Notes on Ethics essays

Topic:
Would you allow a machine to make a moral decision on your behalf? If so,
under what conditions? If not, why not?
You must:
clearly state what you see to be the ethical challenges (if any) posed by the question;
clearly identify your own thesis on these questions;
argue for and defend a coherent position; and
present a clear and reasoned conclusion
What follows are notes I made while reading the essays. They are in no particular order of priority.

1. On language and style:

1. Do check your papers before submitting for what might be relatively minor matters of words
and style, but in fact make a difference of meaning. For example, the essays concerns
semi-autonomous not self-autonomous machines. While the occasion has passed to get
it right for this assignment, do pay attention to these matters for whatever you happen to
write later - especially for people whom might be paying you to get it right! Ill have further
comments on this issue below.
2. There were too many errors in citations - including getting authors names right (e.g. first
and family names). I noted a number of cases where the authors first name - Sean, Tom
- was given, either in brackets in the texts, or in the bibliography, and the first initial of the
family name (O, or C). Yes, there are different cultural and linguistic practices about the
order of names, but you should be familiar enough with that by now.
3. The citation style doesnt matter - unless, of course, your School or organisation or
publisher has specific requirements - but you do need citations, and you do need to be
consistent within what ever style youve adopted.
4. As mentioned in class, you also need to get proper names right - e.g. Rawls, Kant, Mill.
And, in particular, be aware of the distinction between the name (Kant) and the adjectival
form (Kantian). Your grammar checker may not always pick this up and, in any event, those
grammar checkers should only be seen as a first opinion: its your job to get it right.
5. Similarly on grammar, punctuation (especially random apostrophes); agreement of verbs &
nouns - dont rely wholly on grammar checkers (but, at the very least, do have them as a
back-up)
6. One thing your grammar and spelling checkers wont pick up, regrettably, is good writing.
Good writing is the vehicle for good thinking and far too many of the papers simply werent
clearly written. Despite texts, tweets, blogs and Telegram, writing is far from dead and its
likely youll need to write, in order to make sense, in your professional lives. I have no better
recommendation for improving your writing than to read widely. Im aware that the reading
of literature, and reading for pleasure are more or less defunct, but you can do no better
than to find good writers - fiction and non-fiction - and read in order to work out what works.
Yes, this sounds old-fashioned, but if you want to - and need to - make sense to others, you

need to get your ideas across in something more than 140 characters. Youll recall that, on
several occasions, Ive asked members of class to give me their answer in a full sentence,
not just in one or two words. Dont assume that you reader or listening will fill in the gaps for
you - at least in ways that you want them to. And dont assume that people will assume
youre intelligent if you cant articulate what you think. As the wonderful Brazilian educator,
Paulo Freire, said (and I paraphrase), not to be able to speak a foreign language is
inconvenient; but not to be able to speak your own is a tragedy.
7. It follows that what you must do - and what too many of you did not do - is re-read your
essays, and edit for good sense, coherence and complete sentences. The peril here is that
you might assume that you make sense, or you fill in the gaps for yourself; but you need to
know whether what you write is what will be received by the reader. If youre not sure, then
ask someone else to read your paper. Do also ensure that you write complete sentences that is, sentences that have a finite verb. This might be news to many of you who have
never studied grammar. Note also that sentences that begin, for example, with while - a
conjunction - will typically need a second part to the sentence, the bit that will come after
the comma completing that first clause.
8. You must ensure originality: this is a simple matter of plagiarism. Its also a matter of good
writing: believe me, I can tell when the language style changes from your own to that of
someone whose work you have plundered. Some of you lost serious marks as a result: if
Im alerted by a sudden change in tone and style - usually an improvement - Ill run the
paper through Turnitin, which will direct me to the source of your linguistic improvement. On
the one hand, the Web gives you access to others work; on the other it gives your readers
access to that same work, and to clear evidence of your lack or originality.
2. On the use of theories; developing principles
1. First, as Ive mentioned several times in class you need to get the theories right. Theres a
particular problem, it seems, in getting utilitarianism right. The temptation is to reduce it to a
self-serving arithmetical calculation, or a calculation that gives you the corporate or fiscal
outcome that seems preferable. Recall, again, that utilitarianism begins as a radical, critical
philosophy that in founded on valuing each person equally; and the social policies that
result must, in the end, embody that valuation. Theres a risk - as Sandel and others will
point out - that a thin theory of utility will allow you too readily to override rights and discount
certain sectors of the population on a regular basis; but if you consider the work of
contemporary utilitarians such as Peter Singer, you can see the strong moral obligations
that can be grounded in that theory.
2. Note too the risks of mixing and matching theories: yes, you can and will test out competing
theories; you might find some more compelling than others; you might some theories make
more sense as a way of living your life in a consistent way. But dont try mixing the theories
in the same paragraph or argument: deontological and consequentialist theories just dont
belong together as part of the same argument . . . though you might find that they could
lead you in the same direction.
3. In presenting your arguments, its also worth drawing on wider resources - this is where the
merits of wider reading will come in. Your minimal requirement will be the course texts; but I
regard them as necessary, rather than sufficient. What were aiming at in this course - and
in thinking about ethics generally - is the larger sense of civic thinking, which is why
contemporary writers like Crane and Matten have broadened the discourse to refer to

corporate citizenship rather than the narrower discourse offered by Friedman. And if this
doesnt matter to you for this course - which is almost over anyway - it might well make a
difference to your conversations. Above all, you need to be interesting!
3. Reflecting on morality & ethics (as well as on examples): these are some of the points that
were made and were useful in developing the argument either way. I wont expand on them as
these have been discussed in class and in some of the readings that you referred to 1. Retention of human dignity of choice
2. Ambivalence about autonomous machines - with residual human control
3. Human cost to our autonomy and responsibility
4. Eroding the value we place on things, choices etc (relate this to Sandels comment, for
example, that what matters is not merely distribution, but how we value the things that are
distributed)
5. Reflecting on human error and capacity for moral growth
6. Evolution and development of morality; moral discourse
4. Above all, the emphasis needed to be on machines making moral decisions, not just any old
decisions. Yes, as many of you noted, we rely on our machines and devices to make decisions
- but many of these are merely instrumental decisions. For that reason, it was important to
spend time thinking about what the distinguishing features of moral decisions might be.
Equally, it was important to spend time thinking about:
1. Moral agency and
2. The tension between predictable & reliable outcomes and moral qualities of respect, dignity
etc (i.e. technology might well provide us with efficiency, precisions, predictably; but these
are not necessarily the qualities of moral choice and accountability).