Morgan Luck

In a recent paper, Sparrow and Flenady (AI Soc 40:5285–5296, 2025) argue that the use of GenAI in tertiary education should be resisted. Sparrow and Flenady give many reasons for such resistance, but they say that ‘[t]he most important reason to resist the use of AI in universities is that its outputs are fundamentally bullshit…’. In this paper, we take issue with this claim. We argue that (a) GenAI cannot bullshit, and (b) bullshit is often compatible with the goals of tertiary education. The upshot is that we need to look at other considerations besides whether the outputs of GenAI are bullshit to determine whether and how to integrate GenAI into university education.

Sometimes actions that are (morally) impermissible in the actual world also seem impermissible in virtual worlds. For example, rape is impermissible in the actual world, and it also seems impermissible to direct a videogame character to rape another in a virtual world. But sometimes actions that are impermissible in the actual world seem permissible in virtual worlds. For example, stealing is impermissible in the actual world, but it may seem permissible to direct your video game character to steal another character’s possessions in a virtual world. This asymmetry has complicated the task of finding the line between permissible and impermissible gameplay. So, how should we play video games while this line remains unclear? Is there a way of playing games that ensures our actions are permissible? In this paper we consider a promising moral principle that might guarantee permissible gameplay.

Extremism often carries “an unmissable and inescapable negative connotation” (Cassam 2021, p.34) and has become “an increasingly convenient insult” (Berger 2018, p.2). But what exactly is wrong with being an extremist? One answer is that the wrongness of being an extremist comes, at least in part, from the extremeness of their beliefs. I assess two arguments, offered by Clarke (2019) and Coady (2024), which reject this view and go further by suggesting that being an extremist is never, in itself, wrong. Drawing on two contrasting accounts of what it means for a belief to be extreme (the edge and outlier accounts) I reconstruct Clarke and Coady’s arguments and explore their implications. I conclude that, although their defence of extremism overreaches, there are nonetheless reasons to challenge the idea that holding extreme beliefs is wrong.

This paper is about the workplace surveillance of a particular class of employees: professionals. Professionals have professional obligations. We identify four different ways in which employers' use of workplace surveillance can make it difficult for professionals to fulfil professional obligations. We argue that when employers proceed in these ways they violate the principle of unhindered professionalism, which states that employers ought not to significantly hinder the ability of their professional employees to fulfil professional obligations. We finish up by identifying several constraints on morally permissible uses of workplace surveillance of professionals that follow from the principle of unhindered professionalism.

Artificial moral patients (or AMPs) are those things successfully made to resemble moral patients, but are not. They are artificial both in the sense that they are made by us (artefacts), and that they are not a real instance of what they are made to resemble (artifice). ChatGPT, sex dolls, social robots, and non-player characters are all examples of AMPs. As these technologies start to resemble humans with greater accuracy the question as to how we should treat them becomes increasingly important. We consider whether work on the Gamer's Dilemma, a puzzle concerning virtual wrongdoings, may provide a useful framework for addressing this question.

One response to the existential threat posed by a super-intelligent AI is to design it to be friendly to us. Some have argued that even if this were possible, the resulting AI would treat us as we do our pets. Sparrow (AI & Soc. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01698-x, 2023) argues that this would be a bad outcome, for such an AI would dominate us—resulting in our freedom being diminished (Pettit in Just freedom: A moral compass for a complex world. WW Norton & Company, 2014). In this paper, I consider whether this would be such a bad outcome.

Coghlan and Cox (Between death and suffering: Resolving the gamer’s dilemma. Ethics and Information Technology) offer a new resolution to the Gamer’s Dilemma (Luck, The Gamer’s Dilemma. Ethics and Information Technology). They argue that, while it is fitting for a person committing virtual child molestation to feel self-repugnance, it is not fitting for a person committing virtual murder to feel the same, and the fittingness of this feeling indicates each act’s moral permissibility. The aim of this paper is to determine whether this resolution – the repugnant resolution – successfully resolves the Gamer’s Dilemma. We argue that it does not.

The Gamer’s Dilemma (Luck, 2009a) is a paradox concerning the moral permissibility of two types of acts performed within computer games. Some attempt to resolve the dilemma by finding a relevant difference between these two acts (Bartel, 2012; Patridge, 2013; Young, 2016; Nader, 2020; Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, 2020; and Milne & Ivankovic, 2021), or to dissolve the dilemma by arguing that the permissibility of these acts is not as they seem (Ali, 2015; Ramirez, 2020). More recently some have attempted to resist the dilemma by undermining the intuitions supporting it (Montefiore & Formosa, 2022; Formosa et al., 2023). The purpose of this paper is to consider what might follow from such resistance.

