Lydia Tsiakiri giving a presenting about whether "perceived wrongful discrimination" is "responsibility sensitive".

VIGNETTES: DICHOTOMOUS CASES Consider a scenario in which several individuals are on the organ transplant waiting list of hospital. Each patient would benefit equally from getting a transplant. However, one patient is informed by the hospital's committee that he will not receive an available lung. The committee notes that this patient lis a lifelong voluntary smoker, and he is responsible for his current health condition./has an accidental genetic mutation that is responsible for his current health condition.] In a critical newspaper story, the committee has previously been found to be negatively biased against people with [an unhealthy lifestyle/genetic conditions.] Yet, the patient is redirected to another hospital where he will be able to receive another lung. Harmless discrimination. Respect-based discrimination, when: • Mental-state account: the discriminator justifies the occurrence of differential treatment against the discriminatee on the basis of their pre-existing morally objectionable mental state regarding the discriminatee's inferior moral worth (Alexander, 1992).

As the 2nd pre-registered hypothesis predicted, "the effect of personal responsibility is smaller when respondents (potentially) share the same need/condition as the vignette subject." However, personal responsibility still has a noticeable effect, regardless of self-interest.

Country was found to moderate the effect of personal responsibility. In the UK, perceived wrongful discrimination decreased 9.3 percentage points more than Denmark under the effect of personal responsibility.

What makes #discrimination unfair?

Lydia Tsiakiri found a few predictors of its #fairness:
- Responsibility: is it about something controllable?
- Self-interest: are you among the discriminated?
- Country of origin

Follow Lydia on #gScholar for publication alert: scholar.google.com/citations?us...

Yuxin Liu presenting "An Alternative Path to Moral Bioenhancement?"

Methods: Example Scenario "In the near future, significant achievements in science have opened up the possibility of moral enhancement — the ability to improve people's moral characteristics through a range of medical or non-medical technologies. Evidence has shown that these technologies are safe for humans. People who want to morally improve themselves can voluntarily choose to make use of these moral enhancement technologies. One of these technologies is an artificial moral advisor (AMA), which can effectively enhance one's moral capacity through an external Al device that produces moral advice based on signals from information in one's surrounding physical environment. For example, it can help a person focus on their own emotions in the moment and their underlying causes, so that they are more likely to be patient. Imagine a scenario where Sam has been working on an important report with a co-worker who fails to deliver their part after a whole week. Before enhancement, Sam would have lashed out. After using this technology, Sam is easily able to consider various possible external reasons for the co-worker's delay."

Statistical relationships between the moral enhancement methods and the two main outcomes, the predictors, as well as the covariates.

Linear relationships between moral acceptability and various judgments, with a separate line for each moral enhancement method.

What the #ethics of #AI enhancement?

@yuxinliu.bsky.social et al. found #AI moral #enhancement (AMA) was more acceptable than other enhancement methods, but undermines #moralResponsibility.

Follow Yuxin on #gScholar to be alerted when this is published: scholar.google.co.uk/citations?us...

#xPhi

"Children Prioritize Humans Over Animals Less Than Adults Do" Matti Wilks, Lucius Caviola, Guy Kahane, and Paul Bloom https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620960398

"Does Distance Matter? How Physical and Social Distance Shape Our Perceived Obligations to Others" Julia Marshall, Matti Wilks Open Mind (2024) 8: 511–534. https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00138

Recap: The moral circle across development Children appear to be more morally expansive than adults Non-human animals, physically and socially distant others artificial intelligence Why are children's moral circles more expansive? What drives the contraction?

Recap: Unusually altruistic groups Differences in moral judgements for GWWC and vegetarians GWWC pledgers also differ on thinking style Few other differences for vegetarians (non-moral) What drives these differences? Where else might we find them?

What beings are in your #moralCircle?

The 1st keynote by @mattiwilks.bsky.social reported that
- kids, effective altruists (EAs), and vegetarians showed less #speciesism, #anthropocentrism
- EAs performed better on cognitive tests

Follow Dr. Wilks on #gScholar: scholar.google.com/citations?us...