ORCID Profile
0000-0002-7490-0242
Current Organisation
Macquarie University
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Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
Philosophy | Ethical Theory | Social Philosophy | Virtual Reality and Related Simulation | Adaptive Agents and Intelligent Robotics | Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing | Computer-Human Interaction
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Social Ethics | Expanding Knowledge in Philosophy and Religious Studies | Technological Ethics | Expanding Knowledge in Law and Legal Studies | Computer Gaming Software |
Related Links
Publications
Kant and the demandingness of the virtue of beneficence
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 25-04-2019
DOI: 10.1111/EJOP.12455
When AI meets PC
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 26-05-2020
Measuring morality in videogames research
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-10-2020
Focus, sensitivity, judgement, action
Publisher: Digital Games Research Association
Date: 22-09-2017
Abstract: Historically the focus of moral decision-making in games has been narrow, mostly confined to challenges of moral judgement (deciding right and wrong). In this paper, we look to moral psychology to get a broader view of the skills involved in ethical behaviour and how these skills can be employed in games. Following the Four Component Model of Rest and colleagues, we identify four “lenses” – perspectives for considering moral gameplay in terms of focus, sensitivity, judgement and action – and describe the design problems raised by each. To conclude, we analyse two recent games, The Walking Dead and Papers, Please, and show how the lenses give us insight into important design differences between these games.
A principlist-based study of the ethical design and acceptability of artificial social agents
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2023
AI decision making with dignity? Contrasting workers’ justice perceptions of human and AI decision making in a human resource management context
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-02-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S10796-021-10223-8
Abstract: Using artificial intelligence (AI) to make decisions in human resource management (HRM) raises questions of how fair employees perceive these decisions to be and whether they experience respectful treatment (i.e., interactional justice). In this experimental survey study with open-ended qualitative questions, we examine decision making in six HRM functions and manipulate the decision maker (AI or human) and decision valence (positive or negative) to determine their impact on in iduals’ experiences of interactional justice, trust, dehumanization, and perceptions of decision-maker role appropriateness. In terms of decision makers, the use of human decision makers over AIs generally resulted in better perceptions of respectful treatment. In terms of decision valence, people experiencing positive over negative decisions generally resulted in better perceptions of respectful treatment. In instances where these cases conflict, on some indicators people preferred positive AI decisions over negative human decisions. Qualitative responses show how people identify justice concerns with both AI and human decision making. We outline implications for theory, practice, and future research.
Kant on Education and evil—Perfecting human beings with an innate propensity to radical evil
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-10-2019
Papers, Please and the systemic approach to engaging ethical expertise in videogames
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 14-07-2016
Kant's Anatomy of Evil
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 08-03-2011
Means, Ends, and Persons
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 26-04-2017
Robot autonomy vs. human autonomy
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-10-2021
DOI: 10.1007/S11023-021-09579-2
Abstract: Social robots are robots that can interact socially with humans. As social robots and the artificial intelligence (AI) that powers them becomes more advanced, they will likely take on more social and work roles. This has many important ethical implications. In this paper, we focus on one of the most central of these, the impacts that social robots can have on human autonomy. We argue that, due to their physical presence and social capacities, there is a strong potential for social robots to enhance human autonomy as well as several ways they can inhibit and disrespect it. We argue that social robots could improve human autonomy by helping us to achieve more valuable ends, make more authentic choices, and improve our autonomy competencies. We also argue that social robots have the potential to harm human autonomy by instead leading us to achieve fewer valuable ends ourselves, make less authentic choices, decrease our autonomy competencies, make our autonomy more vulnerable, and disrespect our autonomy. Whether the impacts of social robots on human autonomy are positive or negative overall will depend on the design, regulation, and use we make of social robots in the future.
Ethical AI at work
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2021
Understanding evil acts
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-06-2007
A Kantian approach to education for moral sensitivity
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 04-10-2021
Kant's conception of personal autonomy
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-2013
DOI: 10.1111/JOSP.12028
Can e-sport gamers permissibly engage with off-limits virtual wrongdoings?
