Reflection Questions 1
Morals & Ethics
1. What is morality, ethics and an ethical theory?
• Morality: human ability to distinguish between right and wrong. We all have basic understanding
of right/wrong.
• Ciulla (2020) → “of or pertaining to the distinction between right and wrong, or good
and evil in relation to the actions, volitions, or character of human beings; ethical,
• “Concerned with virtue or rules of conduct, ethical praise or blame, habits of life, custom
and manners”
• Ethics: systematic study of morality. Systemic analysis of right/wrong. More analytical.
• Ciulla (2020) → “of or pertaining to morality”
• “The science of morals, the moral principles by which a person is guided”
• Ethical theory: principles and rules that determine right/wrong in different situations. Ethical
‘guides’
• Normative ethics: the study of how we OUGHT to behave.
• Descriptive ethics: study of what we actually DO and WHY.
• Ethics typically examines right and wrong from the perspective of a human being
(anthropocentric) (instead of nature for ex)
• Key questions include:
▪ What kind of moral principles should guide our actions?
(deontological/principle-based theories)
▪ What kind of outcomes should we aim for? (teleological/consequentialist)
• Ethics is not just theorization of morals, but the aim is also to affect practice.
• Ethical theories can give contradictory solutions to the same problem.
• Business ethics is the study of business situations, activities, and decisions where issues of right
and wrong are addressed.
2. What is the difference between ethics and the law?
• In society, morality is the foundation of the law.
• Law and ethics are partly overlapping. Nonetheless:
• The law does not cover all ethical issues (e.g. cheating on your partner).
• Not all legal issues are ethical (e.g. driving on the right side of the road).
• Law and ethics can involve contradictions (e.g. Apartheid).
• The road from unethical to illegal is short and slippery.
• Companies can operate in locations with lacking legal infrastructure.
3. Which dimensions of the Moral Machine experience more agreement?
• Western cluster (North America, much of Europe):
• For: Inaction, spare humans and spare more
• Less: spare pedestrians, females
• Eastern cluster (East Asia + many Islamic countries):
• For: spare humans (instead of pets), pedestrians, the lawful
• Less: spare more, the young, high status, the fit and females
• Southern cluster (Latin America + French-influenced countries):
, • For: spare younger, women, high status individuals (low for easters) fit people and spare
more
• Less: sparing humans over pets (compared to other two clusters), inaction, sparing the
lawful
• Across all cultures, three strong global preferences stood out:
• Sparing humans over animals
• Sparing more lives over fewer lives
• Sparing the young over the elderly
• These had the highest levels of agreement worldwide and are likely to serve as “building blocks”
for any attempt at universal machine ethics.
4. Which cultural differences come through in the Moral Machine when comparing
Western, Eastern and Southern cultures?
• Western cluster:
• Stronger emphasis on individual life value (everyone has same equal worth)
• High preference for sparing more people (because each extra life is counted as another
separate valuable individual).
• Less emphasis on group or role-based hierarchy (not prioritizing elders over youth like
Eastern).
• More likely to punish illegal jaywalking
• Eastern cluster:
• Weaker preference for sparing the young (reflects collectivist values and respect for
elders).
• Somewhat more tolerant of jaywalking.
• Less focus on maximizing numbers.
• Southern cluster:
• Stronger preference for sparing women and the fit.
• Weaker preference for sparing humans over pets.
• Overall, more emphasis on gender and social-role considerations.
• So, cultural values (like individualism vs collectivism, rule of law, or gender equality) deeply
shape moral intuitions in life-and-death scenarios.
• Individualistic cultures (Western) show a stronger preference for sparing the greater number of
characters.
• Collectivistic cultures (Eastern) show a weaker preference for sparing younger characters
• Poorer countries and with weaker institution are more tolerant of pedestrians who cross illegally.
5. What are core normative theories in Modernist Western thinking? What are the key
ideas of each?
Ethical egoism – Teleological/Consequentialist (Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, & Ayn Rand): action is
right if it serves one's (short-term) desires or (long-term) interests.
