The emergence of personal assistants in the form of smart speakers has begun to significantly alter people’s everyday experiences with technology. The rate at which household Intelligent Personal Assistants such as Amazon’s Echo and Google Home emerged in household spaces has been rapid. They have begun to move human–computer interaction from text-based to voice-activated input, offering a multiplicity of features through speech. The supporting infrastructure connects with artificial intelligence and the internet of things, allowing digital interfaces with domestic (...) appliances, lighting systems, thermostats, media devices and more. Yet this also constitutes a significant new production of situated and sensitive data. This study focuses on how users negotiate and make choices about household Intelligent Personal Assistant use in connection with their data. This study is based on empirical research in Europe with early adopters in Germany and potential users in the Netherlands. This examination of users’ early stage technology acceptance considerations highlights particular practices and choices of users to either preserve their privacy or determine what is acceptable use for their data. Drawing on a simplified version of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2, a quantitative model for technology acceptance, we demonstrate how acceptance of a household Intelligent Personal Assistants does not imply access to all household data, how users see usefulness in relation to a proliferation of devices, and note the recognition by users regarding the efforts needed for full use and acceptance. The study highlights the complexity of data production at a household level and how these devices produce myopic views of users for platforms. (shrink)

Meyers examines the question of personal autonomy. She observes the effects of childrearing practices and sexual biases, and reflects upon the results in women. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

When talking about personal identity in the context of medical ethics, ethicists tend to borrow haphazardly from different philosophical notions of personal identity, or to abjure these abstract metaphysical concerns as having nothing to do with practical questions in medical ethics. In fact, however, part of the moral authority for respecting a patient’s self-regarding decisions can only be made sense of if we make certain assumptions that are central to a particular, psychological picture of personal identity, namely, (...) that patients will remain psychologically connected to a certain degree with their future selves. I draw this out, show problems with approaches in medical ethics based on alternate theories of personal identity that do not recognise this, and explore some important implications. Namely, I show how this recognition can better explain the circumstances under which we should respect advance directives and why, and how it can better make sense of patient fears that they will not "survive" personality-altering deep brain stimulation procedures, and provide guidance on approaching patient decisions concerning this type of procedure in a manner that captures and addresses such concerns. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Infertility Treadmill: Feminist Ethics, Personal Choice, and the Use of Reproductive Technologies by Karey HarwoodKathryn Lilla CoxThe Infertility Treadmill: Feminist Ethics, Personal Choice, and the Use of Reproductive Technologies Karey Harwood Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. 221pp. $22.00Karey Harwood’s The Infertility Treadmill, published in the University of North Carolina’s Studies in Social Medicine series, fills a lacuna in the (...) infertility literature. Harwood takes an interdisciplinary approach examining “assisted reproductive technologies” (ART) using current scientific, philosophical, theological, and—most importantly—her own ethnographic research. By way of a thick description of women’s experiences of infertility, she draws the reader into a rich ethical conversation regarding ARTs.Harwood “seeks first and foremost to offer an interpretation of the ethical significance of the increasing use of ART by bringing a particular set of normative or evaluative lenses to bear on a particular set of descriptive data” (8). She engaged in this study because of her desire to explore the connections between decisions to use ART and such factors as paid employment, delayed childbirth, and the ongoing balancing of work and family life. Harwood gathered her descriptive data by spending a year with the Atlanta chapter of RESOLVE (The National Infertility Association): attending monthly meetings and listening to speakers and participants as well as appraising RESOLVE’s national and local literature. She also conducted nine interviews with eight women and one man. Focusing on work and family conflicts in light of questions related to gender justice and the interplay between social and communal norms theories, on the one hand, and private and individual choice, on the other, Harwood teases out the ethical complexity surrounding ARTs.After surveying philosophical and theological literature relevant to her topic, Harwood names and examines existential concerns that emerged from her observations, conversations, and interviews with RESOLVE members. Clustered thematically, these concerns include the painful isolation of infertility, the stigma attached to using ARTs, people’s moralizing, how much treatment to pursue, what is the value in trying one more thing, socioeconomic status, and emotional awareness (62–97). Throughout her discussion of these concerns, [End Page 209] Harwood reminds ethicists of the importance of personal narratives for any treatment of an ethical issue like this.Moreover, her research leads Harwood to deduce that RESOLVE helps people with meaning-making, questions of purpose, language clarification, and various options surrounding infertility and ARTs. She asserts that the infertility experience can be a transformative one for the infertile. The decision-making process regarding the use of ARTs functioned as a type of ritual—albeit “a consumeristic ritual”—that aided people in working through the grief of infertility (157). Religious institutions have not always helped the infertile in these areas. Nonetheless, Harwood’s study leads her to conclude that RESOLVE members and leaders tend to be deficient in their capacities for challenging and critically examining how individual decisions intertwine with larger social contexts.Harwood acknowledges that her methodological decision to focus on one RESOLVE chapter limited her demographics (63–64). Moreover, although for the most part balanced, Harwood’s assessment of her findings is at times partial, even bordering on advocacy. For example, she clearly seeks to make the case that ethical analyses of infertility need to be more nuanced—incorporating more personal narrative—and that RESOLVE needs to be more open to critical self-reflection, especially the critical questioning of the “treadmill of infertility” (133). In her analysis of her findings, Harwood demonstrates how personal narratives help nuance ethical analysis. Less clear is whether RESOLVE can be or wants to be more self-critical and more questioning of its own core premises. Nonetheless, these limitations do not detract from Harwood’s important insights regarding “the infertility treadmill” and the host of issues related to ARTs—including consumerism, the role of rituals, meaning-making, suffering and grief, and gender justice, among others.Those struggling with infertility or considering ARTs will find Harwood to be an empathetic dialogue partner. Others will gain a deeper understanding of infertility’s toll by reading this book. Graduate and advanced undergraduate students will benefit from Harwood’s analysis of how personal decisions have wide-ranging... (shrink)

