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Moral Patienthood
Moral patienthood (also called moral patience, moral patiency, and moral status) is the state of being eligible for moral consideration by a moral agent. In other words, the morality of an action can depend on how it affects or relates to moral patients. Notions of moral patienthood in non-human animals and artificial entities have been academically explored. Definition Most authors define moral patients as "beings that are appropriate objects of direct moral concern". This category may include moral agents, and usually does include them. For instance, Charles Taliaferro says: "A moral agent is someone who can bring about events in ways that are praiseworthy or subject to blame. A moral patient is someone who can be morally mistreated. All moral agents are moral patients, but not all moral patients (human babies, some nonhuman animals) are moral agents." Narrow usage Some authors use the term in a more narrow sense, according to which moral patients are "beings who are approp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moral Agent
Moral agency is an individual's ability to make moral choices based on some notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions. A moral agent is "a being who is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong." Development and analysis Most philosophers suggest only rational beings, who can reason and form self-interested judgments, are capable of being moral agents. Some suggest those with limited rationality (for example, people who are mildly mentally disabled or infants) also have some basic moral capabilities. Determinists argue all of our actions are the product of antecedent causes, and some believe this is incompatible with free will and thus claim that we have no real control over our actions. Immanuel Kant argued that whether or not our real self, the noumenal self, can choose, we have no choice but to believe that we choose freely when we make a choice. This does not mean that we can ''control'' the effects of our actions. Some Indeter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Philanthropy
Open Philanthropy is a research and grantmaking foundation that makes grants based on the doctrine of effective altruism. It was founded as a partnership between GiveWell and Good Ventures. Its current co-chief executive officers are Holden Karnofsky and Alexander Berger, and its main funders are Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz. Dustin says that their wealth, worth $11 billion, is "pooled up around us right now, but it belongs to the world. We intend not to have much when we die." History Dustin Moskovitz made an $11 billion fortune through co-founding Facebook, and later Asana. He and his wife Cari Tuna were inspired by Peter Singer's ''The Life You Can Save'', and became the youngest couple to sign Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge, promising to give away most of their money. Tuna quit her journalist job at ''The Wall Street Journal'' to do philanthropy full-time, and the couple started the Good Ventures foundation in 2011. Good Ventures partnered with GiveW ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moral Circle Expansion
Moral circle expansion is the process of increasing the number and type of entities given moral consideration over time and potentially into the future. The general idea of moral inclusion was discussed by ancient philosophers and since the 19th century has inspired social movements related to human rights and animal rights. Especially in relation to animal rights, the philosopher Peter Singer has written about the subject since the 1970s, and since 2017 so has the think tank Sentience Institute, part of the 21st-century effective altruism movement. There is significant debate on whether humanity actually has an expanding moral circle, considering topics such as the lack of a uniform border of growing moral consideration and the disconnect between people's moral attitudes and their behavior. Research into the phenomenon is ongoing. History The moral circle was discussed as early as the 2nd century by Stoic philosopher Hierocles, who described in ''On Appropriate Acts'' the conce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethics Of Uncertain Sentience
The ethics of uncertain sentience refers to questions surrounding the treatment of and moral obligations towards individuals whose sentience—the capacity to subjectively sense and feel—and resulting ability to experience pain is uncertain; the topic has been particularly discussed within the field of animal ethics, with the precautionary principle frequently invoked in response. Views Animal ethics David Foster Wallace in his 2005 essay "Consider the Lobster" investigated the potential sentience and capacity of crustaceans to experience pain and the resulting ethical implications of eating them. In 2014, the philosopher Robert C. Jones explored the ethical question that Wallace raised, arguing that " en if one remains skeptical of crustacean sentience, when it comes to issues of welfare it would be most prudent to employ the precautionary principle regarding our treatment of these animals, erring on the side of caution". Maximilian Padden Elder takes a similar view ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artificial Sentience
Artificial consciousness (AC), also known as machine consciousness (MC) or synthetic consciousness (; ), is a field related to artificial intelligence and cognitive robotics. The aim of the theory of artificial consciousness is to "Define that which would have to be synthesized were consciousness to be found in an engineered artifact" . Neuroscience hypothesizes that consciousness is generated by the interoperation of various parts of the brain, called the neural correlates of consciousness or NCC, though there are challenges to that perspective. Proponents of AC believe it is possible to construct systems (e.g., computer systems) that can emulate this NCC interoperation. Artificial consciousness concepts are also pondered in the philosophy of artificial intelligence through questions about mind, consciousness, and mental states. Philosophical views As there are many hypothesized types of consciousness, there are many potential implementations of artificial consciousness. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argument From Marginal Cases
