Ethics - Map a Node Presentations

Avery Metheny — Vaccine Mandates

  • Pro

    • Vaccination mandates help the majority of people

    • Herd immunity

  • Con

    • Bodily autonomy and choice

    • Casual links to side effects leading to disorders

      • Inconsistent link (could have connection, but no proof of causation)

    • Storing vaccines is inconvenient

    • Storage of vaccines leads to increase in CO2 emissions

  • Legal

    • States decide requirements for schoolchildren

    • Can require vaccinations of healthcare workers and patients

    • Exemptions are allowed in most states

      • Religion or medical circumstances

  • Jeremy Bentham

    • Save most lives using vaccinations, more happiness

    • Not in favor of religious exemptions

  • Robert Nozick

    • Extreme libertarian

    • Huge believer in bodily autonomy

    • Mandates take autonomy from people

    • Vaccination mandate would be government power overreach

Tarun Chapalamadugu — Internet Piracy

  • Intro

    • Digital piracy = illegally downloading media without payment

    • Piracy is not theft, but it is copyright infringement

    • Does decrease sales

    • Getting stuff for free, but author gets nothing

  • Brian Skyrms

    • Social Contract + Game Theory

    • Traditional social contract: rational people + rational thinking = rational contract

    • The Stag Hunt

      • Variation of prisoner’s dilemma

      • Solo vs cooperative options via stag or hare

      • Societal values can influence decision

      • Lots of decisions create norms, which create social contract and law

    • ’Murica

      • Solo option (individual holds on media)

      • Norm against piracy → piracy is immoral

    • Therefore, morality depends on location and values of a society

  • Immanuel Kant

    • Categorial imperative: universalizability principle

      • People ought not to pirate all the time, for any reason → piracy immoral

      • No income to creators = no media

    • Mere means test

      • Treating authors as means to knowledge

      • Immoral, as it violates the autonomy of authors

  • Opinion

    • Would it make a difference if I pirate?

    • Benefits: accessibility, exposure, “free trial”

    • Morality is circumstantial

    • If you can afford to pay and you pirate, it’s morally wrong since you could have contributed to the author

Isabella Loparco — CRISPR

  • Intro

    • Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats

    • Medical tech that advanced the science of gene editing and manipulation

    • Replacement of parts of DNA

  • Pros

    • Prevent genetic diseases

    • Lower risk of illness

    • Parental choice of favorable characteristics

  • Cons

    • Unsure of consequences and harm

    • Expensive, could create social inequality

    • “Designer babies” unfairly advantaged

  • Charlie Gard: mitochondrial depletion syndrome

    • Could have been saved with surgery but court ruled against since it was untested

  • Julian Savulescu

    • Research on enhancing DNA

    • Believed Charlie should have had surgery

    • Obligation to improve human species

    • Morally negligent to abandon research

      • Parents obligated to help their children

    • CRISPR can be limited to prevent social inequality

  • St. Thomas Aquinas

    • Believed in human and god connection

    • Editing genes = violating natural law

      • Human intervention of god’s work

    • Natural order acts like a compass away from evil

    • Divine law guides people to fulfill holy life

    • Eudaimonia from Aristotle: constant improvement = pro CRISPR

Caitlin Jones — Prostitution

  • Immanuel Kant

    • Celibate

    • Humans are never to be used as means to an end (except for specialized work with agreement)

    • Prostitution is still wrong (human should not be used as sexual means)

    • Lust and objectification trump reason in animals, and humans should distance from this behavior

  • Elizabeth Anscombe

    • Modern utilitarian (?)

    • Sex naturally associated with shame, absent from reason

    • “Casual” sex = sex without the intention of pregnancy is an “abuse of generative organs”

    • But prostitution could promote the most happiness (hedonism??)

  • Igor Primoratz

    • Morally questionable, not inherent to prostitution

      • Clients, pimps, STDs

    • Aversion against prostitution is a prudent matter, not a moral one

    • Sex outside of marriage is ok

      • Marital duty: marriage for wrong reasons

      • Seek marriage for sexual reasons??

