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Many ethical questions about our future with intelligent machines rest upon assumptions concerning the origins, development and ideal future of humanity and of the universe, and hence overlap considerably with many religious questions. First, could computers themselves become moral in any sense, and could different components of morality – whatever they are – be instantiated in a computer? Second, could computers enhance the moral functioning of humans? Do computers potentially have a role in narrowing the gap between moral aspiration and how morality is actually lived out? Third, if we develop machines comparable in intelligence to humans, how should we treat them? This question is especially acute for embodied robots and human-like androids. Fourthly, numerous moral issues arise as society changes such that artificial intelligence plays an increasingly significant role in making decisions, with implications for how human beings function socially and as individuals, treat each other and access resources.
For the Aristotelian phronimos the practically wise man has phronesis, which is a form of knowledge, and it is this that enables him (characteristically) to make correct decisions about what he should do. Phronesis, excellence in practical reasoning, moral knowledge, can be acquired only by habitually engaging in virtuous action, not, for example, just by learning a written code of conduct. There is no short cut to what the phronimos knows. Nothing but the acquisition of personal virtue will yield it. When we bring this feature of phronesis right to the surface, it clearly suppresses a significant amount of the pretensions of contemporary normative ethical theory. Aristotelian anti-generalism still carries a nasty sting, for it entails that, unless the theorists have phronesis and hence virtue themselves, their "shorter ways" may well make it harder, rather than easier, to acquire virtue.
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