Abstract

Healthcare applications of AI have the potential to produce great benefit, but also come with significant ethical risks. This has brought ethics to the forefront of academic, policy and public debates about AI in healthcare. To help navigate these debates, we distinguish three general modes of ethical theorizing in contemporary secular AI ethics: (1) idealism, which seeks to articulate moral ideals that can be applied to concrete problems; (2) realism, which focuses on understanding complex social realities that underpin ethical problems; and (3) pragmatism, which promotes deliberate methods that allow joint action in the present but also enable to future moral growth and progress. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each of these modes and illustrate their relevance to salient ethical problems arising from AI in healthcare. Finally, we argue that, while all three have merits, pragmatist approaches deserve more attention they have received thus far.