Philosophy & Computers

• 1.APA Newsletters NEWSLETTER ON PHILOSOPHY AND COMPUTERSVolume 11, Number 2 Spring 2012 FROM THE EDITOR, Peter Boltuc ARTICLESTerrell Ward BynumOn Rethinking the Foundations of Philosophy in the Information Age Luciano FloridiHyperhistory and the Philosophy of Information Policies Anthony F. BeaversIs Ethics Headed for Moral Behavioralism and Should We Care?Alexandre MonninThe Artifactualization of Reference and Substances on the Web: Why (HTTP) URIs Do Not (Always) Refer nor Resources Hold by Themselves Stephen L. Thaler The Creativity Machine Paradigm: Withstanding the Argument from Consciousness CARTOON Riccardo ManzottiDo Objects Exist or Take Place? 2012 by The American Philosophical Association ISSN 2155-9708

2. APA Newsletter onPhilosophy and ComputersPiotr Botu, EditorSpring 2012 Volume 11, Number 2philosophers of computers but also for the more traditionalFrom the Editor colleagues interested in philosophy of language. In the nextpaper Stephen Thaler talks about creativity machines. Whilesome philosophers may still not be sure whether and by whatstandards machines can be creative, Thaler designed, patented,The APA ad hoc committee on philosophy and computersand prepared for useful applications some such machines sostarted as largely a group advocating the use of computers andthe proof seems to be in the pudding, and some of the proof canthe web among philosophers, and by the APA. While today also be found in this interesting article. We end with a cartoonphilosophical issues pertaining to computers are becoming by Richardo Manzotti; this time it is on an ontological topic. Asmore and more important, we may have failed in some way always cartoons tend to be overly persuasive for philosophicalsince problems that have been plaguing the APAs website fordiscussion; yet, they serve as a good tool for putting forth theabout the last year have put us all back, unnecessarily. This alsoauthors ideas.pertains to the Newsletter; not only did we lose positioning inthe web-search engines but the Newsletter reverted to just PDFs. I am sure the chair of the committee would want toThe good news is that archival issues are successively coming mention the very successful session on machine consciousnessback. I remember the advice that David Chalmers gave to the at the Central APA meeting. The session brought together papersNewsletter upon receiving the Barwise Prize a few years ago,by Terry Horgan, Robert van Gullick, and Ned Block (who wasto either become a regular journal or, if we stay open access,unable to come due to illness), as well as by two members ofto use much more of blog-style communications. It is my hopethis committee, David Anderson and myself. The session wasthat one day the latter option may become more realistic. very well attended, so that some people had to sit on the flooror in the doorway. I do hope to have more on this committeesLet me change gears a bit and restart on a somewhatactivities in the next issue.personal note. My first philosophy tutor was my mother; amongother things she taught me that philosophy is the theory of thegeneral theories of all the sciences. I still like this definition.My first philosophy tutor also warned me that philosophyshould not become overly preoccupied with just one theory, Articlesat one stage of its development, which has been Spencerspredicament. Consistent with this advice, when I was startingmy own philosophical thinking I was always puzzled that On Rethinking the Foundations of Philosophyfew philosophers drew sufficient conclusions from Einsteinsrelativity theor y, in particular its direct implications for in the Information Age*Newtonian and Kantian understanding of time and space.Today it seems that more and more philosophers focus onTerrell Ward Bynumthe philosophical implications of quantum physics, and inSouthern Connecticut State Universityparticular the issue of quantum pairs. Therefore, I was veryinterested in Terry Bynums paper, when I heard its earlier 1. Introduction: physics and the information revolutionversion at the 2011 CAP conference in Aarhus, Denmark. IIt is commonplace today to hear people say that we are living inam very glad that Terry accepted my invitation so that histhe Age of Information and that an Information Revolution isinteresting article is featured in the current issue. Of course,sweeping across the globe, changing everything from banking tothe question who is able to avoid excessive reliance on the warfare, medicine to education, entertainment to government,current state of science and who falls into the Spencer-trap is and on and on. But why are these dramatic changes takingalways hard to answer without a longer historical perspective.place? How is it possible for information technology (IT) toI am also glad that Luciano Floridi responds to Terrys paper intransform our world so quickly and so fundamentally? Scholarsthis issue with an important historical outlook. More responses in the field of computer ethics are familiar with James Moorsare expected and encouraged for submission to the next issue. suggested answer; namely, that IT is revolutionary because itIn his provocative article Tony Beavers argues that it mayis logically malleable, making IT one of the most powerful andbe morally required to build a machine that would makeflexible technologies ever created. IT is a nearly universal tool,human beings more moral. I think the paper is an importantMoor said, that can be adjusted and fine tuned to carry outcontribution to the recently booming area of robot ethics.almost any task. The limits of IT, he noted, are basically the limitsAlexandre Monnin contributes to the set of articles pertaining to of our imagination. Moors influential analysis of the Informationontology of the web that started with a paper by Harry Halpin. In Revolution (including associated concepts like policy vacuums,his tightly argued work, originally written in French, Alexandreconceptual muddles, and informationalization) has shown itselfshows why URIs are philosophically interesting, not only forto be practical and insightful (see Moor 1998). 3. APA Newsletter, Spring 2012, Volume 11, Number 2 Today, recent developments in physics, especially in Information is information, not matter or energy. Noquantum theory and cosmology, suggest an additionalalmost materialism which does not admit this can survive atmetaphysicalanswer to explain why IT is so effective in the present day. (p. 132)transforming the world. During the past two decades, many According to Wiener, therefore, every physical being can bephysicists have come to believe that the universe is made viewed as an informational entity. This is true even of humanof information; that is, that our world is a vast ocean of beings; and, in 1954, in the second edition of his book Thequantum bits (qubits) and every object or process in this Human Use of Human Beings, Wiener noted that the essentialocean of information (including human beings) can be seen nature of a person depends, not upon the particular atomsas a constantly changing data structure comprised of qubits. that happen to comprise ones body at any given moment, but(See, for example, Lloyd 2006 and Vedral 2010.) If everything inthe world is made of information, and IT provides knowledgerather upon the informational pattern encoded within the body:and tools for analyzing and manipulating information, then weWe are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowinghave an impressive explanation of the transformative power ofwater. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns thatIT based upon the fundamental nature of the universe!perpetuate themselves. (p. 96)It is not surprising that important developments in sciencecan have major philosophical import. Since the time of ancient The individuality of the body is that of a flame . . . of aGreece, profound scientific developments have inspired form rather than a bit of substance. (p. 102)significant rethinking of bedrock ideas in philosophy. Indeed, In that same book, Wiener presented a remarkable thoughtscientists working on the cutting edges of their field often experiment to show that, if one could encode, in a telegraphengage in thinking that is borderline metaphysical. Occasionally,message, for example, the entire exquisitely complexthe scientists and philosophers have been the very sameinformation pattern of a persons body, and then use thatpeople, as illustrated by Aristotle, who created physics and encoded pattern to reconstitute the persons body frombiology and, at the same time, made related contributionsappropriate atoms at the receiving end of a message, peopleto metaphysics, logic, epistemology, and other branches of could travel instantly from place to place via telegraph. Wienerphilosophy. Or consider Descartes and Leibniz, both of whomnoted that this idea raises knotty philosophical questionswere excellent scientists and world-class mathematicians asregarding not only personal identity, but also forking fromwell as great philosophers. Sometimes, thinkers who were one person into two, split personalities, survival of the selfprimarily scientistsfor example, Copernicus, Galileo, and after the death of ones body, and a number of others (WienerNewtoninspired others who were primarily philosophers1950, Ch. VI; 1954, Ch. V).for example, Hobbes, Locke, and Kant. Later, revolutionary Decades later, in 1990, physicist John Archibald Wheelerscientific contributions of Darwin, Einstein, Bohr, Schrdinger, introduced his famous phrase it from bit in an influentialand others significantly influenced philosophers like Spencer, paper (Wheeler 1990), and he thereby gave a major impetusRussell, Whitehead, Popper, and many more. to an information revolution in physics. In that paper, WheelerToday, in the early years of the twenty-first century, declared that all things physical are information theoretic incosmology and quantum physics appear likely to alter originthat every physical entity, every it, derives from bitssignificantly our scientific understanding of the universe, of that every particle, every field of force, even the spacetimelife, and of human nature. These developments in physics, it continuum itself . . . derives its function, its meaning, its veryseems to me, are sure to lead to important new contributions existence from bits. He predicted that Tomorrow we will haveto philosophy. Among contemporary philosophers, Lucianolearned to understand and express all of physics in the languageFloridiwith his pioneering efforts in the philosophy of of information (emphasis in the original).information, informational realism, and information ethics Since 1990, a number of physicistssome of them inspired(all his terms)has been leading the way in demonstrating by Wheelerhave made great strides toward fulfilling histhe importance of the concept of information in philosophy. it-from-bit prediction. In 2006, for example, in his book(See, for example, his book The Philosophy of Information, Programming the Universe, Seth Lloyd presented impressive2011.) Given the above-mentioned developments in physics, evidence supporting the view that the universe is not only ait is not surprising that Floridi was the first