1

The Ethics of Creating Artificial Consciousness

John Basl

Northeastern University

1

Introduction

The purpose of this essay is to raise the prospect that engaging in artificial

consciousness research, research that aims to create artifactual entities with

conscious states of certain kinds, might be unethical on grounds that it wrongs

or will very likely wrong the subjects of such research. I say might be unethical

because, in the end, it will depend on how those entities are created and how

they are likely to be treated. This essay is meant to be a starting point in

thinking about the ethics of artificial consciousness research ethics, not, by any

means, the final word on such matters.

While the ethics of the creation and proliferation of artificial intelligences

and artificial consciousnesses (see, for example, (Chalmers 2010) has often been

explored both in academic settings and in popular media and literature, those

discussions tend to focus on the consequences for humans or, at most, the

potential rights of machines that are very much like us. However, the subjects

of artificial consciousness research, at least those subjects that end up being

conscious in particular ways, are research subjects in the way that sentient

non-human animals or human subjects are research subjects and so should be

afforded appropriate protections. Therefore, it is important to ask not only

whether artificial consciousnesses that are integrated into our society should be

afforded moral and legal protections and whether they are a risk to our safety

or existence, but whether the predecessors to such consciousnesses are wronged

in their creation or in the research involving them.

In section 2, I discuss what it means for a being to have moral status and

make the case that artificial consciousnesses of various kinds will have moral

status if they come to exist. I then take up the issue of whether it is thereby

wrong to create such entities (section 3). It might seem obvious that the

answer is “no”, or at least it is no more impermissible than the creation and use

of non-human research subjects. However, I argue that there should be a

presumption against the creation of artificial consciousnesses.

2

Moral Status and Artificial Consciousness

In order to determine whether it is possible to wrong artificial consciousnesses

by creating them or conducting research on them, we must first determine

whether such entities have moral status and what the nature of that status is.

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2

2.1

What is moral status?

The term ‘moral status’ is used in various ways in the ethics and applied ethics

literature. Other terms, such as ‘inherent worth’, ‘inherent value’, ‘moral

considerability’ etc., are sometimes used as synonyms and sometimes to pick

out species of moral status.1 In the broadest sense of the term, to have moral

status is just to have any kind of moral significance; that is, having moral

status means that in at least some contexts moral agents must be responsive to

or regard the thing that has moral status.

It would be every easy to argue that artificial consciousnesses have moral

status in the broad sense just described sense. After all, even a rock, if owned

by someone or part of a piece of art, for example, has moral status in this

sense. Instead, I will employ the term ‘moral patient’ to pick out a particular

form of moral status. The definition of ‘moral patient’ as used in this paper is:

Moral Patientdf: X is a moral patient iff agent’s like us are required to

take X’s interests into account in our moral deliberations for X’s sake

when X’s interests are at stake.

This definition has the following features:

1. A being is a moral patient only if it has interests that are to be

taken into account in moral deliberations.

2. A being’s being a moral patient entitles it have its interests taken

into account in moral deliberations for its own sake.

3. Moral patiency is a property had by an entity relative to agents

like us.

Each of these features will be discussed in detail below, but first, it is

important to discuss the relationship between moral patiency and normative

theory. Some view the question of whether a being is a moral patient as

dependent on which normative theory is true.2 That is, in order to determine

which beings are patients, we must first figure out whether we should be, for

example, Utilitarians or Kantians, Virtue Theorists or Contractualists. If this

thesis, call it the Dependency Thesis, about the relationship between moral

status and normative theories is correct, we can’t answer the question of

whether artificial consciousnesses are moral patients without first answering the

question of which normative theory is correct.

1 See for example, (O'Neill 2003; Cahen 2002; Sandler and Simons 2012). For

dissent on the usefulness of moral status talk see (Sachs 2011)

2 Buchanan (2011, chap. 7), for example, discusses the differences between moral

status on a Contractualist framework and moral status on a Utilitarian framework.

See also (Sober 1986).

3

There are important relationships between normative theory and moral

status. For one thing, which normative theory is true explains the nature or

source of the moral status of whichever beings have it. If contractualism is true,

for example, a being’s moral status is grounded in or finds its source in the

consent of rational contractors; if utilitarianism is true, a being’s moral status is

grounded in the fact that it’s being benefitted or harmed contributes to or

detracts from the value of a state of affairs. Furthermore, how, in particular,

moral patients are to be treated is a function of which normative theory is

ultimately correct. Utilitarianism more easily licenses the killing of moral

patients more easily than a Kantian ethic, for example. For this reason, the

strength of the presumption against creating artificial consciousnesses defended

below will depend on which normative theory is true. However, the

Dependency Thesis concerns relationship between normative theory and moral

patiency with respect to which beings are moral patients.3

Fortunately, the version of the Dependency Thesis that precludes us from

determining whether artificial consciousnesses are moral patients independently

of determining which normative theory is true is false. One point in favor of

thinking that it is false is that we know that all adult humans of sound mind

are moral patients, and yet we aren’t sure which normative theory is true, or,

at least, whether all adult humans of sound mind are moral patients is far less

controversial than which normative theory is true.

One might argue that the obviousness of our patiency just serves as a

condition of adequacy on normative theories and that’s why we know we are

patients even if we haven’t settled which normative theory is true. However, it

also suggests the possibility that we can make a similar case for the moral

status of other beings. That is, even if some metaphysical, ontological, or

supervenience version of the Dependency Thesis is true, we may have ways of

specifying which things are moral patients independently of determining which

normative theory is true. All that really matters for the purposes of arguing

that artificial consciousnesses are or can be moral patients is that the

dependency relationship between patiency and normative theory isn’t

epistemic, i.e. so long as we can come to know that some being is or isn’t a

moral patient without determining which normative theory is true.

