Ethic

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Ethics

I believe minimizing the harm seems most ethical principle for deciding on a car crash situation. Though making decisions under such conditions is an ethical dilemma, defining good and bad is extremely difficult. Ethical decision makings require for any choice made to be justified and explainable. In the case of autonomous vehicles, it is imperative for technological progress should be inter-communicable. I think the care should swerve into the truck to minimize the loss. In this way, only the driver might lose his life but save other's lives. The key factor to be noticed here is that the ethical decisions made by autonomous vehicles may have grave consequences. Thus the decisions should be made based on an information processing model. For robots to make ethical decisions, they have to conform norms and perform the action likewise. To evaluate the alternative courses of action, it is two approaches can be used. First, the utilitarianism approach deals with the evaluation of the value of a decision which is determined by the degree of benefits and calculate the consequences. The deontologist approach suggests that decisions must express moral and ethical values and must not do anything that can harm anyone else no matter what. But this behaviour is instilled in decision making competency of robots ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"QujaZbog","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Alaieri and Vellino)","plainCitation":"(Alaieri and Vellino)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":52,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/9Hfkg8Y0/items/EZLWKZ77"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/9Hfkg8Y0/items/EZLWKZ77"],"itemData":{"id":52,"type":"paper-conference","title":"Ethical Decision Making in Robots: Autonomy, Trust and Responsibility","container-title":"Social Robotics","collection-title":"Lecture Notes in Computer Science","publisher":"Springer International Publishing","page":"159-168","source":"Springer Link","ISBN":"978-3-319-47437-3","title-short":"Ethical Decision Making in Robots","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Alaieri","given":"Fahad"},{"family":"Vellino","given":"André"}],"editor":[{"family":"Agah","given":"Arvin"},{"family":"Cabibihan","given":"John-John"},{"family":"Howard","given":"Ayanna M."},{"family":"Salichs","given":"Miguel A."},{"family":"He","given":"Hongsheng"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Alaieri and Vellino). But as I chose that car should swerve into the truck, knowing the passenger would lose his life, I think my choice will change if the passenger was a loved one. In that scenario, I would like for the robot car to still analyze for lowest harm and swerve into any of the riders. We humans intrinsically make choices where we get to avoid any loss and make unethical or morally wrong decisions. This loss aversion strategy has an impact on society's moral grounds ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"aysUTuLw","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Faulhaber et al.)","plainCitation":"(Faulhaber et al.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":54,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/9Hfkg8Y0/items/XYYUL68W"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/9Hfkg8Y0/items/XYYUL68W"],"itemData":{"id":54,"type":"article-journal","title":"Human Decisions in Moral Dilemmas are Largely Described by Utilitarianism: Virtual Car Driving Study Provides Guidelines for Autonomous Driving Vehicles","container-title":"Science and Engineering Ethics","page":"399-418","volume":"25","issue":"2","source":"Springer Link","DOI":"10.1007/s11948-018-0020-x","ISSN":"1471-5546","title-short":"Human Decisions in Moral Dilemmas are Largely Described by Utilitarianism","journalAbbreviation":"Sci Eng Ethics","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Faulhaber","given":"Anja K."},{"family":"Dittmer","given":"Anke"},{"family":"Blind","given":"Felix"},{"family":"Wächter","given":"Maximilian A."},{"family":"Timm","given":"Silja"},{"family":"Sütfeld","given":"Leon R."},{"family":"Stephan","given":"Achim"},{"family":"Pipa","given":"Gordon"},{"family":"König","given":"Peter"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2019",4,1]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Faulhaber et al.). Thus the decisions based on effective empathy rather than cognition transmit effects on ethical competence due to benevolence and care and even selfishness ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"0NApjtxz","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Pohling et al.)","plainCitation":"(Pohling et al.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":55,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/9Hfkg8Y0/items/LNKTA5KJ"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/9Hfkg8Y0/items/LNKTA5KJ"],"itemData":{"id":55,"type":"article-journal","title":"What is Ethical Competence? The Role of Empathy, Personal Values, and the Five-Factor Model of Personality in Ethical Decision-Making","container-title":"Journal of Business Ethics","page":"449-474","volume":"137","issue":"3","source":"Springer Link","abstract":"The objective of the present research was two-fold: (1) to provide a new definition of ethical competence, and (2) to clarify the influence of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality on ethical competence. The present research provides a comprehensive overview about recent approaches and empirically explores the interconnections of these constructs. 366 German undergraduate students were examined in a cross-sectional study that investigated the relationship of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality with moral judgment competence and counterproductive work behavior as indicators of moral judgment and behavior. We found self-transcendence values to be related to both, high levels of empathy and ethical competence, in contrast to self-enhancement values. Multiple mediation analysis revealed unique effects of empathy on ethical competence through values as mediators. Affective (but not cognitive) empathy transmitted its effect on ethical competence through benevolence, conformity, tradition, power, and hedonism. Most importantly, perspective taking lost its predictive power when investigated alongside affective empathy dimensions. These results converge to an important role of affective empathy, in particular empathic concern, with regard to personal values and ethical competence. Furthermore, the five-factor model of personality explained variance in measures of ethical competence. Our research suggests that organizational decision makers should consider the role of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model in their human resource management in order to select employees with high ethical competence.","DOI":"10.1007/s10551-015-2569-5","ISSN":"1573-0697","title-short":"What is Ethical Competence?","journalAbbreviation":"J Bus Ethics","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Pohling","given":"Rico"},{"family":"Bzdok","given":"Danilo"},{"family":"Eigenstetter","given":"Monika"},{"family":"Stumpf","given":"Siegfried"},{"family":"Strobel","given":"Anja"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",9,1]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Pohling et al.). Ethical decisions made by humans are based on cultural, moral and personal values and so the element of bias will always be present. But in the case of autonomous robot cars, the decision making capability is entirely programmed and evidence-based and thus it should be utilized in minimizing the harm as much as possible.

Works Cited

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Alaieri, Fahad, and André Vellino. “Ethical Decision Making in Robots: Autonomy, Trust and Responsibility.” Social Robotics, edited by Arvin Agah et al., Springer International Publishing, 2016, pp. 159–68.

Faulhaber, Anja K., et al. “Human Decisions in Moral Dilemmas Are Largely Described by Utilitarianism: Virtual Car Driving Study Provides Guidelines for Autonomous Driving Vehicles.” Science and Engineering Ethics, vol. 25, no. 2, Apr. 2019, pp. 399–418. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/s11948-018-0020-x.

Pohling, Rico, et al. “What Is Ethical Competence? The Role of Empathy, Personal Values, and the Five-Factor Model of Personality in Ethical Decision-Making.” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 137, no. 3, Sept. 2016, pp. 449–74. Springer Link, doi:10.1007/s10551-015-2569-5.