The rapid evolution of information, communication and entertainment technologies will transform the lives of citizens and ultimately transform society. This paper focuses on ethical issues associated with the likely convergence of virtual realities and social networks, hereafter VRSNs. We examine a scenario in which a significant segment of the world’s population has a presence in a VRSN. Given the pace of technological development and the popularity of these new forms of social interaction, this scenario is plausible. However, it brings with (...) it ethical problems. Two central ethical issues are addressed: those of privacy and those of autonomy. VRSNs pose threats to both privacy and autonomy. The threats to privacy can be broadly categorized as threats to informational privacy, threats to physical privacy, and threats to associational privacy. Each of these threats is further subdivided. The threats to autonomy can be broadly categorized as threats to freedom, to knowledge and to authenticity. Again, these three threats are divided into subcategories. Having categorized the main threats posed by VRSNs, a number of recommendations are provided so that policy-makers, developers, and users can make the best possible use of VRSNs. (shrink)

The development of “smart stadia”, i.e. the use of “smart technologies” in the way sports stadia are designed and managed, promises to enhance the experience of attending a live match through innovative and improved services for the audience, as well as for the players, vendors and other stadium stakeholders. These developments offer us a timely opportunity to reflect on the ethical implications of the use of smart technologies and the emerging Internet of Things. The IoT has the potential to radically (...) transform society and is representative of the ways that novel technologies will alter human life. We use Dublin’s Croke Park stadium smart project as a case study for examining the development of smart stadia. (shrink)

This paper presents a literature review on the ethics of self-tracking technologies which are utilized by users to monitor parameters related to their activity and bodily parameters. By examining a total of 65 works extracted through a systematic database search and backwards snowballing, the authors of this review discuss three categories of opportunities and ten categories of concerns currently associated with self-tracking. The former include empowerment and well-being, contribution to health goals, and solidarity. The latter are social harms, privacy and (...) surveillance, ownership control and commodification of data, autonomy, data-facilitated harm, datafication and interpretability of data, negative impact on relation to self and others, shortcomings of design, negative impact on health perception, and regulation and enforcement of rules. The review concludes with a critical analysis of the existing literature and an overview of a future research agenda that could complement the current work on ethics of self-tracking. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyse the ethical issues relating to privacy that arise in smart homes designed for people with dementia and for people with intellectual disabilities. We outline five different conceptual perspectives on privacy and detail the ways in which smart home technologies may violate residents’ privacy. We specify these privacy threats in a number of areas and under a variety of conceptions of privacy. Furthermore, we illustrate that informed consent may not provide a solution to (...) this problem. We offer a number of recommendations that designers of smart homes for people with dementia and people with intellectual disabilities might follow to ensure the privacy of potential residents. (shrink)

The use of social robots in elder care is entering the mainstream as robots become more sophisticated and populations age. While there are many potential benefits to the use of social robots in care for the older people, there are ethical challenges as well. This article focuses on the societal consequences of the adoption of social robots in care for people with dementia. Making extensive use of Alasdair MacIntyre’s Dependent Rational Animals to discuss issues of unintended consequences and moral hazard, (...) we contend that in choosing to avoid the vulnerability and dependency of human existence, a society blinds itself from the animal reality of humankind. The consequence of this is that a flourishing society, in which each individual is helped to develop the virtues essential to her flourishing, becomes harder to achieve. (shrink)

In a lifelog, data from various sources are combined to form a record from which one can retrieve information about oneself and the environment in which one is situated. It could be considered similar to an automated biography. Lifelog technology is still at an early stage of development. However, the history of lifelogs so far shows a clear academic, corporate and governmental interest. Therefore, a thorough inquiry into the ethical aspects of lifelogs could prove beneficial to the responsible development of (...) this field. This article maps the main ethically relevant challenges and opportunities associated with the further development of lifelog technologies as discussed in the scholarly literature. By identifying challenges and opportunities in the current debate, we were able to identify other challenges and opportunities left unmentioned. Some of these challenges are partly explained by a blind spot in the current debate. Whilst the current debate focuses mainly on lifelogs held by individuals, lifelogs held by governmental institutions and corporations pose idiosyncratic ethical concerns as well. We have provided a brief taxonomy of lifelog technology to show the variety in uses for lifelogs. In addition, we provided a general approach to alleviate the ethical challenges identified in the critical analysis. (shrink)

This comment on Chalgoumi et al.’s article “Information Privacy for Technology Users with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Why Does It Matter?” focuses on the concept of autonomy in order to expand the scope of the ethical discussion. First we explore the conceptual and practical relations between privacy and autonomy. Following this, we address the issue of underfunding of information technology for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities in terms of distributive justice and provide some potential policy solutions.

