Fiorella Battaglia

This chapter aims to clarify the transformative effects on the concept of personal autonomy resulting from extending the notion to Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, particularly in the defense domain. The complexity of this task is increased by the fact that philosophers have offered a wide range of competing accounts of the autonomous agent’s special relation to their own desires and values. I will draw on the concept of autonomy implied in John Martin Fisher and Mark Ravizza’s control theory, which, while explaining the theory and practice of autonomy, also identifies two conditions that cannot be appropriately satisfied by autonomous systems, but only by persons who interact and communicate with one another. Despite the superficial sameness between personal autonomy and autonomous systems, control theory allows us to pinpoint an important distance in their underlying features. The seeming similarity masks indeed a profound conceptual divergence between autonomy as a condition of moral agency and autonomy understood as the characterization of a system’s operational capacities. This supports, at least in principle, the moral argument that entrusting machines with authority over human life and death is ethically wrong, regardless of how advanced the technology might be.

On human control and dehumanization. Previous analyses of dehumanization have mostly focused on events involving multiple human individuals, such as genocides, civil wars, and violence against certain ethnic and racial groups. However, it is important to note that the emergence of new profiles of dehumanizing behavior resulting from the human-machine relationship has not yet been addressed. This chapter thoroughly examines the processes of dehumanization in settings involving non-human entities. The chapter first defines dehumanization and then proceeds to apply it to actions mediated by autonomous systems. The concept of control is crucial to this definitional characterization, especially when the constraints for meaningful human control are not met.This chapter explores the experience of dehumanization resulting from machines over humans, examines new ways in which dehumanization can occur in real-life interactive contexts, and providesamore comprehensive characterization of the concept of dehumanization.

The idea of responsibility is deeply embedded into the “lifeworld” of human beings and not subject to change. However, the empirical circumstances in which we act and ascribe responsibility to one another are subject to change. Science and technology play a great part in this transformation process. Therefore, it is important for us to rethink the idea, the role and the normative standards behind responsibility in a world that is constantly being transformed under the influence of scientific and technological progress. This volume is a contribution to that joint societal effort.

Quality of democratic arrangements does matter. This kind of conceptual breakthrough has been made through painfully engagement with the nonphilosophical area of inquiry arisen by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has dramatically emphasized that health is a highly political domain. No surprise then that it made possible to challenge common thought about democratic procedures in political theory that considers procedure-independent standards suspicious. Therefore it is fair to state that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken the quality of democratic outcomes back on center stage in the debate in political theory, which has been dominated by fair proceduralism’s claim not to refer to any procedure-independent standards of good political decisions. Procedural values have traditionally been seen as a defining element of fair deliberation and essential for democracy. They have been extolled in social choice theory that claims that democracy does not exhibit any particular disposition to lead to good or just political arrangements. They are the focus of attention in Jürgen Habermas’ procedural rationality, though philosophers are now more skeptical about the divorce between procedures and substantive standards. Overall, issues surrounding the topic of ensuring citizens’ health make the topic politically central and philosophically interesting for epistemic theories and impartial proceduralism theories of democracy alike. The aim of this paper is to justify the legitimacy and authority of public health policies on the basis of arguments that do not simply are a matter of their being democratic. In the first part, I want to display and criticize the idea that proceduralism’s not getting one’s hands dirty with the substance of decisions and remaining neutrally adherent only to procedures is untenable in the present case. Having criticized democratic theories that want to restrict themselves to purely procedural values, in the second part I will focus on the idea of knowledge and make explicit its characters of being practical and shared. Eventually, it will help to have one example. M-Health will show that many valuable insights would be incompatible with the restrictions of the proceduralism. Philosophical consideration of health will combine epistemic issues with political ones triggered by technology and sharpened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Within a general approach that implies the closely related survey of neurosciences and philosophical thought, the essays collected in the volume develop two main lines of research. The first one, thanks to the contributions of scientists and psychologists , psychoanalysists and bioengineers , allows to fix the attention on the neurobiological, psychological, psychoanalytical and physical remembering. The second one, more specifically philosophical, is declined in three different approaches. the first - with essays by Stefania Achella, Giuseppe D'Anna and Rosario Diana - points to the anlysis of the role played by the rememberance and the prefiguration in the processes of identity construction. The second - with contributions from Fiorella Battaglia, Anna Donise, Sabine Marienberg and Sara Fortuna - focuses on the role of remembering in anthropology and linguistics, as well as the identification of certain diseases of memory. The third, finally - with contributions from Gabriella Baptist, Chiara de Luzenberger and Marco Boninu - tends to define the regulatory function of memory

This paper reports the framework, method and main findings of an analysis of cultural milieus in 4 European countries. The analysis is based on a questionnaire applied to a sample built through a two-step procedure of post-hoc random selection from a broader dataset based on an online survey. Responses to the questionnaire were subjected to multidimensional analysis-a combination of Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Cluster Analysis. We identified 5 symbolic universes, that correspond to basic, embodied, affect-laden, generalized worldviews. People in this study see the world as either a) an ordered universe;b) a matter of interpersonal bond;c) a caring society;d) consisting of a niche of belongingness;e) a hostile place. These symbolic universes were also interpreted as semiotic capital: they reflect the capacity of a place to foster social and civic development. Moreover, the distribution of the symbolic universes, and therefore social and civic engagement, is demonstrated to be variable across the 4 countries in the analysis. Finally, we develop a retrospective reconstruction of the distribution of symbolic universes as well as the interplay between their current state and past, present and future socio-institutional scenarios.

