Opposing ethical principles would program the vehicle in different ways. Immanuel Kant piloted the nonconsequentialist ethical view of morals. If Kant programmed the car, he would not change the car’s intended path to save multiple people because doing so would use other humans as means to an end. Kantian Ethics are based off of categorical imperatives. Put simply, “an action is right only if the agent would be willing to be so treated if the position of the parties were reversed” (Eby 1). Swerving to hit another person would be deciding that person’s fate, without consent, in order to save the larger group. This is not ethically justified by Kantian standards. Therefore, if the car was intended to veer towards the large group, it should continue on that trajectory. Additionally, there is still the possibility of the ten people moving out of the way in time or the breaks of the car could react fast enough to prevent an accident. Why should the car take the life of a bystander given those possibilities? A proponent of Kantian Ethics would advise the car to continue on its path but would enable the breaks.
Yet Kantian Ethics is that this philosophy cannot
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provide a consistent answer for the situation where the vehicle must choose between hitting the group of people and swerving into the wall. Both of these situations would use people as a means to an end, however if placed in this environment, the car would have to swerve into the wall. The difference in this algorithm is who is classified as a mean. As a passenger in this car, you have consented to the vehicle’s ability to make decisions for you. If the car were to hit the group of pedestrians, when given the choice of the wall, it would be using the pedestrians as a mean to keeping the passengers safe. Therein lies the difference. In this hypothetical, the autonomous vehicle would swerve into the wall. A utilitarian, such as Jeremy Bentham or John Stuart Mill, would think otherwise. “The utilitarian course of action would be for the car to swerve and kill its owner” (Bonnefon 2). Utilitarian Ethics are concerned with the greatest good for the greatest number of people. A cost-benefit analysis is a common practice that consequentialists employs. Calculating the number of lives that would be saved and comparing that total to the number of potential casualties is how the car should be programmed to respond. Therefore, the car would most likely swerve to avoid the group of people versus making an attempt at safely breaking. This decision will likely injure or kill the passengers of the vehicle at the cost of saving the group. A utilitarian does not care about the means by which the greatest good comes, but rather the ends to which the good provides. Saving multiple lives is the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Regardless of external factors, the utilitarian autonomous vehicle would save the most lives, whether there be more passengers or group members. However, the drawback of utilitarianism is the uncertainty created when there is an equal amount of passengers and pedestrians. This would either be an error in the code, or the car would require the passengers or the programmers to make the decision. Normative ethical egoism is concerned with the self-interest of the agent.
Notably, Ayn Rand held this view. “This holds that people should do or ought to do what is in their (long term) self-interest” (Eby 3). Some advocates of normative ethical egoism find it unethical to require a sacrifice of self-interest through the belief that this hinders freedom and initiative. Applying this theory to the autonomous vehicle scenario, the car would save the driver and passengers at all cost. In this case, the driver would regard their own life so highly that they disregard the injury their actions would cause others. A self-driving car acting out of the same self-interest theory would be programmed to hit the group of pedestrians, so long as it guarantees the survival of the vehicle and its
passengers.
The basis of this paper is centered around two somewhat conflicting moral theories that aim to outline two ways of ethical thinking. The theory behind both rule consequentialism and Kantian ethics will be compared and evaluated. These theories can then be applied to a relatively complex moral case known as the “Jim and the Indians” example.
Egoism is an ethical theory that views self-interest as the basis of morality. Essentially, it is a view that people will do whatever brings about the best consequences and is better for oneself. Egoism derives from the Latin term “ego” meaning “I.” The “best consequences” meaning the actions make that individual happier. There are two types of egoism in which we have so far discussed in HUM 105. Psychological egoism is “the theory that in fact people always act in their best interest, or that no one ever acts unselfishly” (Wells, Egoism: pg 1). This doctrine holds that individuals are always motivated by their own self-interest. It is a psychological theory about how people do behave. Ethical egoism is the normative ethical theory that “an
If I was the programmer, I would instruct the vehicle to continue on its intended path, regardless of the situation. If, after making a turn, I noticed a group of people in the road, I would hope that the car would make an effort to stop. However, I would not allow the self-driving car to swerve into a wall or a sole pedestrian. By changing the path from which the car originally intended to go, you make the car become a leader in this situation, not just a bystander. In order to make the car swerve, it would need an external factor to deviate from the original design. This decision carries responsibility as well. There is a difference between the vehicle choosing to swerve into a wall and choosing to hit the group of people. In fact, the vehicle would not be choosing to hit the group of people at all, the group was in the vehicle’s way.
Ethical egoism is a normative ethical position that focuses morally right action that promotes the individual own self interest. It states that actions whose consequences will benefit the doer can be considered as ethical. It differs from psychological egoism in that because ethical egoism says we ought to be selfish while psychological states we should be selfish (Frankena, 1973. 18). The theory in itself says we are hard-wired to be selfish and focus on what type of actions promote use and is self serving. The moral appraisal of things assumes our curiosity, necessitates and even contentment of others should factor in a stability of what we perceive morally and what is in our self-interest. What is morally right and
Ethical Egoism A rear assumption is that the needs and happiness of other people will always affect our moral ethics. If we accept this assumption, we think that our moral ethics balance our self-interest against that of others. It is true, that “What is morally right or wrong depends not only on how it makes us feel, but also how it affects others”. The idea that each person ought to pursue his or her own self-interest exclusively to do in his lifetime for others is known as Ethical Egoism.
