•  21
    Ethics of generative AI and manipulation: a design-oriented research agenda
    Ethics and Information Technology 26 (1): 1-15. 2024.
    Generative AI enables automated, effective manipulation at scale. Despite the growing general ethical discussion around generative AI, the specific manipulation risks remain inadequately investigated. This article outlines essential inquiries encompassing conceptual, empirical, and design dimensions of manipulation, pivotal for comprehending and curbing manipulation risks. By highlighting these questions, the article underscores the necessity of an appropriate conceptualisation of manipulation t…Read more
  •  23
    Algorithmic Transparency and Manipulation
    Philosophy and Technology 36 (4): 1-20. 2023.
    A series of recent papers raises worries about the manipulative potential of algorithmic transparency (to wit, making visible the factors that influence an algorithm’s output). But while the concern is apt and relevant, it is based on a fraught understanding of manipulation. Therefore, this paper draws attention to the ‘indifference view’ of manipulation, which explains better than the ‘vulnerability view’ why algorithmic transparency has manipulative potential. The paper also raises pertinent r…Read more
  •  1011
    Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly adopted in society, creating numerous opportunities but at the same time posing ethical challenges. Many of these are familiar, such as issues of fairness, responsibility and privacy, but are presented in a new and challenging guise due to our limited ability to steer and predict the outputs of AI systems. This chapter first introduces these ethical challenges, stressing that overviews of values are a good starting point but frequently fail to suffice…Read more
  •  11
    Not a Good Fix: Constitutivism on Value Change and Disagreement
    with Ibo van de Poel
    Erkenntnis 1-18. forthcoming.
    We examine whether Thomsonian constitutivism, a metaethical view that analyses value in terms of ‘goodness-fixing kinds,’ i.e. kinds that themselves set the standards for being a good instance of the respective kind, offers a satisfactory explanation of value change and disagreement. While value disagreement has long been considered an important explanandum, we introduce value change as a closely related but distinct phenomenon of metaethical interest. We argue that constitutivism fails to expla…Read more
  •  23
    Moral Luck and Unfair Blame
    Journal of Value Inquiry 57 (4): 701-717. 2023.
  •  25
    Pragmatism and Moral Objectivity
    European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 13 (2). 2021.
    Most non-robust-realist metaethical theories, such as expressivism, constructivism, and non-robust forms of realism, claim to retain a sense of objectivity in ethics. A persistent issue for these theories is to identify an objective criterion for moral truth that meets their objectivist aspiration. Objectivist aspirations are often probed by confronting non-realists with abject normative positions, such as those of rational racists, which are licensed by the framework of the respective non-reali…Read more
  •  54
    The power of technology to transform religions, science, and political institutions has often been presented as nothing short of revolutionary. Does technology have a similarly transformative influence on societies’ morality? Scholars have not rigorously investigated the role of technology in moral revolutions, even though existing research on technomoral change suggests that this role may be considerable. In this paper, we explore what the role of technology in moral revolutions, understood as …Read more
  •  285
    Manipulation, injustice, and technology
    In Michael Klenk & Fleur Jongepier (eds.), The Philosophy of Online Manipulation, Routledge. pp. 108-131. 2022.
    This chapter defends the view that manipulated behaviour is explained by an injustice. Injustices that explain manipulated behaviour need not involve agential features such as intentionality. Therefore, technology can manipulate us, even if technological artefacts like robots, intelligent software agents, or other ‘mere tools’ lack agential features such as intentionality. The chapter thus sketches a comprehensive account of manipulated behaviour related to but distinct from existing accounts of…Read more
  •  3169
    The Philosophy of Online Manipulation (edited book)
    Routledge. 2022.
    Are we being manipulated online? If so, is being manipulated by online technologies and algorithmic systems notably different from human forms of manipulation? And what is under threat exactly when people are manipulated online? This volume provides philosophical and conceptual depth to debates in digital ethics about online manipulation. The contributions explore the ramifications of our increasingly consequential interactions with online technologies such as online recommender systems, social …Read more
  •  81
    In the last few decades, several philosophers have written on the topic of moral revolutions, distinguishing them from other kinds of society-level moral change. This article surveys recent accounts of moral revolutions in moral philosophy. Different authors use quite different criteria to pick out moral revolutions. Features treated as relevant include radicality, depth or fundamentality, pervasiveness, novelty and particular causes. We also characterize the factors that have been proposed to c…Read more
  •  332
    Moral Luck and Unfair Blame
    Journal of Value Inquiry 1-17. 2021.