One response to the existential threat posed by a super-intelligent AI is to design it to be friendly to us. Some have argued that even if this were possible, the resulting AI would treat us as we do our pets. Sparrow (AI & Soc. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01698-x, 2023) argues that this would be a bad outcome, for such an AI would dominate us—resulting in our freedom being diminished (Pettit in Just freedom: A moral compass for a complex world. WW Norton & Company, 2014). In this paper, I consider whether this would be such a bad outcome.

Montefiore and Formosa (Ethics Inf Technol 24:31, 2022) provide a useful way of narrowing the Gamer’s Dilemma to cases where virtual murder seems morally permissible, but not virtual child molestation. They then resist the dilemma by theorising that the intuitions supporting it are not moral. In this paper, I consider this theory to determine whether the dilemma has been successfully resisted. I offer reason to think that, when considering certain variations of the dilemma, Montefiore and Formosa’s theory may not be the most likely theory available to us.

Purpose This paper aims to evaluate a potential resolution to the gamer’s dilemma that arises from Gary Young’s metaethical theory of constructive ecumenical expressivism (CEE). Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the gamer’s dilemma is reformulated as a paradox and the potential resolution is evaluated in light of this new formulation. Findings The author argues that this resolution does resolve the dilemma, but CEE itself has limited appeal. Originality/value This paper contributes to the growing scholarship dedicated to resolving the gamer’s dilemma.

abstract Intuitively, all killings are equally wrong, no matter how old one's victim. In this paper we defend this claim — The Equal Wrongness of Killings Thesis — against a challenge presented by Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen. Lippert-Rasmussen shows The Equal Wrongness of Killings Thesis to be incompatible with two further theses: The Unequal Wrongness of Renderings Unconscious Thesis and The Equivalence Thesis. Lippert-Rasmussen argues that, of the three, The Equal Wrongness of Killings Thesis is the least defensible. He suggests that the most convincing considerations apparently in favour of the Equal Wrongness thesis may be satisfied just as well if we adopt an alternative principle, a 'Prioritarian View' about the wrongness of killing. We argue that The Prioritarian View does not resolve the trilemma: it too is inconsistent with the other two theses. Instead, we argue, the most plausible resolution of the trilemma involves a rejection, rather, of The Unequal Wrongness of Renderings Unconscious Thesis. In its place, we offer an attractive principle that is compatible with both The Equal Wrongness of Killings Thesis as well as The Equivalence Thesis.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to outline a case where people's intuitions regarding the ethical status of an action performed in a massively multiplayer online role‐playing game are divided, and provide an argument to resolve this division.Design/methodology/approachThis paper takes a philosophical approach, from the analytical tradition. It details the main arguments for each side and provides counter‐arguments in order to indicate the salient points.FindingsThe paper argues that, of the three arguments for the morality of particular virtual action outlined in this paper, none are satisfactory. An argument for the immorality of the action in questions based upon the fairness/sportsmanship distinction is offered.Originality/valueThe development of case‐based ethical studies, which draw upon current and controversial events within popular virtual environments, are useful in the construction of a deeper understanding of moral action within such spaces.

In this paper we consider whether Christopher Bartel has resolved the gamer’s dilemma. The gamer’s dilemma highlights a discrepancy in our moral judgements about the permissibility of performing certain actions in computer games. Many gamers have the intuition that virtual murder is permissible in computer games, whereas virtual paedophilia is not. Yet finding a relevant moral distinction to ground such intuitions can be difficult. Bartel suggests a relevant moral distinction may turn on the notion that virtual paedophilia harms women in a way that virtual murder does not. We argue that this distinction is only in a position to provide a partial solution to the dilemma

In this paper, I evaluate an argument offered by Per Norström in section 8 of his paper Knowing how, knowing that, knowing technology. The argument is for the proposition that some instance of knowing how is not an instance of knowing that; the instance in question being one of technological know-how. This conclusion contradicts Stanley and Williamson’s proposal that all instances of knowing how are instances of knowing that. I provide reason to think that there are problems with Norström’s argument.