This paper motivates the idea that social robots should be credited as moral patients, building on an argumentative approach that combines virtue ethics and social recognition theory. Our proposal answers the call for a nuanced ethical evaluation of human-robot interaction that does justice to both the robustness of the social responses solicited in humans by robots and the fact that robots are designed to be used as instruments. On the one hand, we acknowledge that the instrumental nature of robots and (...) their unsophisticated social capabilities prevent any attribution of rights to robots, which are devoid of intrinsic moral dignity and personal status. On the other hand, we argue that another form of moral consideration—not based on rights attribution—can and must be granted to robots. The reason is that relationships with robots offer to the human agents important opportunities to cultivate both vices and virtues, like social interaction with other human beings. Our argument appeals to social recognition to explain why social robots, unlike other technological artifacts, are capable of establishing with their human users quasi-social relationships as pseudo-persons. This recognition dynamic justifies seeing robots as worthy of moral consideration from a virtue ethical standpoint as it predicts the pre-reflective formation of persistent affective dispositions and behavioral habits that are capable of corrupting the human user’s character. We conclude by drawing attention to a potential paradox drawn forth by our analysis and by examining the main conceptual conundrums that our approach has to face. (shrink)

What role does habit formation play in the development of sport skills? We argue that motor habits are both necessary for and constitutive of sensorimotor skill as they support an automatic, yet inherently intelligent and flexible, form of action control. Intellectualists about skills generally assume that what makes action intelligent and flexible is its intentionality, and that intentionality must be necessarily cognitive in nature to allow for both deliberation and explicit goal-representation. Against Intellectualism we argue that the habitual behaviours that (...) compose skilful action are accompanied by their specific, non-cognitive form of intentionality: this is motor intentionality, which is purposive and adaptive while involving no explicit deliberation or goal representation. Our account of habit based on Motor Intentionality explains why the formation of motor habits can sometimes act as the sole basis of skilful acquisition: Motor Intentionality is inherently purposeful because it is an embodied source of sensorimotor anticipation, pre-reflective motivation, and pragmatic know-how. Skill development through exercise always builds on a motor intentional component even when it is guided by Deliberate Practice to the point that, pace Intellectualism, Deliberate Practice is disclosed, not constrained, by habit formation. As suggested by the fact that repetitive exercises can play a major role in the development of flexible and intelligent sport skills, automatism is not a drawback for strategic control and improvisation but rather their pragmatic foundation. (shrink)

The first systematic collaboration between cognitive scientists and sports psychologists considers the mind–body relationship from the perspective of athletic skill and sports practice. This landmark work is the first systematic collaboration between cognitive scientists and sports psychologists that considers the mind–body relationship from the perspective of athletic skill and sports practice. With twenty-six chapters by leading researchers, the book connects and integrates findings from fields that range from philosophy of mind to sociology of sports. The chapters show not only that (...) sports can tell scientists how the human mind works but also that the scientific study of the human mind can help athletes succeed. Sports psychology research has always focused on the themes, notions, and models of embodied cognition; embodied cognition, in turn, has found striking confirmation of its theoretical claims in the psychological accounts of sports performance and athletic skill. Athletic skill is a legitimate form of intelligence, involving cognitive faculties no less sophisticated and complex than those required by mathematical problem solving. After presenting the key concepts necessary for applying embodied cognition to sports psychology, the book discusses skill disruption ; sensorimotor skill acquisition and how training correlates to the development of cognitive faculties; the intersubjective and social dimension of sports skills, seen in team sports; sports practice in cultural and societal contexts; the notion of “affordance” and its significance for ecological psychology and embodied cognition theory; and the mind's predictive capabilities, which enable anticipation, creativity, improvisation, and imagination in sports performance. Contributors Ana Maria Abreu, Kenneth Aggerholm, Salvatore Maria Aglioti, Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza, Duarte Araújo, Jürgen Beckmann, Kath Bicknell, Geoffrey P. Bingham, Jens E. Birch, Gunnar Breivik, Noel E. Brick, Massimiliano L. Cappuccio, Thomas H. Carr, Alberto Cei, Anthony Chemero, Wayne Christensen, Lincoln J. Colling, Cassie Comley, Keith Davids, Matt Dicks, Caren Diehl, Karl Erickson, Anna Esposito, Pedro Tiago Esteves, Mirko Farina, Giolo Fele, Denis Francesconi, Shaun Gallagher, Gowrishankar Ganesh, Raúl Sánchez-García, Rob Gray, Denise M. Hill, Daniel D. Hutto, Tsuyoshi Ikegami, Geir Jordet, Adam Kiefer, Michael Kirchhoff, Kevin Krein, Kenneth Liberman, Tadhg E. MacIntyre, Nelson Mauro Maldonato, David L. Mann, Richard S. W. Masters, Patrick McGivern, Doris McIlwain, Michele Merritt, Christopher Mesagno, Vegard Fusche Moe, Barbara Gail Montero, Aidan P. Moran, David Moreau, Hiroki Nakamoto, Alberto Oliverio, David Papineau, Gert-Jan Pepping, Miriam Reiner, Ian Renshaw, Michael A. Riley, Zuzanna Rucinska, Lawrence Shapiro, Paula Silva, Shannon Spaulding, John Sutton, Phillip D. Tomporowski, John Toner, Andrew D. Wilson, Audrey Yap, Qin Zhu, Christopher Madan. (shrink)

