Ethical Argument Clause Samples

Ethical Argument. ‌ Some readers might have the impression that the research I present in this thesis is either unethical, or at least, ethically dubious. Before I proceed to present the research on how to model deception in MAS, I will first try to present a counter- argument against the belief that the modelling of deceptive machines is undermined by ethical principlesix. The reason I wish to provide such a counter-argument is because I believe that whenever controversial topics, such as deception in this case, are explored in a scientific manner, then the individual or group of individuals performing this scientific exploration should at least try to justify it themselves, and not leave these justifications to be dealt with by outsiders (i.e. non-scientists or non-researchers)[221]. My justification is in the form of an argument that is based on the principle and benefits of scientific discovery in society. To do this, I will adopt the method of Re ective Equilibrium [218] in the context of scientific discovery and machine deception. This method implies (i) the use of unbiased, reflective judgments or intuitions about what is or what would be considered right or wrong in particular contexts, e.g., the context of modelling deceptive machines; and (ii) the proposal of theories and principles which are aim to provide a coherent justification of these judgments. Therefore, I propose the following general ethical principles taken from [221] and interpret them in order to guide and think about the ethics of modelling machine deception: 1. The non-maleficence principle: One should not act in ways that cause needless injury or harm to others. 2. The beneficence principle: One should act in ways that promote the welfare of others. 3. The intellectual freedom principle: One should be allowed to pursue novel ideas and criticise old ones. One should be free to conduct research they find interesting. ix The ethical problem that I want to address here regards the motive and method of research of deceptive machines, which is di erent from the ethical issue of a machine behaving deceptively. If the reader is interested in the ethics of dishonest machines, then the reader might nd the work in [258], [130], and [46] informative as these works explicitly discuss the when, why and how of ethical behaviour of dishonest machines. 4. The openness principle: One should allow people to see their work, and be open to criticism. 5. The honesty principle: One should aim towards finding the truth an...