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1731Debate: What is Personhood in the Age of AI?AI and Society 36. 2021.In a friendly interdisciplinary debate, we interrogate from several vantage points the question of “personhood” in light of contemporary and near-future forms of social AI. David J. Gunkel approaches the matter from a philosophical and legal standpoint, while Jordan Wales offers reflections theological and psychological. Attending to metaphysical, moral, social, and legal understandings of personhood, we ask about the position of apparently personal artificial intelligences in our society and in…Read more
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237The other question: can and should robots have rights?Ethics and Information Technology 20 (2): 87-99. 2018.This essay addresses the other side of the robot ethics debate, taking up and investigating the question “Can and should robots have rights?” The examination of this subject proceeds by way of three steps or movements. We begin by looking at and analyzing the form of the question itself. There is an important philosophical difference between the two modal verbs that organize the inquiry—can and should. This difference has considerable history behind it that influences what is asked about and how…Read more
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233A Vindication of the Rights of MachinesPhilosophy and Technology 27 (1): 113-132. 2014.This essay responds to the machine question in the affirmative, arguing that artifacts, like robots, AI, and other autonomous systems, can no longer be legitimately excluded from moral consideration. The demonstration of this thesis proceeds in four parts or movements. The first and second parts approach the subject by investigating the two constitutive components of the ethical relationship—moral agency and patiency. In the process, they each demonstrate failure. This occurs not because the mac…Read more
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225Mind the gap: responsible robotics and the problem of responsibilityEthics and Information Technology 22 (4): 307-320. 2020.The task of this essay is to respond to the question concerning robots and responsibility—to answer for the way that we understand, debate, and decide who or what is able to answer for decisions and actions undertaken by increasingly interactive, autonomous, and sociable mechanisms. The analysis proceeds through three steps or movements. It begins by critically examining the instrumental theory of technology, which determines the way one typically deals with and responds to the question of respo…Read more
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215One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is deciding who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. Much recent attention has been devoted to the "animal question" -- consideration of the moral status of nonhuman animals. In this book, David Gunkel takes up the "machine question": whether and to what extent intelligent and autonomous machines of our own making can be considered to have legitimate moral responsibilities and any legitimate claim to moral consideration. The machine ques…Read more
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158Introduction to the Special Issue on Machine Morality: The Machine as Moral Agent and PatientPhilosophy and Technology 27 (1): 5-8. 2014.One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is deciding who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. This special issue of Philosophy and Technology investigates whether and to what extent machines, of various designs and configurations, can or should be considered moral subjects, defined here as either a moral agent, a moral patient, or both. The articles that comprise the issue were competitively selected from papers initially prepared for and presented at a symposium on this subjec…Read more
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154ChatGPT: deconstructing the debate and moving it forwardAI and Society 1-11. forthcoming.Large language models such as ChatGPT enable users to automatically produce text but also raise ethical concerns, for example about authorship and deception. This paper analyses and discusses some key philosophical assumptions in these debates, in particular assumptions about authorship and language and—our focus—the use of the appearance/reality distinction. We show that there are alternative views of what goes on with ChatGPT that do not rely on this distinction. For this purpose, we deploy th…Read more
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146Facing Animals: A Relational, Other-Oriented Approach to Moral StandingJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 27 (5): 715-733. 2014.In this essay we reflect critically on how animal ethics, and in particular thinking about moral standing, is currently configured. Starting from the work of two influential “analytic” thinkers in this field, Peter Singer and Tom Regan, we examine some basic assumptions shared by these positions and demonstrate their conceptual failings—ones that have, despite efforts to the contrary, the general effect of marginalizing and excluding others. Inspired by the so-called “continental” philosophical …Read more
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116Moral Status and Intelligent RobotsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 60 (1): 88-117. 2021.The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 60, Issue 1, Page 88-117, March 2022.
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104Principi di Remixologia. Una assiologia per il XXI Secolo e oltre (traduzione di F. Fossa)Odradek (1): 411-434. 2019.Among the many forms of artistic expression that characterize the digital era, remix occupies a rather central position. At the same time, however, the success of remix as an artistic practice raises several hard questions. What is original and what is derived? How can we sort out and make sense of questions concerning origination and derivation in situations where one thing is appropriated, reused, and repurposed for something else? What theory of moral and aesthetic value can accommodate and e…Read more
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86Thinking otherwise: Ethics, technology and other subjectsEthics and Information Technology 9 (3): 165-177. 2007.Ethics is ordinarily understood as being concerned with questions of responsibility for and in the face of an other. This other is more often than not conceived of as another human being and, as such, necessarily excludes others – most notably animals and machines. This essay examines the ethics of such exclusivity. It is divided into three parts. The first part investigates the exclusive anthropocentrism of traditional forms of moral␣thinking and, following the example of recent innovations in …Read more
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61Virtual Alterity and the Reformatting of EthicsJournal of Mass Media Ethics 18 (3-4): 173-193. 2003.This article seeks to reconsider how traditional notions of ethics-ethics that privilege reason, truth, meaning, and a fixed conception of "the human"-are upended by digital technology, cybernetics, and virtual reality. We argue that prevailing ethical systems are incompatible with the way technology refigures the concepts and practices of identity, meaning, truth, and finally, communication. The article examines how both ethics and technology repurpose the liberal humanist subject even as they …Read more
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47Deconstructing the Panic of Pandemic A Critical Review of Slavoj Žižek’s Pandemic! COVID-19 Shakes the WorldInternational Journal of Žižek Studies 14 (2). 2020.Slavoj Žižek’s new book [...] was written at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis and quickly rushed into publication in an effort to provide the public with a philosophical engagement with the opportunities and challenges of the novel coronavirus and the social, political, and technological responses that have been marshalled to contend with the panic that has accompanied it.