There is good reason to think we can come to know who or is a moral

patient independently. Debates about which entities have moral status and

about the degree to which entities of various kinds matter happen, as it were,

internal to normative theories. Utilitarians, for example, have argued about

3 Another version of the Dependency Thesis might claim that the degree to which a

being has moral status depends on normative theory. (Buchanan 2011) seems to

suggest this as well. However, I think this version of Dependency is also false.

There are ways to cash out differences in treatment owed to different kinds of

beings without understanding them as having different degrees of moral status. In

other words, ‘degrees of moral status’ can be gotten rid of without losing the ability

to make the normative distinctions that talk is intended to capture. This

translatability is not central to what I’ll say here and so I leave it unargued for.

4

whether non-human animals and human infants are moral patients on part

with us.4 There are some Kantians that argue that many non-human animals

should be accorded many rights in the same way that we ought.5 So long as

the intra-normative debates are coherent we can be sure, at least, that

normative theories aren’t fully determinate of which beings have moral status.

Furthermore, the kinds of arguments made that this or that entity is a

moral patient do not typically appeal to which normative theory is true.6

Consider, for example, a standard argument from marginal cases that non-

human animals have moral status. Such arguments take for granted that so-

called “marginal cases”, such as infants and the severely mentally handicapped,

have moral status. Then an argument is made that there is no morally relevant

difference between marginal cases and certain non-human animals, for example

chimps. From this it is concluded that chimps are moral patients in the same

way that we are. This argument doesn’t make explicit mention of normative

theory, nor do the arguments typically given for the premise that there is no

morally relevant difference between chimps and marginal cases.

I’m not here endorsing any particular argument from marginal cases or

assessing its merits. The point is that the kinds of arguments that a Utilitarian

might use to convince another Utilitarian that chimps matter are the same

kinds of reasons that should convince a Contractualist or Kantian to accept

that chimps are moral patients. Similarly, if Kantians could make a case that,

for example, only the interests of very cognitively advanced beings are relevant

to moral deliberations, that advanced cognitive capacities are a morally

4 Consider for example the difference between Singer’s view about the moral status

of humans and Frey’s view of same. Both are committed Utilitarians and yet Singer

(2002) things that all sentient beings are equal, that is have equal moral status

(though Singer acknowledges that typically, a human’s life should often be

preferred over an animals in a conflict because humans can suffer and enjoy in

more ways than most non-human animals) while Frey (1983; 1988) thinks that

human adults of sound mind are distinct from non-human animals, that their lives

are of more value because of their capacity for certain kinds of experiments. It is

worth noting that both come to similar conclusions about the ethics of animal

experimentation and the differences between their views are subtle, but the fact

that Frey thinks humans have additional value in virtue of having a capacity or

capacities that non-human animals do not, is sufficient to demonstrate the kind of

inter-normative differences in conceptions of moral status that are relevant here.

5 See, for example, (Regan 1983) who argues, using arguments very similar to those

employed by Singer, to extend a Kantian conception of rights to non-human

animals that are minimally conscious. See also (Rollin 2006) for a discussion that

includes Contractualist discussions of animal moral status. For an excellent

discussion of how a more traditional Kantian might approach the issue of animal

rights see (Korsgaard 2004).

6 Of course, which properties are taken to be morally significant are often

influenced by which normative theory one takes to be true. A Kantian is more

likely to think that “being an end in oneself” is a morally significant property than

a Utilitarian. But, that is a sociological fact. The Kantian still owes the Utilitarian

an argument as to why that property is morally significant. If the argument is

sounds, the Utilitarian might agree that it is only the benefits and harms that

accrue to ends in themselves that influence the value of states of affairs, just as

many Utilitarians are keen to think that it is only the benefitting and harming of

humans make a difference to the value of states of affairs.

5

relevant properties, they won’t do so by appealing to the structure of Kantian

normative theory, but to reasons that a Utilitarian could accept; at least they

will do so if they hope to convince other Kantians that don’t share their view

about the relevance of advanced cognitive capacities.7

The above considerations provide an abbreviated, but I hope sufficient, case

for the idea that we can identify moral patients without first discovering which

normative theory is true.

2.1.1

Interests

According to the definition of moral patiency, if a being is a moral patient we

must take that beings interests into account for the sake of that being. To say

that a being has interests is to say that it has a welfare, that it can be

benefitted or harmed.8 Whether a being is potentially a moral patient depends,

therefore, on whether it has a welfare, and that depends on which theory of

welfare is true.

There are various families of views about welfare and some are more

stringent about the features a being must have to have a welfare.9 I don’t

intend here to settle the issue of which theory of welfare is true. Instead, below

I will focus on a type of artificial consciousness that will have a welfare

independently of which of many plausible theories of welfare is true.

A being’s welfare can be significant in moral deliberations for a variety of

reasons. For example, if I hire a dog walker, they have an obligation to me to

take my dog’s interests into account. However, they also, I contend, have an

obligation to take my dog’s welfare into account for her sake; even if I didn’t

own my dog, even if no one does, it would be wrong for the dog walker to kick

my dog for no reason.10

Some being’s welfare may only matter derivatively (see, for example,

Feinberg (1963) on plants), but a moral patient’s welfare matters for its own

sake. The interests of a patient figure into our deliberations independently of

their relationship to the welfare of others.11

7 We could of course understand a normative theory to include facts about whom

or what has moral status. I’m using normative theory, as is typical, to pick out a

theory of right action (and, if you like, an account of the source of normativity).

8 For a more detailed explanation see (Basl Forthcoming).

9 For an overview of these families see (Griffin 1988; Streiffer and Basl 2011).

10 I’m not here committing to the view that my dog’s welfare matters for its own

sake simply because she has a welfare. It might be that her welfare matters because

she is an end in herself, or because reasonable would agree that an animal’s welfare

is morally significant. Again, I’m not committing to any particular normative

theory or any particular source of normativity. Whichever theory is true, I explain

below, my dog’s welfare is relevant to moral deliberations for her own sake.