• Enlightened egoism: meeting long-term interests.
• Short-term egoism: meeting short-term desires.
• Link economics: Assumes people are motivated by self-interest (“homo economicus”), and
markets channel this egoism into socially beneficial outcomes (“invisible hand” = individuals
pursuing their own self-interest in a free market led to beneficial outcomes for society as a whole,
without intending to.)
• Downsides:
• Inconsistent → each person pursues their own self-interest and must accept that others do
too, despite this is not in their own self-interest.
, • Justifies immoral wrongs → can justify theft, exploitation, or harm if it benefits oneself.
• Contradicts moral principles → morality usually demands some regard for others.
• Conflicting interests → everyone acting egoistically can lead to chaos (e.g., traffic with
no rules).
• Too narrow → ignores broader social good, fairness, and rights.
• Needs complementing → taking care of your needs and interests is morally important, the
theory needs to be complemented by more developed ethical theories. (not workable
moral system)
• Application to Moral Machine:
▪ If I'm buying a car, I'd want it to protect me and my passengers first.
▪ If I'm a manufacturer, I'd market cars that maximize passenger safety because
that appeals to egoistic customers and thus increases my revenue.
▪ This clashes with broader social expectations, since a car that always protects its
passenger, pedestrians would face extreme risks, eroding trust in the system.
Utilitarianism – Teleological/Consequentialist (Jeremy Benthan & John Stuart Mill): act is morally
right if it results in the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people affected by the action.
• Decisions are judged by their outcomes (consequences), not by intentions or rules. (Easier to
measure outcomes than to measure the principles that guide it).
• In practice: utility is measured in pain/pleasure analysis (cost/benefit analysis, of consequences
of all stakeholders involved)
• Utilitarianism is very influential in normative economics and policymaking (economist says
humans are egoistic and act in their own self-interest: ‘homo economicus’). On societal level,
when all individuals pursue self-interest, society as a whole can end up better off (utilitarianism)
• Often seen as practical because it gives a clear method: add up the positives, subtract the
negatives, choose the bigger net benefit
• Act utilitarianism single action on case-to-case basis. Do what produces the most
happiness right now.
• rule utilitarianism sets general rules that maximize good in the long run (traffic rules that
make driving safer overall).
• Downsides:
• Subjectvity → what counts as happiness is subjective and can vary per culture.
• Equal weighing → Utilitarianism runs into difficulties in questions related to the just
distribution of wealth.
• Comparibility problem→ It’s hard to compare well-being across people (is saving one
child’s life worth more than saving two elderly lives?).
• Justice & rights → contradictory with the idea of respecting basic rights.
• Distribution of utility → interest of minorities overlooked (children worse off than elder),
utility of short-term or long term.
• No reciprocity → It doesn’t ensure mutual respect. People can be used as a “means” if it
benefits the majority.
• Application to Moral Machine:
▪ Strong support in data: people preferred sparing more lives over fewer.
▪ Also sparing humans over pets aligns with utilitarianism: humans contribute
more overall welfare.
▪ Act utilitarianism →in a single crash, choose the option with fewer deaths.
▪ Rule utilitarianism → design cars to generally reduce total fatalities in society
(e.g., adopt settings that maximize overall safety, not just in one accident).
▪ Downside:
• What if sparing more lives means sacrificing a child to save adults?
Utilitarian logic might say yes, but rights/duties-based views would
resist.
, • This shows the clash between outcomes (utilitarian) vs. principles/rights
(deontology, justice).
Ethics of Duty – Deontological/Principle-Based (Immanuel Kant): morality is a question of certain
abstract and unchangeable obligations-defined by a set of a priori moral rules-that humans should apply to
all relevant ethical problems.
• Focus on principles, not outcomes: Actions are right if they follow moral duties, not because of
their consequences.
• Central concepts: duty, consistency, dignity, and universality.
• Develops principles or categorical imperatives to guide our actions.
• Duties do not mean mechanistically following rules, but they involve human’s ability to develop
moral law and moral rules.
