AI for Moral Genealogy

This paper delves into the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to facilitate moral genealogy for evaluating current moral shifts. Since individuals, particularly from diverse cultural backgrounds, adhere to conflicting premises that render consensus via moral reasoning unattainable, we present a genealogical approach. This method leverages common epistemic intuitions to assess the credibility of evolving moral attitudes. However, doing genealogy for ongoing moral changes is challenging due to difficulties in pinpointing actual moral shifts, keeping up with the fast pace of moral transformations, and avoiding personal biases. To address these challenges, we turn to AI as a promising tool for moral genealogy, especially identifying moral attitude shifts through stance detection. AI can also expedite the construction of moral genealogies by generating hypotheses, verifying them, and assembling the findings into a cohesive narrative. We also consider AI’s capacity to decrease personal bias. Despite our positive outlook, we recognise AI’s current limitations and advocate for a concerted effort to surmount them in order to harness AI-enhanced genealogical research as a platform for addressing moral disputes in an era marked by swift changes in moral landscapes.