11 This isn’t to say how their welfare affects our own or others isn’t also relevant to

deliberations. In thinking about what to do, we must think about these conflicts of

interests. That is consistent with thinking that a being’s interests should be taken

into account for the sake of the being under consideration.

6

2.1.2

The Agent Relativity of Moral Patiency

It might seem odd, even contradictory, to claim that a moral patient’s welfare

matter’s in moral deliberations for their own sake while at the same time also

relativizing moral patiency to a set of agents like us. However, rather than

being contradictory this reflects the fact that agent’s that are radically different

from us might exist in an entirely different ethical world, so to speak.

Let’s imagine, for example, that there is a type of being that is completely

immaterial. Admittedly, I don’t know how to understand how such beings

interact in any sense, but I do know that whatever such beings do, they cannot

have any effect on being’s like us and so they are not required to take our

welfare into account in whatever moral deliberations they have.

Or, assume that Lewis (2001) was right and that all possible worlds really

exist in the normal everyday sense of exists. There are worlds very much like

ours that are, in principle, causally cut off from us. The moral agent’s in those

possible worlds are under no obligation to take our welfare into account

because they can’t affect us in any way.

Finally, imagine that rocks have a welfare but that it is impossible for us to

come to know about that welfare. In such a case, while we may make these

beings worse off, we are either under no obligation to take their welfare into

account, or if we are so required, we are excused for failing to do so because of

our ignorance and so for all practical purposes rocks are not moral patients.12

These examples show, at least in principle, that whether a being is a moral

patient is agent relative; it is relative to agents sufficiently like us that engage

in causal interactions with potential patients and which can come to know or

have reasonable beliefs that their actions affect the welfare of potential

patients.

2.2

Can artificial consciousnesses be moral patients?

There is not a single question of whether artificial consciousnesses could satisfy

the conditions of moral patiency. There is a technological version of the

question: will we ever be in a technological position to create artificial

consciousnesses that satisfy the conditions of patiency?

The answer to that question depends in part on an answer to a nomological

version of the question: do the laws of our universe make it possible to create

consciousness out of something other than the kind of matter of which we are

composed and configured in a way that’s very similar to consciousnesses we

know of?

The technological and nomological questions just raised are interesting and

important, especially to those who wish to create artificial consciousnesses.

However, as a philosopher, I’m in no position to answer them. I’m going to

12 For a discussion of the distinction between obligation and excuse see (McMahan

2009).

7

assume that artificial consciousnesses with a large range of cognitive capacities

are creatable and instead focus on the following conceptual question: is it

conceptually possible to create an artificial consciousness that is a moral

patient?

I think the answer to this question is clearly “yes”. To see why, just imagine

that we’ve managed to create an artificial consciousness and embodied it,

certainly a conceptual possibility. This being is, we know, mentally very much

like us. It is a moral agent, it has a similar phenomenology, it goes about the

world much like we do, etc.. What would we owe to this being? I think it is our

moral equal and that denying that would make one, to use Singer’s term, a

speciesist. But, even if you think that such a being would not be our moral

equal, it would certainly be wrong to hit such a thing in the face with a bat, or

to cut off its arm because of the effect such actions would have on the welfare

of such a being. That is, even if we have some special obligations to the

members of our own species and some degree of partiality justified, this kind of

artificial consciousness is a moral patient.

The more interesting question isn’t whether an artificial consciousness very

much like u ...

© 2013 by The AmericAn PhilosoPhicAl AssociATion

issn 2155-9708

FROM THE EDITOR

Peter Boltuc

FROM THE cHaIR

Dan Kolak

FROM THE IncOMIng cHaIR

Thomas M. Powers

aRTIcLEs

John Barker

Truth and Inconsistent Concepts

Jaakko Hintikka

Function Logic and the Theory of Computability

Keith W. Miller and David Larson

Measuring a Distance: Humans, Cyborgs, Robots

John Basl

The Ethics of Creating Artificial Consciousness

christophe Menant

Turing Test, Chinese Room Argument, Symbol Grounding Problem: Meanings in

Artificial Agents

Linda sebek

Assistive Environment: The Why and What

Juan M. Durán

A Brief Overview of the Philosophical Study of Computer Simulations

Philosophy and computers

newsleTTer | The american Philosophical association

Volume 13 | Number 1

Fall 2013

Fall 2013

Volume 13 | Number 1

Philosophy and Computers

Peter Boltuc, eDItor

VoluMe 13 | NuMBer 1 | FAll 2013

APA NEWSLETTER ON

From the editor

Peter Boltuc

university of illinois–springfield

We are lucky, and for more than one reason. First, we

were able to secure an important article, one of the most

serious defenses of the inconsistency theory of truth.

it is so far the main paper that came out of John Barker’s

Princeton dissertation that became pretty famous already

in the late 1990s. Barker’s conclusion (closely related to

classic arguments by Chihara and based primarily on the liar

paradox) is that the nature of language and the notion of

truth, based on the logic of language, is inconsistent. Sounds

like Plato’s later metaphysics in J. Findlay’s interpretation,

doesn’t it? then, at the last moment, dan Kolak brought an

important article by Jaakko hintikka. While dan introduces

hintikka’s paper in his note from the chair, let me just add

my impression that this is one of hintikka’s most important

works ever since it highlights the potential for function logic.

hence, we have two featured articles in this issue. Just like

John Pollock’s posthumous article in theory of probability

for Ai (artificial intelligence; this newsletter, spring 2010),

those are works in which philosophy lays the groundwork for

advanced computer science.