The argument from marginal cases (also known as the argument from species overlap) is a philosophical argument within animal rights theory regarding the moral status of non-human animals. Its proponents hold that if human infants, senile people, the comatose, and cognitively disabled people have direct moral status, non-human animals must have a similar status, since there is no known morally relevant characteristic that those marginal-case humans have that animals lack. "Moral status" may refer to a right not to be killed or made to suffer, or to a general moral requirement to be treated in a certain way. Although various cases are made for it, Raymond Frey has described the argument from marginal cases collectively as 'one of the most common arguments in support of an equal value' of animals lives. Overview of the argument The argument from marginal cases takes the form of a proof by contradiction. It attempts to show that you cannot coherently believe both that all humans have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Welfare
Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevity, disease, immunosuppression, behavior, physiology, and reproduction, although there is debate about which of these best indicate animal welfare. Respect for animal welfare is often based on the belief that nonhuman animals are sentient and that consideration should be given to their well-being or suffering, especially when they are under the care of humans. These concerns can include how animals are slaughtered for food, how they are used in scientific research, how they are kept (as pets, in zoos, farms, circuses, etc.), and how human activities affect the welfare and survival of wild species. There are two forms of criticism of the concept of animal welfare, coming from diametrically opposite positions. One view, held by some th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the same consideration as similar interests of human beings. Broadly speaking, and particularly in popular discourse, the term "animal rights" is often used synonymously with "animal protection" or "animal liberation". More narrowly, "animal rights" refers to the idea that many animals have fundamental rights to be treated with respect as individuals—rights to life, liberty, and freedom from torture that may not be overridden by considerations of aggregate welfare. Many advocates for animal rights oppose the assignment of moral value and fundamental protections on the basis of species membership alone. This idea, known as speciesism, is considered by them to be a prejudice as irrational as any other. They maintain that animals should no lon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sentience
Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations. The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin '' sentientem'' (a feeling), to distinguish it from the ability to think (''reason''). In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations. In different Asian religions, the word 'sentience' has been used to translate a variety of concepts. In science fiction, the word "sentience" is sometimes used interchangeably with " sapience", " self-awareness", or "consciousness". Some writers differentiate between the mere ability to perceive sensations, such as light or pain, and the ability to perceive emotions, such as fear or grief. The subjective awareness of experiences by a conscious individual are known as qualia in Western philosophy. Philosophy and sentience In philosophy, different authors draw different distinctions between ''consciousness'' and sentience. According to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morality
Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with " goodness" or "rightness". Moral philosophy includes meta-ethics, which studies abstract issues such as moral ontology and moral epistemology, and normative ethics, which studies more concrete systems of moral decision-making such as deontological ethics and consequentialism. An example of normative ethical philosophy is the Golden Rule, which states: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself." Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mireille Hildebrandt
Mireille Hildebrandt (born 1958) is a Dutch lawyer and philosopher who works at the intersection of law and computer science. She is the Research Professor on 'Interfacing Law and Technology' at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and holds the Chair of Smart Environments, Data Protection and the Rule of Law at the Institute for Computing and Information Sciences (iCIS) at Radboud University Nijmegen. She is also the principal investigator of the 'Counting as a Human Being in the Era of Computational Law' project that runs from 2019–2024 and is funded by the European Research Council. The research targets two forms of computational law: machine learning and blockchain technology A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a .... She has published four scientific monographs, 21 edi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moral Agency
Moral agency is an individual's ability to make moral choices based on some notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions. A moral agent is "a being who is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong." Development and analysis Most philosophers suggest only rational beings, who can reason and form self-interested judgments, are capable of being moral agents. Some suggest those with limited rationality (for example, people who are mildly mentally disabled or infants) also have some basic moral capabilities. Determinists argue all of our actions are the product of antecedent causes, and some believe this is incompatible with free will and thus claim that we have no real control over our actions. Immanuel Kant argued that whether or not our real self, the noumenal self, can choose, we have no choice but to believe that we choose freely when we make a choice. This does not mean that we can ''control'' the effects of our actions. Some Indetermin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
