Kęstutis Mosakas

The present paper investigates the relationship between the European Commission’s policy vision for standardisation and current educational practices in European universities. The study is motivated by the following observation: although EU policy documents emphasise the need for a human-centric and responsible approach to standardisation, including the integration of ethical and societal considerations, recent research reveals that these aspects are largely absent in the teaching portfolios of recognised standardisation educators in European universities. More so, the educators find it difficult to understand how to assess or ensure that their teaching complies with the policy-invited orientation. This work examines the relevant EU policy documents to understand how the notion of responsible standardisation is framed and proposes a solution that emphasises the inclusion of specific values in standardisation education. This involves enlisting the rather abstract EU core values and interests and translating them into more tangible and familiar concepts for educators, such as competencies, knowledge, and skills, on the basis of a value-based Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) framework. Since ILOs are traditionally used for aligning educational programmes with labour market and policy demands, they offer a practical tool for this transformation. By identifying current knowledge gaps and proposing actionable solutions, this paper advances the discourse on responsible standardisation and lays the groundwork for implementing value-based education about standardisation, fostering the development of educational models that reflect novel societal needs, ethical values, and support the EU’s political vision for value-based standardisation.

This chapter delves into the notion of rights and other interconnected moral concepts central to the research topic. It commences by providing a general definition of rights and then explores various other aspects of the rights discourse, including the distinction between moral and legal rights, the structure and normative function of rights, debates concerning their ontological foundation, and challenges to the doctrine of rights. The presented perspective on moral rights emphasizes their status as justified moral claims of high priority, distinct from legal rights, and universally valid and binding from the standpoint of moral agents. The chapter also explores the relationship between moral rights and other related concepts such as moral status and moral considerability, maintaining that only entities with moral status can possess moral rights, thus embedding the subsequent discussions on robot rights within this conceptual framework.

This chapter introduces the monograph by exploring the research areas of robot rights and the human moral treatment of robots. It addresses criticisms and skepticism toward these topics, providing justifications for their significance. The chapter argues that robot rights research is crucial for future advancements in robotics, serves as a valuable thought experiment for refining moral principles, and is of growing interest among scholars. Finally, it highlights the monograph’s contributions to existing literature, outlines key methodological assumptions, and presents a brief overview of the book.

This chapter shifts the focus to the relational dimension of moral consideration, juxtaposing it with properties-based views. It first explores purely relational approaches to moral consideration that prioritize extrinsic relations over intrinsic properties. The chapter argues against these relational perspectives by highlighting their implausible implications in cases of social isolation and their tendency toward moral relativism, among other issues. As an alternative, it proposes a middle ground that integrates both properties and relations into moral consideration. This hybrid approach recognizes the importance of properties such as sentience and sapience, while also acknowledging that one can come to possess intrinsic value through certain morally significant relationships. By embracing this approach, the chapter seeks to account for the moral significance of sentient and sapient beings while addressing concerns of moral underinclusion associated with “properties-only” views.

This chapter challenges the view that even if artificial entities were to possess equivalent cognitive capacities to biological beings, they would still be morally less important. It examines (and rejects) possible arguments for this moral asymmetry based on differences in substrate, origins, duplicability, and perceived absence of special qualities in robots, like soul, free will, or dignity. The chapter argues that properties such as one’s origin or non-human nature are generally morally irrelevant and have no impact on one’s moral status or rights. Additionally, while other properties like duplicability or physical toughness of robots may influence how it is permissible to treat them, they do not imply lesser moral status or rights for machines. Finally, the chapter critiques arguments based on the absence of soul, free will, and dignity as philosophically dubious and thus unconvincing.

This chapter summarizes the key points addressed in the preceding chapters with a particular emphasis on the following aspects: (1) the consciousness criterion for moral status; (2) probabilistic reasoning about the presence of mentality in other entities; (3) legal personhood and moral decisions under uncertainty; (4) moral relations and a hybrid approach to moral consideration; (5) examination of arguments against machine moral considerability; (6) legal protection for anthropomorphic and zoomorphic (social) robots.

This chapter bridges theoretical analysis with practical implications, exploring the moral grounds for extending legal protection to robots. It considers the idea of granting legal personhood to sapient robots, arguing that if machines were to attain comparable cognitive capacities to humans, granting them legal rights would become a moral imperative. However, this proposal is bound to face practical challenges like the problem of other minds; hence, it is crucial to explore different approaches to moral decision making under uncertainty. The chapter contends that the risks associated with moral underinclusion outweigh those linked to overinclusion, ultimately advocating for a precautionary approach. Furthermore, it examines the notion of legal protection for robots with human- or animal-like appearance and interactive capacities (e.g., social robots), even if they have no moral status. Drawing on studies that reveal the human inclination to anthropomorphize machines, the chapter argues that allowing humans to freely abuse social robots could have detrimental effects on their own moral character and undermine social morality more generally. This provides a rationale for extending legal protection to social robots.