Second, we have a brief but meaningful note from tom

Powers, the incoming chair. When i joined this committee

ten years ago, it was led by marvin Croy and a group of

philosophers, mostly associated with the Computers and

Philosophy (CAP) movement. members were very committed

to advocating for various uses of computers in philosophy,

from Ai to online education. All of us were be glad to meet

in person at least twice a year. We had active programming,

sometimes two sessions at the same APA convention. then

we would meet in the evening and talk philosophy at some

pub until wee hours. And yes, the chair would attend the

meetings even if his travel fund had been depleted. i have a

strong feeling that under tom’s leadership those times may

be coming back, and soon.

We are also lucky to have a number of great articles directly

linked to philosophy and computers in this issue. Keith miller

and dave Larson, in their paper that caused great discussion

at several conferences, explore the gray area between

humans and cyborgs. John Basl, in a paper written in the

best tradition of analytical moral theory, explores various

ethical aspects of creating machine consciousness.

it is important to maintain a bridge between philosophers

and practitioners. We are pleased to include a thought-

provoking paper by Christophe menant, who discusses many

philosophical issues in the context of Ai. We are also glad to

have two outstanding papers created when the authors were

still graduate students; both were written for a seminar by

Gordana dodig-Crnkovic. Linda Sebek provides a hands-on

evaluation of various features of assistive environments while

Juan durán discusses philosophical studies of computer

simulation. i would like to encourage other educators in

the broad, and necessarily somewhat nebulous, area of

philosophy and computers to also highlight the best work of

their students and younger colleagues.

From the ChAir

dan Kolak

William paterson university

i am happy to report that we have, in this issue, a fantastic

follow-up (of sorts—a more apt phrase might be “follow

through”) to Jaakko hintikka’s previous contribution, “Logic

as a theory of computability” (APA Newsletter on Philosophy

and Computers, volume 11, number 1). Although Jaakko

says of his latest piece, “Function Logic and the theory

of Computability,” that it is a work in progress, i am more

inclined to call it a “progress in work.”

had my little book On Hintikka (2011) been written two

decades earlier, it would have consisted mainly of accounts

of his early work on logic—hintikka’s invention of distributive

normal forms for the entire first-order logic, his co-discovery

of the tree method, his contributions to the semantics of

modal logics, inductive logic, and the theory of semantic

formation. instead, i had to devote most of the space to the

then-recent past twenty years. to summarize his work in the

dozen years since would take an entire new book. (that i am

not alone in this assessment is evidenced by the Library of

Living Philosophers bringing out a second hintikka volume.)

indeed, when John Symons and i, in Questions, Quantifiers

and Quantum Physics: Essays on the Philosophy of Jaakko

Hintikka (2004), considered the importance of hintikka’s

work, we said, half tongue in cheek, that its philosophical

consequence is not the additive property of the sum of its

parts, and used an analogy: “hintikka’s philosophical legacy

will be something like the philosophical powerset of his

publications and lines of research.”

Being chair of the APA committee on philosophy and

computers for the past three years has been a wonderful

learning experience. Although it has become a truism that

most interesting things happen at the borders, nowhere

is this most clearly evident than at the intersection of

philosophy and computers, where things that develop faster

perhaps than at any other juncture tend to be consistently,

APA NEWSLETTER | PHILOSOPHY ANd cOmPuTERS

page 2

FaLL 2013 | VOLUMe 13 | NUMBeR 1

refreshingly, often surprisingly, and dangerously deep.

Nowhere is this more evident than in this newsletter, which

under the insightful and unflappable stewardship of Peter

(Piotr) Boltuc has been functioning, often under duress, as

a uniquely edifying supply ship of new insights and results.

Peter deserves great credit and much thanks. By my lights

he and this newsletter are a paradigm of the APA at its best.

thank you, Peter, and happy sailing!

From the iNComiNG ChAir

thomas m. Powers

university of delaWare

the official charge of the APA committee on philosophy and

computers describes its role as collecting and disseminating

information “on the use of computers in the profession,

including their use in instruction, research, writing, and

publication.” in practice, the committee’s activities are much

broader than that, and reflect the evolution of philosophical

interest in computation and computing machinery. While

philosophy’s most direct connection to computation may

have been through logic, equally if not more profound are

the ways in which computation has illuminated the nature

of mind, intelligence, language, and information. With the

prominent and growing role of computers in areas such

as domestic security, warfare, communication, scientific

research, medicine, politics, and civic life, philosophical

interest in computers should have a healthy future. much

work remains to be done on computers and autonomy,

responsibility, privacy, agency, community, and other topics.

As the incoming chair of the committee on philosophy

and computers, i want to encourage philosophers to make

use of the committee to explore these traditional and new

philosophical topics. i also invite APA members to suggest

new ways in which we as a profession can deepen our

understanding of computers and the information technology

revolution we are experiencing. Please consider contributing

to the newsletter, attending committee panels at the

divisional meetings, suggesting panel topics, or nominating

yourself or others to become members of this committee.

ArtiCLeS

Truth and Inconsistent Concepts

John Barker

university of illinois–springfield

Are the semantic paradoxes best regarded as formal puzzles

that can be safely delegated to mathematical logicians, or

do they hold broader philosophical lessons? in this paper,

i want to suggest a philosophical interpretation of the

liar paradox which has, i believe, nontrivial philosophical

consequences. Like most approaches to the liar, this one

has deep roots, having been first suggested by tarski (1935)

and later refined by Chihara (1979).1 i offered a further

elaboration of the idea in The Inconsistency Theory of Truth

(1999), and here i would like to develop these ideas a bit

further.

the term “liar paradox” refers to the fact that the ordinary

disquotational properties of truth—the properties that allow

semantic ascent and descent—are formally inconsistent, at

least on the most straightforward way of formally expressing

those properties and given standard assumptions about

the background logic. the best-known formulation of those

disquotational properties is tarski’s convention (t):

(t) “A” is true if and only if A

We now consider a sentence such as

(1) Sentence (1) is not true.

