Modern-Day Gamers' Ethics [discussion/brainstorm thread]

[Belthus]

What we do is shaped by who we are and who we are is shaped by what we do. It might be morally praiseworthy to be the kind of person that does not consider torture/murder even in the case of simulated torture/murder. To that end it might be morally praiseworthy for us to not thoughtless act while playing games. A firm separation of reality and fiction is a useful barrier to this effect however not one that is impenetrable. If we act in game in a way that we would not consider morally justified to do outside of the game then we risk slowly becoming more similar to how we act in game. (vice versa of course)

I think this is true, with quite a lot of evidence to date. Anti-social behavior toward representations of people can create a habitual way of thinking about real people in anti-social terms. For example, in the TV show, The Sopranos, many conflicts are solved by killing people, including close friends and family members. The killings are often shown in detail, with attention paid on how to do it and evade the net of police investigation (e.g., saw off the head and hands of the victim and dispose of them elsewhere, to make identifying the body difficult). Everyone knows what killing is anyway, but people who spend a lot of time consuming media that involve killing will have that thought come to mind more easily: "My life would be easier if that person 'disappeared,' and I know how to do it." Of course, most of us have strong internal restraints that would overwhelm any such impulse. People who are under a great deal of stress or who are suffering from mental illness may find that their internal restraints are insufficient to resist such temptations.

I believe that Civilization-style games are much less of an issue than first-person shooters. There is an objectification of human beings, so we see them as things to be manipulated for larger purposes. For people in power, this is a real danger. Most of us, however, do not have that kind of power over many people.

[memimemi]

The Ben Franklin effect is one example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect
(Intent is usually part of perspective. It was listed separately so as not to be forgotten)

So you're suggesting that the nicer I am toward Sims, the more likely I am to be nice to them in the future - and vice versa?

Because otherwise, the wiki to which you've linked is nonsensical in this context.

You seem to be confused about where the Sims in SimCity end and where the rest of SimCity begins. SimCity might be considered as complex as a bacterium however SimCity does the majority of what you credit the Sims for doing. A single Sim has a list of variables and a list of methods that SimCity calls. Some of those methods call other methods. There even exist methods outside of a single Sim that alter that Sim (unemployment events).

Solid point.  Let's bear in mind, however, if we're going to separate Sims from the environment in which they <ahem> exist, we should be fair to do so with the counter-example, a bacterium.  A single bacterium is as reliant on the forces of physics present in its environment as a Sim is to its simulation.  The complexity we perceive in the bacterium is the end-product of a long, slow, and not necessarily efficient process of design by natural selection.  Is mitochondrial biology the most efficient way to convert glucose into energy?  Is glucose the most efficient fuel to use?  Unimportant, from biological standards.  Unless we're to explore whether the environment in which an organism (carbon-based, tangible, or otherwise) exists is somehow fundamentally pertinent to its moral status - which might be interesting.  However, I get the hunch that that's not where you're headed with this.

Why am I so focused on the How? Because the How distinguishes the edge of an object and also shows the level of sensation that occurs. A Sim probably does a linear series of operations/method calls with some loops (unlike Civ units). Suffering and Sentience both require a minimum complexity in this sensation system before being possible. Suffering needs to have the existence of pain/pleasure. Stimuli being divided based on positive/negative rather than merely triggering the responses. Sentient requires self awareness via some kind of sensing sensing. Last I knew Sims had not been given either prerequisite. (However last I knew the game called all the methods hence my crane and rock comment.)

So, then, I am free to kill off comatose humans?  Or just murder indiscriminately with various neurotoxins?  Suffering *may* be a necessary part of the whole; I posit that it's far from the entire story, however.  Also, the physics and biology fan in me (I claim no expertise in them, just a keen interest) has trouble with the assumption that triggered responses aren't the whole of the story, for the sensate and the insensate alike.  It may be true that the higher-level descriptor 'suffering' somehow holds more meaning than 'autonomous nervous system reaction to outside stimuli, due to stimulus/response chains.'  Then again, maybe not. 

What is suffering?  Can we agree that it is physical in nature, based on the body's pain response to harmful stimuli?  As opposed to anguish, which is a purely psychological effect (though still debilitating, just in a different way)?  Or perhaps, to head back to a more systemic and functional point of view, can we trace the cause of suffering to being the frustration of a system's own inertial continuance of existence?

I stub my toe; it hurts.  I break my toe, I suffer from lost work, perhaps a limp, maybe even gangrenous infection.  As long as my toe is broken, I suffer.  Is it because of the pain alone?  I posit not.  The 'suffering' is not reliant on neurology; the experience of pain alone does not suffering make - it's one of the major causes for humans, agreed; but we're skirting dangerously close to 'Morally Mori' ground if we hold that a nervous system that calls for a different set of actions (or inactions) based on electro-chemical impulses travelling through myelin-sheathed dendrites is somehow the be-all and end-all of suffering.  Unless we limit 'suffering' to the question of 'is it human?', we must find a more generalized understanding of what it is.

So, back to functionality, Sims, and such.  *If* my above position holds water, then we must look at the possibility that it's the frustration from which we suffer, not the pain.  In which case, we can hold that a cat starving is a cat suffering; a bacterium placed in a new environment for which it's not evolved is suffering; and, perhaps, a sim without a house, job, or future (due to some random mix of UFOs, earthquakes, meteor showers, and Godzilla) is suffering.  Suffering alone does not a moral object make.  From my position, as player, should it really matter whether a Sim 'feels' pain the way I do, or just reacts with the same (simulated) basic drives that I do, which I'm ruining and frustrating with one click of the bulldozer?