• Humans as rational actors with free will (independent moral actors who make their own rational
decisions regarding right/wrong).
• Developed theoretical framework: categorical imperative
• Unconditional moral law, that must be obeyed in all circumstances. (absolutist)
• Act only according to that rule/principle by which you can at the same time will that it
should become a universal law.
▪ Universal applicability: do we want would want everybody to act according to
the principles of our action in all circumstances?
▪ Respect for persons: Treat people always as ends in themselves, never just as
means to an end (tool). (human is valuable autonomic being)
• Downsides:
• Abstract theory → very theoretical, difficult to apply in real-world dilemmas where trade-
offs are needed.
• Ignores outcomes → Can demand actions that lead to worse consequences (refusing to lie
even if it would save someone’s life).
• Heavy burden → morality can be heavy. Following duty strictly can feel demanding, as it
leaves little room for flexibility or emotions.
• Too rational → strict on the use of reason. Undervalues compassion, care, and context.
• Application to Moral Machine:
▪ In any case, should follow universality principle, rules have to be accepted by all.
Would everybody accept that type of decision?
▪ More abstract/complex
▪ Determine general rules that apply to all, and accepted by all.
▪ Human moral reasoning should be central
• Ex: if the owner of the car is seen as responsible for the consequences of
it, then passenger should be sacrificed.
▪ Rule example: The one who generates mobility risks cannot sacrifice non-
involved individuals.
▪ Reject sacrificing people based on characteristics (age, gender, fitness etc). That
would violate equal dignity.
• Ex: Even if sparing children saves “more future life years,” Kant says
you cannot discriminate — all lives have equal worth.
▪ Preference for sparing lawful pedestrians over jaywalkers. Following the law is a
duty.
Ethics of Rights & Justice - Deontological/Principle-Based (John Locke & John Rawls): People
have basic inalienable, natural human rights that should be respected and protected in every single
situation. These are based in human dignity and lead to a duty for others to protect, respect, and support
them, no matter the outcome.
• Natural human rights: right to life, freedom, dignity, speech, property, privacy, fair trial etc.
Morals & Ethics
1. What is morality, ethics and an ethical theory?
• Morality: human ability to distinguish between right and wrong. We all have basic understanding
of right/wrong.
• Ciulla (2020) → “of or pertaining to the distinction between right and wrong, or good
and evil in relation to the actions, volitions, or character of human beings; ethical,
• “Concerned with virtue or rules of conduct, ethical praise or blame, habits of life, custom
and manners”
• Ethics: systematic study of morality. Systemic analysis of right/wrong. More analytical.
• Ciulla (2020) → “of or pertaining to morality”
• “The science of morals, the moral principles by which a person is guided”
• Ethical theory: principles and rules that determine right/wrong in different situations. Ethical
‘guides’
• Normative ethics: the study of how we OUGHT to behave.
• Descriptive ethics: study of what we actually DO and WHY.
• Ethics typically examines right and wrong from the perspective of a human being
(anthropocentric) (instead of nature for ex)
• Key questions include:
▪ What kind of moral principles should guide our actions?
(deontological/principle-based theories)
▪ What kind of outcomes should we aim for? (teleological/consequentialist)
• Ethics is not just theorization of morals, but the aim is also to affect practice.
• Ethical theories can give contradictory solutions to the same problem.
• Business ethics is the study of business situations, activities, and decisions where issues of right
and wrong are addressed.
2. What is the difference between ethics and the law?
• In society, morality is the foundation of the law.
• Law and ethics are partly overlapping. Nonetheless:
• The law does not cover all ethical issues (e.g. cheating on your partner).
• Not all legal issues are ethical (e.g. driving on the right side of the road).
• Law and ethics can involve contradictions (e.g. Apartheid).
• The road from unethical to illegal is short and slippery.
• Companies can operate in locations with lacking legal infrastructure.