As long as the schematic letter A in (t) has unlimited scope,

we can derive the following instance:

(2) “Sentence (1) is not true” is true if and only if sentence

(1) is not true.

then, noting that the sentence quoted in (2) is none other

than sentence (1) itself, we derive the consequence

(3) Sentence (1) is true if and only if sentence (1) is not true.

And this conclusion, (3), is classically inconsistent: it is an

instance of P ↔ ~P.

the liar paradox should concern all of us, because it

represents a gap in our understanding of truth, and because

truth is a central notion in philosophy, mathematical logic, and

computer science. tarski’s (1935) work on truth is what finally

put mathematical logic on a firm foundation and led to the

amazing explosion of work in that field. tarski’s work in turn

inspired davidson (1967), whose influential work gives truth

a central place in semantic theory. And computer science,

of course, is based on mathematical logic; the theory of

computability itself is essentially just the theory of truth for a

certain fragment of the language of arithmetic.2 (For more on

the relation between logic and computability see hintikka’s

(2011) contribution to this newsletter.) if truth plays such an

important role in all three fields, then it behooves us to get

to the bottom of the paradoxes.

there is now a truly vast body of literature on the liar, and

the argument (1–3) above is far from the last word on the

subject. having said that, the liar paradox is remarkably

resilient. Accounts of the liar can be divided into two camps:

descriptive and revisionary. For a revisionary account, the

goal is to produce a predicate with disquotational properties

of some sort, which can serve the purposes that we expect

a truth predicate to serve, while not necessarily being wholly

faithful to our naïve truth concept. this approach has much

to recommend it. But in this paper, i will focus on descriptive

accounts. if the ordinary notion of truth needs to be replaced

by a revised notion, i want to know what it is about the

ordinary notion that forces us to replace it. if the ordinary

notion is defective in some sense, i want to know what it

means to say it is defective. And if, on the other hand, we

can produce an account of truth that avoids contradiction

and is wholly faithful to the ordinary concept, then there is

no need to go revisionary.

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page 3

descriptive accounts, in turn, can be divided into the following

categories, depending on what they hope to achieve.

• Block the contradiction. descriptive accounts in this

category proceed from the assumption that there is a

subtle but diagnosable flaw in the reasoning that leads

to contradictions such as (3). indeed, it’s not hard to

convince oneself that there must be such a flaw: if an

argument has a contradictory conclusion, there must be

something wrong with its premises or its inferences.

• embrace the contradiction. on this approach, there’s

nothing wrong with the reasoning leading up to the

conclusion (3). that conclusion simply expresses the

fact that the liar sentence (1) is both true and not true.

this approach, known as dialetheism,3 has never been

the majority view, but lately it has received a surprising

amount of attention.

• acknowledge the contradiction. on this approach,

convention (t) is part of the meaning of “true,” and so

the contradiction (3) is in some sense a consequence of

the concept of truth. this differs from “embracing” the

contradiction in that the contradiction (3), while viewed

as a commitment of ordinary speakers, is not actually

asserted. this will be the approach taken here.

revisionary accounts also try to block the contradiction; and

if the contradiction can be effectively blocked, then doing

so is the preferred approach, i would think. But blocking the

contradiction turns out to be hard, especially (i will argue)

in the context of a descriptive account. in the next section,

i will explain some of the reasons why this is the case. if

blocking the contradiction is as hard as i think it is, we should

at least entertain the alternatives, provided the alternatives

are intelligible at all. in the remainder of this paper, i will try

to explain what it means to acknowledge the contradiction,

and why it makes sense to do so.

1. Why the liar is hard

Any account of the liar, whether descriptive or revisionary,

has to operate within the following constraint:

Constraint 1. the truth predicate, as explained by the theory

at hand, must have the expected disquotational properties.

And this by itself is not easy to achieve: we saw earlier

that a natural formulation of the “expected disquotational

properties” led directly to a contradiction. having said that,

there is some wiggle room when it comes to “expected

disquotational properties,” and we also have some leeway in

our choice of background logic. in fact, there are theories of

truth that have some claim to satisfying Constraint 1.

Let’s consider a couple of examples: not the highest-tech

examples, to be sure, but sufficient for our purposes. First,

tarski’s original proposal was to simply restrict convention

(t) so that the substituted sentence A is forbidden from

containing the truth predicate. then the substitution of

sentence (1) for A is prohibited, and the contradictory

conclusion (3) cannot be derived. But this restriction on (t) is

quite severe, limiting what we can do with the resulting truth

predicate even in a revisionary account. For a descriptive

account, tarski’s restriction is simply a non-starter, since

natural language clearly places no such limit on what can

substitute for A in (t). (And it should be noted that tarski

himself viewed this approach as revisionary, not descriptive.)

Another approach to revising (t), which results in a less

severe restriction, starts from the idea that not all sentences

are true or false. in particular, some sentences represent

truth value gaps, with the liar sentence (1) a very plausible

candidate for such treatment. if gaps are admitted, then we

can maintain an equivalence between the sentences A and

“A is true” for all A in our language. in particular, when A

is gappy, so is “A is true.” the first mathematically rigorous

treatment along these lines is due to Kripke (1975), who

developed a family of formal languages containing their own

gappy truth predicates, each obeying a suitable version of

(t). Sentences like (1) can then be proved to be gappy in

Kripke’s system.

the main weakness of Kripke’s approach is that the

languages in question need to be developed in a richer

metalanguage. Some of the key notions of the account,

while expressible in the metalanguage, are not expressible

in the object language. in particular, the notion of a gappy

sentence, which is obviously crucial to the account, has

no object language expression. the reason is simple and

instructive. on the one hand, in Kripke’s construction, there

is an object language predicate Tr, and it can be shown that

Tr is a truth predicate in the sense that (a) an object language

sentence is true if and only if it belongs to Tr’s extension,

and (b) an object language sentence is false if and only if it

belongs to Tr’s anti-extension. (Predicates in Kripke’s system

have extensions and anti-extensions. A predicate P is true

of those objects in its extension, false of those in its anti-

extension, and neither true nor false of anything else.) Now

suppose the object language had a gappiness predicate

as well. that is, suppose there were a predicate G whose

extension included all and only the gappy sentences. We

could then construct a sentence that says “i am either not

true or gappy”—i.e., a sentence S that is equivalent to ~Tr(‘S’)

v G(‘S’). S, like any sentence, is either true, false or gappy.

