From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!neat.cs.toronto.edu!cbo Tue May 12 15:50:16 EDT 1992
Article 5542 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum)
Subject: Re: AI failures
Message-ID: <92May10.194313edt.48078@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
References: <1992May7.152447.7930@waikato.ac.nz> <727@ckgp.UUCP> <uc2m8INNn5d@early-bird.think.com> <1992May8.155052.13848@psych.toronto.edu> <uetinINNco5@early-bird.think.com>
Date: 10 May 92 23:43:38 GMT
Lines: 109


Hans Moravec takes on the thankless task of schooling us in morality:

|      Expediency and morality both arise from necessity, and are much less
|      different than you imagine.

Morality asks (inter alia) "Is this action right (simpliciter)?"
Expedience asks "Can doing P accomplish the desired Q effectively?"

I don't knowm what Michael Gemar is imagining (the "you" above) but in
my mind this is, prima facie at least, a rather large difference.  Perhaps
Michael was intending to use "expedience" in the pejorative sense of
self-interest. Then one might argue, as philosophers from Plato on have done,
that true and enlightened self-interest really does correspond with morality.
But this kind of self-interest is far removed indeed from what could 
accurately be described as "expedience".

|      Morality is a name for a sytem of social conventions, that modulates 
|      behavioral predispositions of individuals (and groups) in a way that 
|      (ideally) improves the group's well being. 

"Modulates behavioral predispositions" sounds pretty scientific, so I guess
I'm out of my league commenting on this.  However, it seems to me that
despite the fancy scientific trappings, this definition (theory?) of
morality is essentially vacuous, since it lacks any clear and justified
notion of what constitutes "the group's well being".

If this is intended to be a utilitarian definition with no side constraints,
as it appears, it should be noted that such a view is certainly not 
accepted today by many people engaged in normative moral and political 
philosophy. Consider the work of John Rawls and Robert Nozick for example.  
It would be highly misleading to express their underlying moral theories 
in terms of "the group's well being". Both of them explicitly disclaim 
such concerns.

|      There are many
|      situations (self defense, war, capital punshment, abortion) where
|      present society condones elimination of individuals that are judged
|      to have a negative  net worth.

Insofar as there is any consensus on the moral justifiability of these 
activities, I'd say this analysis of why they are considered morally 
justified is completely erroneous, unless rendered vacuously true by a 
revisionist definition of "negative net worth".

|      There are many other situations
|      (termination of medical or rescue efforts, limits on resources
|      expended in safety precautions, hazardous employment, limiting
|      immigration from third-world countries) where an increased chance
|      of death is condoned.  It would be absolutely necessary to create
|      many more such situations if individuals didn't have the good grace
|      to die of their own accord of old age.
|      In fact, it will be.

This prediction is disturbing enough merely as a prediction, but Hans
seems also to be endorsing it.  Obviously there is some serious thinking to
be done here, but it is not clear that we are going to be absolutely
required to create more of these situations as our technology improves.

For one thing, many of us are not going to acquiesce to Hans's apparent
wishes that we start to consider persons disposable on the slightest whim, 
just because we want to create a slew of clones for a moment or two merely 
in order to solve some little puzzle we have on our minds.

|      If my employer were also my creator, and my sole means of support
|      (I resided in my employer's body, as it were), then I am a component
|      of my employer, and it is my employer's business how much, if any, of
|      its limited resources it should grant me.

In a no doubt childishly naive way, I find this thouroughly disgusting
and revolting.  It's hard to believe that anybody would actually believe
something like this.  About the only way I think I could possibly begin 
to believe this would be if the employer were also my Creator, and that
His very being were so conceptually tied to Goodness that Euthyphro's
hoary question was thereby dissolved.  

And to me at least, that's inconceivable.  There may be some theists who
accept such a thing, but for the big-C Creator only.  Hans and his 
businessman are not that person, nor, I imagine, do they believe in Him.

Besides, this contradicts what Hans said earlier. Here he is asserting a
very strong individualist's ethical creed: it is NO BUSINESS of OURS
what this businessman does with with HIS property.  Surely, though, under
most definitions of "improving the group's well being", it WOULD be our
business.  It's highly unlikely that whatever this bussinessman does is
guaranteed to be an improvement in that amorphous quantity.

|      And I find you comments childishly naive.  

"Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even
the welfare of society as a whole cannot override"
	Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Page 3

"Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do
to them without violating their rights"
	Nozick, Anarchy State and Utopia, Page ix

Thank you, gentlemen, for founding your monumentally influential works on
something which Hans Moravec finds to be little more than childish
naivete.  You have done nothing but mislead us horribly from our true
and glorious fate, which apparently includes the creation of people 
with impunity, having them do whatever we want, with no considerations 
for such silly fictions as their "inviolability" or "rights".

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Calvin Ostrum                                            cbo@cs.toronto.edu  
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	"Bee eye jee enn you tea aiych eye enn" -- The Roches
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