Browsing by Author "Horn, Justin Michael"
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- A Duty to Deceive? Using New and Deceptive Technologies to Enhance the Lives of Dementia PatientsNofal, Jacob Ramsey (Virginia Tech, 2023-04-24)In this paper I propose a new type of therapy for dementia patients called AIIT. AIIT concerns using artificially intelligent programs to mimic the likeness of a dementia patients' spouse or relative in hopes of providing them comfort and an alternative solution to them constantly reliving grief or being lied to in unsatisfactory ways. I establish the moral permissibility of AIIT through the moral parity claim, which is a conditional claim stating that if current dementia care practices are permissible, then AIIT ought to be as well. This means that AIIT is no more morally problematic than current dementia care practices. To make this claim I evaluate and compare AIIT to current practices from three different perspectives/potential harms. I first find AIIT to be less harmful to dementia patients than current practices since AIIT better preserves dementia patients' beliefs, emotions, and desires. I then conclude that AIIT does not pose a unique harm to the impersonated person, since 1) Many theories of wellbeing do not support the possibility of the deceased being harmed and 2) People with dementia are not commonly creating new impressions, and therefore harms committed to the impersonated person are extremely unlikely. Finally, I claim that AIIT would not cause additional harms to society given that current practices already harm relatives in a similar manner, also have the potential to pose problems if used outside of dementia care, and don't differ from AIIT in respect to affecting trust in the medical system. Having established moral parity, I conclude with a push for a stronger claim, the superior option claim, which states that AIIT is morally permissible by arguing for the antecedent of the moral parity claim. I argue for this by denying that we have an obligation to not deceive dementia patients since they have special conditions that do not allow them to apprehend the world accurately.
- Reason, Utility, and Right Action in Hume's Moral PhilosophyCardwell, Spencer Christian (Virginia Tech, 2023-04-18)While perhaps the most recognizable hallmark of David Hume's moral philosophy is his commitment to an anti-rationalist theory of ethics, I argue that Hume came to reject this position found the Treatise of Human Nature (1739) in his later Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). In the Treatise, Hume endorses the view that reason is wholly inactive and cannot be the source of our sense of morals. According to the Treatise, our human reasoning does not give rise to the feelings of pleasure that we associate with an action being right. Instead, the determination we make that an action is right arises from feelings of approval that are rooted solely in natural sympathy and fellow-feeling, and these feelings never arise from reason. Yet, I argue that in the Second Enquiry, Hume abandons these anti-rationalist commitments and allows rational judgments of utility to give rise to the sentiments that ultimately approve our actions. In this paper, I argue for two claims about the role of reason in Hume's moral philosophy. First, I argue that in the Treatise, Hume is committed to a strong form of anti-rationalism where reason has no role in the process in which we approve/disapprove actions that are right or wrong. Second, I argue Hume moves away from these strong anti-rationalist commitments in the Treatise to a version of his moral theory where reason plays a role in making determinations of morality by allowing rational judgments of utility to give rise to the sentiments that approve actions. Finally, I argue that Hume makes these changes in the Second Enquiry to rule out an egoistic interpretation of his theory, and by accepting a rationalistic sentimentalism, Hume can defend his moral theory from an egoistic interpretation and prevent his system from collapsing into egoism.