philosopher ever vast ocean of qubits, it is actually a gigantic quantum computer:(in 2008-2009) to hold the prestigious post of Gauss Professorat the Gttingen Academy of Sciences in Germany (previousThe conventional view is that the universe is nothingGauss Professors had been physicists or mathematicians). but elementary particles. That is true, but it is equallyFloridis theory of informational realism, though, focuses true that the universe is nothing but bitsor rather,primarily upon Platonic information that is not subject to the nothing but qubits. Mindful that if it walks like a ducklaws of physics. A materialist philosopher, perhaps, would beand it quacks like a duck then its a duck . . . sincemore inclined to focus instead upon qubits, which are physical the universe registers and processes informationin nature. Whether one takes Floridis Platonic approach or alike a quantum computer, and is observationallymaterialistic perspective, I believe that recent developments in indistinguishable from a quantum computer, then it isphilosophy and physics with regard to the central importance ofa quantum computer. (p. 154, emphasis in the original)information will encourage philosophers to rethink the bedrockconcepts of their field. More recently, in 2011, three physicists used axioms from information processing to derive the mathematical framework2. It from bit of quantum mechanics (Chiribella et al. 2011). These are onlyIt is my view that a related materialist information revolution in two of a growing number of achievements that have begun tophilosophy began in the mid 1940s when philosopher/scientist fulfill Wheelers it from bit prediction.Norbert Wiener triumphantly announced to his students andThe present essay explores some philosophical implicationscolleagues at MIT that entropy is information. He realized of Wheelers view that every physical entityevery particle,that information is physical and, therefore, it obeys the laws every field of force, even space-timederives its very existenceof physics. As a result, in 1948 in his book Cybernetics, Wiener from qubits. But if, as Wheeler has said, qubits are responsiblemade this important claim about philosophical materialism: for the very existence of every particle and every field of force,2 4. Philosophy and Computers then qubits were, in some sense, prior to every other physicalTo begin a double-slit experiment, a metal plate withthing that exists. Qubits, therefore, must have been part of thetwo parallel vertical slits is inserted between the gun and theBig Bang! As Seth Lloyd has said, The Big Bang was also a Bitdetection screen. The gun then fires individual particles orBang (Lloyd 2006, 46). objectsone at a timeat the double-slit plate. If the particles Unlike traditional bits, such as those processed in todaysor objects were to act like classical objects, some of them wouldcomputing devices, qubits have quantum features, such asgo through the right slit and strike the detection screen behindgenuine randomness, superposition, and entanglementthat slit, while others would go through the left slit and strike thefeatures that Einstein and other scientists considered spooky detection screen behind that slit. But this is not what happens.and weird. As explained below, these scientifically verifiedInstead, surprisingly, a single particle or object goes through bothquantum phenomena raise important questions about slits simultaneously, and when a sufficient number of individualtraditional bedrock philosophical concepts. particles or objects has been fired, a wave-interference patternis created on the detection screen from the individual spots3. To be is to be a quantum data structurewhere the particles or objects landed. In such an experiment,In most computers today, each bit can only be in one or the an individual particle or object travels toward the double-slitother of two specific states, 0 or 1. Such a classical bit cannot plate as a wave; and then, on the other side of the double-slitbe both 0 and 1 at the same time. A qubit, on the other hand, plate, it travels toward the detection screen as two wavescan simultaneously be 0 and 1, and indeed it can even be in aninterfering with each other. When the two interfering wavesinfinite number of different states between 0 and 1. As Vlatkoarrive at the detection screen, however, a classical particle orVedral noted, in his book Decoding Reality: the Universe as object suddenly appears on the screen at a specific locationQuantum Information (2010), which could not have been known in advance, even in principle. we are permitted to have a zero and a one at the sameIn summary, then, in a double-slit experiment, single time present in one physical system. In fact, we are particles or objects behave also like waveseven like two permitted to have an infinite range of states betweenwaves creating an interference pattern. How is a philosopher zero and onewhich we call a qubit. (p. 137) to interpret these results? Perhaps we could try to make senseof this weird behavior by adopting a distinction much likeThis remarkable feature of qubits is not just a theoretical Aristotles distinction between the potential and the actual.possibility. It is real, in the sense that it is governed by the laws When a child is born, for example, Aristotle would say thatof physics, and it enables quantum computers to calculate far the child is potentially a language speaker, but not actually amore efficiently than a traditional computer using classical bits language speaker. The potential of the child to speak a language(see below).is, for Aristotle, something real that is included in the very If every physical thing in the universe consists of qubitsinnature of the child. In contrast, a stone or a chunk of wood,keeping with Wheelers it from bit hypothesisthen onefor example, does not have the potential ever to become awould expect that any physical entity could be in many differentlanguage speaker. For Aristotle, the potential and the actualstates at once, depending on the many states of the qubits of are both real in the sense that both are part of the nature of awhich it is composed. Indeed, quantum physicists have found being; and the potential of a being becomes actualized throughthat, under the right circumstances, All objects in the universe interactions with already actualized things in the environment.are capable of being in all possible states (Vedral 2010, 122).A child, for example, becomes an actual language speaker byThis means that objects can be in many different places atinteracting appropriately with people in the community who areonce, that a particle could be both positive and negative at theactual language speakers. And, similarly, an unlit candle, whichsame time, or simultaneously spinning clockwise and counter potentially has a flame at the top, becomes a candle with anclockwise around the same axis. It means that living thingslikeactual flame when it interacts appropriately with some actualSchrdingers famous cat or a human beingcould be both fire in the environment.alive and dead at the same time, and at least some things canIf we adopt a distinction that is very similar to Aristotles, webe teleported from place to place instantly over long distancescould say, perhaps, that the waves in a double-slit experimentfaster than the speed of light without passing through the spaceconsist of potential paths that the particle or object could followin between. Finally, it also means that, at the deepest level ofon its way to the detection screen. Indeed, this is an interpretationreality, the universe is both digital and analogue at the sametime. These are not mere speculations, but requirements ofthat many quantum scientists accept. The potential paths, then,quantum mechanics, which is the most tested and most strongly are real entities that travel through space-time together as aconfirmed scientific theory in history. So, philosophers, it seems, wave or packet of possibilities between the gun and thewill have to rethink many fundamental philosophical concepts, screen. But where is the actual (that is, classical) particle orlike being and non-being, real and unreal, actual and potential,object while its packet of possibilities is traveling to the screen?cause and effect, consistent and contradictory, knowledge and Has the classical particle or object itself disappeared? Or does itthinking, and many more (see below).exist as a packet of possibilities? And how could it be an actualparticle or object when it is still in the gun, or when it strikes the4. Coming into existence in the classical universe: screen, but then only be a wave of possibilities while travelinginformation and decoherence between the two? Typical philosophical ideas about real andA familiar double-slit experiment, which is often performed unreal, cause and effect, potential and actual dont seem to fittoday in high school physics classes and undergraduatethis case. Nevertheless, double-slit experiments are regularlylaboratories, illustrates the ability of different kinds of objects performed in high school classrooms and undergraduate labsto be in many different states at once. In such an experiment,around the worldand always with the same weird results.particles or larger objects are fired, one at a time, by a particleIndeed, quantum mechanics requires that every object in thegun toward a screen designed to detect them. The particles universe, no matter how large, would behave the same wayor objects in the experiment, can be, for example, photons, under the right circumstances!or electrons, or single atoms, or much larger objects, such asIn quantum mechanics, the possibilities that form thebuckeyballs (composed of sixty carbon atoms comprised ofwave are said to be superposed upon each other, and so1,080 subatomic particles), or even larger objects. together they are called the superpositions of the particle or 3 5. APA Newsletter, Spring 2012, Volume 11, Number 2 object. Some quantum scientists would say that the particleIf two electrons (or other quantum entities) are closeor object exists everywhere at once within the wave. Other together and interact appropriately, instead of acting like twoscientists would say that no actual particle or object existsseparate entities, each with its own superposed possibilities, thewithin the wave, and it is illegitimate even to ask for its specific two electrons share their superpositions and begin to act like alocation. In any case, when a wave of possibilities interactssingle quantum entity. This phenomenon is called entanglement.appropriately with another physical entity in its environment by Thus, the spins of two entangled electrons, both of which aresharing a bit of information with another physical entity, all the spinning simultaneously clockwise and counterclockwise,superposed possibilitiesexcept onesuddenly disappear depend upon each other in such a way that if one of theand one actualized classical particle or object instantly appearselectrons is measured or observed, thereby randomly makingrandomly at a specific location. Quantum physicists call thisit spin definitely clockwise or definitely counterclockwise, thephenomenon, in which a wave of possibilities gets convertedother