I suggest that suffering is more like the brakes against immorality, rather than the gas pedal driving morality.  If it suffers, stop what you're doing - I accept this axiomatically.  It does not follow, however, that I'm morally immune in re: how I treat that which cannot.  Truth cannot suffer as humans do; however, it's been argued that lies are immoral.  Perhaps because the inertial state of factual reality is frustrated (albeit very slightly) by its misrepresentation, by an agent who has full knowledge of said frustration?  (the misinformed don't lie when speaking mistruth)

Perhaps this is the base of my (and, seemingly, others') quandry: the conflict between my knowledge that sims don't suffer as I do and the knowledge that I'm still causing the next-best (worst?) thing to suffering: frustration of their inertial state of work, pay taxes, complain about stuff.

To answer a lot of your scattered quesitons:
If the capability to Suffer is a sufficient condition of moral personhood AND if _____ has the capability to suffer then
IIRC mosquitoes do not but I am not sure about mice.

Once again, I agree that the capacity to suffer is a sufficient reason to stop an act, or at least to stop from acting, upon an object.  But is it the only reason?  Considering that, functionally, there are many ways to acheive the effects of suffering (ranging from abberent behaviours to outright self-destruction) on a being - do they count, too?  What difference does it make, morally, whether I've caused a sensate being pain, or murdered it painlessly?  Is it cruel to pull the wings from a housefly?  The hairs from a flea?  The flagellum from a bacterium?  The livelihood of a sim?  We can draw *a* line at suffering, but it seems deficient as *the* line. 

I hope I don't come off as too contentious here; I just find myself viscerally unsatisfied with the idea of suffering as the only consideration of morality.  I don't know what the others are, necessarily - but the partially-formed perspective above is about where I'm at with it.

I think this is true, with quite a lot of evidence to date. Anti-social behavior toward representations of people can create a habitual way of thinking about real people in anti-social terms. For example, in the TV show, The Sopranos, many conflicts are solved by killing people, including close friends and family members. The killings are often shown in detail, with attention paid on how to do it and evade the net of police investigation (e.g., saw off the head and hands of the victim and dispose of them elsewhere, to make identifying the body difficult). Everyone knows what killing is anyway, but people who spend a lot of time consuming media that involve killing will have that thought come to mind more easily: "My life would be easier if that person 'disappeared,' and I know how to do it." Of course, most of us have strong internal restraints that would overwhelm any such impulse. People who are under a great deal of stress or who are suffering from mental illness may find that their internal restraints are insufficient to resist such temptations.

I believe that Civilization-style games are much less of an issue than first-person shooters. There is an objectification of human beings, so we see them as things to be manipulated for larger purposes. For people in power, this is a real danger. Most of us, however, do not have that kind of power over many people.

Not to be rude, but what evidence?  this, says otherwise.  Or, perhaps, we can just look at the constantly lowering rates of violent crime, and recognize that if there were a direct causal link between video games and violence/antisocial behaviour (hereafter V/ASB), there ought to be a spike, starting with my generation (yep, I'm old enough to remember the first home consoles) - the first one for whom video games were an at-home, anytime experience.  Your second point is very intriguing, though.  If there were a link between video games and V/ASB (a much more difficult question to sort out than it seems at first glance), then there would possibly be a congruent link between type of V/ASB exhibited and social class.


Once again, this is fun.  Thank you all for your continued participation.

[OldTrees]

The Ben Franklin effect is one example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect
(Intent is usually part of perspective. It was listed separately so as not to be forgotten)

So you're suggesting that the nicer I am toward Sims, the more likely I am to be nice to them in the future - and vice versa?

Because otherwise, the wiki to which you've linked is nonsensical in this context.

Yes. This is one of the two forces I was referring to. By acting towards something in a particular way we become more likely to act that way towards that something in the future.

However the scope of this force is dependent on what we are acting towards. Different people look at videogame characters in different ways in different games. I would be very concerned if someone was playing halo and was shooting the other team with the thought of "I will slaughter them because they are the other team". However I would not be concerned at all if the thought was "I will seek to win in this contest with my friends". (This is relevant to Belthus' post) My own sampling of fellow gamers seems to indicate that it is rare for this force to have the scope seen in the first thought and thus is not a concern for society at large.

You seem to be confused about where the Sims in SimCity end and where the rest of SimCity begins. SimCity might be considered as complex as a bacterium however SimCity does the majority of what you credit the Sims for doing. A single Sim has a list of variables and a list of methods that SimCity calls. Some of those methods call other methods. There even exist methods outside of a single Sim that alter that Sim (unemployment events).

Solid point.  Let's bear in mind, however, if we're going to separate Sims from the environment in which they <ahem> exist, we should be fair to do so with the counter-example, a bacterium.  A single bacterium is as reliant on the forces of physics present in its environment as a Sim is to its simulation.  The complexity we perceive in the bacterium is the end-product of a long, slow, and not necessarily efficient process of design by natural selection.  Is mitochondrial biology the most efficient way to convert glucose into energy?  Is glucose the most efficient fuel to use?  Unimportant, from biological standards.  Unless we're to explore whether the environment in which an organism (carbon-based, tangible, or otherwise) exists is somehow fundamentally pertinent to its moral status - which might be interesting.  However, I get the hunch that that's not where you're headed with this.

The environment of all things does impact the thing. However my point was that you crediting the Sim for the merits of the Sim's environment. I would not credit a bacterium for its preference of glucose to sucrose. However I can credit it for its use of glucose.

