Artificial Moral Agency in Technoethics

Background

It is not an obvious move to grant moral concern to the nonhuman objects around us. It is common to hold the view that the things we come into contact with have at best instrumental value and that only humans have moral rights and responsibilities. If some nonhuman thing elicits moral concern, it does so only because it is the property of some human through whom these rights extend. This all seems very straight forward and beyond question. But here is my worry—we have been mistaken in past about our definition of what it takes to be a human moral agent. Historically women, low caste men and children have been denied this status. We have come to regret these past indiscretions, it is possible that that our beliefs about moral agency are still misguided.

Some people may be willing to grant moral rights to animals, ecosystems, perhaps even plants. If machines were shown to be similar to these things might they not also be reasonable candidates for moral rights? If so, what happens if these entities acquire agency similar to that of a human, then must they also bear moral responsibilities similar to that of a human agent? The answer to the latter question is simple; of course anything that displays human level agency enough to satisfy even harsh critics would be a candidate for moral rights and responsibilities because it would have undeniable personhood and all persons have moral worth. The possibilities for this happening any time soon though are fairly low. But, they have made some progress on attaining interesting levels of agency, so what we need to inquire into is whether or not these meager qualities are enough to grant moral agency and worth to artificial agents.