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46Response to “The Problem of the Question About Animal Ethics” by Michal PiekarskiJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 29 (4): 717-721. 2016.In this brief article we reply to Michal Piekarski’s response to our article ‘Facing Animals’ published previously in this journal. In our article we criticized the properties approach to defining the moral standing of animals, and in its place proposed a relational and other-oriented concept that is based on a transcendental and phenomenological perspective, mainly inspired by Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida. In this reply we question and problematize Piekarski’s interpretation of our essay and…Read more
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33Mark Coeckelbergh: Growing moral relations: critique of moral status ascription: Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2012, 239 pp, ISBN: 978-1-137-02595-1 (review)Ethics and Information Technology 15 (3): 239-241. 2013.
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31Virtually transcendent: Cyberculture and the bodyJournal of Mass Media Ethics 13 (2). 1998.T h i s article examines the ethical implications of the desirefor disembodiment situated in the texts and technologies of cyberspace. The article is divided into 2 parts. The first traces the conceptual history of dualism, demonstrating its exclusive cultural politics and investigating the socio-political consequences of encoding this metaphysical information in contemporary media technology. The second part examines the material conditions of new communication technology, arguing that the issu…Read more
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26Better Living Through TechnologyFoundations of Science 22 (2): 349-352. 2017.In this brief response to Mark Coeckelbergh’s contribution, I demonstrate how the author introduces an important shift in the way we approach technology. Instead of focusing on the new and often-times dramatic existential vulnerabilities supposedly introduced by technological innovation, Coeckelbergh targets the way technology already transforms our existential vulnerabilities. And I show how this shift in focus has three very important consequences: a different way to ask about and investigate …Read more
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25Duty Now and for the Future: Communication, Ethics and Artificial IntelligenceJournal of Media Ethics 38 (4): 198-210. 2023.This essay examines whether and to what extent the “other” in communicative interactions may be otherwise than another human subject and the moral opportunities and challenges this alteration would make available to us. Toward this end, the analysis proceeds in five steps or movements. The first reviews the way the discipline of communication has typically perceived and theorized the role and function of technology. The second and third parts investigate the critical challenges that emerging tec…Read more
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19How to Survive a Robot Invasion: Rights, Responsibility, and AiRoutledge. 2019.In this short introduction, David J. Gunkel examines the shifting world of artificial intelligence, mapping it onto everyday twenty-first century life and probing the consequences of this ever-growing industry and movement. The book investigates the significance and consequences of the robot invasion in an effort to map the increasingly complicated social terrain of the twenty-first century. Whether we recognize it as such or not, we are in the midst of a robot invasion. What matters most in the…Read more
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17The Relational TurnIn Janina Loh & Wulf Loh (eds.), Social Robotics and the Good Life: The Normative Side of Forming Emotional Bonds with Robots, Transcript Verlag. pp. 55-76. 2022.
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14Special Section: Rethinking Art and Aesthetics in the Age of Creative Machines: Editor’s IntroductionPhilosophy and Technology 30 (3): 263-265. 2017.
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14Gaming the system: deconstructing video games, games studies, and virtual worldsIndiana University Press. 2018.Terra nova 2.0 -- The real problem -- Social contract 2.0 -- In the face of others -- Open-ended conclusions.
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13Žižek studies: the greatest hits (so far) (edited book)Peter Lang. 2020.Zizek Studies: The Greatest Hits (So Far) assembles and presents the best work published in the field of Zizek Studies over the last ten years, providing teachers, students, and researchers with a carefully curated volume of leading-edge scholarship addressing the unique and sometimes eclectic work of Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek. The chapters included in this collection have been rigorously tested in and culled from the (virtual) pages of the International Journal of Z…Read more
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11Book Review: How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person, by Colin Koopman (review)Political Theory 49 (5): 873-877. 2021.
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11Deconstruction. Critical Interventions for the 21st Century and BeyondStudia Philosophiae Christianae 58 (2): 89-108. 2022.This essay seeks to make a case for deconstruction as a kind of critical intervention for responding to and dealing with the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century and beyond. Toward this end, it proceeds in three steps or movements. (1) The first part will deconstruct deconstruction, deliberately employing what will be revealed as an inaccurate vernacular understanding of the term in order to extract a more precise and technical characterization of the concept. (2) The second part wil…Read more
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10¿Por qué Žižek?... ¿Por qué online?International Journal of Žižek Studies 1 (1). 2007.Translation
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10The empire strikes back again: the cultural-politics of the InternetAcm Sigcas Computers and Society 27 (4): 18-21. 1997.
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10Why Žižek?...Why online?International Journal of Žižek Studies 1 (1). 2007.In "Why Žižek? - Why Online?" David J. Gunkel addresses head-on the complexly related issues Žižek's intellectual appeal and the suitability or otherwise of this Journal's online format. The essay not only demonstrates the way that Žižek's materialist philosophy complicates decisions about the material of publication but illustrates how these questions materialize in recent debates about scholarship and why they should matter for us
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Northern Illinois UniversityRegular Faculty
DeKalb, Illinois, United States of America
Areas of Interest
20th Century Philosophy |
Continental Philosophy |
European Philosophy |