Why am I so focused on the How? Because the How distinguishes the edge of an object and also shows the level of sensation that occurs. A Sim probably does a linear series of operations/method calls with some loops (unlike Civ units). Suffering and Sentience both require a minimum complexity in this sensation system before being possible. Suffering needs to have the existence of pain/pleasure. Stimuli being divided based on positive/negative rather than merely triggering the responses. Sentient requires self awareness via some kind of sensing sensing. Last I knew Sims had not been given either prerequisite. (However last I knew the game called all the methods hence my crane and rock comment.)

So, then, I am free to kill off comatose humans?  Or just murder indiscriminately with various neurotoxins?  Suffering *may* be a necessary part of the whole; I posit that it's far from the entire story, however.  Also, the physics and biology fan in me (I claim no expertise in them, just a keen interest) has trouble with the assumption that triggered responses aren't the whole of the story, for the sensate and the insensate alike.  It may be true that the higher-level descriptor 'suffering' somehow holds more meaning than 'autonomous nervous system reaction to outside stimuli, due to stimulus/response chains.'  Then again, maybe not. 

What is suffering?  Can we agree that it is physical in nature, based on the body's pain response to harmful stimuli?  As opposed to anguish, which is a purely psychological effect (though still debilitating, just in a different way)?  Or perhaps, to head back to a more systemic and functional point of view, can we trace the cause of suffering to being the frustration of a system's own inertial continuance of existence?

I stub my toe; it hurts.  I break my toe, I suffer from lost work, perhaps a limp, maybe even gangrenous infection.  As long as my toe is broken, I suffer.  Is it because of the pain alone?  I posit not.  The 'suffering' is not reliant on neurology; the experience of pain alone does not suffering make - it's one of the major causes for humans, agreed; but we're skirting dangerously close to 'Morally Mori' ground if we hold that a nervous system that calls for a different set of actions (or inactions) based on electro-chemical impulses travelling through myelin-sheathed dendrites is somehow the be-all and end-all of suffering.  Unless we limit 'suffering' to the question of 'is it human?', we must find a more generalized understanding of what it is.

So, back to functionality, Sims, and such.  *If* my above position holds water, then we must look at the possibility that it's the frustration from which we suffer, not the pain.  In which case, we can hold that a cat starving is a cat suffering; a bacterium placed in a new environment for which it's not evolved is suffering; and, perhaps, a sim without a house, job, or future (due to some random mix of UFOs, earthquakes, meteor showers, and Godzilla) is suffering.  Suffering alone does not a moral object make.  From my position, as player, should it really matter whether a Sim 'feels' pain the way I do, or just reacts with the same (simulated) basic drives that I do, which I'm ruining and frustrating with one click of the bulldozer?

I suggest that suffering is more like the brakes against immorality, rather than the gas pedal driving morality.  If it suffers, stop what you're doing - I accept this axiomatically.  It does not follow, however, that I'm morally immune in re: how I treat that which cannot.  Truth cannot suffer as humans do; however, it's been argued that lies are immoral.  Perhaps because the inertial state of factual reality is frustrated (albeit very slightly) by its misrepresentation, by an agent who has full knowledge of said frustration?  (the misinformed don't lie when speaking mistruth)

Perhaps this is the base of my (and, seemingly, others') quandry: the conflict between my knowledge that sims don't suffer as I do and the knowledge that I'm still causing the next-best (worst?) thing to suffering: frustration of their inertial state of work, pay taxes, complain about stuff.

Anguish is a type of suffering. However it requires self awareness or similar feedback. Bacteria do not feel anguish.

A simple (rather than sophisticated) suffering based moral code would permit the killing of some forms of comatose. This is one of the arguments non suffering based codes and sophisticated suffering based codes use. (remember there is debate between these theories)

It seems that we are in agreement about:
If suffering is a sufficient but not necessary condition for moral personhood then it is possible to have moral personhood without the ability to suffer.

PS: I do not own or know of a sims game where sims can become frustrated. (Frustration is different than being labeled frustrated of course.)

To answer a lot of your scattered quesitons:
If the capability to Suffer is a sufficient condition of moral personhood AND if _____ has the capability to suffer then
IIRC mosquitoes do not but I am not sure about mice.

Once again, I agree that the capacity to suffer is a sufficient reason to stop an act, or at least to stop from acting, upon an object.  But is it the only reason?  Considering that, functionally, there are many ways to acheive the effects of suffering (ranging from abberent behaviours to outright self-destruction) on a being - do they count, too?  What difference does it make, morally, whether I've caused a sensate being pain, or murdered it painlessly?  Is it cruel to pull the wings from a housefly?  The hairs from a flea?  The flagellum from a bacterium?  The livelihood of a sim?  We can draw *a* line at suffering, but it seems deficient as *the* line. 

I hope I don't come off as too contentious here; I just find myself viscerally unsatisfied with the idea of suffering as the only consideration of morality.  I don't know what the others are, necessarily - but the partially-formed perspective above is about where I'm at with it.

Hurricanes can achieve the same results as mass murder. That does not mean they are morally equivalent. The suffering is probably more relevant than the response to suffering. As such the ability to achieve the response to suffering without suffering is probably not as relevant if at all.

Painless murder usually does not maximize happiness (the goal of most suffering based ethics).

However I do not have a definitive answer to the core of this quote. The best I have is that it seems that we are in agreement about:
If suffering is a sufficient but not necessary condition for moral personhood then it is possible to have moral personhood without the ability to suffer.

PS: You should look into philosophy(ethics) when you are looking for college electives.

[memimemi]

Yes. This is one of the two forces I was referring to. By acting towards something in a particular way we become more likely to act that way towards that something in the future.