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-10-2023
Kant on the radical evil of human nature
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-2007
Modelling the ethical priorities influencing decision-making in cybersecurity contexts
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 24-05-2023
Abstract: Cybersecurity vulnerabilities are often due to human users acting according to their own ethical priorities. With the goal of providing tailored training to cybersecurity professionals, the authors conducted a study to uncover profiles of human factors that influence which ethical principles are valued highest following exposure to ethical dilemmas presented in a cybersecurity game. The authors’ game first sensitises players (cybersecurity trainees) to five cybersecurity ethical principles (beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, autonomy and explicability) and then allows the player to explore their application in multiple cybersecurity scenarios. After playing the game, players rank the five ethical principles in terms of importance. A total of 250 first-year cybersecurity students played the game. To develop profiles, the authors collected players' demographics, knowledge about ethics, personality, moral stance and values. The authors built models to predict the importance of each of the five ethical principles. The analyses show that, generally, the main driver influencing the priority given to specific ethical principles is cultural background, followed by the personality traits of extraversion and conscientiousness. The importance of the ingroup was also a prominent factor. Cybersecurity professionals need to understand the impact of users' ethical choices. To provide ethics training, the profiles uncovered will be used to build artificially intelligent (AI) non-player characters (NPCs) to expose the player to multiple viewpoints. The NPCs will adapt their training according to the predicted players’ viewpoint.
Moral law
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-09-2015
DOI: 10.1002/9781118474396.WBEPT0686
Abstract: What is the moral law and what role does it and should it play in political theory and political practice? In this entry we will try to answer these important questions by first examining what the moral law is, before investigating the different ways in which the relationship between morality and politics can be conceptualized.
Beyond Ideal Theory: Foundations for a Critical Rawlsian Theory of Climate Justice
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-10-2021
Morality Play: A Model for Developing Games of Moral Expertise
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 06-11-2017
Abstract: According to cognitive psychologists, moral decision-making is a dual-process phenomenon involving two types of cognitive processes: explicit reasoning and implicit intuition. Moral development involves training and integrating both types of cognitive processes through a mix of instruction, practice, and reflection. Serious games are an ideal platform for this kind of moral training, as they provide safe spaces for exploring difficult moral problems and practicing the skills necessary to resolve them. In this article, we present Morality Play, a model for the design of serious games for ethical expertise development based on the Integrative Ethical Education framework from moral psychology and the Lens of the Toy model for serious game design.
The Ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for meaningful work
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-02-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S10551-023-05339-7
Abstract: The increasing workplace use of artificially intelligent (AI) technologies has implications for the experience of meaningful human work. Meaningful work refers to the perception that one’s work has worth, significance, or a higher purpose. The development and organisational deployment of AI is accelerating, but the ways in which this will support or diminish opportunities for meaningful work and the ethical implications of these changes remain under-explored. This conceptual paper is positioned at the intersection of the meaningful work and ethical AI literatures and offers a detailed assessment of the ways in which the deployment of AI can enhance or diminish employees’ experiences of meaningful work. We first outline the nature of meaningful work and draw on philosophical and business ethics accounts to establish its ethical importance. We then explore the impacts of three paths of AI deployment (replacing some tasks, ‘tending the machine’, and lifying human skills) across five dimensions constituting a holistic account of meaningful work, and finally assess the ethical implications. In doing so we help to contextualise the meaningful work literature for the era of AI, extend the ethical AI literature into the workplace, and conclude with a range of practical implications and future research directions.
Patriotism
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 08-01-2009
A principlist framework for cybersecurity ethics
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2021
A conception of evil
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-05-2008
Moral responsibility for banal evil
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-2006
Morality meters and their impacts on moral choices in videogames
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 06-05-2022
DOI: 10.1177/15554120211017040
Abstract: Morality meters are a commonly used mechanic in many ethically notable video games. However, there have been several theoretical critiques of such meters, including that people can find them alienating, they can instrumentalise morality, and they reduce morality to a binary of good and evil with no room for complexity. While there has been much theoretical discussion of these issues, there has been far less empirical investigation. We address this gap through a qualitative study that involved participants playing a custom-built visual novel game ( The Great Fire) with different intuitive and counter-intuitive morality meter settings. Overall, we found that players’ attitudes towards the morality meter in this game was complex, context sensitive and variable throughout gameplay and that the intuitiveness of the meter encouraged participants to treat the meter more ‘as a moral guide’ that prompts reflection and less ‘as a score’ to be engaged with reactively.
To breach or not? Profiling students' likelihood of breaching university ICT Codes of Conduct
Publisher: ACM
Date: 30-01-2023
An empirical investigation of the Gamer’s Dilemma: a mixed methods study of whether the dilemma exists
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 14-02-2023
Evil and Moral Psychology
Publisher: Brill
Date: 11-06-2016
Making moral machines: why we need artificial moral agents
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-11-2020
Is Kant a moral constructivist or a moral realist?