This paper aims to render some aspects of the feeling of being alive more clearly comprehensible. My emphasis on the phenomenal quality of consciousness stems from the “embodied” approach to consciousness, according to which consciousness, since it is considered a phenomenon of life, includes both intentional and motivational aspects. In this view, its phenomenal quality is an inherent property of the embodied self, which relates both to the external world and to itself. The feeling of being alive is not neutral; rather its hedonic character provides orientation in life. Whenever one is living through experience, one has a basis for carrying out one’s own life in the world, biologically, psychologically and ethically. The reflections in this paper follow a systematic approach often combined with a roughly historical perspective.

Robotik ist der Hauptgegenstand der Maschinenethik. Die Maschinenethik hat sicherlich einen ihrer Schwerpunkte in den physikalisch existierenden Maschinen wie Robotern oder künstlichen Körperteilen. Die Verkörperung scheint hier beilegend/auflösend zu sein, wenn es um die Aufteilung der Anwendungsbereiche der Maschinenethik geht. Es gibt nämlich Maschinen, die nicht physikalisch beschaffen sind (wie z. B. Assistenzsysteme). Es wäre dennoch eine Verkürzung zu meinen, dass „Verkörperung“ nur bei dieser Klassifikationsfrage eine Rolle spielen würde. Zu klären, wie „Verkörperung“ in der konzeptuellen Frage bei dem Verständnis von KI involviert ist und wie daraus ein weiterführendes Verständnis als Ergebnis erwartet werden kann, ist der Startpunkt dieses Beitrags. Denn damit verbunden sind ethisch relevante Fragen. Eine zweite entscheidende Dimension für den Zusammenhang „Maschinenethik und Robotik“ ist die der Vielschichtigkeit der Narrationen, die die Robotik prägen. Der Fokus auf den Charakter des zielgerichteten Handelns, das die Roboter zu Werkzeugen im Dienste des Menschen werden lässt, lässt den kreativen Aspekt unberücksichtigt, der dennoch für Maschinenethik ein relevantes Narrativ darstellt. Die Verfahren, die diese Aspekte zusammenbringen, genießen in der Maschinenethik ein fragwürdiges Ansehen. Wir möchten die These vertreten, dass ohne die Komplexität einer solchen Verflechtung von Narrativen die ethische Einschätzung an einigen Stellen blind bleibt. Beispielsweise hebt das „Ego des Chirurgen“ den Überschuss hervor, der zu den Narrationen des zielgerichteten Handelns komplementär ist. Drittens weisen epistemische Opazität und die von Robotern begangenen Fehler und Diskriminierungen auf die ethischen Fragen im Umgang mit dem maschinellen Lernen hin.

Verantwortung ist eine der größten Fragen, wenn nicht gar die Frage in der Ethik der Maschinen. In diesem Artikel werden wir für begriffliche Klärung sorgen. Damit wollen wir eine philosophische Auseinandersetzung mit der Frage nach der Verantwortung der Maschinen ermöglichen. Der Ansatz erfolgt im Anschluss an die Kantische Tradition, nach welcher Verantwortung, Rationalität und Freiheit zusammengehören. Unser Ansatz speist sich von einer weiteren Bedingung, nämlich der eingebetteten Rationalität der sozialen Interaktion gerecht zu werden. Die Gesamtheit der Komplexität des Begründens innerhalb der Rechtslehre, der Philosophie und des alltäglichen Lebens sollen uns ausführliche Hinweise geben, um die Grenzverschiebung zwischen Mensch und Maschine zu rekonstruieren. Nach dieser Rekonstruktion wird die Verantwortung der Maschinen grundsätzlich nicht ausgeschlossen, da es sich eher um eine empirische Frage handelt. Sobald die Maschinen an der sozialen Interaktion des Gebens und Nehmens von Gründen teilnehmen können, gibt es keinen Grund, sie von der Verantwortung auszuschließen. Zurzeit sind Zuschreibungen von Verantwortung im Rahmen von einer gradualistischen Darstellung von Verantwortung möglich. Entscheidend ist jedoch, dass diese maschinellen Verantwortungszuschreibungen unumgänglich auf personelle Akteure reduzierbar sind.