However the scope of this force is dependent on what we are acting towards. Different people look at videogame characters in different ways in different games. I would be very concerned if someone was playing halo and was shooting the other team with the thought of "I will slaughter them because they are the other team". However I would not be concerned at all if the thought was "I will seek to win in this contest with my friends". (This is relevant to Belthus' post) My own sampling of fellow gamers seems to indicate that it is rare for this force to have the scope seen in the first thought and thus is not a concern for society at large.

Indeed.  The evidence seems to be that playing video games (of nearly any sort) is, at best, a neutral correspondent to behaviour: how we play games is the object of our prior/existant mental state; rather than the subject.

The environment of all things does impact the thing. However my point was that you crediting the Sim for the merits of the Sim's environment. I would not credit a bacterium for its preference of glucose to sucrose. However I can credit it for its use of glucose.

Can you?  The mitochondrion works the glucose - the bacterium doesn't.  Unless you want to posit thought and intention to a bacterium, it can well be viewed as nothing more than a strict stimulus/response unit - as much a product of its environment as the petri dish in which it swims.  This can be extended as far up or down the evolutionary ladder as you may like.  Humans, for example, are for the most part unaware of changes to their own endocrine and digestive systems - as long as those systems remain in an inertial state of health.  'Thought,' 'awareness,' 'sensation,' heck, even 'morality,' can plausibly be described as nothing more complex than the reiterated motion of elecrically-charged sodium, triggering innate, unconscious chemical cascades across an action potential, leading to the further motion of sodium+ ions further down the line.

I don't really see how we can credit the bacterium for the use of glucose, any more than we can credit the glucose for its use of bacteria.  The environment is the key factor; the process of biological evolution is, at core, simply the material environment rearranging itself - a bacterium evolved in an arsenic-rich environment will process arsenic rather than carbon; essentially, life is just matter shifting into new, stable, inertial configurations.  Sims are just electric potentials, rearranging themselves into stable, inertial configurations.  Maybe, right now, there seems to be a large difference between a sim and a person; I argue that this is a difference of quantity of calculations, not quality.  As processor power increases, this (I predict) gap will shorten; possibly more quickly than any of us here are ready for.

Anguish is a type of suffering. However it requires self awareness or similar feedback. Bacteria do not feel anguish.

A simple (rather than sophisticated) suffering based moral code would permit the killing of some forms of comatose. This is one of the arguments non suffering based codes and sophisticated suffering based codes use. (remember there is debate between these theories)

It seems that we are in agreement about:
If suffering is a sufficient but not necessary condition for moral personhood then it is possible to have moral personhood without the ability to suffer.

PS: I do not own or know of a sims game where sims can become frustrated. (Frustration is different than being labeled frustrated of course.)

I am aware of the debate.  I ask that you also remember that there is still somewhat heated debate as to whether there is such a thing as 'moral personhood,' regardless of its conditions.  That's another of the reasons this question of simulated morality is so intriguing to me - when we look deeply into a cracked funhouse mirror, we're forced to contemplate our own assumed position relative to the world we see.

Hurricanes can achieve the same results as mass murder. That does not mean they are morally equivalent. The suffering is probably more relevant than the response to suffering. As such the ability to achieve the response to suffering without suffering is probably not as relevant if at all.

Painless murder usually does not maximize happiness (the goal of most suffering based ethics).

However I do not have a definitive answer to the core of this quote. The best I have is that it seems that we are in agreement about:
If suffering is a sufficient but not necessary condition for moral personhood then it is possible to have moral personhood without the ability to suffer.

PS: You should look into philosophy(ethics) when you are looking for college electives.

Ah, but what if Bentham and Mill were wrong?  Utilitarian ethics may well not be ethical at all.  Why should maximizing happiness matter?  If it does, then why aren't we offering free opiates to everyone, or maybe spiking the water supply with Xanax (cf. Huxley, 'Island' - soma)? 

Why do we have terms such as 'immoral pleasure seeker' as part of our lexicon?  Why do I (and I doubt I'm alone) find more humanity in Aurelius than I do in Mill?  In Gautama over Bentham?

***Warning: contentious statement to follow***

'Happiness' is chimera.  When rendered down, it seems to be little more than aggrandized inertia.   Often, what is 'right' is far divorced from what maximizes happiness - 'tis an unwise parent whose only concern for hir child is hir happiness.  My SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess) is that 'happiness' is a catch-all concept, and a poorly-defined one at that - and nothing more.  We may as well be maximizing peoples' access to unicorn rides as a basis for ethics.  What matters to us isn't maximizing the happiness of others, or even ourselves - it's the maintainence of our own self-image as a moral being, as defined by our environments, both physical and societal.  And our societal environment is determined by the same physical forces as anything else.

(note: the above does not necessarily reflect my personal point of view; it's merely the exploration of a different perspective on the issue)

PS: thank you for the compliment, but of all academic pursuits, I hold philosophy as being especially in need of freedom from university group-think.  I feel much more at home discussing these issues with a broader spectrum of society than one finds in the the halls of academe.

[OldTrees]

The environment of all things does impact the thing. However my point was that you crediting the Sim for the merits of the Sim's environment. I would not credit a bacterium for its preference of glucose to sucrose. However I can credit it for its use of glucose.

Can you?  The mitochondrion works the glucose - the bacterium doesn't.  Unless you want to posit thought and intention to a bacterium, it can well be viewed as nothing more than a strict stimulus/response unit - as much a product of its environment as the petri dish in which it swims. -snip-

I consider the modern mitochondria to be a organelle since it has given some of its reproductive DNA to the host cell. I credit the bacteria for having organelle capable of digesting glucose. I do not credit bacteria with deciding to become able to digest glucose.