People with cognitive impairments often have difficulties formulating, understanding, or articulating decisions that others judge reasonable. The frequent response shifts decision-making authority to substitutes through advance directives of the person or guardianship orders from a court. The Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities defends supported decision-making as an alternative to such forms of supplanted decision-making. But supported decision-making raises both metaphysical questions—what is required for a decision to be the person’s own?—and epistemological questions: how do we know what (...) persons judge to be their good, when they have difficulty conceptualizing and articulating? It raises practical questions, too, such as protection against risks of exploitation. This article uses a non-discrimination account of legal personhood drawn from the CRPD to explore how common features of decisions employed by people without cognitive disabilities are important in supported decision-making too. These features include prostheses, guardrails, relationships, and social contexts. (shrink)

In personal and public affairs alike we constantly confront the need for deciding among available alternatives. Sensible Decisions synthesizes Nicholas Rescher's contribution to this discussion over the years. Rescher's prime aim is to illuminate some of the theoretical complications and perplexities that characterize rational procedure in matters of decision making at the public policy level.

Describes six basic value systems, explains why ethical questions become complicated, and stresses the importance of a personal system of values.

Individual choices are commonly taken to manifest personal preferences. The present study investigated whether social and statistical cues influence young children's inferences about the generalizability of preferences. Preschoolers were exposed to either 1 or 2 demonstrators’ selections of objects. The selected objects constituted 18%, 50%, or 100% of all available objects. We found that children took a single demonstrator's choices as indicative only of his or her personal preference. However, when 2 demonstrators made the same selection, then children (...) inferred that it generalized to other agents of the same kind as the original demonstrator's, but not to agents of a different kind. Lastly, only when both demonstrators blatantly violated random selection (i.e., in the 18% condition) did children generalize the preference even to an agent of a different kind. Thus, from a young age, social and statistical cues inform children's naïve sociology. (shrink)

Climate change is an anthropogenic existential threat that provokes extreme concern among climate scientists, but not, it seems, among all member of the public. Here, there is considerably more variability in level of concern and, it appears, in everyday sustainable behavior. But how does personality affect this variability in behavior? And how are underlying personality states like dispositional optimism linked to more sustainable everyday practices? Research in clinical psychology has suggested that dispositional optimism is a very positive personality characteristic associated (...) with higher levels of hope and resilience, but applied research from other domains has reported that optimists can, on occasion, bury their heads in the sand and avoid attending to external threats, like climate change, in order to maintain mood state. So are optimists more immune to climate change messaging than non-optimists? And do they make fewer sustainable choices? A series of experimental studies, manipulating signifiers of carbon footprint (Study 1) and eco labels on products (Study 2) found that optimists made more sustainable choices than non-optimists and that both groups were influenced equally by climate change film clips in terms of sustainable choices (Study 1). Optimists also displayed a false consensus effect, overestimating the proportion of people who would behave more sustainably like themselves (Study 3). Given that global problems like climate change need concerted, cooperative effort, these optimistic beliefs about how others behave could be adaptive in the long-run. Designing climate change messages to appeal to optimists might be a critical consideration for the future. (shrink)