This paper outlines the potential and necessity of the development of assistive technologies for people with intellectual disabilities. We analyse a policy recommendation designed to determine the contents of a basic health package supplied by the state, known as the Dunning Funnel. We contend that the Dunning Funnel is a useful methodology, but is weakened by a potentially relativistic understanding of “necessity” in relation to the requirements of people with IDs. We remedy this defect by using the capabilities approach as (...) outlined by Martha Nussbaum. We argue that this approach provides a strong normative case for ensuring that communities provide help to people with IDs, if those communities are to achieve a minimal standard of justice. However, the capabilities approach does not offer much specific guidance on how AT ought to be distributed, nor does it offer guidance on risks, like the bottomless pit problem. We propose that the Dunning Funnel used in combination with the capabilities approach will provide a suitable heuristic for determining the distribution of AT in a basic health package. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore the role assistive technologies might play in helping people with autism spectrum disorder and a concomitant responsibility deficit become more morally responsible. Toward this goal, the authors discuss the philosophical concept of responsibility, with a reliance on Nicole Vincent’s taxonomy of responsibility concepts. They then outline the ways in which ASD complicates ascriptions of responsibility, particularly responsibility understood as a capacity. Further, they explore the ways in which ATs might improve a person’s capacity so that (...) responsibility can be properly ascribed to them. After demonstrating that although assistive technologies are likely to be able to enhance a person’s capacity in such a way so that responsibility can be ascribed to them, the authors assert that these technologies will have a number of additional effects on the other aspects of the concept of responsibility. (shrink)

The development of “smart stadia”, i.e. the use of “smart technologies” in the way sports stadia are designed and managed, promises to enhance the experience of attending a live match through innovative and improved services for the audience, as well as for the players, vendors and other stadium stakeholders. These developments offer us a timely opportunity to reflect on the ethical implications of the use of smart technologies and the emerging Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT has the potential to (...) radically transform society and is representative of the ways that novel technologies will alter human life. We use Dublin’s Croke Park stadium smart project as a case study for examining the development of smart stadia. (shrink)

Ambient assisted living technologies can provide assistance and support to persons with dementia. They might allow them the possibility of living at home for longer whilst maintaining their comfort and security as well as offering a way towards reducing the huge economic and personal costs forecast as the incidence of dementia increases worldwide over coming decades. However, the development, introduction and use of AAL technologies also trigger serious ethical issues. This paper is a systematic literature review of the on-going scholarly (...) debate about these issues. More specifically, we look at the ethical issues involved in research and development, clinical experimentation, and clinical application of AAL technologies for people with dementia and related stakeholders. In the discussion we focus on: the value of the goals of AAL technologies, the special vulnerability of persons with dementia in their private homes, the complex question of informed consent for the usage of AAL technologies. (shrink)

We are living in an algorithmic age where mathematics and computer science are coming together in powerful new ways to influence, shape and guide our behaviour and the governance of our societies. As these algorithmic governance structures proliferate, it is vital that we ensure their effectiveness and legitimacy. That is, we need to ensure that they are an effective means for achieving a legitimate policy goal that are also procedurally fair, open and unbiased. But how can we ensure that algorithmic (...) governance structures are both? This article shares the results of a collective intelligence workshop that addressed exactly this question. The workshop brought together a multidisciplinary group of scholars to consider barriers to legitimate and effective algorithmic governance and the research methods needed to address the nature and impact of specific barriers. An interactive management workshop technique was used to harness the collective intelligence of this multidisciplinary group. This method enabled participants to produce a framework and research agenda for those who are concerned about algorithmic governance. We outline this research agenda below, providing a detailed map of key research themes, questions and methods that our workshop felt ought to be pursued. This builds upon existing work on research agendas for critical algorithm studies in a unique way through the method of collective intelligence. (shrink)

A fairly long (~15,000 word) overview of ancient theories of freedom and determinism. It covers the supposed threat of causal determinism to "free will," i.e., the sort of control we need to have in order to be rightly held responsible for our actions. But it also discusses fatalistic arguments that proceed from the Principle of Bivalence, what responsibility we have for our own characters, and god and fate. Philosophers discussed include Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, Carneades, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Plotinus. (...) Plato is mentioned in passing a few times in connection with other philosophers. (shrink)