electrons spin instantly becomes the opposite of theinto an actualized classical object, decoherence.spin of the first one. The amazing and puzzling (Einstein said Decoherence, then, is a remarkable phenomenon! It isspooky) thing is that such entanglement can continue towhat brings into existence actualized classical objectslocatedexist even if the electrons are separated by huge distances. Forat specific places and with specific properties that can beexample, if one entangled electron is on Earth and the otherobserved and measured. Decoherence somehow extracts or one is sent to Mars, they still can be entangled. So if someonecreates classical objects out of an infinite set of possibilitiesmeasures the electron on Earth yielding, at random, a definitewithin our universe; and this extraction process is genuinelyclockwise spin for the Earth-bound electron, then the otherrandom. As Anton Zeilinger explains, electronthe one on Marsmust instantly spin definitely counterclockwise! This instant result occurs no matter howThe world as it is right now in this very moment doesfar away the other electron is, and it violates the speed of lightnot determine uniquely the world in a few years, in a requirement of relativity theory. That is why Einstein consideredfew minutes, or even in the next second. The world it to be spooky action at a distance.is open. We can give only probabilities for individualevents to happen. And it is not just our ignorance.How is a philosopher to interpret these phenomena,Many people believe that this kind of randomness iswhich do not fit well with the usual philosophical accounts oflimited to the microscopic world, but this is not true,cause and effect? Apparently, philosophers need to becomeas the [random] measurement result itself can have creativeperhaps even daringby questioning old, familiarmacroscopic consequences. (Zeilinger 2010, 265)foundational concepts that have formed the metaphysical bedrock of philosophy for centuries. For example, given theRandom or not, being or existing in our universe has two growing belief among physicists that the universe is an oceandifferent varieties: of quantum information, and given Seth Lloyds view that the 1. One is quantum existence as a wave of superposeduniverse behaves like a gigantic quantum computer, perhaps we possibilities, while the other is could interpret superpositions as entities much like subroutines 2. Classical existence as a specific object located at a stored within the quantum computer/universe and waiting to specific place in space-time with classical propertiesbe run. When the computer/universe randomly sends a bit of which can be observed and measured. information to one of its subroutines, that subroutine is the one that gets run, while the others get erased or taken off line.In our universe, the quantum realm and the classical realm This would be the phenomenon called decoherence, whichexist together and interact with each other. The ultimate source randomly extracts classical reality from an infinite source ofof physical being is the constantly expanding ocean of qubits, possibilities generated by the underlying quantum computer/which establish what is physically possible by generatingor universe.being?an infinite set of superposed possibilities. From thisinfinite, always expanding, set of possibilities, the sharing of Given this suggested story, the entanglement of twospecific information (decoherence) generates the everydayquantum entities could be interpreted as the establishment ofclassical objects of our world in specific locations withsomething very like a hyperlink connecting subroutines withinobservable and measurable properties. Information, then, the cosmic quantum computer. The classical world, includingcombined with the process of sharing information, is the all physical objects and processesperhaps even space-timeultimate source of everything physical in our universe. It from bit! and gravitycould be a projection or virtual reality generated by the cosmic quantum computer. The laws of nature of the5. Additional quantum puzzles for philosophy classical worldsuch as Einsteins speed of light requirementSimilar philosophical challenges arise from other quantumwould then be part of the virtual reality projection; while spookyphenomena, such as entanglement, spooky action at a action at a distance would be the result of a hyperlink insidedistance, teleportation, and quantum computing. Each of these of the cosmic quantum computerthat is, inside the underlyingphenomena is briefly discussed below along with some of theocean of qubits which create our classical world through thephilosophical questions that arise from them.process of decoherence. In such a situation, there would be noEntanglement and Spooky Action at a Distance Asneedand no wayto unite relativity and quantum mechanics,indicated above, a quantum entity can be indefinite in the because they would exist in different worlds (or different parts ofsense that its properties can be superposed possibilities that the same world). This is only one metaphysical speculation (myhave not yet been actualized. For example, an electron could own) regarding the ultimate nature of the universe in our Agebe spinning clockwise and counterclockwise around the same of Information. Creative philosophers need to come up withaxis at the same time. When one observes or measures thatmany more stories until we find one that can be scientificallyelectron (or when it interacts with another physical entity in confirmed. Metaphysicians, start your engines!the environment), its spininstantly and randomlybecomesTeleportation Another quantum phenomenon that presentsdefinitely clockwise or definitely counterclockwise. Thisa challenge to traditional philosophy is called teleportation,happens because of decoherence in which the electron sharesa process in which the quantum properties of one objectinformation about itself with the measurer (or something elseare transferred instantly to another object by means ofin the environment). entanglement and measurement. Because the transfer of4 6. Philosophy and Computers properties takes place via entanglement, it occurs instantly 6. The need to rethink the foundations of philosophyno matter how far apart the objects might be in the classicalIn the June 2011 issue of Scientific American, Vlatko Vedral madeworld, and without the need to travel through space-time.a convincing case for the view that quantum properties are notThe object which acquires the quantum properties of theconfined to tiny subatomic particles (Vedral 2011). Most people,original is rendered identical to the original, and the original he noted, including even many physicists, make the mistakeis destroyed by measurement. (In some cases, some classicalof dividing the world into two kinds of entity: on the one hand,information also must be sent to the receiving station, using atiny particles which are quantum in nature; and on the othertraditional communication channel, to make adjustments inhand, larger macro objects, which obey the classical laws ofthe recipient of the teleported properties and thereby assurephysics, including relativity.that the recipient is identical to the original.) It is important tonote that in teleportation it is quantum information that getsYet this convenient partitioning of the world is a myth.transferred, not the matter/energy of the original object. TheFew modern physicists think that classical physics hasrecipient of the teleported quantum properties contains matter/ equal status with quantum mechanics; it is but a usefulenergy that is not the original matter/energy of the donor object,approximation of a world that is quantum at all scales.but the recipient is otherwise absolutely identical to the original.(Vedral 2011, 38 and 40) How should philosophers interpret these results? Is the Vedral went on to discuss a number of macro objects whichoriginal entity teleported, or merely an exact copy of it? Ifapparently have exhibited quantum properties, including,we agree with Norbert Wiener that all physical objects and for example, (1) entanglement within a piece of lithiumprocesses are continually changing data structures, and notfluoride made from trillions of atoms, (2) entanglement withinthe matter/energy that happens to encode the data at a given European robins who use it to guide their yearly migrationsmoment (Bynum 2010), then the teleported entity is actuallyof 13,000 kilometers between Europe and central Africa,the original data structure, and not merely a copy. On the other and (3) entanglement within plants that use it to bring abouthand, if Wieners view is rejected, what is a better interpretationphotosynthesis.of quantum teleportation? Given what has been said above, and given all the importantQuantum Computing Because qubits can simultaneously be developments in the information revolution that is happeningin many different states between 0 and 1, and because of the within physics today, it is time for philosophers to awaken fromphenomenon of entanglement, quantum computers are able their metaphysical slumbers and join the Information Age!to perform numerous computing tasks at the very same time. *An earlier version of this paper was the 2011 Preston Covey AddressAs Vlatko Vedral explains, at the IACAP2011 conference in Aarhus, Denmark.any problem in Nature can be reduced to a search for Referencesthe correct answer amongst several (or a few million)Bynum, Terrell Ward. 2011. The historical roots of information andincorrect answers. . . . [and] unlike a conventional computer ethics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Information andcomputer which checks each possibility one at aComputer Ethics, ed. Luciano Floridi. Cambridge University Press.time, quantum physics allows us to check multipleChiribella, Giuli; DAriano, Giacomo; Perinotti, Paolo. July 2011.possibilities simultaneously. (Vedral 2010, 138, Informational derivation of quantum theory. Physical Review A. 84.emphasis in the original)Floridi, Luciano. 2011. The Philosophy of Information. Oxford University Press.Once we have learned to make quantum computers with Lloyd, Seth. 2006. Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computersignificantly more than 14 qubits of inputwhich is the current Scientist Takes on the Universe. Alfred A. Knopf.state of the artquantum computing will provide remarkable Moor, James H. 1998. Reason, relativity and responsibility in computerefficiency and amazing computing power! As Seth Lloyd has ethics. Computers and Society 28(1):14-21.explained, Vedral, Vlatko. 2010. Decoding Reality: The Universe as QuantumA quantum computer given 10 input qubits can doInformation. Oxford University Press.1,024 things at once. A quantum computer given 20Vedral, Vlatko. 2011. Living in a quantum world. Scientific Americanqubits can do 1,048,576 things at once. One with 300 June:38-43.qubits of input can do more things at once than thereWheeler, John A. 1990. Information, physics, quantum: the search forare elementary particles in the universe. (Lloyd 2006, links. In Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information, ed. W.138-139) Zurek. Addison-Wesley. Wiener, Norbert. 1948. Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in For philosophy, such remarkable computer power has the Animal and the Machine. MIT Press.major implications for concepts such as knowledge, thinking, Wiener, Norbert. 1950, 1954. The Human Use of Human Beings:and intelligenceand, by extension, artificial intelligence. Cybernetics and Society. Houghton Mifflin, First Edition; DoubledayImagine an artificially intelligent robot whose brain includes a Anchor Books, Second Edition Revised.quantum computer with 300 qubits. The brain of such a robot Zeilinger, Anton. 2010. Dance of the Photons: From Einstein tocould do more things simultaneously than all the elementaryTeleportation. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.particles in the universe! Compare that to the problem-solvingabilities of a typical human brain. Or consider the case of so-called human idiot savantswho can solve tremendouslychallenging math problems in their heads instantly, or Hyperhistor y and the Philosophy ofremember every waking moment in their lives, or remember,Information Policiesvia a photographic memory, every word on every pagethey have ever read. Perhaps such savants have quantum Luciano Floridi University of Hertfordshire and University of Oxford*entanglements in their brains which function like quantumcomputers. Perhaps consciousness itself is an entanglementphenomenon. The implications for epistemology and the1. Prefacephilosophy of mind are staggering! I am hugely indebted to Terry Bynums work. Not merely for5 7. APA Newsletter, Spring 2012, Volume 11, Number 2 his kind and generous acknowledgement of my efforts tocapabilities are the necessary condition for the maintenanceestablish a philosophy of information but, way more seriously and any further development of societal welfare, personaland significantly, because of his ground-breaking work, which well-being, as well as intellectual flourishing. The nature ofopened new research paths to philosophers of my generation, conflicts provides a sad test for the reliability of this tripartiteespecially, but not only, in computer ethics. interpretation of human evolution. Only a society that lives I suppose the best way to honor his work is probably byhyperhistorically can be vitally threatened informationally, bytrying to contribute to it. In this short article, I shall attempta cyber attack. Only those who live by the digit may die by theto do so by taking seriously two important points made in digit.Bynums article. One is his question: How is it possible forTo summarize, human evolution may be visualized as ainformation technology (IT) to transform our world so quickly three-stage rocket: in prehistory, there are no ICTs; in history,and so fundamentally? The other is his exhortation: we need there are ICTs, they record and transmit data, but humanto bring philosophy into the Information Age []. We need tosocieties depend mainly on other kinds of technologiesrethink the bedrock foundations of philosophy that were laidconcerning primary resources and energy; in hyperhistory,down hundreds of years ago by philosophers like Hobbes, there are ICTs, they record, transmit, and, above all, processLocke, Hume, and Kant. Central philosophical concepts shoulddata, and human societies become vitally dependent on thembe re-examined []. I shall accept Bynums exhortation. Andand on information as a fundamental resource.I shall try to contribute an answer to his question by calling the If all this is even approximately correct, the emergencereaders attention to the need to reconsider our philosophy from its historical age represents one of the most significantof politics, our philosophy of law, and our philosophy of steps taken by humanity for a very long time. It certainly openseconomics, in short, to the need of developing a philosophy ofup a vast horizon of opportunities, all essentially driven by theinformation policies for our time. The space is of course limited,recording, transmitting, and processing powers of ICTs. Fromso I hope the reader will forgive me for some simplifications synthetic biochemistry to neuroscience, from the Internetand sweeping remarks that will deserve much more carefulof things to unmanned planetary explorations, from greenanalysis in a different context.technologies to new medical treatments, from social media2. Hyperhistory to digital games, our activities of discovery, invention, design,control, education, work, socialization, entertainment, and soMore people are alive today than ever before in the evolution offorth would be not only unfeasible but unthinkable in a purelyhumanity. And more of us live longer and better today than ever mechanical, historical context.before. To a large measure, we owe this to our technologies,at least insofar as we develop and use them intelligently, It follows that we are witnessing the outlining of apeacefully, and sustainably.macroscopic scenario in which an exponential growth ofnew inventions, applications, and solutions in ICTs are quicklySometimes, we may forget how much we owe to flakesdetaching future generations from ours. Of course, this is notand wheels, to sparks and ploughs, to engines and satellites. to say that there is no continuity, both backward and forward.We are reminded of such deep technological debt when we Backward, because it is often the case that the deeper adivide human life into prehistory and history. That significant transformation is, the longer and more widely rooted itsthreshold is there to acknowledge that it was the invention and causes are. It is only because many different forces have beendevelopment of information and communication technologies building the pressure for a very long time that radical changes(ICTs) that made all the difference between who we were may happen all of a sudden, perhaps unexpectedly. It is notand who we are. It is only when the lessons learnt by pastthe last snowflake that breaks the branch of the tree. In ourgenerations began to evolve in a Lamarckian rather than a case, it is certainly history that begets hyperhistory. There isDarwinian way that humanity entered into history. no ASCII without the alphabet. Forward, because it is mostHistory has lasted six thousand years, since it began withplausible that historical societies will survive for a long time inthe invention of writing in the fourth millennium BC. Duringthe future, not unlike the Amazonian tribes mentioned above.this relatively short time, ICTs have provided the recording andDespite globalization, human societies do not parade uniformlytransmitting infrastructure that made the escalation of other forward, in synchronic steps.technologies possible. ICTs became mature in the few centuriesbetween Guttenberg and Turing. Today, we are experiencing 3. The philosophy of information policiesa radical transformation in our ICTs that could prove equally Given the unprecedented novelties that the dawn ofsignificant, for we have started drawing a new thresholdhyperhistory is causing, it is not surprising that many of ourbetween history and a new age, which may be aptly calledfundamental philosophical views, so entrenched in history,hyperhistory. Let me explain. may need to be upgraded, if not entirely replaced. Perhaps notPrehistory and history work like adverbs: they tell usyet in academia, think tanks, research centers, or R&D offices,how people live, not when or where. From this perspective,but clearly in the streets and online, there is an atmosphere ofhuman societies currently stretch across three ages, as waysconfused expectancy, of exciting, sometimes nave, bottom-upof living. According to reports about an unspecified number changes in our views about (i) the world, (ii) ourselves, (iii) ourof uncontacted tribes in the Amazonian region, there are stillinteractions with the world, and (iv) among ourselves.some societies that live prehistorically, without ICTs or at least These four focus points are not the result of researchwithout recorded documents. If one day such tribes disappear, programs, or the impact of successful grant applications. Muchthe end of the first chapter of our evolutionary book will have more realistically and powerfully, but also more confusedly andbeen written. The greatest majority of people today still livetentatively, the changes in our Weltanschauung are the result ofhistorically, in societies that rely on ICTs to record and transmit our daily adjustments, intellectually and behaviorally, to a realitydata of all kinds. In such historical societies, ICTs have not yetthat is fluidly changing in front of our eyes and under our feet,overtaken other technologies, especially energy-related ones, exponentially, relentlessly. We are finding our new balance byin terms of their vital importance. Then there are some peopleshaping and adapting to hyperhistorical conditions that havearound the world who are already living hyperhistorically, in not yet sedimented into a mature age, in which novelties aresocieties or environments where ICTs and their data processingno longer disruptive but finally stable patterns of more of 6 8. Philosophy and Computers approximately the same (think, for example, of the car or the Referencesbook industry, and the stability they have provided).Floridi, L. 2003. On the intrinsic value of information objects and the It is for this reason that the following terminology is infosphere. Ethics and Information Technology 4(4):287-304.probably inadequate to capture the intellectual novelty that Floridi, L. 2008. Artificial intelligences new frontier: artificial companionswe are facing. As Bynum rightly stressed, our very conceptualand the fourth revolution. Metaphilosophy 39(4/5):651-55.vocabulary and our ways of making sense of the world (ourFloridi, L. 2010. Information - a Very Short Introduction. Oxford, Oxfordsemanticising processes and practices) need to be reconsidered University Press.and redesigned in order to provide us with a better grasp of our Floridi, L. 2011. The Philosophy of Information. Oxford, Oxford Universityhyperhistorical age, and hence a better chance to shape andPress.deal with it. With this proviso in mind, it seems clear that a new Floridi, L. Forthcoming. Information Ethics. Oxford, Oxford Universityphilosophy of history, which tries to makes sense of our age asPress.the end of history and the beginning of hyperhistory, invites thedevelopment of (see the four points above) (i) a new philosophyof nature, (ii) a new philosophical anthropology, (iii) a syntheticIs Ethics Headed for Moral Behaviorism ande-nvironmentalism as a bridge between us and the world, andShould We Care?(iv) a new philosophy of politics among us. In other contexts, I have argued that such an invitationAnthony F. Beaversamounts to a request for a new philosophy of information The University of Evansvillethat can work at 360 degrees on our hyperhistorical conditionThe righteous are responsible for evil before anyone else is.