In chapter 11 The Kantian Perspective: Fairness and Justice Immanuel Kant suggests that the clear cut basic works upon the same technique as the ethical law and it is likewise disregarded by the individuals who accept who apply "double standards ". The downright basic may further be recognized as a prerequisite to not regard other objective creatures as means, for Kant communicates that every single reasonable being contain the capacity of pressing together objectives, yet never see themselves as just an intends to another reason for their moves are eventually made all alone benefit and are finishes in themselves. Immanuel Kant thought along these lines and was prone to the most splendid savant ever to have done as such. He remains maybe the
• Once more, the ordinary science’ proves itself as the master of classification, inventing and defining the various categories of Egoism. Per example, psychological egoism, which defines doctrine that an individual is always motivated by self-interest, then rational egoism which unquestionably advocates acting in self-interest. Ethical egoism as diametrically opposite of ethical altruism which obliges a moral agent to assist the other first, even if sacrifices own interest. Also, ethical egoism differs from both rational and psychological egoism in ‘defending’ doctrine which considers all actions with contributive beneficial effects for an acting individual
permissible for a person to act in that manner by seeing if it would be
Normative ethics have received much praise and criticism from well-respected philosophers for many years. Structured by Immanuel Kant, arguably one of the greatest minds in history, Kantian ethics have changed the way people look at what truly makes an action “right.” Kant believed that developing a moral system that was consistent and based entirely on reason was achievable. He urged ethics that are knowable without reference to sense experience, or as he calls “a priori” claims, because they are universal and binding. Kant argued that it is impossible to ground ethics on religion. Instead, he turned to a vague sense of natural law and states that rules exist to rational beings, whether on this universe or any other, simply because they are rational beings.
There are a huge number of details that need to be worked out. My first thought is to go with the utilitarian approach and minimize the loss of life and save the greatest number of people, but upon farther reflection I started to see the problems with it. The utilitarian approach is too simplistic. It raised all kinds of questions such as will the computer make any decisions as to fault when it makes the decision on what to do. For example, if I am in the car with my young child, and three eighty-year-old drunks wander out in front of my car because they are drunk by their own choice, is the car going to choose them over me and my child because there are three of them? I would not want the computer to make that decision for me because frankly I probably would not make that decision. That kind of computer decision would probably curtail many people including me from buying a self-driving car. It is the same paradox that MIT Review refers to when it says, “People are in favor of cars that sacrifice the occupant to save other lives—as long as they don’t have to drive one themselves” (“Why
As humans, we are all created equal however, are we obligated to act morally? Although each person may have different beliefs on the topic, everyone has their own methods of moral reasoning. According to Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, and most philosophers, he believes that we are all obligated to act morally through duty-based ethics. With such a belief, we are obligated to act in accordance with a specific set of maxims regardless of the consequences. Kant developed one of the most influential moral theories that derived from human reason. Throughout the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant sets out to find a better understanding of morality developed from principles rather than experience. He clearly argues why we are obligated to act morally through the importance of duty, moral worth, and the categorical imperative.
Ethics in business is a highly important concept, as it can affect a company’s profits, salaries paid to employees and CEOs, and public opinion, among many other aspects of a business. Ethics can be enforced by company policies and guidelines, set a precedent when a company is faced with an important decision, and are also evolving thanks to new technology and situations that arise due to technology usage. Businesses have a duty to maintain their ethical responsibilities and also to help their employees enforce these responsibilities in and out of the workplace. However, ethics and the foundation for them are not always black and white. There are many different ethical theories, however Utilitarianism, Kant’s Deontological ethics, and Virtue ethics are three of the most well known theories in existence. Each theory is distinct in that it has a different quality used to determine ethicality and allows for a person to choose which system of ethics works best with both the situation and his or her personal ethical preferences.
Imagine having your life flash before your eyes while you were still wearing diapers. And imagine having a hot hunk of metal crash into you and shatter your sense of everything. When I was just three years old, I was the victim of a very scary car accident. While waiting to make a turn into my nursery school, my mom’s car was rear-ended by a car driving at 50 miles per hour. I remember how incredibly loud the collision was and even how the windows seemed to shiver in their rubber holders. Seeing my mom's head fly back and feeling the car swerve into the opposing traffic, I thought I was going to die. And why did this happen? Because the person driving behind us was texting on her phone and was not focused on the road. All of this, the emotional, physical, and financial damage, and the possibility of losing my mom's or my own life, could have been prevented if the car behind us was a driverless car. Briefly, a driverless car is capable of driving itself via an intricate system of cameras, sensors and computers. I propose that human drivers should be replaced with driverless cars because driverless cars are safer and more efficient.
It has been said that people act and do for whatever reason, but for who, why, what. In philosophy there are quite a few types of egoism. There is psychological egoism, which means people make choices based on their own interest. Though in some self interest it could even be in what seem to be acts of altruism. Which claims that when people choose to help others, they do so because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly, from doing so. Ethical Egoism, the theory that a person should follow their own interest above all the rest. It’s the idea that every person should act from their own self interest in relation to morality. Within ethical egoism there are many different types of it: Personal ethical
People face ethical choices every day, and there are several different approaches towards reaching a decision. A professor is tasked with making a decision as to whether he should report a high-achieving student, Charlie, for plagiarizing an article. The professor must use reasoning and ethics. One of the most famous form of ethics is Kantian ethics, which is a form of deontology, or duty-based ethics. The professor can use Kantian ethics to make his decision, or he can take into account the context of the situation to further asses as I would do.