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The Mandatory Ontology of Robot Responsibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2021

Marc Champagne*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey, BC, V3W 2M8, Canada

Abstract

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Type
Commentary
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

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13. See note 12. Interestingly, if we go back to his actual writings, we find that the founder of pragmatism Charles Sanders Peirce invited us to “[c]onsider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object” (emphasis added). Peirce, CS. The Essential Peirce, Bloomington: Indiana University Press; 1992:132.Google Scholar Highlighting that a difference makes no practical difference is thus persuasive only if it can be shown that the difference at hand cannot possibly make any practical difference in any conceivable future. Clearly, no robotic duplicate can meet this more demanding standard.

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40. The shorter life spans of replicants, which is a much more important difference, would also have to match ours.

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50. See note 27, Berman 1994:326.