(Floridi 2011). I have sought to develop a philosophy of natureThey are responsible because they have not been righteous enoughin terms of a philosophy of the infosphere (Floridi 2003), andto make their justice spread and abolish injustice: it is the fiascoa philosophical anthropology in terms of a fourth revolution inof the best which leaves the coast clear for the worst.our self-understandingafter the Copernican, the Darwinian,and Freudian onesthat re-interprets humans as informational Levinas (1976/1990, 186), paraphrasing the prophet Ezekielorganisms living and interacting with other informational agents A Provocationin the infosphere (Floridi 2008; 2010). Finally, I have suggestedI start with a premise that may appear at first as a moralthat an expansion of environmental ethics to all environments imperative: if it is within our power to build a machine thatincluding those that are artificial, digital, or syntheticshould be can make human beings more moral, both individually andbased on an information ethics for the whole infosphere (Floridi collectively, then we have a prima facie moral obligation toforthcoming). What I have not done but I believe to be overlybuild it. Objections to this claim are, of course, tenable, thoughdue is to outline a philosophy of information policies consistentthey may assume particular conceptions of ethics that havewith such initial steps, one that can reconsider our philosophical historically carried great credibility, but whose credibility weviews of economics, law, and politics in the proper context of might have new reason to doubt. Some of these objections arethe hyperhistorical condition and the information society. apparent if we substitute the word nation with machine and4. Conclusionclaim that if it is within our power to build a nation that can make human beings more moral, then we have a prima facieSix thousand years ago, a generation of humans witnessed the obligation to build it. While this claim, too, may at first seeminvention of writing and the emergence of the State. This is not intuitively correct, it could prove objectionable if the most directaccidental. Prehistoric societies are both ICT-less and stateless. way to build such a state requires totalitarianism or, minimally,The State is a typical historical phenomenon. It emerges whenan overly-coercive state that punishes moral (and not merelyhuman groups stop living in small communities a hand-to- legal) wrongdoers. We thus find ourselves at the nexus ofmouth existence and begin to live a mouth-to-hand one, inseveral inter-related issues, including not only how to determinewhich large communities become political societies, with in a precise way what is morally correct, but also the role thatdivision of labor and specialized roles, organized under somefreedom plays in moral culpability. If a total nation-state holdsform of government, which manages resources through theindividuals at gun point and demands that they act morallycontrol of ICTs. From taxes to legislation, from the administrationunder pain of death, their actions are no more deserving ofof justice to military force, from census to social infrastructure,reward than they would be deserving of punishment if at gunthe State is the ultimate information agent and so history is thepoint they were made to act immorally.age of the State. Indeed, it is a common ethical assumption, in the WestAlmost halfway between the beginning of history and now, at least, that someone can be morally praised or blamed (thatPlato was still trying to make sense of both radical changes:is, culpable) only for actions that are in their power to do orthe encoding of memories through written symbols and the refrain from doing. Thus, a good character in virtue ethics issymbiotic interactions between individual and polis-State. Inonly worthy of respect because it is in the power of individualsfifty years, our grandchildren may look at us as the last of the to sculpt their own characters, and in Kantian ethics, moralhistorical, State-run generations, not so differently from the way praise and blame can only be attributed to creatures that arewe look at the Amazonian tribes, as the last of the prehistorical, free. Such an assumption, however, itself becomes problematicstateless societies. It may take a long while before we shallif we rearrange our initial premise a bit and suggest that if it iscome to understand in full such transformations, but it is timein our power to design human beings genetically to be moral,to start working on it. Bynums invitation to bring philosophythen we have a prima facie obligation to do so. In this case,into the Information Age is most welcome. humans might still choose the right course of action with the* Research Chair in Philosophy of Information, and UNESCO Chair in same feeling of freedom that we do, but only because theyInformation and Computer Ethics, University of Hertfordshire; Faculty of are engineered to do so. That some among us would object toPhilosophy and Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford. such a course of action is readily apparent in the fact that manyAddress for correspondence: Department of Philosophy, University offind Huxleys Brave New World a piece of dystopian, and notHertfordshire, de Havilland Campus, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB,utopian, fiction. Furthermore, the theological among us mightUK; l.floridi@herts.ac.ukworry that if it is morally imperative to engineer moral human7 9. APA Newsletter, Spring 2012, Volume 11, Number 2 beings, then God must have made a tragic mistake in the firstImplicit in this observation is the notion that ought impliesplace by making us the way he did. implementability. Admittedly, this claim looks counter-intuitiveNew possibilities from research in computational at first blush, but it is a logical extension of the Kantian notionmachinery and bio-engineering are raising a daring question: that ought implies can properly situated by the possibility ofAre we not morally required to engineer a moral world, whether moral machinery. Can in this context means that one mustby deference to moral machines, social engineering, or takinghave the ability to x, before we can claim that one ought tocontrol over our biology? When we consider the great lengths x. This, in turn, implies that the behavioral recommendationswe go to in training a child by nurturing guilt and a sense of of any moral theory must fall within the power of an agentshame (scolding, for instance), fighting, even killing, in (so to perform, or, in other words, that the theory itself must becalled) moral wars, punishing and rewarding wrongdoers able to be implemented, whether in wetware or hardware.accordingly, sanctioning acceptable conduct in our institutionsConsequently, computational ethics sets a criterion forthrough mechanisms of law, etc., such a question does notevaluating the tenability of moral theories. If it can be shownseem misplaced. It is as if we want to create a moral world, that a particular theory cannot be physically implemented,but in the most difficult, unproductive, and possibly even whether for logical or empirical reasons, we are justifiedimmoral way possible. History itself bears testimony to ourin claiming that that theory insofar as it is a moral theory isfailure: witness the fact that the U.S. is quickly approaching untenable.involvement in the longest war in its history contrasted against Initially, this might sound well and good if it werent for thethe fact that most Americans are barely aware that we arefact that such a criterion poses serious problems for Kantianfighting at all and seem to have lost any interest in seeing itdeontology and classical utilitarianism, because they both runcome to an end. Furthermore, even if this war were to end, into moral variants of the frame problem and are therefore notwe collectively characterize war in general as inevitable, which implementable. (For further discussion on Kant, see Beaversmeans also that we have accepted it as unavoidable. Arriving 2009.) Without rehearsing the full arguments here, a quickat this point is simply to have given up on the matter. But, to be sketch might be sufficient to get the point across.fair to ethics, this fatalism (or indifference) must itself be seenKants universalization formula of the categorical imperativeas a serious moral transgressionone that is only apparently,says Act as if the maxim of your action were to become throughbut not actually, banalif there is in fact something we can doyour will a universal law of nature (1785/1994, 30), where ato fix the situation. Should we, at this point in history, start tomaxim is defined as the subjective principle of acting. It is thethink seriously about putting an end to our moral indecency? rule that I employ as a subject when acting individually, and itMight Huxleys Brave New World or some variant thereof beis moral if and only if I can at the same time permit any agentutopian after all? What should the world look like morally, givenin the same situation to employ the same maxim. The problemthat technology is slowly giving us the power to shape it as wehere is that the possibility of universalization depends on thewish, and would it be worth the cost if developing a moral world scope I set for the maxim. If the subject is defined as a classmeant abandoning several cherished assumptions about ethics? of one (i.e., anyone exactly like me in exactly my particularThe goal of ethics is to make itself obsolete, hopefully,situation), any maxim will universalize, and thus every actionthough, by fulfillment in moral community and not by justcould be morally permissible. To avoid this conclusion onedefining it out of existence. Yet, current trends in technologymust find a non-arbitrary way to establish the legitimate scopeand, more broadly, in society seem to be leaning toward theof a maxim that should be taken into account. The prospectslatter. Ethics, traditionally conceived, is under attack on severalfor doing so objectively seem poor without simultaneouslyfronts. Yet, given its historical failure, we must wonder whetherbegging the question.it is worth saving. Im beginning to think not. The goal of the Similarly, Mill runs into problems with the principle ofrest of this essay is to say why. utility where actions are right in proportion as they tend toHonestly, Is Honesty a Virtue? promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverseTemperance, courage, wisdom, and justice made it into Platosof happiness (1861/1979, 7). As is commonly known, Mill doeslist of virtues in the Republic, but, ironically, the author of the cave not mean the promotion of my happiness and the reduction ofallegory did not include honesty. Yet, as his text clearly shows,my private pains. He means those of the (global?) communitythis was no oversight, since honesty is necessary for avoiding as a whole. Because the success of an action hangs on futureself-deception and is thus necessary for the named virtues asstates that are wholly unknown to the agent, the principle ofwell. Self-deception is quite hard to avoid, even in matters ofutility is computationally intractable. Without some specificationepistemology and especially in ethics. In this spirit, Dennett of the scope, it is impossible to know whether any particularsays of the frame problem that it is not merely an annoying action promotes or impedes happiness across the whole.technical embarrassment in robotics, but on the contrary,The worst atrocities might, over time, turn