TY - JOUR
T1 - A theological account of artificial moral agency
AU - Xu, Ximian
N1 - Funding Information:
A short version of this article was presented at the annual conference of the Society for the Study in Christian Ethics 2022 in Westcott House, Cambridge. I am indebted to the Alan Turing Institute for Post-doctoral Enrichment Award, which allowed me to accomplish this study. I am also grateful for the feedback from the two anonymous reviewers.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.
PY - 2023/8/23
Y1 - 2023/8/23
N2 - This article seeks to explore the idea of artificial moral agency from a theological perspective. By drawing on the Reformed theology of archetype-ectype, it will demonstrate that computational artefacts are the ectype of human moral agents and, consequently, have a partial moral agency. In this light, human moral agents mediate and extend their moral values through computational artefacts, which are ontologically connected with humans and only related to limited particular moral issues. This moral leitmotif opens up a way to deploy carebots into Christian pastoral care while maintaining the human agent's uniqueness and responsibility in pastoral caregiving practices.
AB - This article seeks to explore the idea of artificial moral agency from a theological perspective. By drawing on the Reformed theology of archetype-ectype, it will demonstrate that computational artefacts are the ectype of human moral agents and, consequently, have a partial moral agency. In this light, human moral agents mediate and extend their moral values through computational artefacts, which are ontologically connected with humans and only related to limited particular moral issues. This moral leitmotif opens up a way to deploy carebots into Christian pastoral care while maintaining the human agent's uniqueness and responsibility in pastoral caregiving practices.
KW - archetype and ectype
KW - artificial intelligence
KW - carebots
KW - Christian pastoral care
KW - computational artefacts
KW - Herman Bavinck
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85150630957&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/09539468231163002
DO - 10.1177/09539468231163002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85150630957
SN - 0953-9468
VL - 36
SP - 642
EP - 659
JO - Studies in Christian Ethics
JF - Studies in Christian Ethics
IS - 3
ER -