Emerging technologies have been yielding constant modification regarding the conditio humana. This change affects not only the development of new devices and new options, but, especially when it involves androids and robots, also has an impact on the understanding of human identity and its specific normative dimension. Therefore, it is worth to investigate the ethical, legal and social aspects of emerging technologies. There are many questions that arise in our dealing with them. Films, as other features of our imaginary, help us to deepen philosophical arguments through their peculiar storytelling.

Moral issues arise not only when neural technology directly influences and affects people’s lives, but also when the impact of its interventions indirectly conceptualizes the mind in new, and unexpected ways. It is the case that theories of consciousness, theories of subjectivity, and third person perspective on the brain provide rival perspectives addressing the mind. Through a review of these three main approaches to the mind, and particularly as applied to an “extended mind”, the paper identifies a major area of transformation in philosophy of action, which is understood in terms of additional epistemic devices—including a legal perspective of regulating the human–machine interaction and a personality theory of the symbiotic connection between human and machine. I argue this is a new area of concern within philosophy, which will be characterized in terms of self-objectification, which becomes “alienation” following Ernst Kapp’s philosophy of technology. The paper argues that intervening in the brain can affect how we conceptualize the mind and modify its predicaments.

In the contemporary debate about values, information technology constitutes an important source of hard ethical questions and in turn is a testing area for the moral theory of values. Values are difficult to track down and yet there are a number of inquiries starting from economics, social psychology, ethics, and political theory that engage with the cognitive, epistemic, and moral status of values. This paper is a contribution to an account of values in connection with information technology. It argues that information technology may provide further support to a theory of values that is able to embrace the transformative effects of the digital revolution. In particular, it is plausible that a non-ideal reflection on digital wrongdoings is better equipped to produce substantive knowledge about values that have been undermined than a different approach focused on ideal guiding values. Moreover, information technology overcomes the vaunted fact/value dichotomy and supports the fact/value entanglement. As the principal concern of data-mining and machine-learning communities are ways of remedying a remarkable number of biases and conformism in techno-social systems, it is within the bounds of possibility to supplement the non-ideal theory from this new practical angle. I therefore call for a fully conceptual consideration of values drawing on the experience and reflection that is growing in the field of information technology.

This paper examines how anthropocentric assumptions shape the normative frameworks of both AI ethics and environmental ethics, arguing that each domain is dependent on a distinct form of anthropocentric abstraction that is increasingly conceptually unstable. In environmental ethics, anthropocentrism is frequently critiqued as an ontological and moral limitation that obscures nonhuman entities and downplays ecological interdependence. By contrast, the European approach to AI ethics – grounded in principles of trustworthy AI, transparency, risk-based regulation, and the protection of fundamental rights – tends to reaffirm an anthropocentric framework, prioritizing human values, rights, and responsibilities in addressing algorithmic opacity, bias, and environmental impacts, while largely overlooking a critical perspective on the shortcomings and harms perpetrated in the name of a misguided or overly narrow understanding of human-centeredness. Drawing on metaethical resources, the paper disentangles the implicit conceptions of the “human” operative in each domain. It argues that both domains grapple with abstract conceptions of the human, either as the telos of nature – occupying a privileged, central role as if all of creation were oriented toward human flourishing – or as fundamentally defined by moral agency, marked by the capacity of being morally responsible for actions, omissions, consequences, and emotions. These tensions highlight the need for an approach that critically engages with the idea of human-centeredeness, while resisting reliance on a merely assumed – and often contested – appeal to “the human”. By clarifying how different anthropocentric models operate across ethical contexts, the paper contributes to a more coherent and critically human-centered ethical framework for addressing both technological and ecological challenges.

This book explores one of the most pressing questions of our time: what becomes of human autonomy when algorithms and artificial intelligence systems are no longer just tools but rather actors in medicine, care, education, mobility, and even warfare? By confronting the philosophical, ethical, and practical implications of so-called “autonomous” machines, it opens a critical space to rethink what autonomy means for humans today. Rather than framing the encounter with artificial agents in oppositional terms, humans versus machines, the volume advances a dialogical and co-evolutionary approach. Contributors from moral philosophy, gender studies, phenomenology, philosophy of technology, and medical humanities investigate how AI refracts our understanding of freedom, self-determination, and responsibility. Covering a variety of AI applications, including recommender systems, autonomous vehicles, avatars, predictive medicine, and algorithmic decision-making, the essays address the risks of manipulation and dependency as well as the transformative opportunities for reshaping autonomy as a relational, situated, and dynamic process. With special attention to relational autonomy and feminist theory, the volume challenges the reductionist view of autonomy as an individual possession, emphasizing instead its negotiation within networks of care, technology, and power. Aimed at scholars, researchers, and advanced students in philosophy, ethics, AI studies, and the medical humanities, as well as policymakers, engineers, and healthcare professionals concerned with the ethical design and governance of intelligent systems, this book provides the conceptual tools to navigate the ethical challenges of intelligent systems. It is an essential resource for anyone concerned with the future of human freedom in an age increasingly defined by algorithms.