In this paper I want to examine a claim made about the kind of immunity through misidentification relative to the first person (IEM) that attaches to action self-ascriptions. In particular, I want to consider whether we have reason to think a stronger kind of immunity attaches to action self-ascriptions, than attaches to self-ascriptions of bodily movement. I assume we have an awareness of our actions – agent’s awareness – and that agent’s awareness is not a form of perceptual bodily awareness. (...) The issue here is whether agents’ awareness grounds a kind of immunity to error that bodily awareness does not. However, perhaps more importantly, I want to argue that we only get a secure difference in immunity claims if have already decided whether a source of information is essentially first personal or not and made certain, not obviously warranted assumptions, about the transparency of content and about knowledge. If we hold that a subject’s knowledge of her actions is essentially first personal, in a way that a subject’s knowledge of her body through bodily awareness may not be, then we are better off arguing for that claim directly. Or so I will suggest. (shrink)

This book discusses Thomistic commentary on the topics of physical premotion, grace, and the permission of sin, especially as these relate to the mysteries of predestination and reprobation. The author examines the fundamental tenets of the classical Thomistic account, and on this basis critiques the 20th century revisionist theories of Domingo Banez, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Francisco Marin-Sola, Jacques Maritain, Bernard Lonergan, and Jean-Herve Nicolas. In conclusion, the implications of the traditional view are considered in light of the spiritual life.

Sobre el libro: Isaiah Berlin ha sido, además de un original e intuitivo historiador de las ideas y autor de numerosos conceptos teórico-políticos, un reconocido teorizador de la libertad y defensor acérrimo del pluralismo. Rasgos que lo han convertido en un innegable referente intelectual en nuestra época. Sobre el editor: El Editor de la presente obra, Pablo Badillo O'Farrell, con motivo del centenario del nacimiento de Berlin, ha reunido un número de contribuciones de estudiosos italianos y españoles que ofrecen, desde (...) muy diferentes perspectivas, un amplio abanico de miradas diversas sobre la obra y el pensamiento del autor, que van desde el análisis y confrontación del pluralismo valorativo y la ética de la libertad, al de la interculturalidad o la identidad personal y el nacionalismo, pasando por la confrontación de historicismo, historia de las ideas y contra-corriente. (shrink)

ジンメルからハイデガー、ドゥルーズ、寺山修司、コンドーム、中村うさぎまで―。気鋭の研究者六人による、脱・表「層」文化系論集。.

O mirosozert︠s︡anii sovremennogo buddizma na Dalʹnem Vostoke -- Problemy buddiĭskoĭ filosofii (p. [43]-[210]).

The World abounds with infinite crimes, technogenic accidents, acts of nature, etc. And very often, speaking about infringement of laws, use a word "anarchy". In consciousness of one people this concept associates with fear, personifies something mad, uncontrollable, and not giving in to the control. In consciousness ofothers - it means permissiveness, impunity for any acts and even crimes. The philosopher, in my opinion, is the avocate of a historical value and validity. And consequently it is necessary to observe these (...) principles in relation to any concept or the theory. The philosophical, political doctrine of anarchism sets as the purpose clearing of the person of pressure of any authorities and any forms of economic, political and spiritual authority. Aspiration to anarchy as thementality, meets already at cinics and in early christianity, and also in chiliastic sects of the Middle Ages. Occurrence of the philosophical theory of anarchism connect with names of German thinker Max Shtirner (Caspar Shmidt's pseudonym, 1806–1856), French philosopher Pierre-Joseph Prudon (1809 – 1865) and the largest theorists of this doctrine of Michail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. Humanistic value as a red string passes through all political doctrine of anarchism and, in my opinion, should be presented fairly in order to prevent substitution of concepts and with the purpose of observance of historical honesty. (shrink)

Many egalitarians believe that there is a pro tanto reason to remedy inequalities of opportunity in access to higher education. This consensus, I argue, masks practical disagreement among egalitarians: in many real-world choice contexts, egalitarians will disagree about which policies are to be endorsed, both from the point of view of equality and all things considered. I focus my discussion on a real-world case (the ‘big squeeze’ – so-called because the children of welloff families ‘squeeze out’ the children of less (...) well-off families from access to highly selective US universities) that has recently been discussed by Amy Gutmann. I argue that while (a) the ‘big squeeze’ is condemned by the ideal of equal opportunity, nevertheless (b) different egalitarians will favor different policies in response to the ‘big squeeze’, and (c) one intuitive, and apparently egalitarian, response lacks support from most plausible egalitarian views. (shrink)