Manh-Tung Ho

Many artificial intelligence tools replace or stand to replace human activity, via automated decision-making, recommender systems and content generation. The more artificial intelligence (AI) replaces valuable human activity, the more it risks deskilling humans of their human capacities. This paper argues for applying a structural perspective to this phenomenon. It introduces the concept of ‘capacity-hostile environments’ to identify instances where AI mediation impedes human capacity cultivation. The analysis moves beyond individual responsibility that agents have to cultivate their human capacities, demonstrating how AI’s influence creates systemic conditions that could inhibit the development and exercise of human capacities by undermining the process of capacity cultivation. Drawing on the philosophy of skill as well as social epistemology, this paper argues that capacity cultivation (skilling) includes acquiring agential control over the capacities, inculcated through a long, gradual process of habituation. Habituation, in turn, depends on learning from others: the ‘know how’ of the skill, as well as a shared understanding of the value of the skill. AI mediation risks undermining the quality of the conditions for capacity habituation, leading to capacity impoverishment. By exploring the role of AI in mediating human activity, the paper highlights the need to evaluate AI applications based on their conduciveness or hostility to capacity cultivation. Ultimately, it calls for a critical reflection on the values inherent in AI socio-technical systems and emphasizes the societal obligation to foster capacity-conducive environments in the age of AI.

How can liberal thinking deal with identity and recognition matters in politics? This long-standing question in political philosophy has gained new relevance and urgency in the face of issues concerning offense and censorship in digital social media, especially in the light of the use of AI. Typically, there are two competing views on this issue: a classical liberal one, according to which identity has no place in politics and free speech is paramount, and the more recent view that personal and group identity and recognition should be important, if not central, in liberal politics (for example when it comes to issues of justice) and that free speech should be regulated accordingly, for instance to avoid offense and create safe online spaces. The latter view has become increasingly popular among left liberals, but also stretches or, according to some, transgresses, the boundaries of liberalism. Usually, a mix of both positions is used to justify current digital tech policy. This paper proposes a third position, which is not just a mix of both positions but which is conceptually more innovative: making a distinction between politics and politiquette, which in analogy to etiquette is about “soft” values and norms such as respect, moderation, openness, and tolerance as opposed to “hard” political rights and liberal political principles such as freedom and justice, it argues that identity and recognition claims have a place in politiquette (next to the private sphere) and that politiquette helps to create the conditions for politics but is not itself political. Whatever other “hard” reasons there may be to create such conditions, politiquette is one sufficient reason. In this way, the paper attempts to carve out a conceptual space for identity and recognition, while retaining a liberal position. After outlining the position, a discussion of potential objections enables further clarification and refinement of the position as well as more engagement with relevant contemporary work.

Battlefield data have become a critical asset in contemporary defence. Yet there is a gap in the relevant literature, whilst it addresses various aspects of defence data management—including cybersecurity, interoperability, and decision-making support—it overlooks how these data should be collected, curated, and accessed to enhance the responsible development of AI-enabled defence capabilities. This article addresses this gap first by reviewing existing data policies strategies of NATO and Five Eyes Member States to assess the extent to which they focus on battlefield data, and then by outlining how national defence organisations should manage these data to maximise their strategic value whilst mitigating the attendant ethical, legal, and social risks. We argue that due to their non-rivalrous, artificially excludable nature, battlefield data should be conceptualised as an artificial club good and that national defence organisations have ethical obligations to act as club manager to leverage the potential of these data to develop more robust, reliable and controllable AI defence capabilities. We conclude the analysis proposing two sets of policy recommendations to aid national defence organisations in discharging their responsibilities as club managers for battlefield data.

An attempt to survey all non-western AI ethics guidelines that are available either in English or in Thai was made to find out whether there are any cultural elements within them that could shed light on how we understand their backgrounds and how these elements could advance the discussion on intercultural ethics of technology. The cultural elements are found to be superficially universal in that they retain the language used in the guidelines found in the west but contain interestingly unique cultural elements when probed deeper. For example, many non-western guidelines have an injunction “Be ethical” without specifying the content of the ethical in question. We present an analysis of this and other unique aspects of the non-western guidelines in terms of broad cultural traditions that inform the guidelines and their drafters. This leads to a normative argument that what is understood to be universal in intercultural ethics is in fact based on the desire of many cultures to live and work together, and not, as ethical universalists seem to argue, on some culture-transcendent standard of morality.

This paper introduces "EnvironMentalism," a novel theoretical framework that foregrounds the constitutive role of material environments in shaping mental health and illness. Drawing on principles from Material Engagement Theory and situated cognition, we argue that mental disorders—exemplified by schizophrenia—cannot be fully understood without considering the dynamic and reciprocal interactions between brain, body, and the affordances of the surrounding physical environment. We distinguish between weak and strong versions of EnvironMentalism, advocating for the latter as a more integrative, process-oriented approach to the study of self-disorders. Strong EnvironMentalism challenges internalist models of psychopathology by conceptualizing the self as a relational and ecologically embedded process. Through empirical and theoretical examples, we demonstrate how this perspective can reconfigure our understanding of psychopathological phenomena and open new avenues for research and clinical intervention.

In the ethics of artificial intelligence literature, there is increasing attention to knowledge-related issues such as explainability, bias, and epistemic bubbles. This paper investigates epistemic problems raised by AI and their normative implications through the lens of the concept of epistemic agency. How is epistemic agency impacted by AI? The paper argues that the use of artificial intelligence and data science, while offering more information, risks to influence the formation and revision of our beliefs in ways that diminish our epistemic agency. Using examples of someone who struggles to revise her beliefs, the paper discusses several intended and non-intended influences. It analyses these problems by engaging with the literature on epistemic agency and on the political epistemology of digital technologies, discussing the ethical and political consequences, and indicates some directions for technology and education policy.

In the recent debate on political normativity in political philosophy, two positions have emerged among so-called political realists. On the first ‘non-moral’ view, political normativity is understood as orthogonal to moral normativity. On the second ‘filter view’, moral norms and prescriptions may be ‘filtered through’ the realities of politics such that they are altered by politics’ constitutive features. While the former has been severely criticized, the latter has remained underdeveloped and vague. To take the debate on political normativity forward, the aim in this paper is to explore what it could reasonably mean to claim that moral norms are filtered through politics and are aligned with its constitutive features. More specifically, we explore the role of moral norms in political theory. We take our starting-point in Larmore’s work and make two claims. First, we argue against Larmore’s claim – following political realists – that because political philosophy is concerned with the regulation of basic institutions and legal-political orders, it should primarily focus on political legitimacy rather than justice and always focus on legitimacy before justice. In our view, nothing in the constitutive features of politics supports such a conclusion. Second, we argue that any reasonable political theory relies on at least one moral premise, constituted by foundational principles (or values), which are independent of a society or polity. These are more basic than political principles in the sense that they put up the normative boundary conditions for such principles.

Statements of degree appear to falsify basic doctrines in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I offer a fresh formulation of the challenge and assess a solution proposed on Wittgenstein’s behalf by Sarah Moss. I find that Moss’s proposal fails. The proposal rides in part on novel interpretations of pronouncements by Wittgenstein on the nature of the elementary proposition. I find that the interpretations cannot be sustained but that Moss’s textual case hints at important and overlooked features of the Tractarian program. I develop Wittgenstein’s comparison of propositions to measuring instruments and apply it throughout, showing that it captures philosophical commitments in Tractatus that otherwise tend to slip from view.