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22Direct-to-Consumer Neurotechnologies and Quantified Relationship Technologies: Overlapping Ethical ConcernsAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 10 (4): 167-170. 2019.
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32Is Being “Paid to Endure” Compatible With Autonomy? Paid Research Participation and Five (Rather Than Four) Goods of WorkAmerican Journal of Bioethics 19 (9): 41-43. 2019.Volume 19, Issue 9, September 2019, Page 41-43.
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94It Loves Me, It Loves Me NotTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 23 (3): 402-424. 2019.Drawing on insights from robotics, psychology, and human-computer interaction, developers of sex robots are currently aiming to create emotional bonds of attachment and even love between human users and their products. This is done by creating robots that can exhibit a range of facial expressions, that are made with human-like artificial skin, and that possess a rich vocabulary with many conversational possibilities. In light of the human tendency to anthropomorphize artefacts, we can expect tha…Read more
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145Disability and the Goods of LifeJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 46 (6): 704-728. 2021.The so-called Disability Paradox arises from the apparent tension between the popular view that disability leads to low well-being and the relatively high life-satisfaction reports of disabled people. Our aim in this essay is to make some progress toward dissolving this alleged paradox by exploring the relationship between disability and various “goods of life”—that is, components of a life that typically make a person’s life go better for her. We focus on four widely recognized goods of life (h…Read more
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118Other Minds, Other Intelligences: The Problem of Attributing Agency to MachinesCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 28 (4): 592-598. 2019.John Harris discusses the problem of other minds, not as it relates to other human minds, but rather as it relates to artificial intelligences. He also discusses what might be called bilateral mind-reading: humans trying to read the minds of artificial intelligences and artificial intelligences trying to read the minds of humans. Lastly, Harris discusses whether super intelligent AI – if it could be created – should be afforded moral consideration, and also how we might convince super intelligen…Read more
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1873The Good in HappinessIn Tania Lombrozo, Shaun Nichols & Joshua Knobe (eds.), Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy, Volume 1, Oxford University Press. 2014.There has been a long history of arguments over whether happiness is anything more than a particular set of psychological states. On one side, some philosophers have argued that there is not, endorsing a descriptive view of happiness. Affective scientists have also embraced this view and are reaching a near consensus on a definition of happiness as some combination of affect and life-satisfaction. On the other side, some philosophers have maintained an evaluative view of happiness, on which bein…Read more
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88On Kant's Idea of Humanity as an End in ItselfEuropean Journal of Philosophy 24 (2): 358-374. 2016.Writers like Christine Korsgaard and Allen Wood understand Kant's idea of rational nature as an end in itself as a commitment to a substantive value. This makes it hard for them to explain the supposed equivalence between the universal law and humanity formulations of the categorical imperative, since the former does not appear to assert any substantive value. Nor is it easy for defenders of value-based readings to explain Kant's claim that the law-giving nature of practical reason makes all bei…Read more
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317Robot sex and consent: Is consent to sex between a robot and a human conceivable, possible, and desirable?Artificial Intelligence and Law 25 (3): 305-323. 2017.The development of highly humanoid sex robots is on the technological horizon. If sex robots are integrated into the legal community as “electronic persons”, the issue of sexual consent arises, which is essential for legally and morally permissible sexual relations between human persons. This paper explores whether it is conceivable, possible, and desirable that humanoid robots should be designed such that they are capable of consenting to sex. We consider reasons for giving both “no” and “yes” …Read more
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33Pettit on Love and Its Value: A Critical AssessmentMoral Philosophy and Politics 5 (1): 87-102. 2018.Philip Pettit has identified some interesting apparent commonalities among core human values like love, friendship, virtue, and respect. These are all, Pettit argues, ‘robustly demanding’: they require us to provide certain benefits across ranges of alternative scenarios. Pettit also suggests a general ‘rationale’ for valuing such goods, which draws on his work on freedom. In this paper, I zoom in on love in particular. I critically assess whether Pettit’s schematic account of love’s value adequ…Read more
