AI, Moral Agency, and Vulnerability

Project dates (estimated):

September 2024 - August 2028

Name of the PhD student:

Harry Weir-McAndrew

Supervisors:

Professor Tillmann Vierkant – School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences

Professor Shannon Vallor – School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences

Project aims:

This project investigates how moral expertise emerges through skilled engagement in relationships of reciprocal vulnerability and feedback, and how these mechanisms are disrupted in socio-technical systems that develop and deploy artificially intelligent systems. Building on the concept of the ‘Vulnerability Gap’ (Vallor & Vierkant, 2024), which highlights the inability of artificially intelligent systems to participate in the and affective feedback loops essential for our moral practices, the project seeks to develop a positive framework for addressing this gap. The research shows how moral norms, responsibility, and expertise are cultivated through social learning, and how these processes are undermined when decision-makers and developers are insulated from the social feedback necessary for the cultivation of moral agency. The aim is to enrich moral philosophy by grounding moral skill and responsibility in natural and affective foundations, while offering practical insights for designing socio-technical systems that better align with human moral practices.

Disciplines and subfields engaged:

  • Moral Philosophy (virtue ethics, moral psychology, AI ethics, genealogy of morality)

  • Phenomenology (social ontology, embodied cognition)

  • Science and Technology Studies (socio-technical systems, ethics of design)

  • Social Epistemology (distributed cognition, responsibility gaps)

  • Philosophy of Technology

Research Themes:

  • Emerging Technology and Human Identity

    • Al, Automation and Human Wisdom

    • Emerging Tech and Human Autonomy

  • Ethics of Algorithms

    • Algorithmic Justice, Power, Freedom and Equity

    • Bias and Discrimination in Machine Learning

    • Algorithmic Accountability and Responsibility

  • Ethics of Human-Machine Interactions

    • Ethics of Automation

    • Ethics of Artificial Agent and Robot Design

    • Ethics of Affective and Social Technologies

  • Emerging Technology and Human Identity

    • Al, Automation and Human Wisdom

    • Emerging Tech and Human Autonomy

  • Emerging Technology, Health and Flourishing

    • Emerging Tech and Human Flourishing

PhD ResearchCTMF Adminmoral philosophy, Phenomenology, Science and Technology Studies, Social Epistemology, Philosophy of Technology, AI ethics, Vulnerability Gap