    Moral luck occurs when factors beyond an agent’s control affect her blameworthiness. Several scholars deny the existence of moral luck by distinguishing judging blameworthy from blame-related practices. Luck does not affect an agent’s blameworthiness because morality is conceptually fair, but it can affect the appropriate degree of blame for that agent. While separatism resolves the paradox of moral luck, we aim to show it that it needs amendment, because it is unfair to treat two equally blamew…Read more
  •  303
    Moral Judgement and Moral Progress: The Problem of Cognitive Control
    Philosophical Psychology 34 (7): 938-961. 2021.
    We propose a fundamental challenge to the feasibility of moral progress: most extant theories of progress, we will argue, assume an unrealistic level of cognitive control people must have over their moral judgments for moral progress to occur. Moral progress depends at least in part on the possibility of individual people improving their moral cognition to eliminate the pernicious influence of various epistemically defective biases and other distorting factors. Since the degree of control people…Read more
  •  721
    This article argues that manipulation is negligent influence. Manipulation is negligent in the sense that manipulators do not chose their method of influence because for its potential to reveal reasons to their victims. Thus, manipulation is a lack of care, or negligence, exclusively understood exclusively in terms of how one influences. That makes the proposed account superior to the most influential alternative, which analyses manipulation disjunctively as violation of several distinct types o…Read more
  •  437
    The Influence of Situational Factors in Sacrificial Dilemmas on Utilitarian Moral Judgments
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13 (3): 593-625. 2022.
    The standard way to test alternative descriptive theories of moral judgment is by asking subjects to evaluate (amongst others) sacrificial dilemmas, where acting classifies as a utilitarian moral judgment and not acting classifies as a deontological moral judgment. Previous research uncovered many situational factors that alter subject’s moral judgments without affecting which type of action utilitarianism or deontology would recommend. This literature review provides a systematic analysis of th…Read more
  •  616
    (Online) Manipulation: Sometimes Hidden, Always Careless
    Review of Social Economy. forthcoming.
    Ever-increasing numbers of human interactions with intelligent software agents, online and offline, and their increasing ability to influence humans have prompted a surge in attention toward the concept of (online) manipulation. Several scholars have argued that manipulative influence is always hidden. But manipulation is sometimes overt, and when this is acknowledged the distinction between manipulation and other forms of social influence becomes problematic. Therefore, we need a better concept…Read more
  •  528
    Debunking, Epistemic Achievement, and Undermining Defeat
    American Philosophical Quarterly 59 (1): 43-60. 2022.
    Several anti-debunkers have argued that evolutionary explanations of our moral beliefs fail to meet a necessary condition on undermining defeat called modal security. They conclude that evolution, therefore, does not debunk our moral beliefs. This article shows that modal security is false if knowledge is virtuous achievement. New information can undermine a given belief without providing reason to doubt that that belief is sensitive or safe. This leads to a novel conception of undermining defea…Read more
  •  48
    COVID-19, uncertainty, and moral experiments
    History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 43 (1): 1-5. 2021.
    Pandemics like COVID-19 confront us with decisions about life and death that come with great uncertainty, factual as well as moral. How should policy makers deal with such uncertainty? We suggest that rather than to deliberate until they have found the right course of action, they better do moral experiments that generate relevant experiences to enable more reliable moral evaluations and rational decisions.
  •  327
    Why Metaethics Needs Empirical Moral Psychology
    Critica 52 (155): 27-54. 2020.
    What is the significance of empirical moral psychology for metaethics? In this article we take up Michael Ruse’s evolutionary debunking argument against moral realism and reassess it in the context of the empirical state of the art. Ruse’s argument depends on the phenomenological presumption that people generally experience morality as objective. We demonstrate how recent experimental findings challenge this widely-shared armchair presumption and conclude that Ruse’s argument fails. We situate t…Read more
  •  209
    Prometheus' Legacy: Responsibility and Technology
    In Birgit Recki (ed.), Welche Technik?, Text & Dialog. pp. 23-40. 2020.
    A prominent view in contemporary philosophy of technology suggests that more technology implies more possibilities and, therefore, more responsibilities. Consequently, the question ‘What technology?’ is discussed primarily on the backdrop of assessing, assigning, and avoiding technology-borne culpability. The view is reminiscent of the Olympian gods’ vengeful and harsh reaction to Prometheus’ play with fire. However, the Olympian view leaves unexplained how technologies increase possibilities. A…Read more
  •  344
    Ethics of digital contact tracing and COVID-19: who is (not) free to go?
    with Hein Duijf
    Ethics and Information Technology 23 (1): 69-77. 2020.