This chapter explores the fundamental aspects of moral status with a focus on the necessary and sufficient conditions for it. It posits that only phenomenally conscious beings can possess moral status and highlights two properties either of which is sufficient for it: sentience (the capacity for positively and negatively valenced experiences) and sapience (the capacity for self-awareness and rational autonomy). The chapter argues that purely functional interpretations of these properties render them morally vacuous, underscoring the necessity of consciousness for moral status. Addressing objections from scholars like David Gunkel and Mark Coeckelbergh, the chapter acknowledges the conditional validity of certain critiques but maintains that they do not successfully invalidate the consciousness criterion. Ultimately, the chapter concludes that there are compelling reasons to affirm the moral importance of consciousness and no comparably good reasons to reject it.

This chapter explores the intricate concepts of moral agency and moral patiency in the context of AI and robotics. It begins by examining the definition and categorizations of moral agency, with a specific focus on the notion of “mindless morality,” which posits that AI systems can be considered as moral agents irrespective of their possession of consciousness. The chapter critiques this view by challenging its underlying assumption that machine consciousness is fundamentally indeterminable. It then delves into the concept of moral patiency, addressing issues like instrumentalism and the animal-robot analogy. The chapter argues against crude instrumentalism and premature dismissal of the animal-robot analogy, given the many uncertainties surrounding the future developments in robotics.

This chapter covers basic definitions, predictions, and expectations in the fields of robotics and machine ethics. It starts by presenting a working definition of “intelligent robot” and then highlights the importance of examining ethical questions related to AI and robotics. By reviewing expert predictions and surveys on technological singularity and the likelihood of AI with broad capacities, the chapter underscores the need for proactive research on the ethical issues involved. It argues that the generally optimistic views of researchers about AI’s future impact further justify this exploration.

This chapter revisits the complex subject of machine consciousness, proposing a probabilities-based approach to detecting mental states in robots. It critiques the limitations of relying solely on a singular theory of consciousness and instead advocates for a broad framework based on probabilistic reasoning. This approach considers factors such as one’s outward behavior, cognitive architecture, and evolutionary similarities to human beings (in the case of biological entities) when attributing mentality to various entities. To demonstrate the application of this approach, the chapter presents a hypothetical scenario comparing two artificial entities and explains how their respective differences should influence our probability assignments. This example showcases how probabilistic reasoning can offer morally relevant insights in challenging cases, even if it ultimately fails to resolve existing philosophical disagreements regarding machine consciousness.

In recent years, the question of human moral duties toward robots has gained momentum in scholarly research due to great advancements in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. Although the current machines fall short of the level of sophistication and human likeness portrayed in science fiction (e.g., the Westworld series or the movie Blade Runner 2049), they are increasingly assuming roles in our society in various important areas, including manufacturing, healthcare, education, customer service, entertainment, and many others. This book makes a meaningful contribution to the ongoing philosophical discourse surrounding the moral treatment of robots. By providing a rigorous and systematic examination of key moral concepts (e.g., moral rights, moral status, moral considerability, and moral value) within the context of robotics and exploring other closely related issues (e.g., the moral implications of artificial consciousness and the associated epistemic challenges), this book offers fresh insights into the necessary and sufficient conditions for machine moral status and rights.

As we step into an era in which artificial intelligence systems are predicted to surpass human capabilities, a number of profound ethical questions have emerged. One such question, which has gained some traction in recent scholarship, concerns the ethics of human treatment of robots and the thought-provoking possibility of robot rights. The present article explores this very aspect, with a particular focus on the notion of human rights for robots. It argues that if we accept the widely held view that moral status and rights (including human rights) are grounded in certain cognitive capacities, then it follows that intelligent machines could, in principle, acquire these entitlements once they come to possess the requisite properties. In support of this perspective, the article outlines the moral foundations of human rights and examines several main objections, arguing that they do not successfully negate the prospect of considering robots as potential holders of human rights. Subsequently, it turns to the key epistemic challenges associated with moral status and rights for robots, outlining the main difficulties in discerning the presence of mental states in artificial entities and offering some practical considerations for approaching these challenges. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of establishing a suitable framework for moral decision-making under uncertainty in the context of human treatment of artificial entities, given the gravity of the epistemic problems surrounding the concepts of artificial consciousness, moral status, and rights.

While philosophers have been debating for decades on whether different entities—including severely disabled human beings, embryos, animals, objects of nature, and even works of art—can legitimately be considered as having moral status, this question has gained a new dimension in the wake of artificial intelligence (AI). One of the more imminent concerns in the context of AI is that of the moral rights and status of social robots, such as robotic caregivers and artificial companions, that are built to interact with human beings. In recent years, some approaches to moral consideration have been proposed that would include social robots as proper objects of moral concern, even though it seems unlikely that these machines are conscious beings. In the present paper, I argue against these approaches by advocating the “consciousness criterion,” which proposes phenomenal consciousness as a necessary condition for accrediting moral status. First, I explain why it is generally supposed that consciousness underlies the morally relevant properties (such as sentience) and then, I respond to some of the common objections against this view. Then, I examine three inclusive alternative approaches to moral consideration that could accommodate social robots and point out why they are ultimately implausible. Finally, I conclude that social robots should not be regarded as proper objects of moral concern unless and until they become capable of having conscious experience. While that does not entail that they should be excluded from our moral reasoning and decision-making altogether, it does suggest that humans do not owe direct moral duties to them.