But if S is true, then both ~Tr(‘S’) and G(‘S’) are not true, and

thus neither is S. if S is false, then ~Tr(‘S’) is true, and thus

so is S. And if S is gappy, then G(‘S’) is true, and hence so is

S. So S is neither true, false, nor gappy, which is impossible.

this contradiction (in the metatheory) proves that no such

predicate as G exists.

Kripke described this phenomenon as the “ghost of the

tarskian hierarchy” because despite his efforts to create a

self-contained object language, he found it necessary to

ascend to a richer metalanguage, just as tarski did. the

problem is also called the strengthened liar problem because

the sentence S is a “strengthened” (i.e., harder to deal with)

version of the liar sentence, and also as the revenge problem,

since the moment we account for one manifestation of the

liar problem, a new manifestation appears to take revenge

on us. the key feature of the revenge problem is that in

addressing the liar we develop a certain set of conceptual

tools (in this case, the notion of a truth value gap). those tools

are then turned against us—i.e., they are used to construct a

new liar sentence (in this case, S) which our original account

is unable to handle.

APA NEWSLETTER | PHILOSOPHY ANd cOmPuTERS

page 4

FaLL 2013 | VOLUMe 13 | NUMBeR 1

Whatever we call it, the revenge problem shows that even

though Kripke was able to construct an internally consistent

way of satisfying truth’s expected disquotational properties,

he did so at the expense of placing a tacit restriction on

the sorts of sentences that the resulting truth predicate

applies to. Specifically, he constructed a truth predicate for

a language in which the metalanguage notion of gappiness

is inexpressible. the construction used to create the

strengthened liar sentence S is rather general, and the prima

facie lesson of the revenge problem is that an account of

truth can’t be given for the language in which the account is

formulated.

if this is so—and so far it has been suggested but not

proved—then it is moderately bad news for revisionary

accounts and extremely bad news for descriptive accounts.

From a revisionary perspective, the revenge problem simply

means that in constructing a predicate with th ...

1

The Ethics of Creating Artificial Consciousness

John Basl

Northeastern University

1

Introduction

The purpose of this essay is to raise the prospect that engaging in artificial

consciousness research, research that aims to create artifactual entities with

conscious states of certain kinds, might be unethical on grounds that it wrongs

or will very likely wrong the subjects of such research. I say might be unethical

because, in the end, it will depend on how those entities are created and how

they are likely to be treated. This essay is meant to be a starting point in

thinking about the ethics of artificial consciousness research ethics, not, by any

means, the final word on such matters.

While the ethics of the creation and proliferation of artificial intelligences

and artificial consciousnesses (see, for example, (Chalmers 2010) has often been

explored both in academic settings and in popular media and literature, those

discussions tend to focus on the consequences for humans or, at most, the

potential rights of machines that are very much like us. However, the subjects

of artificial consciousness research, at least those subjects that end up being

conscious in particular ways, are research subjects in the way that sentient

non-human animals or human subjects are research subjects and so should be

afforded appropriate protections. Therefore, it is important to ask not only

whether artificial consciousnesses that are integrated into our society should be

afforded moral and legal protections and whether they are a risk to our safety

or existence, but whether the predecessors to such consciousnesses are wronged

in their creation or in the research involving them.

In section 2, I discuss what it means for a being to have moral status and

make the case that artificial consciousnesses of various kinds will have moral

status if they come to exist. I then take up the issue of whether it is thereby

wrong to create such entities (section 3). It might seem obvious that the

answer is “no”, or at least it is no more impermissible than the creation and use

of non-human research subjects. However, I argue that there should be a

presumption against the creation of artificial consciousnesses.

2

Moral Status and Artificial Consciousness

In order to determine whether it is possible to wrong artificial consciousnesses

by creating them or conducting research on them, we must first determine

whether such entities have moral status and what the nature of that status is.

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2

2.1

What is moral status?

The term ‘moral status’ is used in various ways in the ethics and applied ethics

literature. Other terms, such as ‘inherent worth’, ‘inherent value’, ‘moral

considerability’ etc., are sometimes used as synonyms and sometimes to pick

out species of moral status.1 In the broadest sense of the term, to have moral

status is just to have any kind of moral significance; that is, having moral

status means that in at least some contexts moral agents must be responsive to

or regard the thing that has moral status.

It would be every easy to argue that artificial consciousnesses have moral

status in the broad sense just described sense. After all, even a rock, if owned

by someone or part of a piece of art, for example, has moral status in this

sense. Instead, I will employ the term ‘moral patient’ to pick out a particular

form of moral status. The definition of ‘moral patient’ as used in this paper is:

Moral Patientdf: X is a moral patient iff agent’s like us are required to

take X’s interests into account in our moral deliberations for X’s sake

when X’s interests are at stake.

This definition has the following features:

1. A being is a moral patient only if it has interests that are to be

taken into account in moral deliberations.

2. A being’s being a moral patient entitles it have its interests taken

into account in moral deliberations for its own sake.

3. Moral patiency is a property had by an entity relative to agents

like us.

Each of these features will be discussed in detail below, but first, it is

important to discuss the relationship between moral patiency and normative

theory. Some view the question of whether a being is a moral patient as

dependent on which normative theory is true.2 That is, in order to determine

which beings are patients, we must first figure out whether we should be, for

example, Utilitarians or Kantians, Virtue Theorists or Contractualists. If this

thesis, call it the Dependency Thesis, about the relationship between moral

status and normative theories is correct, we can’t answer the question of

whether artificial consciousnesses are moral patients without first answering the

question of which normative theory is correct.