The lac operon is a good example of the difference in complexity between Sims and bacteria digestion.
The enviroment provides the stimulus. The bacteria senses the stimulus. The bacteria responds to the stimulus. Sim City senses the stimulus. Sim City modifies the Sim. As such feedback for bacteria is internal however Sim City is the lowest level that shows feedback. The lack of feedback within Sims AFAIK is why I classify them as less complex by quality of computations and not merely quantity.

Anguish is a type of suffering. However it requires self awareness or similar feedback. Bacteria do not feel anguish.

A simple (rather than sophisticated) suffering based moral code would permit the killing of some forms of comatose. This is one of the arguments non suffering based codes and sophisticated suffering based codes use. (remember there is debate between these theories)

It seems that we are in agreement about:
If suffering is a sufficient but not necessary condition for moral personhood then it is possible to have moral personhood without the ability to suffer.

PS: I do not own or know of a sims game where sims can become frustrated. (Frustration is different than being labeled frustrated of course.)

I am aware of the debate.  I ask that you also remember that there is still somewhat heated debate as to whether there is such a thing as 'moral personhood,' regardless of its conditions.  That's another of the reasons this question of simulated morality is so intriguing to me - when we look deeply into a cracked funhouse mirror, we're forced to contemplate our own assumed position relative to the world we see.

Hurricanes can achieve the same results as mass murder. That does not mean they are morally equivalent. The suffering is probably more relevant than the response to suffering. As such the ability to achieve the response to suffering without suffering is probably not as relevant if at all.

Painless murder usually does not maximize happiness (the goal of most suffering based ethics).

However I do not have a definitive answer to the core of this quote. The best I have is that it seems that we are in agreement about:
If suffering is a sufficient but not necessary condition for moral personhood then it is possible to have moral personhood without the ability to suffer.

PS: You should look into philosophy(ethics) when you are looking for college electives.

Ah, but what if Bentham and Mill were wrong?  Utilitarian ethics may well not be ethical at all.  Why should maximizing happiness matter?  If it does, then why aren't we offering free opiates to everyone, or maybe spiking the water supply with Xanax (cf. Huxley, 'Island' - soma)? 

Why do we have terms such as 'immoral pleasure seeker' as part of our lexicon?  Why do I (and I doubt I'm alone) find more humanity in Aurelius than I do in Mill?  In Gautama over Bentham?

***Warning: contentious statement to follow***

'Happiness' is chimera.  When rendered down, it seems to be little more than aggrandized inertia.   Often, what is 'right' is far divorced from what maximizes happiness - 'tis an unwise parent whose only concern for hir child is hir happiness.  My SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess) is that 'happiness' is a catch-all concept, and a poorly-defined one at that - and nothing more.  We may as well be maximizing peoples' access to unicorn rides as a basis for ethics.  What matters to us isn't maximizing the happiness of others, or even ourselves - it's the maintainence of our own self-image as a moral being, as defined by our environments, both physical and societal.  And our societal environment is determined by the same physical forces as anything else.

(note: the above does not necessarily reflect my personal point of view; it's merely the exploration of a different perspective on the issue)

PS: thank you for the compliment, but of all academic pursuits, I hold philosophy as being especially in need of freedom from university group-think.  I feel much more at home discussing these issues with a broader spectrum of society than one finds in the the halls of academe.
[/quote]
Quick note: Maximizing happiness is more sophisticated than your examples (especially the child one) let on. However by your name-dropping I suspect that was merely a communication shortcut.

Of the three major moral codes I know of (Utilitarianism, Kantianism, Virtue Ethics) Utilitarianism seems the most considerate of non humans. That is the primary reason I used it as an example of a guess at a sufficient condition of moral personhood. Would you give an example of a more considerate moral theory to examine?

[memimemi]

I consider the modern mitochondria to be a organelle since it has given some of its reproductive DNA to the host cell. I credit the bacteria for having organelle capable of digesting glucose. I do not credit bacteria with deciding to become able to digest glucose.

The lac operon is a good example of the difference in complexity between Sims and bacteria digestion.
The enviroment provides the stimulus. The bacteria senses the stimulus. The bacteria responds to the stimulus. Sim City senses the stimulus. Sim City modifies the Sim. As such feedback for bacteria is internal however Sim City is the lowest level that shows feedback. The lack of feedback within Sims AFAIK is why I classify them as less complex by quality of computations and not merely quantity.

Three points of comparison are being made, and I agree (mostly) with two of them.

i) The environment provides the stimulus.  <-- Sort of.  It may be more accurate to describe the environment as being, rather than providing, the stimulus.  For our purposes here, though, that point is immaterial, so I'll agree.

ii) The bacteria senses the stimulus.  <-- Nope, not even in the example you provided, as a 'good' one.  Where, in the automatic expression (or repression) of genes, is there room for the concept of 'sense?'  The smallest organ I know of which can be described as 'sensate' would be a pair of neurons.  A bacterium's digestive response to the presence or absence of lactose requires as much sensation as a lump of potassium's combustion requires it to 'sense' oxygen in its environment.

iii) The bacteria responds to the stimulus.  <-- Yes.  Although, as a point of interest, we could potentially describe our concept of 'bacterium,' as a separate entity from its environment, as being the response.  In other words, what makes a bacterium (in this case, e. coli) a thing is functional, as opposed to existential.  I find no reason (not to say one doesn't exist!) not to expand such a functional definition across nearly any category of object.  If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims about in ponds all day, it's a duck.  If it walks on all fours, has a shaggy coat, and begs for biscuits, it's probably not a duck - the function is all wrong to fit the category 'duck.'

Yes, I'm aware that there is wiggle room on point iii).  Perhaps there is a more accurate description of our methods of categorization; but if so, I don't know it.

