Jun Kyung You

Analytic philosophy has been developing in China for over a century, and philosophers shaped by the analytic tradition have grown into an important philosophical community in China. The views of contemporary analytic philosophers in China on central philosophical issues and their similarities and differences with analytic philosophers in English-speaking countries have not been systematically investigated. Bourget and Chalmers have conducted two large-scale online questionnaire surveys on analytic philosophers in English-speaking countries. Inspired by their studies, a survey on analytic philosophers in China was performed. It is found that philosophers in China had no agreement on most issues. According to the comparative analysis with the results of Bourget and Chalmers’ second survey, there were significant differences in views as well as thinking styles between analytic philosophers in China and English-speaking countries. And these differences may be partially explained by cultural factors and academic environments.

In this paper, I argue that the replication of the effect of ethical decision-making is insufficient for achieving functional morality in artificial moral agents (AMAs). This approach is named the “as–if” approach to machine ethics. I object to this approach on the grounds that the “as if” approach requires one to commit to substantive meta-ethical claims about morality that are at least unwarranted, and perhaps even wrong. To defend this claim, this paper does three things: 1. I explain Heidegger’s Enframing [Gestell] and my notion of “Ready-Ethics,” which, in combination, can hopefully provide a plausible account for the motivation behind the “as if” approach; 2. I go over specific examples of Ethical AI projects to show how the “as if” approach commits these projects to versions of moral generalism and moral naturalism. I then explain the flaws of the views that the “as if” approach necessitates, and suggest that they cannot account for the justificatory process crucial to human moral life. I explain how Habermas’ account of the justificatory process could cast doubt on the picture of morality that the meta-ethical views of the “as if” approach proposes; 3. Finally, I defend the relevance of discussing these topics for the purpose of functional morality in AMAs.