1 See for example, (O'Neill 2003; Cahen 2002; Sandler and Simons 2012). For

dissent on the usefulness of moral status talk see (Sachs 2011)

2 Buchanan (2011, chap. 7), for example, discusses the differences between moral

status on a Contractualist framework and moral status on a Utilitarian framework.

See also (Sober 1986).

3

There are important relationships between normative theory and moral

status. For one thing, which normative theory is true explains the nature or

source of the moral status of whichever beings have it. If contractualism is true,

for example, a being’s moral status is grounded in or finds its source in the

consent of rational contractors; if utilitarianism is true, a being’s moral status is

grounded in the fact that it’s being benefitted or harmed contributes to or

detracts from the value of a state of affairs. Furthermore, how, in particular,

moral patients are to be treated is a function of which normative theory is

ultimately correct. Utilitarianism more easily licenses the killing of moral

patients more easily than a Kantian ethic, for example. For this reason, the

strength of the presumption against creating artificial consciousnesses defended

below will depend on which normative theory is true. However, the

Dependency Thesis concerns relationship between normative theory and moral

patiency with respect to which beings are moral patients.3

Fortunately, the version of the Dependency Thesis that precludes us from

determining whether artificial consciousnesses are moral patients independently

of determining which normative theory is true is false. One point in favor of

thinking that it is false is that we know that all adult humans of sound mind

are moral patients, and yet we aren’t sure which normative theory is true, or,

at least, whether all adult humans of sound mind are moral patients is far less

controversial than which normative theory is true.

One might argue that the obviousness of our patiency just serves as a

condition of adequacy on normative theories and that’s why we know we are

patients even if we haven’t settled which normative theory is true. However, it

also suggests the possibility that we can make a similar case for the moral

status of other beings. That is, even if some metaphysical, ontological, or

supervenience version of the Dependency Thesis is true, we may have ways of

specifying which things are moral patients independently of determining which

normative theory is true. All that really matters for the purposes of arguing

that artificial consciousnesses are or can be moral patients is that the

dependency relationship between patiency and normative theory isn’t

epistemic, i.e. so long as we can come to know that some being is or isn’t a

moral patient without determining which normative theory is true.

There is good reason to think we can come to know who or is a moral

patient independently. Debates about which entities have moral status and

about the degree to which entities of various kinds matter happen, as it were,

internal to normative theories. Utilitarians, for example, have argued about

3 Another version of the Dependency Thesis might claim that the degree to which a

being has moral status depends on normative theory. (Buchanan 2011) seems to

suggest this as well. However, I think this version of Dependency is also false.

There are ways to cash out differences in treatment owed to different kinds of

beings without understanding them as having different degrees of moral status. In

other words, ‘degrees of moral status’ can be gotten rid of without losing the ability

to make the normative distinctions that talk is intended to capture. This

translatability is not central to what I’ll say here and so I leave it unargued for.

4

whether non-human animals and human infants are moral patients on part

with us.4 There are some Kantians that argue that many non-human animals

should be accorded many rights in the same way that we ought.5 So long as

the intra-normative debates are coherent we can be sure, at least, that

normative theories aren’t fully determinate of which beings have moral status.

Furthermore, the kinds of arguments made that this or that entity is a

moral patient do not typically appeal to which normative theory is true.6

Consider, for example, a standard argument from marginal cases that non-

human animals have moral status. Such arguments take for granted that so-

called “marginal cases”, such as infants and the severely mentally handicapped,

have moral status. Then an argument is made that there is no morally relevant

difference between marginal cases and certain non-human animals, for example

chimps. From this it is concluded that chimps are moral patients in the same

way that we are. This argument doesn’t make explicit mention of normative

theory, nor do the arguments typically given for the premise that there is no

morally relevant difference between chimps and marginal cases.

I’m not here endorsing any particular argument from marginal cases or

assessing its merits. The point is that the kinds of arguments that a Utilitarian

might use to convince another Utilitarian that chimps matter are the same

kinds of reasons that should convince a Contractualist or Kantian to accept

that chimps are moral patients. Similarly, if Kantians could make a case that,

for example, only the interests of very cognitively advanced beings are relevant

to moral deliberations, that advanced cognitive capacities are a morally

4 Consider for example the difference between Singer’s view about the moral status

of humans and Frey’s view of same. Both are committed Utilitarians and yet Singer

(2002) things that all sentient beings are equal, that is have equal moral status

(though Singer acknowledges that typically, a human’s life should often be

preferred over an animals in a conflict because humans can suffer and enjoy in

more ways than most non-human animals) while Frey (1983; 1988) thinks that

human adults of sound mind are distinct from non-human animals, that their lives

are of more value because of their capacity for certain kinds of experiments. It is

worth noting that both come to similar conclusions about the ethics of animal

experimentation and the differences between their views are subtle, but the fact

that Frey thinks humans have additional value in virtue of having a capacity or

capacities that non-human animals do not, is sufficient to demonstrate the kind of

inter-normative differences in conceptions of moral status that are relevant here.

5 See, for example, (Regan 1983) who argues, using arguments very similar to those

employed by Singer, to extend a Kantian conception of rights to non-human

animals that are minimally conscious. See also (Rollin 2006) for a discussion that

includes Contractualist discussions of animal moral status. For an excellent

discussion of how a more traditional Kantian might approach the issue of animal

rights see (Korsgaard 2004).

6 Of course, which properties are taken to be morally significant are often

influenced by which normative theory one takes to be true. A Kantian is more

likely to think that “being an end in oneself” is a morally significant property than

a Utilitarian. But, that is a sociological fact. The Kantian still owes the Utilitarian

an argument as to why that property is morally significant. If the argument is

sounds, the Utilitarian might agree that it is only the benefits and harms that

accrue to ends in themselves that influence the value of states of affairs, just as

many Utilitarians are keen to think that it is only the benefitting and harming of

humans make a difference to the value of states of affairs.