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199The ethics of crashes with self‐driving cars: A roadmap, IIPhilosophy Compass 13 (7). 2018.Self‐driving cars hold out the promise of being much safer than regular cars. Yet they cannot be 100% safe. Accordingly, we need to think about who should be held responsible when self‐driving cars crash and people are injured or killed. We also need to examine what new ethical obligations might be created for car users by the safety potential of self‐driving cars. The article first considers what lessons might be learned from the growing legal literature on responsibility for crashes with self‐…Read more
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89Teaching & Learning Guide for: The ethics of crashes with self‐driving cars: A roadmap, I–IIPhilosophy Compass 13 (7). 2018.Self‐driving cars hold out the promise of being much safer than regular cars. Yet they cannot be 100% safe. Accordingly, they need to be programmed for how to deal with crash scenarios. Should cars be programmed to always prioritize their owners, to minimize harm, or to respond to crashes on the basis of some other type of principle? The article first discusses whether everyone should have the same “ethics settings.” Next, the oft‐made analogy with the trolley problem is examined. Then follows a…Read more
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306The ethics of crashes with self‐driving cars: A roadmap, IPhilosophy Compass 13 (7). 2018.Self‐driving cars hold out the promise of being much safer than regular cars. Yet they cannot be 100% safe. Accordingly, they need to be programmed for how to deal with crash scenarios. Should cars be programmed to always prioritize their owners, to minimize harm, or to respond to crashes on the basis of some other type of principle? The article first discusses whether everyone should have the same “ethics settings.” Next, the oft‐made analogy with the trolley problem is examined. Then follows a…Read more
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71The Benefits and Risks of Quantified Relationship Technologies: Response to Open Peer Commentaries on “The Quantified Relationship”American Journal of Bioethics 18 (2): 3-6. 2018.The growth of self-tracking and personal surveillance has given rise to the Quantified Self movement. Members of this movement seek to enhance their personal well-being, productivity, and self-actualization through the tracking and gamification of personal data. The technologies that make this possible can also track and gamify aspects of our interpersonal, romantic relationships. Several authors have begun to challenge the ethical and normative implications of this development. In this article,…Read more
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569Attributing Agency to Automated Systems: Reflections on Human–Robot Collaborations and Responsibility-LociScience and Engineering Ethics 24 (4): 1201-1219. 2018.Many ethicists writing about automated systems attribute agency to these systems. Not only that; they seemingly attribute an autonomous or independent form of agency to these machines. This leads some ethicists to worry about responsibility-gaps and retribution-gaps in cases where automated systems harm or kill human beings. In this paper, I consider what sorts of agency it makes sense to attribute to most current forms of automated systems, in particular automated cars and military robots. I ar…Read more
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64Do We Always Act on Maxims?Kantian Review 22 (2): 233-255. 2017.It is commonly thought that on Kant’s view of action, ‘everyone always acts on maxims.’ Call this the ‘descriptive reading.’ This reading faces two important problems: first, the idea that people always act on maxims offends against common sense: it clashes with our ordinary ideas about human agency. Second, there are various passages in which Kant says that it is ‘rare’ and ‘admirable’ to firmly adhere to a set of basic principles that we adopt for ourselves. This article offers an alternative:…Read more
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159Automated cars meet human drivers: responsible human-robot coordination and the ethics of mixed trafficEthics and Information Technology 22 (4): 335-344. 2020.In this paper, we discuss the ethics of automated driving. More specifically, we discuss responsible human-robot coordination within mixed traffic: i.e. traffic involving both automated cars and conventional human-driven cars. We do three main things. First, we explain key differences in robotic and human agency and expectation-forming mechanisms that are likely to give rise to compatibility-problems in mixed traffic, which may lead to crashes and accidents. Second, we identify three possible so…Read more