out to maximizethat it is a new, deep epistemological problemaccessiblehappiness, while the kindest gestures to some could lead toin principle but unnoticed by generations of philosophers tragic consequences for others.brought to light by the novel methods of AI, and still far fromUtilitarianism might be salvageable by modifying it intobeing solved (1984, 130). More recently, he remarked that AIsome computationally tractable form . . . maybe. It is too soonmakes philosophy honest (2006). In a similar vein after citing to say, but I have my doubts about Kant, pace Powers, who hasthis last quote from Dennett, Anderson and Anderson observemade a worthy attempt to save him by treating the categoricalthat ethics must be made computable in order to make it clear imperative in its various forms as heuristics for behaviorexactly how agents ought to behave in ethical dilemmas (2007, rather than strict rules (2006). This approach, I worry, leads16). In this light, it is common among machine ethicists to thinkto problems of its own, such as losing the objective criterionthat research in computational ethics extends beyond buildingfor determining precisely when a behavior is moral which themoral machinery because it helps us better understand ethics categorical imperative was meant to provide. (If the categoricalin the case of human beings. This is because of what we must imperative is a heuristic, what is the algorithm for which itknow about ethics in general to build machines that operateprovides the short cut?) But I have deeper worries about Kantwithin normative parameters. Unclear intuitions are unworkable that I have presented elsewhere (2009 & 2011b) and that arewhere engineering specifications are required. appropriate to repeat here.8 10. Philosophy and Computers For reasons that should be clear from the above, ought things on their own. Internet routers and the switches on thecannot imply must. That is, if it is impossible for me to refrain U.S. power grid do so to help with load balancing, the automaticfrom an action, then the notion of ought does not apply. (Thisbraking system on my car does, and even my dishwasher andis why angels and animals are not moral agents in Kantsdryer do, since neither stop until they sense that the job ismoral architecture.) Said in other words, ought implies might done. Such machines interact with environmental cues thatnot. However, if so, then we are heading for an uncomfortable may in certain circumstances lead to dire consequences. Moresituation that I have identified as the paradox of automated pressingly, advances in auto-generative programming allowmoral agency or P-AMA (2011b). In brief, it starts with a fewmachines to write their own code, often producing innovativedefinitions, followed by a question and then an argument. The and unpredictable results. To set such machines free on thedefinitions are intended to avoid starting with question-beggingworld without building in moral constraints would simply bebiases. Thus, irresponsible on the part of their designers, but to anticipateevery contingency is not possible either. So these constraints{def MA} any agent that does the right thing morally,themselves have to autonomously decide things as well. Inhowever determined. short, they must be able to evaluate situations and use someIn stating the definition in this way, we do not imply any moralprocedure to act in morally acceptable ways.evaluation or theory of moral behavior. We do so in order to The issue is pulled into greater focus when we addressclear room for the question just intimated. Having defined an MAthe question of who is to blame when such machines fail. Ifneutrally, we can now distinguish between responsible moral they are autonomous and left to their own devices, blamingagents (RMAs) and artificial moral agents (AMAs). In turn, thetheir creators would seem to be cruel and no more justifiednotion of an RMA is intentionally morally loaded to fit traditional than blaming parents for the moral failures of their children orassumptions about what it means for an agent to be worthy ofGod, for that matter, for the failures of the free creatures thatmoral praise or blame for its actions.he unleashes on the world. We could, of course, argue that thecreators of such machines should not make them autonomous{def RMA} an MA that is fully responsible andin the first place, but this is tantamount to arguing that parentsaccountable for its actions.should not have children or that God should not have made hisIt can decide things for itself and so may do or refrain from doing creatures autonomous either.something using its own discretion. Because it is the cause of The real issue with the paradox here points, I believe, to aits own behavior it can be morally culpable. Finally, to return problem with our traditional notion of moral responsibility. To beto a more neutral definition: consistent, if we cannot morally want machines to be RMAs as{def AMA} a manufactured MA that may or may not opposed to non-responsible MAs, we cannot want humans to bebe an RMA.either. Moral responsibility in this light appears to be a solutionof last resort for fallen creatures. Since I am not theisticallyRegardless of the technical possibilities of current research inclined, I have no stake in either exonerating or indicting God,in artificial moral agency and whether we are disposed to but the matter does speak to the point that responsibility andthink that an RMA can be the only genuine kind of MA, we canaccountability, when they carry the weight of moral praise andnow ask the important question, should an AMA be an RMA,blame that we attach to them, are necessarily correlated withassuming it possible for us to make one so. If we cling to thethe notion that we, humans, are morally broken. If we can repairnotion of responsibility assumed thus far, the answer would the situation, we ought to; seriously . . . we physicians ought toseem to be no.heal ourselves . . . if we can. Given that the need to make a machine an MA in the first Non-Responsible Moral Agents . . . Really?place stems from the fact that such machines are autonomous,that is, they are self-guided, rather than act by remote control, The notion of a non-responsible moral agent is not coherent ifwe run into a paradox, P-AMA, which says: we assume conventional conceptions of responsibility or seeit as a necessary part of the moral enterprise. But it seems that 1) If we are to build autonomous machines, we havethe definition of moral responsibility is being reduced to causal a prima facie moral obligation to make them RMAs,responsibility by challenges on several fronts. This is to say that is, agents that are responsible and able to be held that x is responsible for y means only that x is the precipitating responsible for their actions. cause of y. This shift of focus in matters of morals is visible in 2) For an RMA to be responsible and able to be held the conflation between ethics and codes of conduct that we responsible for its actions, it must be capable of bothsee in several of our institutions, in the notion that immoral succeeding and failing in its moral obligations. behavior results from neurological deficit embraced by several 3) An AMA that is also an RMA must therefore be designedneuroscientists (and sometimes by our courts), and in the to be capable of both succeeding and failing in itsadvent of moral machinery. The bottom line, it seems, is not the moral obligations. need to have agents to blame, but the need to have immoralbehavior cease. In other words, the social problem of ethics is 4) It would be a moral failure to unleash upon the worldto create (or encourage) agents, whether human or otherwise, machines that are capable of failing in their moralto behave morally. The coercion of moral behavior, whether by obligations. the promise of rewards or punishments, is but one means to 5) Therefore, we have a moral obligation to build AMAsthis end (and one, we must admit, that is sometimes effective that are not also RMAs.and sometimes not).P-AMA might be escapable as a paradox by simply denying In 2011a, 2011b, and 2011c, I advanced what I calledpremise 1, but doing so might not be as easy as it first appears, the sufficiency argument. It is intimated here already. Themostly because of the technical aspects involved with argument maintains that the kind of moral interiority necessaryautonomy as it applies to machinery. A full discussion of the for an agent to be an RMA is a sufficient though not necessarypoint exceeds the scope of this paper, but the problem cancondition for being an MA. Therefore, moral interiority is notquickly be summarized by noting that as the world becomes essential for moral agency. One corollary of the argument isincreasingly automated, machines are being left to decide that there are other (and perhaps more effective) ways to be an 9 11. APA Newsletter, Spring 2012, Volume 11, Number 2 MA that do not require the internal psychological componentsnot to be able to distinguish between persons and things, Iinvolved in conscience, guilt, shame, etc. Advancing this have come to appreciate what is going on at a deeper level: byposition seriously is really to do nothing other than pinpointbroadening our moral regard to include non-human, indeed,the direction that ethics is already heading: the general focus non-living, things, we also broaden the concept of harm toof our moral regard is no longer the salvation of the individualthat of damage (Floridi 2002). This view squares well withsoul, but individual behavior, properly contextualized, insofar asthe no-fault ethics mentioned above insofar as harm invitesit has a moral impact on our social situation. To have come thiscompensation whereas damage invites repair. In traditionalfar, however, is already to have wreaked havoc on the historicalviews, if we harm a person, justice demands compensation,foundations of ethics, (again) at least in the West.but harming a painting only makes sense by extension of To make this clear, in 2011c, I invited the reader to consider metaphor. We cannot pay recompense to a painting for its painthe headline First Robot Awarded Congressional Medal ofand suffering. We can, however, see to its repair. This shift ofHonor for Incredible Acts of Courage on the Battlefield. I thenfocus from harm to damage invites us to fix problems ratherasked, What must we assume in the background for such athan place blame. It is in this spirit that moral behaviorism startsheadline to make sense without profaning a nations highest to make sense.award of valor? Minimally, fortitude and discipline, intention to Setting aside the motives, drives, and desires of moralact while undergoing the experience of fear, some notion of agents to focus on the damage that they do and the repairssacrifice with regard to ones own life, and so forth, for what that they (or others) can make gets us to what really mattersis courage without these things? That a robot might simulatein ethics. Once again, the point of ethics is not grounded in thethem is surely not enough to warrant the attribution of virtue, need to have agents to blame, but in the need to make immoralunless we change the meaning of some terms. At the timebehavior