5

relevant properties, they won’t do so by appealing to the structure of Kantian

normative theory, but to reasons that a Utilitarian could accept; at least they

will do so if they hope to convince other Kantians that don’t share their view

about the relevance of advanced cognitive capacities.7

The above considerations provide an abbreviated, but I hope sufficient, case

for the idea that we can identify moral patients without first discovering which

normative theory is true.

2.1.1

Interests

According to the definition of moral patiency, if a being is a moral patient we

must take that beings interests into account for the sake of that being. To say

that a being has interests is to say that it has a welfare, that it can be

benefitted or harmed.8 Whether a being is potentially a moral patient depends,

therefore, on whether it has a welfare, and that depends on which theory of

welfare is true.

There are various families of views about welfare and some are more

stringent about the features a being must have to have a welfare.9 I don’t

intend here to settle the issue of which theory of welfare is true. Instead, below

I will focus on a type of artificial consciousness that will have a welfare

independently of which of many plausible theories of welfare is true.

A being’s welfare can be significant in moral deliberations for a variety of

reasons. For example, if I hire a dog walker, they have an obligation to me to

take my dog’s interests into account. However, they also, I contend, have an

obligation to take my dog’s welfare into account for her sake; even if I didn’t

own my dog, even if no one does, it would be wrong for the dog walker to kick

my dog for no reason.10

Some being’s welfare may only matter derivatively (see, for example,

Feinberg (1963) on plants), but a moral patient’s welfare matters for its own

sake. The interests of a patient figure into our deliberations independently of

their relationship to the welfare of others.11

7 We could of course understand a normative theory to include facts about whom

or what has moral status. I’m using normative theory, as is typical, to pick out a

theory of right action (and, if you like, an account of the source of normativity).

8 For a more detailed explanation see (Basl Forthcoming).

9 For an overview of these families see (Griffin 1988; Streiffer and Basl 2011).

10 I’m not here committing to the view that my dog’s welfare matters for its own

sake simply because she has a welfare. It might be that her welfare matters because

she is an end in herself, or because reasonable would agree that an animal’s welfare

is morally significant. Again, I’m not committing to any particular normative

theory or any particular source of normativity. Whichever theory is true, I explain

below, my dog’s welfare is relevant to moral deliberations for her own sake.

11 This isn’t to say how their welfare affects our own or others isn’t also relevant to

deliberations. In thinking about what to do, we must think about these conflicts of

interests. That is consistent with thinking that a being’s interests should be taken

into account for the sake of the being under consideration.

6

2.1.2

The Agent Relativity of Moral Patiency

It might seem odd, even contradictory, to claim that a moral patient’s welfare

matter’s in moral deliberations for their own sake while at the same time also

relativizing moral patiency to a set of agents like us. However, rather than

being contradictory this reflects the fact that agent’s that are radically different

from us might exist in an entirely different ethical world, so to speak.

Let’s imagine, for example, that there is a type of being that is completely

immaterial. Admittedly, I don’t know how to understand how such beings

interact in any sense, but I do know that whatever such beings do, they cannot

have any effect on being’s like us and so they are not required to take our

welfare into account in whatever moral deliberations they have.

Or, assume that Lewis (2001) was right and that all possible worlds really

exist in the normal everyday sense of exists. There are worlds very much like

ours that are, in principle, causally cut off from us. The moral agent’s in those

possible worlds are under no obligation to take our welfare into account

because they can’t affect us in any way.

Finally, imagine that rocks have a welfare but that it is impossible for us to

come to know about that welfare. In such a case, while we may make these

beings worse off, we are either under no obligation to take their welfare into

account, or if we are so required, we are excused for failing to do so because of

our ignorance and so for all practical purposes rocks are not moral patients.12

These examples show, at least in principle, that whether a being is a moral

patient is agent relative; it is relative to agents sufficiently like us that engage

in causal interactions with potential patients and which can come to know or

have reasonable beliefs that their actions affect the welfare of potential

patients.

2.2

Can artificial consciousnesses be moral patients?

There is not a single question of whether artificial consciousnesses could satisfy

the conditions of moral patiency. There is a technological version of the

question: will we ever be in a technological position to create artificial

consciousnesses that satisfy the conditions of patiency?

The answer to that question depends in part on an answer to a nomological

version of the question: do the laws of our universe make it possible to create

consciousness out of something other than the kind of matter of which we are

composed and configured in a way that’s very similar to consciousnesses we

know of?

The technological and nomological questions just raised are interesting and

important, especially to those who wish to create artificial consciousnesses.

However, as a philosopher, I’m in no position to answer them. I’m going to

12 For a discussion of the distinction between obligation and excuse see (McMahan

2009).

7

assume that artificial consciousnesses with a large range of cognitive capacities

are creatable and instead focus on the following conceptual question: is it

conceptually possible to create an artificial consciousness that is a moral

patient?

I think the answer to this question is clearly “yes”. To see why, just imagine

that we’ve managed to create an artificial consciousness and embodied it,

certainly a conceptual possibility. This being is, we know, mentally very much

like us. It is a moral agent, it has a similar phenomenology, it goes about the

world much like we do, etc.. What would we owe to this being? I think it is our

moral equal and that denying that would make one, to use Singer’s term, a

speciesist. But, even if you think that such a being would not be our moral

equal, it would certainly be wrong to hit such a thing in the face with a bat, or

to cut off its arm because of the effect such actions would have on the welfare

of such a being. That is, even if we have some special obligations to the

members of our own species and some degree of partiality justified, this kind of

artificial consciousness is a moral patient.

The more interesting question isn’t whether an artificial consciousness very

much like u ...