TagMorality
Assisted Suicide and the Dangers of “Word Engineering”
When radical policies are proposed, the first step is to change the lexicon to make it seem less extreme, even mundane.
Israel, Free Will, and the Problem of Evil
If determinism is true, then we have no free will. We are nothing more than meat machines.The events of the past week in Israel have left the civilized world reeling. Hamas has killed more than 1,200 Jewish innocents in the most violent eruption of anti-Semitism since the Holocaust, and it seems likely a war will follow that will soon kill thousands more innocent people. As we ponder and pray over this mass slaughter, it is worthwhile to reflect for a moment on what these events tell us about the ideological and scientific dogmas of the 21st century — about atheism, determinism and Darwinism. Are these dogmas true, and do they provide a meaningful understanding of man and of moral action? If atheism is true and there is no God, there is no Moral Lawgiver. The concept of Read More ›
The Rational Magicians
Can real meaning be experienced in a godless world? The postrationalists are tryingIn the era of scientific enlightenment, progress, and technological sophistication, “magic” might be the last word one might use to describe the activity of modern Western culture. We live in an age of reason, not superstition. Right? The old world of myth, mystery, and religion is holed away in museums and cathedrals; these are relics of an admirable but outdated generation. After Reason In a fascinating new article from The New Atlantis, writer Tara Isabella Burton writes about the “postrationalists,” an Internet subculture disillusioned with the technocratic rationalism of Silicon Valley and in search of a sense of the mystical and divine. “Reason,” or the modern conception of it, has left the postrationalists disappointed. Neither, however, are they flocking to Read More ›
John Lennox: AI and Ethics
How can we program ethics into AI? John Lennox asksIn last week’s podcast, Oxford mathematician John Lennox talked about AI surveillance and the danger of misusing the technology for purposes of suppression. He said, But there’s a downside because facial recognition technology is being used at the moment in certain parts of the world to invade the privacy, not only of individuals, but of whole people groups and actually control them and suppress them. Now, I mentioned that example to say that very rapidly AI, narrow AI raises huge ethical questions. Now remember, this is the stuff that’s actually working, self-driving cars, autonomous vehicles, AI system built in there, but you have to build into it some kind of ethical decision making. If the car sensors pick up an Read More ›
The Last of Us, Episode 9
Getting to the central moral question of the entire seriesThe episode begins with another flashback, showing how Ellie was born. Then, we see that Joel and Ellie have finally reached Salt Lake City, and once there, the writers retell some of the classic scenes from the game. During these scenes, it becomes evident that the two characters are much closer now. I’d say the writers did manage to successfully transition Joel and Ellie from an adversarial partnership to a father-daughter like relationship. Before long; however, the two are disoriented by a flash grenade, and Joel is knocked unconscious. When he wakes up, he sees Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies, standing in a doorway with armed guards around her. They made it to the medical facility after all, but Read More ›