Quick note: Maximizing happiness is more sophisticated than your examples (especially the child one) let on. However by your name-dropping I suspect that was merely a communication shortcut.

Of the three major moral codes I know of (Utilitarianism, Kantianism, Virtue Ethics) Utilitarianism seems the most considerate of non humans. That is the primary reason I used it as an example of a guess at a sufficient condition of moral personhood. Would you give an example of a more considerate moral theory to examine?

Yes, you caught me, both in the venial academic 'sin' of name-dropping, and that of oversimplifying conceptual groundwork which, honestly, is beyond the scope of this forum.

I will admit, it's been a while since I've read Kant, but afaik his ethics was based on aesthetic contemplation of 'the thing as such,' no?  If it jibes with what we are, at our highest level of judgement (the aesthetic), it is 'good.'  A very Romantic (the era, not a reference to the upcoming holiday) notion, as I recall.  Beauty is truth, and truth beauty, from a very German standpoint.  I will admit, however, to a great need for a refresher before daring to claim any actual knowledge of Kantian ethics.

I can, however, provide other potentially viable lines of ethical reasoning, a couple of which I alluded to earlier: namely, the Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius (and, more passionately though less thoroughly, Livy); and the disengagement practiced by various sub-groups of Buddhism.  Also of note would be biological determinism; Objectivism; Nihilism (in a way); Consequentialism; Calvinism; Monasticism; etc.

As to whether any of these is as or more 'considerate,' is unanswerable in this context, since the very question is 'considerate to whom or what?'  My argument against Utilitarianism is that it begs questions: what is 'happiness?'  the greatest happiness for whom, exactly?  If I could make one person infinitely happy, how would that measure up against making everyone a (plank's number)/1 of a bit more 'happy?'

Yes, it's a simplified take on a couple hundred years' worth of discussion, and I admit that freely.  If 'strawman' is to be called anywhere, this is a good spot to do it.

Point being, to bring it back to my OP, is that there are aspects of each ethical stance that are slightly wanting in the present circumstance, and are likely to be even less applicable in the not-so-distant future.

Can we wrest a viable, 21st-century ethic, from this chaos?  I'd like to be as prepared as possible for the day when an A.I. can not only fulfill the functions of a human, but also express its own desires, needs, and dreams.

[OldTrees]

I think I should try to simplify my bacteria example again. This time with a concept of "calling". X calls Y if X creates and input that causes Y to respond.
A petri dish calls e coil. However E coli also calls itself.
Sim City calls Sims. However Sims do not call themselves. (Again I have not decompiled the code. I am guessing.)
The difference in complexity is whether or not the thing has feedback (the ability to call itself)


Sidenote: Kant was about Rationality. Part of his theory was: "You have a means that you intend to use to reach a goal. If everyone adopted that means when seeking that goal, would the goal be reachable by that means? If everyone adopting your maxim results in it not working then it is an irrational and immoral maxim. (Ex: Lying when intending to deceive results in people's words not being trusted and thus not useful for deception.)"


Honestly, If an AI can function as a human and if humans have moral personhood then it is highly likely that the AI has moral personhood. The big question is: "How much earlier does moral personhood occur?" For the sake of simplicity let us assume there is a single necessary condition for moral personhood.

Although as I read Stoicism another question emerges: Is murder's immorality a result of an aspect of the victim or of the murderer?

[Zso_Zso]

Just an interesting side-note to this conversation. Any of you watched the Stargate Atlantis Sci-Fi series ?
It had an episode exploring the question of OP with the Sci-Fi twist:

http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s3/315.shtml

"John Sheppard and Rodney McKay go head-to-head in an Atlantis computer game, where they each develop SIMS-style villages on opposite sides of a river in competition with one another. For two years now McKay has been pushing his town ("Geldar") to develop technologically, and as a personal touch fashions their leader character, a beautiful woman named Nola, to look a bit like Samantha Carter.

But what the two do not realize is that this is no game. Their villages, and all the people in them, are real, living on a planet somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy.
..."

The episode explores exactly the sudden change in seriousness (and morale consequences) when it turns out that the simulation game they were playing for years actually controls the life of real civilisations (thus real people) on a real planet.

[memimemi]

I think I should try to simplify my bacteria example again. This time with a concept of "calling". X calls Y if X creates and input that causes Y to respond.
A petri dish calls e coil. However E coli also calls itself.
Sim City calls Sims. However Sims do not call themselves. (Again I have not decompiled the code. I am guessing.)
The difference in complexity is whether or not the thing has feedback (the ability to call itself)

'E. coli' does , most emphatically, not call itself.  To go with your line of reasoning (which is sound, though IMO incomplete): 

If we're to truly break down what calls what, we need to consider that e. coli is made of disparate, seperately-evolved parts (according to my understanding of cellular biology, which is most certainly not complete) - all of which call each other.  The entity we consider as 'e. coli' is more of a boundry condition for a set of biochemical processes - essentially, what happens inside the cell is e. coli; what happens outside of it is not.  However, it is notable that the whole of the cell does not react simultaneously nor in synchrony, when stimulated by environmental factors.  Instead, as you began to state, there are chains of responses from disparate parts, each acting as a secondary source of stimulus for others, within the limited environment of the cell.  Each of these reactions is finite, automatic, and chemical in nature, and not in any a priori way complex.  It is only when we assume that e. coli is a single, unified, entity, that the appearance of complexity develops.

