How Could We Know When a Robot was a Moral Patient

Bibliographic Data

ID21598307
AuthorsHenry Shevlin (0000-0002-7753-3281, University of Cambridge, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume30
Issue3
Pages459-471
Publication date2021-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0963-1801 • E-ISSN: 1469-2147
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0963180120001012
PMID34109927
OpenAlexW3173106049
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited22

There is growing interest in machine ethics in the question of whether and under what circumstances an artificial intelligence would deserve moral consideration. This paper explores a particular type of moral status that the author terms psychological moral patiency , focusing on the epistemological question of what sort of evidence might lead us to reasonably conclude that a given artificial system qualified as having this status. The paper surveys five possible criteria that might be applied: intuitive judgments, assessments of intelligence, the presence of desires and autonomous behavior, evidence of sentience, and behavioral equivalence. The author suggests that despite its limitations, the latter approach offers the best way forward, and defends a variant of that, termed the cognitive equivalence strategy. In short, this holds that an artificial system should be considered a psychological moral patient to the extent that it possesses cognitive mechanisms shared with other beings such as nonhuman animals whom we also consider to be psychological moral patients

Cognition · Epistemology · Moral disengagement · Moral psychology · Moral reasoning · Sentience · Social cognitive theory of morality · Social intuitionism · sort · Computer Science · Free Will and Agency · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology

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