Skilful expertise is grounded in practical, performative knowledge-how, not in detached, spectatorial knowledge-that, and knowledge-how is embodied by habitual dispositions, not representation of facts and rules. Consequently, as action control is a key requirement for the intelligent selection, initiation, and regulation of skilful performance, habitual action control, i.e. the kind of action control based on habitual dispositions, is the true hallmark of skill and the only veridical criterion to evaluate expertise. Not only does this imply that knowledge-that does not make (...) your actions more skilful, but it also implies that it makes them less skilful. This thesis, that I call Radical Habitualism, finds a precursor in Hubert Dreyfus. His approach is considered extreme by most philosophers of skill & expertise: an agent –says Dreyfus– does not perform like an expert when they lack the embodied dispositions necessary to control their action habitually or when they stop relying on such dispositions to control their actions. Thus, one cannot perform skilfully if their actions are guided by representations (isomorphic schemas, explicit rules, and contentful instructions), as the know-that that they convey disrupts or diminishes the agent’s habitual engagement with the task at hand. In defence of Radical Habitualism, I will argue that only the contentless know-how embedded in habitual dispositions fulfils (i) the genetic, (ii) the normative, and (iii) the epistemic requirements of skilful performance. I will examine the phenomenological premises supporting Dreyfus’ approach, clarify their significance for a satisfactory normative and explanatory account of skilful expertise, and rebut the most common objections raised by both intellectualists and conciliatory habitualists, concerning hybrid actions guided by a mix of habitual and representational forms of control. In revisiting Dreyfus anti-representationalist approach, I will particularly focus on its epistemological implications, de-emphasizing other considerations related to conscious awareness. (shrink)

Autonomous weapon systems could in principle release military personnel from the onus of killing during combat missions, reducing the related risk of suffering a moral injury and its debilita...

I.One of the main undertakings of the embodied approach to cognition is to spell out effectively the intuition that our body shapes what our mind can do . This endeavor is motivated—among other things – by the deep sense of awe that cognitive scientists experience in front of the sophistication, flexibility, and variability that can be reached by the motor abilities of well-trained humans. In particular, excellence in sporting skills inspires embodied cognition by exhibiting tangible evidence that the details of (...) our bodily constitution are not accidental to our mental powers, but define them in various inherent ways: not only because the informational processes that realize our intelligent functions are specifically regulated, distributed, filtered, or scaffolded by the physical and biological compound that implements them ; but also because the modes and the efficacy of our practical intelligence primarily depend on the o .. (shrink)

The Greek word mētis (μῆτις) traditionally refers to a particular form of wily intelligence associated with the arts of deception (dolos) and the knowledge of tricks (kerdē), subterfuges, and traps. Mētis evokes innovative and ground-breaking solutions, based on the capability to understand, anticipate, and possibly violate the others’ expectations. Most importantly, mētis presupposes practical wisdom, or prudence (phrόnesis), a dispositional quality that underpins all the virtues that deserve to be cultivated by sportspersons and that is pivotal to perfect sportspersons’ moral (...) character. Not only is prudence required to apply mētis profitably for winning a game, but it is also indispensable to perform consistently with the game’s norms—cognizant of sport values. This analysis of mētis is key to illuminate the embodied dimension of tactical and moral reasoning in contemporary sport practice. In this paper, we first argue that the strategic effectiveness of mētis proves that not only sensorimotor control but also higher forms of intelligence, like strategic reasoning, are embodied and inform skilful performance; second, we argue that relying on mētis is necessary not only to interpret the rules of the game in one’s own favor but also to respect the shared values that these rules uphold in the sport practice. (shrink)