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1Iddo Landau, Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World, Oxford University Press, 297pp., $24.95 (hbk), ISBN 9780190657666. (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2017. 2017.Iddo Landau understands a meaningful life as a life containing a sufficient number of sufficiently valuable aspects. Do the world's and the human condition's imperfections threaten meaning, thus understood? Landau argues that we can have a sufficient number of sufficiently valuable parts of our lives, even if the world is imperfect and the human condition involves various different imperfections. In this review, we offer some constructive criticisms of Landau's discussion, and we also highlight …Read more
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61Is the Personal Identity Debate a “Threat” to Neurosurgical Patients? A Reply to Müller et alNeuroethics 11 (2): 229-235. 2017.In a recent article, Sabine Müller, Merlin Bittlinger, and Henrik Walter launch a sweeping attack against what they call the "personal identity debate" as it relates to patients treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS). In this critique offered by Müller et al., the so-called personal identity debate is said to: (a) be metaphysical in a problematic way, (b) constitute a threat to patients, and (c) use "vague" and "contradictory" statements from patients and their families as direct evidence for…Read more
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4263The Quantified RelationshipAmerican Journal of Bioethics 18 (2): 3-19. 2018.The growth of self-tracking and personal surveillance has given rise to the Quantified Self movement. Members of this movement seek to enhance their personal well-being, productivity, and self-actualization through the tracking and gamification of personal data. The technologies that make this possible can also track and gamify aspects of our interpersonal, romantic relationships. Several authors have begun to challenge the ethical and normative implications of this development. In this article,…Read more
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68Steve Clarke, Julian Savulescu, C. A. J. Coady, Alberto Giubilini, and Sagar Sanyal (eds.), The Ethics of Human Enhancement: Understanding the Debate, Oxford University Press, 2016, 269pp (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2017. 2017.The Ethics of Human Enhancement: Understanding the Debate has two chief aims. These aims are to help readers understand the existing debate and to move the debate forward. The book consists of an introductory chapter by Alberto Giubilini and Sagar Sanyal (which lays out some prominent bioconservative objections to enhancement), eight essays grouped under the theme of "Understanding the Debate" (Section I), and eight devoted to "Advancing the Debate" (Section II). In this review, we offer brief s…Read more
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26Motivation-Enhancements and Domain-Specific ValuesAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 6 (1): 37-39. 2015.Recent research suggests that “smart drugs” don’t make healthy individuals who use them smarter. The main effects are instead on levels of motivation and interest. So the main ethical question here is not whether there is anything wrong or regrettable about healthy individuals’ using these drugs to make themselves smarter. It is rather whether there is anything problematic about their using these drugs to control or modulate their levels of motivation and interest. This question can either be di…Read more
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36The Normative and Evaluative Status of Moral Distress in Health Care ContextsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 16 (12): 17-19. 2016.Stephen Campbell, Connie Ulrich, and Christine Grady argue that we need to a broader understanding of moral distress – broader, that is, than the one commonly used within nursing-ethics and, more recently, healthcare ethics in general. On their proposed definition, moral distress is any self-directed negative attitude we might have in response to viewing ourselves as participating in a morally undesirable situation. While being in general agreement with much of what Campbell et al. say, I make t…Read more
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38Reason with me: Confabulation and Interpersonal Moral ReasoningEthical Perspectives 22 (2): 315-332. 2015.According to Haidt’s “social intuitionist model”, empirical moral psychology supports the following conclusion: intuition comes first, strategic reasoning second. Critics have responded by arguing that intuitions can depend on non-conscious reasons, that not being able to articulate one’s reasons doesn’t entail not being responsive to reasons, and that the relations between intuitions and reasoning can be truth-tracking and principled in ways overlooked by Haidt. This debate involves a false dic…Read more