3. Which dimensions of the Moral Machine experience more agreement?
• Western cluster (North America, much of Europe):
• For: Inaction, spare humans and spare more
• Less: spare pedestrians, females
• Eastern cluster (East Asia + many Islamic countries):
• For: spare humans (instead of pets), pedestrians, the lawful
• Less: spare more, the young, high status, the fit and females
• Southern cluster (Latin America + French-influenced countries):
, • For: spare younger, women, high status individuals (low for easters) fit people and spare
more
• Less: sparing humans over pets (compared to other two clusters), inaction, sparing the
lawful
• Across all cultures, three strong global preferences stood out:
• Sparing humans over animals
• Sparing more lives over fewer lives
• Sparing the young over the elderly
• These had the highest levels of agreement worldwide and are likely to serve as “building blocks”
for any attempt at universal machine ethics.
4. Which cultural differences come through in the Moral Machine when comparing
Western, Eastern and Southern cultures?
• Western cluster:
• Stronger emphasis on individual life value (everyone has same equal worth)
• High preference for sparing more people (because each extra life is counted as another
separate valuable individual).
• Less emphasis on group or role-based hierarchy (not prioritizing elders over youth like
Eastern).
• More likely to punish illegal jaywalking
• Eastern cluster:
• Weaker preference for sparing the young (reflects collectivist values and respect for
elders).
• Somewhat more tolerant of jaywalking.
• Less focus on maximizing numbers.
• Southern cluster:
• Stronger preference for sparing women and the fit.
• Weaker preference for sparing humans over pets.
• Overall, more emphasis on gender and social-role considerations.
• So, cultural values (like individualism vs collectivism, rule of law, or gender equality) deeply
shape moral intuitions in life-and-death scenarios.
• Individualistic cultures (Western) show a stronger preference for sparing the greater number of
characters.
• Collectivistic cultures (Eastern) show a weaker preference for sparing younger characters
• Poorer countries and with weaker institution are more tolerant of pedestrians who cross illegally.
5. What are core normative theories in Modernist Western thinking? What are the key
ideas of each?
Ethical egoism – Teleological/Consequentialist (Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, & Ayn Rand): action is
right if it serves one's (short-term) desires or (long-term) interests.
• Enlightened egoism: meeting long-term interests.
• Short-term egoism: meeting short-term desires.
• Link economics: Assumes people are motivated by self-interest (“homo economicus”), and
markets channel this egoism into socially beneficial outcomes (“invisible hand” = individuals
pursuing their own self-interest in a free market led to beneficial outcomes for society as a whole,
without intending to.)
• Downsides:
• Inconsistent → each person pursues their own self-interest and must accept that others do
too, despite this is not in their own self-interest.
, • Justifies immoral wrongs → can justify theft, exploitation, or harm if it benefits oneself.
• Contradicts moral principles → morality usually demands some regard for others.
• Conflicting interests → everyone acting egoistically can lead to chaos (e.g., traffic with
no rules).
• Too narrow → ignores broader social good, fairness, and rights.
• Needs complementing → taking care of your needs and interests is morally important, the
theory needs to be complemented by more developed ethical theories. (not workable
moral system)
• Application to Moral Machine:
▪ If I'm buying a car, I'd want it to protect me and my passengers first.
▪ If I'm a manufacturer, I'd market cars that maximize passenger safety because
that appeals to egoistic customers and thus increases my revenue.
▪ This clashes with broader social expectations, since a car that always protects its
passenger, pedestrians would face extreme risks, eroding trust in the system.
Utilitarianism – Teleological/Consequentialist (Jeremy Benthan & John Stuart Mill): act is morally
right if it results in the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people affected by the action.
• Decisions are judged by their outcomes (consequences), not by intentions or rules. (Easier to
measure outcomes than to measure the principles that guide it).
• In practice: utility is measured in pain/pleasure analysis (cost/benefit analysis, of consequences
of all stakeholders involved)
• Utilitarianism is very influential in normative economics and policymaking (economist says
humans are egoistic and act in their own self-interest: ‘homo economicus’). On societal level,
when all individuals pursue self-interest, society as a whole can end up better off (utilitarianism)
• Often seen as practical because it gives a clear method: add up the positives, subtract the
negatives, choose the bigger net benefit
• Act utilitarianism single action on case-to-case basis. Do what produces the most
happiness right now.