In your example, the petri dish is more of a broadcast medium, the cell wall the boundry limit of the society which, taken as a whole, is e. coli.  Some of the denizens of the city of e. coli will hear and comprehend the message being broadcast, whether it be information on medium PH, presence/absence of nutrients, temperature gradients, or what have you.  The point is, no single message from the dish is 'heard' or 'comprehended' (forgive the lapse back into shorthand) by the entire community of e. coli, nor acted upon by the bacterium as a whole.  Rather, the messages to which the entire organism will respond are internal; sugar in dish -->  mitochondrial response --> chemical change in the internal environment ---> extrinsic effect (motion toward food/away from Ph excess, whatevs).

Once again, the end result (the entire cell moves, fissions, etc.), which we label as the organism 'e. coli,' is a form of abstraction; a functional shortcut, to describe the output of an entire microculture.

So, maybe I've been wrong to care about individual Sims - I should, instead, be more concerned for the health of SimCity. 

Sidenote: Kant was about Rationality. Part of his theory was: "You have a means that you intend to use to reach a goal. If everyone adopted that means when seeking that goal, would the goal be reachable by that means? If everyone adopting your maxim results in it not working then it is an irrational and immoral maxim. (Ex: Lying when intending to deceive results in people's words not being trusted and thus not useful for deception.)"

So, then, consequentialism?  I don't think that would apply, here, if I'm reading you correctly.  Such an ethic requires all actors to be rational agents - and tbh I doubt the existance of a pure rationality.  I am, however, biased - I'm more a fan of the badboys of philo - Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Sartre.

Honestly, If an AI can function as a human and if humans have moral personhood then it is highly likely that the AI has moral personhood. The big question is: "How much earlier does moral personhood occur?" For the sake of simplicity let us assume there is a single necessary condition for moral personhood.

Although as I read Stoicism another question emerges: Is murder's immorality a result of an aspect of the victim or of the murderer?

If I were to posit a single necessary condition, I'd have to carefully suggest that functionality is the cornerstone.  I'd have to accept that destroying an industrial CNC machine is an act different in degree, not kind, from killing a machinist; however, for simplicity's sake, I'd accept that.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By my understanding of Stoic thought, immorality lies less in one's deeds towards others, than in one's reaction to deeds performed upon hirself.  It is wrong to kill an innocent; it is justifiable, but not commendable, to kill an enemy combatant; it is commendable to sacrifice oneself to protect others from an enemy.  It is, however, only virtuous if one can face all with equinamity and inner calm, and reasoned responses.

Another semi-example: it would be wrong to kill your wife's lover out of anger.  It would be wrong to kill your wife's lover out of love for your wife.  It would be wrong to kill yourself out of misery, anguish, or heartsickness.  It would be virtuous, however, to kill your wife's lover because there is a rational case you can make to yourself that adultery is wrong.  One's decisions, especially in matters of ethics, must be dispassionate - emotion clouds the mind, disrupts the digestion, and invokes an assumed tendancy toward a bestial nature in man.

We must keep in mind that in classical times, an ethos was a lifestyle, not a codified set of laws or rules.  'Morality' wasn't really much of a thing, in the form of top-down, abstract, codified law.

So, to answer your question: AFAIK, 'murder' is immoral, since murder is a crime of passion.  Killing a man, however, is not necessarily immoral, if one can make a case that he had it coming, with cool logic and reason.  Although, the relative weakness of the object to oneself is to be considered.  If I kill a child, it's murder, as the child had no reasonable chance of ever posing that level of threat to me.  If I kill my wife, that's murder, for the same reason - though it'd be interesting to know what Aurelius would have had to say about firearms in her hand.  If I kill my enemy while he sleeps, it's murder.

If I kill my enemy on the field of battle, and revel in the glory (read: blood and entrails), I'm a murderer - my acts were informed by emotion.  If I kill my enemy on the field of battle, and weep for the loss, it's not murder - but it is unmanly and unvirtuous.

Only when I kill out of necessity, with sure knowledge (not feeling!) of the necessity, am I entitled to consider it virtuous.

[memimemi]

Just an interesting side-note to this conversation. Any of you watched the Stargate Atlantis Sci-Fi series ?
It had an episode exploring the question of OP with the Sci-Fi twist:

http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s3/315.shtml

"John Sheppard and Rodney McKay go head-to-head in an Atlantis computer game, where they each develop SIMS-style villages on opposite sides of a river in competition with one another. For two years now McKay has been pushing his town ("Geldar") to develop technologically, and as a personal touch fashions their leader character, a beautiful woman named Nola, to look a bit like Samantha Carter.

But what the two do not realize is that this is no game. Their villages, and all the people in them, are real, living on a planet somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy.
..."

The episode explores exactly the sudden change in seriousness (and morale consequences) when it turns out that the simulation game they were playing for years actually controls the life of real civilisations (thus real people) on a real planet.

I've never watched SG:Atl, but it's relieving to know that these questions are already, at least in some small way, a part of the future-leaning scifi zeitgeist.  I may be nerdy, but at least I'm not weird! XD

Zso_Zso - your thoughts on this topic?  It'd be a more fun thread if it were less of an echo chamber between me and OldTrees (no offense to you, OT!).

[OldTrees]

I think I should try to simplify my bacteria example again. This time with a concept of "calling". X calls Y if X creates and input that causes Y to respond.
A petri dish calls e coil. However E coli also calls itself.
Sim City calls Sims. However Sims do not call themselves. (Again I have not decompiled the code. I am guessing.)
The difference in complexity is whether or not the thing has feedback (the ability to call itself)

'E. coli' does , most emphatically, not call itself.  To go with your line of reasoning (which is sound, though IMO incomplete): 

If we're to truly break down what calls what, we need to consider that e. coli is made of disparate, seperately-evolved parts (according to my understanding of cellular biology, which is most certainly not complete) - all of which call each other.  The entity we consider as 'e. coli' is more of a boundry condition for a set of biochemical processes - essentially, what happens inside the cell is e. coli; what happens outside of it is not.  However, it is notable that the whole of the cell does not react simultaneously nor in synchrony, when stimulated by environmental factors.  Instead, as you began to state, there are chains of responses from disparate parts, each acting as a secondary source of stimulus for others, within the limited environment of the cell.  Each of these reactions is finite, automatic, and chemical in nature, and not in any a priori way complex.  It is only when we assume that e. coli is a single, unified, entity, that the appearance of complexity develops.