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184Kant's Universal Law Formula RevisitedMetaphilosophy 46 (2): 280-299. 2015.Kantians are increasingly deserting the universal law formula in favor of the humanity formula. The former, they argue, is open to various decisive objections; the two are not equivalent; and it is only by appealing to the humanity formula that Kant can reliably generate substantive implications from his theory of an acceptable sort. These assessments of the universal law formula, which clash starkly with Kant's own assessment of it, are based on various widely accepted interpretative assumption…Read more
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429Deep Brain Stimulation, Authenticity and ValueCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 26 (4): 658-670. 2017.In this paper, we engage in dialogue with Jonathan Pugh, Hannah Maslen, and Julian Savulescu about how to best interpret the potential impacts of deep brain stimulation on the self. We consider whether ordinary people’s convictions about the true self should be interpreted in essentialist or existentialist ways. Like Pugh et al., we argue that it is useful to understand the notion of the true self as having both essentialist and existentialist components. We also consider two ideas from existent…Read more
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6On the Universal Law and Humanity FormulasDissertation, University of Michigan. 2012.Whereas the universal law formula says to choose one’s basic guiding principles (or “maxims”) on the basis of their fitness to serve as universal laws, the humanity formula says to always treat the humanity in each person as an end, and never as a means only. Commentators and critics have been puzzled by Kant’s claims that these are two alternative statements of the same basic law, and have raised various objections to Kant’s suggestion that these are the most basic formulas of a fully justified…Read more
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35When Is Deep Brain Stimulation a Medical Benefit, and What Is Required for Consent?American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 7 (3): 150-152. 2016.Hübner and White argue that we should not administer DBS to psychopathic prisoners. While we are sympathetic to their conclusion, we argue that the authors’ two central arguments for this conclusion are problematic. Their first argument appeals to an overly restrictive conception of individual medical benefit: namely, that an individual medical benefit must alleviate subjective suffering. We highlight cases that clearly constitute individual medical benefits although there is no relief of subjec…Read more
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86The Medicalization of Love and Narrow and Broad Conceptions of Human Well-BeingCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24 (3): 337-346. 2015.Would a “medicalization” of love be a “good” or “bad” form of medicalization? In discussing this question, Earp, Sandberg, and Savulescu primarily focus on the potential positive and negative consequences of turning love into a medical issue. But it can also be asked whether there is something intrinsically regrettable about medicalizing love. It is argued here that the medicalization of love can be seen as an “evaluative category mistake”: it treats a core human value as if it were mainly a mea…Read more
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47Lorraine Besser-Jones, Eudaimonic Ethics: The Philosophy and Psychology of Living Well (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2014. 2014.Besser-Jones holds that well-being consists in having the experience of satisfying three innate psychological needs at the core of human nature: "relatedness," "autonomy," and "competence." Of these three, the first is the most central one, and we satisfy it by interacting with our fellows in caring and respectful ways: by "acting well." To act well, we need, Besser-Jones argues, a virtuous character: we need certain moral beliefs, and we need those to interact with our intentions in ways that r…Read more
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26From Sex Robots to Love Robots: Is Mutual Love with a Robot Possible?In John Danaher & Neil McArthur (eds.), Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications, Mit Press. pp. 219-244. 2017.Some critics of sex-robots worry that their use might spread objectifying attitudes about sex, and common sense places a higher value on sex within love-relationships than on casual sex. If there could be mutual love between humans and sex-robots, this could help to ease the worries about objectifying attitudes. And mutual love between humans and sex-robots, if possible, could also help to make this sex more valuable. But is mutual love between humans and robots possible, or even conceivable? We…Read more
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Ludwig Maximilians Universität, MünchenFaculty of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and Study of ReligionProfessor
Munich, Bayern, Germany
Areas of Specialization
2 more
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Value Theory |
Neuroethics |
Technology Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Meta-Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
PhilPapers Editorships
Kantian Ethics |
Objections to Kantian Ethics |
Kantian Ethics, Misc |