• rule utilitarianism sets general rules that maximize good in the long run (traffic rules that
make driving safer overall).
• Downsides:
• Subjectvity → what counts as happiness is subjective and can vary per culture.
• Equal weighing → Utilitarianism runs into difficulties in questions related to the just
distribution of wealth.
• Comparibility problem→ It’s hard to compare well-being across people (is saving one
child’s life worth more than saving two elderly lives?).
• Justice & rights → contradictory with the idea of respecting basic rights.
• Distribution of utility → interest of minorities overlooked (children worse off than elder),
utility of short-term or long term.
• No reciprocity → It doesn’t ensure mutual respect. People can be used as a “means” if it
benefits the majority.
• Application to Moral Machine:
▪ Strong support in data: people preferred sparing more lives over fewer.
▪ Also sparing humans over pets aligns with utilitarianism: humans contribute
more overall welfare.
▪ Act utilitarianism →in a single crash, choose the option with fewer deaths.
▪ Rule utilitarianism → design cars to generally reduce total fatalities in society
(e.g., adopt settings that maximize overall safety, not just in one accident).
▪ Downside:
• What if sparing more lives means sacrificing a child to save adults?
Utilitarian logic might say yes, but rights/duties-based views would
resist.
, • This shows the clash between outcomes (utilitarian) vs. principles/rights
(deontology, justice).
Ethics of Duty – Deontological/Principle-Based (Immanuel Kant): morality is a question of certain
abstract and unchangeable obligations-defined by a set of a priori moral rules-that humans should apply to
all relevant ethical problems.
• Focus on principles, not outcomes: Actions are right if they follow moral duties, not because of
their consequences.
• Central concepts: duty, consistency, dignity, and universality.
• Develops principles or categorical imperatives to guide our actions.
• Duties do not mean mechanistically following rules, but they involve human’s ability to develop
moral law and moral rules.
• Humans as rational actors with free will (independent moral actors who make their own rational
decisions regarding right/wrong).
• Developed theoretical framework: categorical imperative
• Unconditional moral law, that must be obeyed in all circumstances. (absolutist)
• Act only according to that rule/principle by which you can at the same time will that it
should become a universal law.
▪ Universal applicability: do we want would want everybody to act according to
the principles of our action in all circumstances?
▪ Respect for persons: Treat people always as ends in themselves, never just as
means to an end (tool). (human is valuable autonomic being)
• Downsides:
• Abstract theory → very theoretical, difficult to apply in real-world dilemmas where trade-
offs are needed.
• Ignores outcomes → Can demand actions that lead to worse consequences (refusing to lie
even if it would save someone’s life).
• Heavy burden → morality can be heavy. Following duty strictly can feel demanding, as it
leaves little room for flexibility or emotions.
• Too rational → strict on the use of reason. Undervalues compassion, care, and context.
• Application to Moral Machine:
▪ In any case, should follow universality principle, rules have to be accepted by all.
Would everybody accept that type of decision?
▪ More abstract/complex
▪ Determine general rules that apply to all, and accepted by all.
▪ Human moral reasoning should be central
• Ex: if the owner of the car is seen as responsible for the consequences of
it, then passenger should be sacrificed.
▪ Rule example: The one who generates mobility risks cannot sacrifice non-
involved individuals.
▪ Reject sacrificing people based on characteristics (age, gender, fitness etc). That
would violate equal dignity.
• Ex: Even if sparing children saves “more future life years,” Kant says
you cannot discriminate — all lives have equal worth.
▪ Preference for sparing lawful pedestrians over jaywalkers. Following the law is a
duty.
Ethics of Rights & Justice - Deontological/Principle-Based (John Locke & John Rawls): People
have basic inalienable, natural human rights that should be respected and protected in every single
situation. These are based in human dignity and lead to a duty for others to protect, respect, and support
them, no matter the outcome.
• Natural human rights: right to life, freedom, dignity, speech, property, privacy, fair trial etc.
