EECS 690 May 3

Types of Justice Retributive –Offenders are punished because they deserve it. –Corporal punishment, deprivation of property, liberty, or life are punishments associated with retributivism. Restorative –Offenders, victims and other interested parties are brought together to determine ways of repairing damage done by wrongs. Much civil law is done in this way. –Community service, probation, transfer of property, mandated therapies, are forms of punishment associated with restorative justice. Rehabilitative –Offenders must be retrained to be productive members of society –mandated therapies, programs in correctional facilities, parole systems Deterrent –Offenders are made examples of to keep the rest in line –The harsher the better

Robo-justice Which of the former might lend itself well to the kind of scenario described by Peter Norvig on p. 207? Are the other types of justice in punishment imaginably useful?

A utilitarian question: If it becomes feasible to build a robotic system that experiences the functional equivalent of pain, is it moral to build it? This question interestingly mimics some of the quandaries that people considering reproducing face.

Robot marriage It is difficult to imagine what motivation individuals might have for marriage of this kind. Certainly there are issues of the caretaking of offspring, power of attorney, and transfer of property, but is marriage the most suitable legal vehicle within which to address these concerns?

On Moral Saints Susan Wolf wrote a very intersting article on Moral Saints that interestingly echoes something the authors say on p.215. The idea is that one might imagine moral saints, and conclude from this picture that they wouldn’t want to be one and wouldn’t want to know one. This is supposed to demonstrate that there is a wide distinction between morality and ethics.

On Improving Ethics Wallach and Allen repeatedly contend that approaching ethics from the standpoint of AMA design focuses on aspects of ethical theory that are often taken for granted or are underemphasized. Has this view been vindicated? Why or why not?