    Digital tracing technologies are heralded as an effective way of containing SARS-CoV-2 faster than it is spreading, thereby allowing the possibility of easing draconic measures of population-wide quarantine. But existing technological proposals risk addressing the wrong problem. The proper objective is not solely to maximise the ratio of people freed from quarantine but to also ensure that the composition of the freed group is fair. We identify several factors that pose a risk for fair group com…Read more
  •  27
    Empirical moral psychology is sometimes dismissed as normatively insignificant because it plays no decisive role in settling ethical disputes. But that conclusion, even if it is valid for normative ethics, does not extend to bioethics. First, in contrast to normative ethics, bioethics can legitimately proceed from a presupposed moral framework. Within that framework, moral psychology can be shown to play four significant roles: it can improve bioethicists’ understanding of the decision situation…Read more
  •  55
    Current academic philosophy is being challenged from several angles. Subdisciplinary specialisations often make it challenging to articulate philosophy’s relevance for the societal questions of our day. Additionally, the success of the ‘scientific method’ puts pressure on philosophers to articulate their methods and specify how these can be successful. How does philosophical progress come about? What can philosophy contribute to our understanding of today’s world? Moreover, can it also contribut…Read more
  •  197
    Omnivores and Synthesisers: Academic Philosophers as Interdisciplinary Specialists
    In Wouter Floria Kalf, Michael Klenk, Jeroen Hopster & Julia Hermann (eds.), Philosophy in the Age of Science?: Inquiries Into Philosophical Progress, Method, and Societal Relevance, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 173-194. 2020.
    I stipulate that an academic discipline is societally relevant insofar as it helps to resolve a society’s real problems. What makes such a view correct depends on meta-normative views. I show how one’s meta-normative view significantly determines the likelihood that disciplinary philosophy is of societal relevance. On normative non-naturalism, normative naturalism, and normative scepticism, the societal relevance of philosophy is in doubt. I then argue that philosophers should aim for two remedi…Read more
  •  82
    How Do Technological Artefacts Embody Moral Values?
    Philosophy and Technology 34 (3): 525-544. 2020.
    According to some philosophers of technology, technology embodies moral values in virtue of its functional properties and the intentions of its designers. But this paper shows that such an account makes the values supposedly embedded in technology epistemically opaque and that it does not allow for values to change. Therefore, to overcome these shortcomings, the paper introduces the novel Affordance Account of Value Embedding as a superior alternative. Accordingly, artefacts bear affordances, th…Read more
  •  742
    Autonomy and Online Manipulation
    with Jeff Hancock
    Internet Policy Review 1 1-11. 2019.
    More and more researchers argue that online technologies manipulate human users and, therefore, undermine their autonomy. We call this the MAL view on online technology because it argues from Manipulation to Autonomy-Loss. MAL enjoys public visibility and will shape the academic discussion to come. This view of online technology, however, fails conceptually. MAL presupposes that manipulation equals autonomy loss, and that autonomy is the absence of manipulation. That is mistaken. In short, an in…Read more
  •  3257
    Evolutionary Ethics
    Introduction to Philosophy: Ethics. 2019.
    This chapter first introduces naturalistic approaches to ethics more generally and distinguishes methodological ethical naturalism (the focus of this chapter), from metaphysical ethical naturalism. The second part then discusses evolutionary ethics as a specific variant of methodological ethical naturalism. After introducing the concepts of evolutionary theory that are relevant for evolutionary ethics, I will sketch the history of evolutionary ethics, which offers an interesting lesson about why…Read more
  •  1216
    Social media use is soaring globally. Existing research of its ethical implications predominantly focuses on the relationships amongst human users online, and their effects. The nature of the software-to-human relationship and its impact on digital well-being, however, has not been sufficiently addressed yet. This paper aims to close the gap. I argue that some intelligent software agents, such as newsfeed curator algorithms in social media, manipulate human users because they do not intend their…Read more
  •  381
    Most epistemologists maintain that we are rationally required to believe what our evidence supports. Generally speaking, any factor that makes it more probable that a given state of affairs obtains (or does not obtain) is evidence (for that state of affairs). In line with this view, many metaethicists believe that we are rationally required to believe what’s morally right and wrong based on what our moral evidence (e.g. our moral intuitions, along with descriptive information about the world) su…Read more
  •  69
    Thomas Pölzler, Moral Reality and the Empirical Sciences (review)
    International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 11 (1): 78-86. 2019.
    Thomas Pölzler’s book offers the first detailed study that focuses explicitly on the promise of science-based arguments for and against moral realism (of both the natural and non-natural kind). His two central claims are that sound arguments bearing on the realism/anti-realism debate are possible, and, yet, that four central attempts to derive metaethical conclusions from science-based arguments uniformly fail. The book then provides several recommendations for future science-based contributions…Read more