Back Issues
Issue 72
March/April 2009
EDITORIAL
The Conscience Of The Machine
by Wendell Wallach
NEWS
Issue 72 March/April 2009
News reports by Sue Roberts.
MACHINE MORALITY
Four Kinds of Ethical Robots
James H. Moor defines different ways in which machines could be moral.
How Machines Can Advance Ethics
Susan Leigh Anderson and Michael Anderson relate how their attempts to build ethical machines have advanced their understanding of ethics.
Machines and Moral Reasoning
Thomas M. Powers on how a computer might process Kant’s moral imperative.
The Challenge of Moral Machines
Wendell Wallach tells us what the basic problems are.
Will Robots Need Their Own Ethics?
Steve Torrance asks if robots need minds to be moral producers or moral consumers.
ARTICLES
Beware of Truth!
Peter Benson tries to clear Jacques Derrida’s unjustly infamous name, and shows how memes spread in modern academia.
Contemplating Colobus
Dawn Starin reports on the state of colobus civilization in a small Gambian forest.
Hemingway and the Hero
L.A. Rowland campaigns to instate Ernest Hemingway as a philosopher-hero.
The Dragon: Memes, Culture and Evolution
In a follow-up to last issue’s focus on Darwin, we have two articles looking at memes, supposed ‘units of cultural transmission’. First, Daria Sugorakova explores the concept of memes by pondering how the idea of dragons evolved.
The Great Government Philosophers
George Fripley remembers four forgotten gurus of government.
CROSSWORD
Crossword
Our twenty-sixth ingot of ingeniously indecipherable information inspirationally interwoven by Deiradiotes.
COLUMNS
Dear Socrates
Our celebrity columnist answers readers’ questions.
RUR or RU Ain’t A Person?
Tim Madigan leads the rise of the robots.
Man in the Middle: Animals, Humans and Robots
by Joel Marks
I Kid You Not: Knowingness and Other Shallows
Raymond Tallis dives in head first.
REVIEWS
Death, ‘Deathlessness’ & Existenz in Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy by Filiz Peach
Kurt Salaman cheers himself up by considering Karl Jaspers’ views on death and the experience of the eternal in life.
Transcendence and History by Glenn Hughes
Robert Cheeks transcends history.
Wilfrid Sellars by James R. O’Shea
Daniel Fernandez gets to know Wilfrid Sellars, US Chief of Epistemology.
Venus
Colin Brookes sees perspectives representational and moral in Hanif Kureishi’s oblique study of love.