If we are talking about an object, all parts of that object are parts of the object. If one part of an object calls another part of the object then the object called itself. This is the characteristic that Bacteria and Sim City share but Bacteria and Sims do not. This characteristic means the object has internal interactions. Internal interactions are a building block for deeper complexity.

Sidenote: Kant was about Rationality. Part of his theory was: "You have a means that you intend to use to reach a goal. If everyone adopted that means when seeking that goal, would the goal be reachable by that means? If everyone adopting your maxim results in it not working then it is an irrational and immoral maxim. (Ex: Lying when intending to deceive results in people's words not being trusted and thus not useful for deception.)"

So, then, consequentialism?  I don't think that would apply, here, if I'm reading you correctly.  Such an ethic requires all actors to be rational agents - and tbh I doubt the existance of a pure rationality.  I am, however, biased - I'm more a fan of the badboys of philo - Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Sartre.

It is not consequentialism. It cares about whether the means are capable of fulfilling the intent if everyone adopted the means. This test results in a deontological code. It only considers beings capable of reason to be moral agents. It does not require pure rationality despite exalting it.

Honestly, If an AI can function as a human and if humans have moral personhood then it is highly likely that the AI has moral personhood. The big question is: "How much earlier does moral personhood occur?" For the sake of simplicity let us assume there is a single necessary condition for moral personhood.

Although as I read Stoicism another question emerges: Is murder's immorality a result of an aspect of the victim or of the murderer?

If I were to posit a single necessary condition, I'd have to carefully suggest that functionality is the cornerstone.  I'd have to accept that destroying an industrial CNC machine is an act different in degree, not kind, from killing a machinist; however, for simplicity's sake, I'd accept that.

I believe I misunderstand. The following feels like a strawman but it seems to follow. Please correct my mistake.
So eliminating a carpenter
is the same kind as eliminating an industrial sander
is the same kind as eliminating some sand paper
is the same kind as eliminating a desert wind?
All have the function of sanding wood.


Thanks for the explanation of stoicism. As a Virtue based ethic, it seems the immorality of murder comes from the murderer not the victim. I think we have established a good Virtue ethical response to these choices above when we were talking about the effect different perspectives would have on the character of the gamer.


Please join in Zso_Zso

[memimemi]

If we are talking about an object, all parts of that object are parts of the object. If one part of an object calls another part of the object then the object called itself. This is the characteristic that Bacteria and Sim City share but Bacteria and Sims do not. This characteristic means the object has internal interactions. Internal interactions are a building block for deeper complexity.

So then, yes.  I should be more concerned about the welfare of SimCity qua SimCity, as opposed to any particular grouping of coding.  Even if just a miniscule bit.  If that is the proper level of complexity, the bounded system as whole, at which moral consideration begins, at what point of emulated/simulated 'life' should moral thought turn to ethical need for action? 

Spoiler for aside:

If anyone is interested, I'd very much like to hear thoughts on whether there is any basis, rational or evidence-based, on which to postulate a moral 'uncanny valley' effect.  At first glance, it seems it may have some explanatory power, when looking at the broad view of human history.  I could be wrong, and someone will have a proof/rationalization/evidence that I'm full of malarkey, but it seems interesting to me.

It is not consequentialism. It cares about whether the means are capable of fulfilling the intent if everyone adopted the means. This test results in a deontological code. It only considers beings capable of reason to be moral agents. It does not require pure rationality despite exalting it.

Thanks.  I disagree with the very premises of his argument as described; it's probably bias.  It just seems far too abstract from the messy, grey, gooey, biological realities of existance. 

I believe I misunderstand. The following feels like a strawman but it seems to follow. Please correct my mistake.
So eliminating a carpenter
is the same kind as eliminating an industrial sander
is the same kind as eliminating some sand paper
is the same kind as eliminating a desert wind?
All have the function of sanding wood.


Thanks for the explanation of stoicism. As a Virtue based ethic, it seems the immorality of murder comes from the murderer not the victim. I think we have established a good Virtue ethical response to these choices above when we were talking about the effect different perspectives would have on the character of the gamer.

Actually, no, no strawman.  If I had to tie myself to one, single, operant condition as a basis for moral consideration, it would be functionality.  The differences would be of degree, not of kind.  It's as distasteful a concept to me as it may be to others, but there it is.  Mind you, I'm not a fan of any form of absolutism; the very idea of there being One ring to rule them all one overriding moral consideration, applicable in all conceivable situations, tends to lead to very distasteful ends when taken to its logical conclusion - regardless of the consideration that starts the chain.

Don't quote me on the Stoics; they were a favourite source of inspiration when I was a teenager, but that was a while ago.  I can only claim a Bartlett's Quotations-level knowledge without a bit of a refresher.  It's definitely Virtue-based, or more specifically, virtù-based, as more an extension of Aristotle than as anything remotely resembling modern.  (Caveat repeated: despite knowing the vocabulary, I'm far out of touch with actual studies of philo; grain of salt is where I'm going with this.)

Please join in Zso_Zso

Please join in, anyone/everyone!