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In this brief response to Mark Coeckelbergh's contribution, I demonstrate how the author introduces an important shift in the way we approach technology. Instead of focusing on the new and often-times dramatic existential vulnerabilities supposedly introduced by technological innovation, Coeckelbergh targets the way technology already transforms our existential vulnerabilities. And I show how this shift in focus has three very important consequences: (1) a different way to ask about and investigate the question concerning technology, (2) the importance of hacking as a mode of responding to this question and (3) the significance of questioning as a philosophical project., Author(s): David J. Gunkel [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0000 9003 8934, grid.261128.e, Northern Illinois University, , Dekalb, IL, USA The main objective of Mark Coeckelbergh's 'The Art of Living [...]

Investigates the legacy, logic, and consequences of the appellation "the new world of cyberspace" that connects cyberspace to the Columbian voyages of discovery and the larger network of European expansionism. Engages in a critical investigation of the colonial logic implied by this seemingly innocent taxonomy, and examines its deployment in and significance for current research. (SR)

One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is deciding who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. This special issue of Philosophy and Technology investigates whether and to what extent machines, of various designs and configurations, can or should be considered moral subjects, defined here as either a moral agent, a moral patient, or both. The articles that comprise the issue were competitively selected from papers initially prepared for and presented at a symposium on this subject matter convened during the AISB/IACAP 2012 World Congress, held in at the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, UK. Keywords Artificial intelligence * Ethics * Moral agency * Moral patiency * Roboethics, Moral philosophy, although historically defined in different ways by different intellectual traditions, is essentially about intersubjectivity. That is, it concerns actions between and involving at least two entities. 'When reduced [...]

This essay responds to the machine question in the affirmative, arguing that artifacts, like robots, AI, and other autonomous systems, can no longer be legitimately excluded from moral consideration. The demonstration of this thesis proceeds in four parts or movements. The first and second parts approach the subject by investigating the two constitutive components of the ethical relationship--moral agency and patiency. In the process, they each demonstrate failure. This occurs not because the machine is somehow unable to achieve what is considered necessary and sufficient to be a moral agent or patient but because the characterization of agency and patiency already fail to accommodate others. The third and fourth parts respond to this problem by considering two recent alternatives--the all-encompassing ontocentric approach of Luciano Floridi's information ethics and Emmanuel Levinas's eccentric ethics of otherness. Both alternatives, despite considerable promise to reconfigure the scope of moral thinking by addressing previously excluded others, like the machine, also fail but for other reasons. Consequently, the essay concludes not by accommodating the alterity of the machine to the requirements of moral philosophy but by questioning the systemic limitations of moral reasoning, requiring not just an extension of rights to machines, but a thorough examination of the way moral standing has been configured in the first place. Keywords Artificial intelligence . Ethics . Machine ethics . Animal ethics . Information ethics, 1 Introduction One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is determining who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. Although initially limited to 'other men,' the practice of ethics [...]