    • Prostitution should be legalized in order to set regulations

Mac Wang — Autonomous Vehicles

  • Five levels of automation: none, driver assist, partial, conditional, high, full

  • First conceptualized: 1987; Mass market: 2020

  • Jeremy Bentham

    • Pro automation

    • Less likely to cause crashes

    • Decreases the dangers of fatigue

    • Requires no experience to drive

    • Objectively safer

  • Paul Virilio

    • Con automation

    • Ethical programming (boxed car dilemma)

    • Human agency (loss of human decisions and control)

    • Study of speed and technology on society

    • Job displacement

  • Legal regulations: AV 4.0 guidelines for autonomous vehicles

    • Prioritize safety

    • Emphasize security and cybersecurity

    • Ensure privacy and data security (not share without knowledge)

    • Enhance mobility and accessibility

  • Opinion

    • Widespread adoption of self-driving cars maximizes overall happiness and well-being

    • It enhances safety, efficiency, accessibility, and environmental sustainability

    • However, current self-driving tech is not yet ready for level 4-5 automation

    • Who takes responsibility of a crash caused by an AV crash?

Luca Achilles — Marijuana

  • Intro

    • Cannabis is a psychoactive drug that releases feelings of euphoria

    • Side effects: fatigue, loss of appetite…?

    • Could be a “gateway drug” into worse drugs

  • Dale Jacquette

    • Advocates for marijuana legalization

    • Agreed with deontology

      • Humans can use reasoning to make ethical choices

      • Categorical imperatives

      • Universalism

    • Means and outcome are acceptable since they do not directly cause violations of categorical imperatives

  • John Locke

    • Natural law theory (?!)

      • Human reasoning decides right and wrong

      • Laws can be deemed against human behavior

    • Hedonism (?!)

      • Focusses humans should strive to gain pleasure

      • Consequential

    • Support marijuana

      • Does not hurt anyone

      • Use is for personal benefit

    • Anti marijuana

      • Negative health effects

      • Against personal reasoning

  • Social contract theory

    • Would be unethical since it’s against the law

  • Divine command theory

    • Christianity: ethical dilemma; bible does not specify

    • Depends with other religions

  • Conclusion

    • Ethicality of marijuana is dependent on ethical theory

Alice Sakhatskyy — Consumerism

  • Adam Smith

    • Wealth of Nations

    • Laissez faire capitalism — government should not be involved in economy

    • “Invisible hand”

    • David Hume = friend

    • Competition is driven by self-interest, positive effect on society

    • Government intervention = stagnation

  • Berry Schwartz

    • Abundance of choice → paralysis, not liberation

    • Imagined alternative causes regret

      • Choosing one thing is not choosing to do the other, disappointment

    • We need to set boundaries

  • Karl Marx

    • Estranged labor

    • Alienation from the product of labor; loss of identity

      • Lack fulfillment; dehumanization

    • Commodification

Kostas Saravanos — Corporate Discrimination

  • Definition of discrimination

    • Original

      • “Recognizing and understanding the difference between one thing and another”

    • Negative connotation in 19th century due to racial tension

      • “Unfair or prejudicial treatment…”

  • History — Affirmative Action: introduced during Civil Rights Movement to broaden opportunities for African-Americans

    • Resulted in lower productivity rates among students

    • “Diversity positions” given to unqualified individuals

    • Led to increased racial tension and resentment

  • Economic

    • Legal discrimination quantifies risk and determines insurance rates

    • Controversy arose when factors such as race, zipcode led to consumer stereotyping

      • Generalizes races

  • Marx

    • Insurance discrimination is a part of societal evolution

    • Hierarchical equality is unattainable, leading to destruction of classes + communism

  • Rawls

    • Theory of Justice as Fairness, refuting utilitarianism

    • Acknowledge suffering of minority

    • Veil of ignorance: true justice determined by rational, equal individuals

    • Discrimination could benefits minorities (?)

      • Discriminate to do better in business

    • Best option is the “fair option” determined under the veil

Sam Zhang — Net Neutrality

  • See presentation

Gabby Hernandez — Extreme Sports

  • Utilitarianism and Jeremy Bentham

    • Maximize overall good

    • Everyone’s happiness counts the same

    • The ends justify the means (consequentialism)

    • As long as this sport gives the most people entertainment, danger is outweighed and justified

  • Libertarianism and Frank Van Dun

    • One should be free to act

    • Right to life, freedom, property

    • Non-agression rule

      • Prohibits acts of violence against others (including speech)

    • Would say the participants of extreme sports would be fine as long as they agree with it

  • Situations

    • Michael Oher — football player who suffered injuries and was not given promised money

    • von Trips at Italian Grand Prix — leader died in crash and also killed some spectators

      • JB - ethical

      • FVD - ethical for leader, unethical for spectators

J. B. Pogue — Piracy

  • Piracy = gaining access to copyrighted work without proper payment

  • “The Pirate Bay”

  • Gary Bowser: has to pay 14.5M dollars and imprisoned

  • Yuzu Emulator: allowed people to emulate Nintendo games; sued + taken down by Nintendo

  • Gary Santillanes

    • Leaned towards consequentialism

    • Supporter of piracy in specific scenaios

      • Gatekeeping information on people who cannot afford it is unethical

  • Immanuel Kant

    • Morality is a constant

    • “If I allow one person to pirate, shouldn’t everyone else be entitled to do the same?”