The ‘Mind-Upload’ hypothesis, a radical version of the Brain-in-a-Vat thought experiment, asserts that a whole mind can safely be transferred from a brain to a digital device, after being exactly encoded into substrate independent informational patterns. Prima facie, MU seems the philosophical archenemy of the Embodied Mind theory, which understands embodiment as a necessary and constitutive condition for the existence of a mind and its functions. In truth, whether and why MU and EM are ultimately incompatible is unobvious. This paper, (...) which aims to answer both questions, will not simply confirm that MU and EM actually are incompatible. It will also show the true reason of their incompatibility: while EM implies that a mind’s individual identity is contingent upon the details of its physical constituents, MU presupposes that minds can be relocated from one material vessel to another. A systematic comparison between these conflicting assumptions reveals that the real shortcoming of MU is not the one usually discussed by the philosophical literature: it has nothing to do with MU’s functionalist or computationalist prerequisites, and is only secondarily related to the artificial implementability of consciousness; the real problem is that MU presupposes that minds could still be individuated and numerically identified while being reduced to immaterial formal patterns. EM seems committed to refute this assumption, but does it have sufficient resources to succeed? (shrink)

"Timed to publish in advance of the Joker sequel Joker: Folie a Deux, the volume will have at least two sections will be dedicated to chapters that take up questions raised by 2019's Joker and the Todd Phillips depiction in general. Chapters will also be sought on the many other iterations of the Joker. A number of high-profile philosophers have already written insightful pieces on Joker and the volume editors hope to solicit new essays from some of them. Joker is (...) a symbolically rich and philosophically fascinating character. With his enigmatic motivations, infectious irreverence, and almost selfless devotion to evil, Joker's psychology is a puzzle that provokes a host of philosophical questions, ranging across issues of morality, human nature, the metaphysics of freedom, the nature of evil, political and social philosophy, aesthetics, and more"--. (shrink)

Jax Teller, Clay Morrow, and the other members of SAMCRO are first and foremost bikers and mechanics who fix bikes. Many bikers experience riding as therapeutic, since a good ride can help a suffering soul to forget the worries of life. Martin Heidegger argues that practical skills, such as the ones Tig needs to repair bikes, are the most fundamental form of knowledge. Many bike owners don't feel confident when they have to do repairs and finally face the dreaded encounter (...) with the un‐ready‐to‐hand. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig notes, that many bike owners are afraid to get their hands dirty with engine oil. Caring for a piece of technology is exactly the opposite of treating it instrumentally. As Pirsig explains, even fixing a mechanical problem can become an occasion of participation, unity, and reconciliation with the world. (shrink)

L'image de l'écriture est singulièrement fréquente dans des explications cognitivistes du fonctionnement de l'esprit, non seulement comme métaphore mais également comme paradigme conceptuel: la machine de Turing, en particulier, montre un isomorphisme structural complet avec l'utilisation de l'écriture alphabétique. La machine de Turing effectue exactement les mêmes opérations effectuées par un homme écrivant avec le stylo et le papier et cela dépend de deux raisons: 1. il a été conçu dans l'image et la similarité de la pratique concrète humaine de (...) l'écriture ; 2. c'est le produit typique de la rationalité occidentale, dont le développement n'a été rendu possible que par les caractères spécifiques du traitement alphabétique de l'information. Ces aspects sont utiles pour comprendre la raison pour laquelle l'esprit a commencé à être dépeint comme machine d'écriture au moment même où l'alphabet a commencé à se diffuser: une recherche généalogique montrera comment, dans des traités de mnémotechniques et dans la métaphysique de Platon et d'Aristote, nous pouvons trouver la toute première base de chaque modèle logicosymbolique de l'esprit. (shrink)