologies and the exclusion of service users. Researchers are increasingly raising questions as to whether the processes of governance and the paradigmatic assumptions pervading research ethics committees are fit for purpose when they deliberate on non-clinical research that uses (...) social science methods. We review whether ethical scrutiny by research ethics committees is asking the wrong questions and holding research to the wrong standards. (shrink)

The Dialectica-style functional interpretation of Kripke-Platek set theory with infinity ( $\hbox{\sf KP} \omega$ ) given in [1] uses a choice functional (which is not a definable set function of ( $hbox{\sf KP} \omega$ ). By means of a Diller-Nahm-style interpretation (cf. [4]) it is possible to eliminate the choice functional and give an interpretation by set functionals primitive recursive in $x\mapsto\omega$ . This yields the following characterization: The class of $\Sigma$ -definable set functions of $\hbox{\sf KP} \omega$ coincides with (...) the collection of set functionals of type 1 primitive recursive in $x\mapsto \omega$. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to give an introduction to functional interpretations of set theory given by the authorin Burr (2000a). The first part starts with some general remarks on Gödel's functional interpretation with a focus on aspects related to problems that arise in the context of set theory. The second part gives an insight in the techniques needed to perform a functional interpretation of systems of set theory. However, the first part of this article is not intended (...) to be a complete survey of functional interpretations and here we recommend, for example, Avigad and Feferman (1998),Troelstra (1990) and Troelstra (1973). (shrink)

In the future, policies surrounding end-of-life decisions will be faced with the question of whether competent people in a completely locked-in state should be enabled to make end-of-life decisions via brain-computer interfaces (BCI). This article raises ethical issues with acting through BCIs in the context of these decisions, specifically self-administration requirements within assisted suicide policies. We argue that enabling patients to end their life even once they have entered completely locked-in state might, paradoxically, prolong and uphold their quality of life.

The subject of this paper is a characterization of the $\Sigma_1$ -definable set functions of Kripke-Platek set theory with infinity and a uniform version of axiom of choice: $KP\omega+(uniform\;AC)$ . This class of functions is shown to coincide with the collection of set functionals of type 1 primitive recursive in a given choice functional and $x\mapsto\omega$ . This goal is achieved by a Gödel Dialectica-style functional interpretation of $KP\omega+(uniform\;AC)$ and a computability proof for the involved functionals.

Let serious propositional contingentism (SPC) be the package of views which consists in (i) the thesis that propositions expressed by sentences featuring terms depend, for their existence, on the existence of the referents of those terms, (ii) serious actualism—the view that it is impossible for an object to exemplify a property and not exist—and (iii) contingentism—the view that it is at least possible that some thing might not have been something. SPC is popular and compelling. But what should we say (...) about possible worlds, if we accept SPC? Here, I first show that a natural view of possible worlds, well-represented in the literature, in conjunction with SPC is inadequate. Though I note various alternative ways of thinking about possible worlds in response to the first problem, I then outline a second more general problem—a master argument—which generally shows that any account of possible worlds meeting very minimal requirements will be inconsistent with compelling claims about mere possibilia which the serious propositional contingentist should accept. (shrink)