  • Others

    • Creators of product don’t lose anything from piracy

    • Some don’t want to support artists who are unethical, but still want to use the product

    • It can destroy smaller businesses

    • Many people don’t even need to pirate

Lily Shirmohammed — Surrogacy

  • Background

    • Surrogacy = woman agrees to carry and give birth to a child

    • Intended parents (IPs) = receiving the baby

    • If the child has DNA from the surrogate, is the mother the caretaker or the birth-giver?

    • Gestational: Use of sperm and egg; zygote fertilized in a lab

      • Result: No biological connection to surrogate

    • Paid less than expected; exploitation

    • Discrimination against certain surrogate mothers

  • Peter Singer

    • Utilitarian

    • Desires of everyone is fulfilled

  • Elizabeth Anderson

    • Surrogacy makes women and children as commodities

    • Dehumanizes women

    • Must not treat people as means to an end

      • Potential counterargument: surrogate gives consent

      • But not the child

  • Immanuel Kant

    • Intent > consequences

    • Principle of autonomy: depriving women of the right to rule their bodies

    • Pro-surrogacy

  • John Stuart Mill

    • Utilitarian

    • Right to one’s self

    • Pro-surrogacy

  • St. Thomas Aquinas

    • Natural Law Theory

      • All things made for a specific purpose in the eyes of God

      • If infertile, God didn’t intend you to have a child

    • Most likely anti-surrogacy

Jay Shankar — Government Surveillance

  • Background

    • Monitoring of individual habits and activities

    • Conducted via various technologies, e.g. cameras, AI, data analytics, phone tapping, satellites

    • Use of AI to analyze large volumes of data and identify patterns

    • Gray area of legality; potential for overreach

    • Utilitarianism and Social Contract Theory

      • Surveillance as crime deterrent and societal protection

      • Maintains order

    • Virtue Ethics and Biopower

      • Loss of freedom and autonomy

  • Bentham

    • Panopticon thought experiment = circular prison

      • Constant surveillance = deterrence

    • Surveillance is a sacrifice to individualism for the good of society

  • Hobbes

    • Individuals give up certain freedoms for protection

    • Nasty, brutish society with no government

    • Surveillance as means of fulfilling and enforcing social contract

    • People act out of self-interest; constant competition → surveillance for stability and societal order

  • Foucault

    • Panopticon revisited

      • People act lawful out of fear, not genuine morality

    • Surveillance as means of governmental control

    • Government sets societal standards; subtle control

    • Surveillance = reduction in individual autonomy

    • Potential for oppression by governments

      • People act in what the government thinks is right

      • Corruption

  • Aristotle

    • True Virtue and Free Will: people should act out of their own accord

    • Actions out of fear is not true self

    • Surveillance subverts trust within society

      • People act unnaturally out of fear

      • Gov doesn’t trust citizens

Blake Dodd — CRISPR

  • See Isabella for CRISPR background

  • Potential for weaponizing: superhumans

  • Bentham

    • CRISPR can eradicate diseases

    • Believed in scientific advancement

    • Would advocate for equality in offerings

  • Peter Singer

    • Reducing suffering

    • Enhancing well-being

    • Altruism

    • Supports it but wants strict regulations to society (no human testing/weaponizing)

  • Pros

    • Customization and happiness

    • Ridding humanity of diseases

    • Aid in accelerating evolution (would enhance eugenics for humans)

  • Cons

    • Unknown side effects

    • Expensive and exclusive

    • Inequalities and weaponization (militarization of super soldiers)

  • Opinion

    • CRISPR should be ethical since it gives utility

    • Less suffering from disease

    • More crop yield

    • Customizing

Lily Van Wyk — Generative Art

  • Background

    • AI are trained on “stolen” art

    • Generate images similar to artist styles

    • Can save resources (free instead of commissioning artists)

    • Artists do not receive credit/compensation (sorta like pirating)