cease. The whys and what fors are beside theof that writing, I was worried that we, as a species (meaning point, though, for those who wish to preserve them, they may doirrespective of the concerns of professional ethicists), were so with limited concession, as I shall demonstrate momentarily.in the midst of an inevitable entry into a post-ethical age. In a Indeed, I regard the possibility of their preservation as one ofsense, I still think we are, but it might be better to put this inthe benefits of moral behaviorism.Nietzschean terms and say that we are tacitly in the processGetting Practical about Moral Philosophyof revaluing value. The ethical landscape is transforming at itsvery roots as we are forced by new technological possibilitiesIn their book Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right fromWrong, Wallach and Allen call attention to a problem thatand life in a highly connected world to recognize a plurality ofmorally demands a change of perspective from traditional ethicslifestyle choices, religious (and non-religious!) commitments,to something more along the lines of the above. This demandand political ideologies. Whether this leads to relativism isis forced by new possibilities regarding emerging technologies,besides the point; the problem we must face is whether wethough in some sense it might always have been in the waiting.can find a way to work together to solve some very pressingThey write:problems that the species is just beginning to confront withoutdestroying ourselves in the process. This change of moral focus Companies developing AI are concerned that theyfrom the individual soul to the common good now seems to me may be open to lawsuits even when their systemsto be a positive step in the right direction, even if it amounts to a enhance human safety. Peter Norvig of Google offersno-fault ethics. Indeed, this is what I mean by non-responsible the example of cars driven by advanced technologymoral agency; pointing fingers gets us nowhere when there israther than humans. Imagine that half the cars on U.S.serious work to be done.highways are driven by (ro)bots, and the death toll Fortunately, information ethics (IE), as advanced by Floridi,decreases from roughly forty-two thousand a year tostarts in the right direction with a macro-ethics that mightthirty-one thousand a year. Will the companies sellingbest be described as an eco-informational environmentalism. those cars be rewarded? Or will they be confrontedFloridis views are spread across several papers and will soonwith ten thousand lawsuits for deaths blamed on thebe released as a book, Information Ethics, the second volume(ro)bot drivers? (207)of a quadrilogy on the philosophy of information, which willGiven our current ethical and legal climate, companies arecomprise part of an intricate system of philosophical overhaul. right to be concerned that their technologies to improve ourThus, a detailed treatment is not possible here. To paint the world may shift the burden of responsibility from others topicture in broad strokes though, Floridi advocates following thethemselves. Yet, from a patient-centered point of view, thislead of environmental ethics by shifting our focus from the agent demonstrates precisely what is wrong with approaching ethicsin a moral situation to the patient. This move is in direct contrastfrom a traditional, agent-oriented perspective, since it shouldto virtue ethics, which focuses its attention on the character of be clear that if we can save ten thousand lives by employingthe subject, but it is also in contrast to utilitarianism, deontology autonomous vehicles we ought to do so, regardless of whereand contractarianism, which, though relational, tend to treatthis places responsibility and accountability. Some forgivenessthe relata, i.e., the individual agent and the individual patient, as here is in order. In cases such as this, the traditional, fault-secondary importance (1999, 41), by putting their focus on the oriented perspective gets in the way of doing the right thing. Asaction itself. Additionally, they (including virtue ethics here) aremore technologies with possible positive ethical consequencesalso anthropocentric in the sense that they view ethics primarily emerge, this problem will inevitably become a greater concernas a matter of managing relations between human beings. Thiswe will have to address.contrasts strongly with Land Ethics, where the environmentThere is room to be concerned as well about what happensitself can become a patient worthy of our moral regard becauseto individual responsibility and accountability if we fail to deferit is intrinsically valuable and not just valuable for us. Followingappropriately to certain machines. In 2011b, I put forth a thoughtthis lead, Floridi advocates an object-oriented and ontocentricexperiment involving MorMach, an all knowing moral machine,theory (1999, 43) that extends our moral concern to anythingthe ultimate oracle in all matters concerning ethics, in orderthat exists. to illustrate the emerging possibility that we might one day While I must confess that, on first encountering this view,transcend our faulty neural wiring and hormone control systemsmy moral sensibilities were offended by a theory that seems by deference to a machine that is better at ethics than we are. 10 12. Philosophy and Computers If such a machine were to exist, would not ethics itself requireDennett, D. 1984. Cognitive wheels: the frame problem of AI. In Minds,our deference, even in cases where our conscience, an affective Machines and Evolution, ed. Hookway, C., 129-151. Cambridge, UK:component of our frail biology after all, might disagree? Suppose Cambridge University Press.MorMach were widely employed across every sector of society,Dennett, D. 2006, May. Computers as prostheses for the imagination.including, for instance, the medical profession. Where should The International Computers and Philosophy Conference. Laval, France.we place the blame if a physician were to follow his conscience Floridi, L. 1999. Information ethics: on the philosophical foundation ofagainst the advice of MorMach and end up engaged in an action computer ethics. Ethics and Information Technology 1:37-56.with serious negative consequences? On a traditional approach Floridi, L. 2002. On the intrinsic value of objects and the infosphere.to ethics, it would seem that fault in this case would fall to theEthics and Information Technology 4:287-304.physician who should have let the AMA do the moral work for Kant, I. 1785/1994. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. andhim. Speculating about the future is dangerous business, but Itrans. Ellington, J. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.suspect that if MorMach were a reality, the courts would inevitably Levinas, E. 1976/1990. Damages due to fire. In Nine Talmudic Readingsagree. In this light, we may wonder whether one day moral by Emmanuel Levinas, ed. Aronowicz, A., 178-197. Bloomington, IN:failures will be indistinguishable from other kinds of failures,Indiana University Press.like, for instance, not prescribing a medication according to the Mill, J. S. 1861/1979. Utilitarianism. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishingadvice of established medical practice or failing to follow anCompany.owners manual regarding warnings when using various tools. Powers, T. 2006. Prospects for a Kantian machine. IEEE IntelligentPractically speaking, these examples suggest that Systems 1541-1672:46-51.ethics requires us to acknowledge human limitations whenWallach, W. and Allen, C. 2009. Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Rightconfronting moral matters. Being able to be morally successful, from Wrong. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.and therefore worthy of praise, only because it is possible forus to be immoral, is not, as Kant thought, a sign of the dignity ofthe human being, but the sign of an ethics that assumes human The Artifactualization of Reference andbeings to be broken from the start. In this light, we should take Substances on the Web: Why (HTTP) URIscare to see that ethics becomes behavior-oriented.Finally, to deliver on the promise made in the last paragraphDo Not (Always) Refer nor Resources Holdof the previous section, the sufficiency argument allows us by Themselvesto approach moral behaviorism without entirely dismissingthe several motivations that come from inherited ethicalAlexandre Monninand religious tradition. To remind the reader, the sufficiencyUniversit Paris 1 Panthon-Sorbonne (PhiCo, EXeCo),argument maintains that the kind of moral interiority necessaryInstitut de Recherche et dInnovation (IRI) du Centrefor an agent to be an RMA is a sufficient though not necessaryPompidou, INRIA (Wimmics), CNAM (DICEN)condition for being an MA. Therefore, moral interiority is notwe now have to pay our way in order to subsist1essential for moral agency. It is not essential, but this is not tosay that it is not helpful, particularly for beings constituted like(B. Latour)us. Of course, what is true for sufficient conditions in generalIntroductionis also true for this one. This is to say that there may be (andFrom an architectural point of view, the Web can be conceivedare, I believe) a number of sufficient conditions that will leadas an information space full of URIsWeb identifiers. Contraryone to being an MA; several existing moral beliefs and systemsto popular belief it is not a traditional hypertext linkingare, no doubt, among them. All are fine and acceptable, asdocuments or pages to one another. Indeed, to accountlong as the necessary condition for being an MA is met, andfor all the situations encountered on the Web (Web services,this is, straightforwardly, moral behavior. Used in this way,dynamic pages, applications, feeds, content negotiation, etc.),the sufficiency argument permits a plurality of paths to morala more encompassing theory was needed. According to theobjectives based on a singular necessary condition. Perhapslatter (the REST style of architecture), Web identifiers have tothis pluralism of motivation can get us all on the same pagebe treated as derefereceable proper namesURIs (Uniformregarding moral behavior without having to reach agreementresource Identifiers), instead of the more well-known URLsabout incidentals that often clutter ethical debate. Perhaps this(Uniform Resource Locators).is what we need in a quickly globalizing moral community.URIs are especially interesting for philosophers. LikeReferencesproper names, a concept central both to the philosophy ofAnderson, M., and Anderson, S. 2007. Machine ethics: creating an ethicallanguage and metaphysics, they seem to refer to an object. Ifintelligent agent. AI Magazine 28(4):15-26.the architecture of the Web retains some of their characteristics,Beavers, A. 2009, March. Between angels and animals: the question then philosophers are no longer facing a terra incognita butof robot ethics, or is Kantian moral agency desirable? Association forrather a familiar landscape. Unlike proper names, however,Practical and Professional Ethics, Eighteenth Annual Meeting, Cincinnati,URIs also give access to Web contents. As such, they betokenOhio.an important change, from a symbolical dimension, whereBeavers, A. 2010. Editorial to Robot ethics and human ethics. Specialproper names are bestowed certain functions and used to solveissue of Ethics and Information Technology 12(3):207-208.philosophical conundrums regarding identity, to a technologicalBeavers, A. 2011a, July. Is ethics computable, or what other than canone, to quote the late German media theorist Friedrich Kittler,does ought imply? Presidential Address at the Annual InternationalAssociation for Computing and Philosophy Conference, Aarhuswhere they earn new functionalities and act as the pillar of aUniversity, Aarhus, Denmark.world-wide information system.2Beavers, A. 2011b, October. Could and should the ought disappear from This shift is what we call artifactualization,3 the becoming-ethics? International Symposium on Digital Ethics, Loyola University, artifact of philosophical concepts. Our first goal in this paper is toChicago, Illinois.show that reference, the frail symbolic relation between a signBeavers, A. 2011c. Moral machines and the threat of ethical nihilism. and its referent, is turned into something entirely different onIn Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, ed. the Web, the space between referent and reference, the relationLin, P Bekey, G., and Abney, K., 333-344. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ., itself, being adjusted so as to warrant that reference doesnt fail. 11 13. APA Newsletter, Spring 2012, Volume 11, Number 2 Our second goal is to deal in the same movement with theindex.html, to your computer. That file is copiedcorrelate of URIs, resources. About ten years after the birth ofinto your computers memory and viewed by yourthe Web, it was understood/decided, after careful analysis, thatbrowser. The version you view disappears from yourits architecture was a resource-oriented one. A very paradoxicalcomputers memory when you no longer view it, ormove inasmuch as resources are not accessible per se. But if cached, when your cache is cleaned. You may alsoa most important one since it provided the URIs a means tochoose to save my web page to your hard drive inidentify anything at all. Things on the Web, outside of the Web,which case you will have a copy of my index.html file.chairs, people, rates, square circles, etc. The introduction of My index.html file remains, throughout the browsingresources can be seen as a potent way to reopen the ontological and afterward, intact and fixed.6question afresh.While the default view of the Web is conform to the paragraphYet, it must also be understood that while resource can quoted, a more general theory was needed to account for casesbe anything, they also share very specific characteristicsnot covered in this picture:which have not been properly identified. Drawing from Kittler The dynamic Web which is also, incidentally,once again, we could say that the concept of an object for becoming the default Web (services,7 constantlyphilosophers from Goclenius, Lohardus, and Suarez to Kant toBretano, Twardowki, and Meinong, belonged to the symbolicchanging pages like newspapers homepages, blogs,realm while the very notion of a resource belongs to the etc.)technical realm as well, born as it was out of an effort to restore Content negotiation (abbreviated as conneg). Aconsistency to a technical project.feature of the HTTP protocol accounting for the factAs the Web is spreading and becoming more ubiquitous that users may specify the form of the information theyday after day, we witness an interesting change wherebyget access to according to such criteria as languages,objects are becoming resources. From an online documentaccessibility, formats, etc. This means that it is notto a person or an RDFID-enhanced product or device, they possible to generalize on the basis of a single case thatare everywhereor everyware, to borrow designer Adam of retrieving a single HTML page on a server. After all,Greenfields portmanteau word. what gets sent to a browser may take many differentInterestingly, on the surface resources share many aspects forms. It may even be generated on the fly and thuswith what used to be the dominant ontological conception ofnowhere to be found on a server before a requestobjects for centuries: substance. However, unlike substances,is even sent. In which cases, what is identified by athe category of resource is no longer a natural one. The functionURI can simply no longer be a single (HTML) file.of substances was to explain how things like people, organisms, URIs without addressable content (temporarily oror artifacts persisted over time. Without such an ontologicalnot).8background, the issue remains open. We will see that on the The lack of a file versioning system9 (WebDAV could beWeb, resource persistence has a cost which has to be assumed used as a counter-example but it never really scaled).by a publisher and depends on protocols and standards. Overall, Further examination of the intricate history of Web identifiersthis will lead to a completely different ontological framework. is needed to understand why the nave picture of how the WebOne that is gaining more and more traction insofar as the works is no longer tenable. Before the creation of the W3C,network expands.the Webs implementation and principles were not thoroughlyI. From Web pages to resourcesdistinguished. The Web existed in the guise of programminglibraries, software, and the likes, but no agreed upon standardsIt has been said that the new digital continent opened newdefined the very principles to which these libraries had to stick.perspective for ontology. Not since the first work of fiction wasThis led to many a conceptual difficulty when the first Webproduced have philosophers been confronted with such anstandards were devised around 1994-1995.impressive and so totally unexplored new realm of ontologicalinquiry as is presented by cyberspace, says David Koepsell in The latter had to do both with the nature of the objectsthe opening pages of his book, The Ontology of Cyberspace. In available on the Web and their identifiers. At first, the notiona similar vein, Luciano Floridi prefers to speak of a process ofof a document (or page) seemed to prevail. The obviousre-ontologization4 but the idea is roughly the same.conclusion was that Web identifiers had to be addresses (URLsfor Uniform Resource Locators) allowing for document retrieval The issue is that on specific questions such as Whatin a hypertextual environment. Pages evolving over time (evenexactly is a Web page? philosophersexcept for a fewin the so-called web 1.0forums being a good example of theexceptions worth mentioning like Harry Halpinhavent takenlatter), the identification of stable entities as exemplified throughinto account the work of Web architects. Thus, up until now, alibrary identifiers like ISBNs for books or ISSNs for journals, waslot more has been done to understand the fundamentals of thetransferred to URNs (for Uniform Resource Names)properWeb inside standardization bodies like the W3C.5 Koepsell, fornames referring to objects not available on the Web. The onlyinstance, in the already quoted book, explains the retrieval ofproblem of these identifiers is that the Webs main feature is toa Web page the following way:provide information about a range of entities, whatever statusWeb pages are just another form of software. Again, (inside or outside of the Web) they have. URNs no longerthey consist of data in the form of bits which reside giving access to anything, their value became disputable. Theon some storage medium. Just as with my wordcontradiction regarding addressing, on the other hand, becameprocessor, my web page resides in a specific placeflagrant in one official document, RFC10 173611:and occupies a certain space on a hard drvie [sic] inLocators may apply to resources that are not alwaysAmherst, New York. When you point your browseror not ever network accessible. Examples of the latterto http://wings.buffalo.edu/~koepsell, you are sendinginclude human beings and physical objects that havea message across the Internet which instructs myno electronic instantiation.web pages host computer (a Unix machine at theuniversity of Buffalo) to send a copy of the contents ofThis is no mere contradiction, rather the renegotiation, in mediamy personal directory, specifically, a HTML file called res, of the most fundamental features of a technical project. It is 12 14. Philosophy and Computers precisely this non-sense that was corrected three years later, in terms, is the intentional act of picking up something, and1998, when the notion of a resource first appeared (elsewhere by doing so, aiming at an object. It has a content (the objectthan in acronyms such as URIs, URLs, URNs, or URCs).identified) and a form (the action of identifying something). TheMerely as a correlate of URIs, the latter being established asdistinction at stake is reminiscent of the hul/morph distinctionthe new Web identifier after having been sundered in URNs in Husserls Ideen. Unfortunately, the Husserlian vocabulary isand URLs. URIs are peculiar inasmuch as they add a technicaltied to a somewhat mentalistic approach to the mind that is notdimension to identification, namely, access.12 They have theentirely suitable to explain a socio-technical system like the Webstatus of dereferenceable proper names for this reason; being,(something outside of the scope of Husserls phenomenologicalin other words, proper names that identify a resource and giveinvestigation up until his later books, particularly the Krisis andaccess to its representations.the Origin of geometry).Why resources instead of Web pages, a concept everyoneAnother way of putting things would be to conceive of ais acquainted with? Simply said, because what is aimed at hereresource as a rule for identification. It presents the advantageis a stable entity whose representation can neverthelessof allowing for different ways of identifying an object. In thevary over time or at a given moment (with conneg). Theexample above, the rule can be of a Russellian nature (thehomepage of the newspaper The Guardian I access at time t current King of France is relatively similar to the homepageis different from the same homepage I access at t. Likewise, of the Guardian yielding differentincluding the possibilityaccessing it from a mobile phone or a textual browser will yieldof noresults over time) or a Kripkean one (the Moon15)different results. These various representations are subject to among infinite possibilities. Anyone is entitled to choosingsynchronic and diachronic modifications.13 Albeit not the any rule. When the standards explain that a resource canleast identical to one another, they must be somehow faithful be anything, this is precisely what they mean: this choice isto a given resource (The Guardian homepage, not accessiblecompletely free. Were led back to Roy Fieldings definition,per se). Such a notion is especially important with regards to theundoubtedly the most precise ever given. The Web Architecturalfact that it allows reference not only to documents (page) butstyle REST (for Representational State Transfer) he authored16also services, physical objects, etc. Overall, it is of paramount indeed defines a r