Moral Behavior

A big question is whether machines can learn to act as moral agents (Himma and Travani 2008; Floridi 2011; Gunkel 2012: Gunkel 2018; Dubber et al. 2020). A corollary issue relates to the AI that guides these devices. That is, can AI produce judgments or behaviors that have a moral character? The answer is both yes and no. If the aim is to distinguish good from bad, the answer is yes. But if the goal is to mimic actual moral actions, that conclusion is less optimistic. How persons learn to act morally, particularly in view of poststructural philosophy, is a more complex affair than identifying and following moral axioms (Belsey 2022; Macksey and Donato 1970). Specifically, this process is not formalistic.