  • Immanuel Kant and Categorical Imperatives

    • Would say it’s unethical

    • Binding moral law

    • Universalizability

      • If you do it, everyone should be able to, no exceptions

      • Obligated to act the right way

    • Autonomy

      • Moral agency

      • Dignity, respect, and right to one’s work

      • Personal integrity and rational decision making

    • Reasonings

      • Stealing art are unethical

      • AI is misleading since it’s drawing on stolen art training

      • Devalues art

    • Individual value

      • All people have value

      • Artists should be respected and given due compensation for contribution

  • Luciano Floridi

    • Would say it’s unethical

    • Philosophy of information and information ethics

      • Responsible use of information

    • Reasonings

      • Misinformation directly harms us

      • AI does not have autonomy but the people training the AI are responsible

      • AI generation from stolen work = misleading = misinformation

        • Abusing one’s ability to share

      • Abuse of digital privacy

      • Stolen artwork is infringement on digital safety

      • Respect human rights

      • Need to be trained with legality and ethicality in mind

  • Conclusion

    • Existence of generative AI is not unethical

    • Stolen, unethically trained, and misleading AI are

Keith White — Immigration Policy

  • Background

    • 20th century immigration spike

    • Immigrants brought diversity

    • Triggered xenophobia → nativism

  • Berlin Wall

    • Wall surrounding West Berlin

    • To prevent skilled workers from fleeing communism

    • Separated families

    • “Open air prison”

  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

    • Philosopher and political theorist

    • Believed civilizations mankind (“Rousseau’s Regression”)

    • Criticized governments

    • Contributed to social contract theory

    • Ethical to restrict immigration if that’s what citizens desire

  • Immanuel Kant

    • Believed in concrete moral laws

    • Universalizability: best to act interest of others (pro-immigration)

  • Phillip Cole

    • Thinks people have a right to international freedom of movement

Ahmed Khan — Artificial Intelligence

  • Intro

    • Replicates human intelligence in machines

    • Rapid rate of technological growth — will AI surpass mankind?

    • Keep pushing for AI advancement or stop while we can?

  • Pros

    • AI diagnosis in healthcare: speed and accuracy

    • AI surveillance systems: public safety

    • AI teaching and explanation: education

    • AI-aided driving

  • Cons

    • Could cause unemployment

    • Privacy concern

    • Dependence on AI → lost creativity

    • Control

  • Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill

    • Utilitarians

    • In favor of AI

    • Give more happiness to more patients

      • There are more sick people than doctors

    • Keep people feeling safe from crime

  • Immanuel Kant

    • AI allows for greater access to knowledge

    • AI used (and created) for mere means

  • Nick Bostrom

    • Specializes in AI

    • Humans will become useless

    • Humans will be the ones monitored and used for data creation

  • Socrates

    • Would value human knowledge

    • Dependance on AI would stunt creativity

  • Opinion

    • It’s fine as of now

    • Should be halted should it become a threat

Jonathan Poisson — Gun Control

  • Intro

    • Gun related deaths

    • Balancing rights and safety

    • Public opinion

  • Michael Huemer

    • Right to self defense

    • Protection of property

    • Deterrence of tyranny (balance of power; citizens can check gov)

    • Individual autonomy

  • Hugh LaFollette

    • Considers community/family impact

    • Virtue ethics

    • No private citizen can own any guns OR every citizens can own any gun without regulation (two extreme vices)

  • Huemer/LaFollette Types of Rights

    • Fundamental rights

      • Huemer: Yes, protects fundamental interest of self preservation

      • LaFollette: No, not every means to a fundamental interest is a fundamental right

    • Derivative rights: protects non-fundamental interests and derives its weight from another right

      • Both philosophers agree; yes

  • Can all regulations be dismissed? NO

    • LaFollette: inherent danger of guns

      • Behavior causes harm → should be limited

      • Greater potential harm →greater restriction

    • Huemer potential solution: personal liability

  • Kant

    • Inherent danger in guns

    • Categorical imperative to not kill

    • Intention of government

  • Social contract theory

    • Derived vs. Fundamental = Irrelevant

    • People should protect their rights

    • Freedoms given up for protection

    • One freedom not given up: self preservation

  • John Locke

    • Rationality → self-preservation

    • Only rational people should have right to self-defense

  • Thomas Hobbes

    • Self-preservation → sole liberty

    • In order to defend oneself

    • Fine for defense, not fine for murder

  • Conclusion

    • We must do something

    • Locke/Hobbes paradox