Social freedom may be taken to be primarily a property of persons, derivatively a property of choices, or the other way round. Nowadays it is standard to take it the other way round. But there is much to be said for the person-based rather than the choice- based way of thinking. And this way of thinking is characteristic of the neo-Roman, republican tradition.

Extant research has shown personality to be a predictor of engagement in academic dishonesty. The current study seeks to determine whether the type of personality measure affects predictive efficacy by comparing single stimulus and forced-choice measures of personality using a sample of 278 undergraduate students in two U.S. universities. Students scoring high on conscientiousness reported as engaging in fewer academic cheating behaviors than those scoring low on conscientiousness regardless of whether conscientiousness was measured using the forced-choice or single (...) stimulus scale format. In addition, the forced-choice and single stimulus measures each contributed significant unique variance to prediction of academic dishonesty. For agreeableness, scores on the single stimulus measure were negatively correlated with academic dishonesty whereas there was a positive relationship found for the forced-choice measure. Overall, the forced-choice format of the Occupational Personality Questionnaire 32r did not show higher validities than the single stimulus IPIP counterpart in predicting self-reported academic dishonesty. Implications for future research and management education are discussed. (shrink)

Given the issues discussed and that the arguments in critical focus are fairly new, the collection provides a novel, comprehensive, and rigorous analysis of contemporary pro-choice arguments.”.

Luck egalitarians claim that disadvantage is worse when it emerges from an unchosen risk than when it emerges from a chosen risk. I argue that disadvantage is also worse when it emerges from an unchosen risk that the disadvantaged agent would have declined to take, had he or she been able to do so, than when it emerges from an unchosen risk that the disadvantaged agent would not have declined to take. Such a view is significant because it allows both (...) luck egalitarians and prioritarians to respond to Voorhoeve and Fleurbaey's charge that they fail to accommodate intuitions about the moral relevance of interpersonal boundaries – the so-called separateness of persons objection. I argue that the view is plausible independently of its ability to answer the separateness of persons objection, and is a natural extension of the luck egalitarian concern with the impact of unchosen circumstance. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between a firm’s strategy and consumers’ decisions in the presence of the paradox of choice and sharing personal information. The paradox of choice implies that having too many choices does not necessarily ensure happiness and sometimes having less is more. A new model is constructed introducing a factor of information sharing into the model of a previous study that embedded the paradox of choice only (Kinjo and (...) Ebina in AI Soc 30(2):291–297, 2015). A key feature of the model is its disutility function. It is demonstrated that if the sign of the cross derivative of the function is positive (negative) at the optimum, there is a positive (negative) correlation between the degree of sharing personal information chosen by the consumers and the number of products offered by the firm in its recommendation systems. It is also numerically indicated that the profit function of the firm becomes convex or concave depending on the shape of the disutility function. These results suggest that firms should carefully investigate the shape of the disutility function, under the paradox of choice and sharing personal information. (shrink)

Self-regulatory processes have predominantly been linked to the study of academic achievement in terms of learning behavior, cognitive engagement, and specific academic performance measures. If poorly regulated, academic behavior can have repercussions on social adaptation. Motivational processes constitute the other key element in ensuring successful regulation, as studies indicate that self-regulation can effectively influence achievement outcomes if learners have positive beliefs about their personal ability to negotiate difficulties and work towards the desired learning outcomes. This book takes a critical (...) look at the role of self-regulatory processes and personal agency beliefs in academic and social self-regulatory functioning, providing the reader with theoretical understanding of the issues and lending empirical support to the relevance of these processes in the East Asian educational context. In this way, the study explores the extent to which self-regulation and personal agency beliefs can offer an alternative explanation for the academic performance of students. (shrink)

Impossibility theorems for 2-person and majority continuous games on the unit circle are presented. The emphasis is on simple methods, albeit generating new results, to offer insights into the sophisticated results of theorists in topological social choice.

That abortion is the unjust killing of an innocent human person is the contention of the authors of this book. It does not intend to be a comprehensive defence of a pro-life position; rather, it ad...

Individuals are generally held to be morally and legally responsible only for actions carried out freely and deliberately, that is to say, for actions that result from our free choice. However, there is a quite widespread view that all of our actions are the result of the scientific laws that govern our physical bodies. If this should prove to be the case, then human choice would be an illusion, and therefore -- on the generally accepted principle just stated (...) -- personal responsibility would be a meaningless concept and blame and punishment would be inappropriate responses to wicked or criminal acts. In this paper I shall argue that we need to disentangle ‘responsibility’ from ‘choice'. I shall also outline reasons for holding that responsibility is ultimately a first-person matter -- I am responsible if I feel responsible, irrespective of choice -- and I shall briefly consider some of the consequences of this approach. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for what I call ‘the inherency thesis’: the thesis that an autonomous choice that succeeds in expressing an agent’s authentic identity is inherently prudentially valuable for the choosing agent. I argue that this is the case because autonomous choice is a vehicle for the expression of authentic identity, the satisfaction of which is intrinsically prudentially valuable. Moreover, I argue that no such inherent relation exists between fulfilled autonomous choice and the exemplification of (...) moral, aesthetic or perfectionist value. These conclusions suggest that accounts of the normativity of personal autonomy should focus on the notion that the demand to respect personal autonomy is grounded on the demand to promote the prudential value – and hence well-being – of others. (shrink)

Background: Personal genomic testing (PGT) offers individuals genetic information about relationships, wellness, sporting ability, and health. PGT is increasingly accessible online, including in emerging markets such as Australia. Little is known about what consumers expect from these tests and whether their reflections on testing resonate with bioethics concepts such as autonomy. Methods: We report findings from focus groups and semi-structured interviews that explored attitudes to and experiences of PGT. Focus group participants had little experience with PGT, while interview participants (...) had undergone testing. Recordings were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings were critically interpreted with reference to bioethics scholarship on autonomy. Results: Fifty-six members of the public participated in seven focus groups, and 40 individuals were interviewed separately. Both groups valued the choice of PGT, and believed that it could motivate relevant actions. Focus group themes centered on the perceived value of choices, knowledge enabling action and knowledge about the self. Interview themes suggest that participants reflexively engage with their PGT information to make meaning, and that some appreciate its shortcomings. Critical interpretation of findings shows that while consumers of PGT are able to exercise a degree of autonomy in choosing, they may not be able to achieve a substantive conceptualization of autonomy, one that promotes alignment with higher-order desires. Conclusions: PGT consumers can critically reason about testing. However, they may uncritically accept test results, may not appreciate drawbacks of increased choice, or may overestimate the potential for information to motivate behavioral change. While consumers appear to be capable of substantive autonomy, they do so without ongoing support from companies. PGT companies promote a problematic (“default”) account of autonomy, reliant on empowerment rhetoric. This leaves consumers vulnerable to making decisions inconsistent with their higher-order desires. As PGT expands, claims about its power and value need to be carefully drawn. (shrink)

The importance of economic freedom for economic development can no longer be denied. What is often denied, however, is respect for individuals’ rights and personal choices. The role of individual choice is often dismissed or set aside by the development community. In this essay, I argue that inherent to economic freedom’s economic success is the promotion and acceptance of individual choice. Development theory should include recognition of and respect for personal choices, a theory I call “Catfish (...) Man of the Woods” theory of development. (shrink)

In June 2012, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his plans for a ban on the sale of sugary beverages in containers larger than 16 ounces. Shortly thereafter, the Center for Consumer Freedom took out a full-page ad in the New York Times featuring Bloomberg photo-shopped into a matronly dress with the tag line “New Yorkers need a Mayor, not a Nanny.” On television, the CATO Institute's Michael Cannon declared, “This is the most ridiculous sort of nanny state-ism; [i]t’s (...) none of the mayor's business how much soda people are drinking.” And in newspapers around the country, editorial pages featured headlines such as “Gulp! Yet Another Intrusion of the Nanny State.” Just like that, the public debate about this measure became focused on government overreach, while the public health problem of obesity faded into the background. (shrink)

Is choice necessary for moral responsibility? And does choice imply alternative possibilities of some significant sort? This paper will relate these questions to the argument initiated by Harry Frankfurt that alternative possibilities are not required for moral responsibility, and to John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza's extension of that argument in terms of guidance control in a causally determined world. I argue that attending to Frankfurt's core conceptual distinction between the circumstances that make an action unavoidable and those (...) that bring it about that the action is performed – a distinction emphasised in his recent restatement – provides a new route into an analysis of Frankfurt's argument by showing how it depends on a person's ‘decision to act’ involving the exercise of choice. The implicit reliance of Frankfurt's argument on this notion of choice, however, undermines his claim that the example of the counterfactual intervener strengthens the compatibilist case by providing a counter-example to the principle of alternative possibilities. I also argue that Frankfurt's reliance on the exercise of choice for moral responsibility is also evident in the Fischer/Ravizza argument, and that a close analysis of both arguments shows that such exercise of choice is not available if causal determinism is true. (shrink)

The issue of wrongful disability arises when parents face the choice whether to produce a child whose life will be unavoidably flawed by a serious disease or disorder (Down syndrome, for example, or Huntington’s disease) yet clearly worth living. The authors of From Chance to Choice claim, with certain restrictions, that the choice to produce such a child is morally wrong. They then argue that an intuitive moral approach––a “person-affecting” approach that pins wrongdoing to the harming of (...) some existing or future person––cannot account for that wrong since the choice to produce such a child cannot, under the logic of the nonidentity problem, harm that child. The authors propose that we supplement the person-affecting approach with an “impersonal” principle that takes the form of their well-known principle N. In this paper, I argue that the authors are mistaken to suppose that a plausibly articulated person-affecting approach cannot account for the wrong of wrongful disability. We can retain an intuitive, comparative, “worse for” account of harm and still identify serious harms imposed by the choice of wrongful disability. In particular, I argue that harm, both to the impaired child and to others, comes not in the form of that procreative choice’s procreative effect but rather in the form of its many distributive effects. I also argue that the rare, residual case in which a person-affecting approach would approve of the choice of wrongful disability does not function as a counterexample to that approach. As a separate matter, I address legal claims for wrongful disability, which are closely akin to claims for wrongful life. The legal claim is brought by the impaired child, not against the parents, but rather against health care providers whose negligent failure to diagnose or inform parents of an increased risk of a genetic or congenital impairment results in the birth of the impaired child. The authors’ treatment of the moral wrong that is done as impersonal in nature suggests that courts are correct to dismiss any such claim. Once we identify harm, however, the person-affecting approach can identify a clear foundation in the law for the wrongful disability claim. (shrink)

In The Harm Principle, Personal Identity and Identity-Relative Paternalism,1 Wilkinson offers a thoughtful argument about medical decision-making and Derek Parfit’s reductionist account of personal identity. I agree that Parfit’s account can contribute to the ethical analysis of patients’ choices. My own work in this area emphasises challenges the reductionist account presents to conventional understanding of advance treatment directives, particularly in cases involving people with dementia.2 I have also urged people making directives to consider the harm their directives could (...) impose on future selves with dementia.3 But as Wilkinson points out, Parfit’s account has implications in other medical contexts as well. Wilkinson presents examples of people making medical decisions that could impose serious harm on their future selves. These examples consider decisions made before a health crisis. Another kind of case involves people in the midst of illness who face a series of ongoing care choices. As people in this situation adjust to their …. (shrink)

In The New Eugenics: Selective Breeding in an Era of Reproductive Technologies, Judith Daar advocates for increased access to assisted reproductive technologies and minimizes concerns about the potential “eugenic logic” of some procreative choices. Although Daar’s goal of expanded access is laudable, her argument suggests an unresolved tension between the moral equality of persons and individual reproductive freedom. Exploring that tension, this paper argues that efforts to expand access to ART must still grapple with the “eugenic mentality” of quality control (...) that some forms of reproductive and genetic technologies enable. (shrink)