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 23-01-2013
Care for well-being or respect for dignity? A commentary on Soofi’s 'What moral work can Nussbaum’s account of human dignity do in the context of dementia care?'
Publisher: BMJ
Date: 14-11-2022
Social media and its negative impacts on autonomy
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-07-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S13347-022-00567-7
Abstract: How social media impacts the autonomy of its users is a topic of increasing focus. However, much of the literature that explores these impacts fails to engage in depth with the philosophical literature on autonomy. This has resulted in a failure to consider the full range of impacts that social media might have on autonomy. A deeper consideration of these impacts is thus needed, given the importance of both autonomy as a moral concept and social media as a feature of contemporary life. By drawing on this philosophical literature, we argue that autonomy is broadly a matter of developing autonomy competencies, having authentic ends and control over key aspects of your own life, and not being manipulated, coerced, and controlled by others. We show how the autonomy of users of social media can be disrespected and harmed through the control that social media can have over its users’ data , attention , and behaviour . We conclude by discussing various recommendations to better regulate social media.
Medical AI and human dignity: Contrasting perceptions of human and artificially intelligent (AI) decision making in diagnostic and medical resource allocation contexts
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2022
Toleration and some related concepts in Kant
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 30-04-2020
DOI: 10.1017/S1369415420000035
Abstract: In this article we examine Kant’s understanding of toleration by including a study of all instances in which he directly uses the language of toleration and related concepts. We use this study to resolve several key areas of interpretative dispute concerning Kant’s views on toleration. We argue that Kant offers a nuanced and largely unappreciated approach to thinking about toleration, and related concepts, across three normative spheres: the political, the interpersonal and the personal. We examine shortcomings in earlier interpretations and conclude by arguing that the theme of toleration in Kant’s work, while coherent and important, is neither as central nor as peripheral as suggested by previous interpretations. Further, while Kant is critical of the arrogance of toleration in the political sphere, he is more positive toward the role of toleration in the interpersonal and personal spheres since it promotes virtue.
Playing Around With Morality: Introducing the Special Issue on “Morality Play”
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 31-10-2017
Abstract: This special issue of Games and Culture focuses on the intersection between video games and ethics. This introduction briefly sets out the key research questions in the research field and identifies trends in the articles included in this special issue.
The Problems with evil
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-10-2008
DOI: 10.1057/CPT.2008.17
Nussbaum, Kant, and the Capabilities Approach to Dignity
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-01-2014
Crossing the fictional line
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-08-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S13347-023-00660-5
Abstract: The Gamer’s Dilemma refers to the philosophical challenge of justifying the intuitive difference people seem to see between the moral permissibility of enacting virtual murder and the moral impermissibility of enacting virtual child molestation in video games (Luck Ethics and Information Technology , 1 :31, 2009). Recently, Luck in Philosophia , 50 :1287–1308, 2022 has argued that the Gamer’s Dilemma is actually an instance of a more general “paradox”, which he calls the “paradox of treating wrongdoing lightly”, and he proposes a graveness resolution to this paradox. In response, we argue for four key claims. First, we accept Luck’s expansion of the Gamer’s Dilemma to be applicable to a wider set of media, but give a novel recasting of this in terms of the Paradox of Fictionally Going Too Far. Second, we develop a novel criticism of Luck in Philosophia , 50 :1287–1308, 2022 graveness resolution to this broader paradox. Third, we argue that the Paradox of Fictionally Going Too Far helps to expose an implicit moralism in the Gamer’s Dilemma literature when compared to relevant nearby literatures about other forms of media. Fourth, we consider a range of non-moral, cultural and media conventions that plausibly help to dissolve the intuitive moral gap between non-sexual and sexual violence that is central to this paradox.
The influence of ethical principles and policy awareness priming on university students’ judgements about ICT code of conduct compliance
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 20-10-2022
Abstract: To protect information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and resources against poor cyber hygiene behaviours, organisations commonly require internal users to confirm they will abide by an ICT Code of Conduct. Before commencing enrolment, university students sign ICT policies, however, in iduals can ignore or act contrary to these policies. This study aims to evaluate whether students can apply ICT Codes of Conduct and explores viable approaches for ensuring that students understand how to act ethically and in accordance with such codes. The authors designed a between-subjects experiment involving 260 students’ responses to five scenario-pairs that involve breach/non-breach of a university’s ICT policy following a priming intervention to heighten awareness of ICT policy or relevant ethical principles, with a control group receiving no priming. This study found a significant difference in students’ responses to the breach versus non-breach cases, indicating their ability to apply the ICT Code of Conduct. Qualitative comments revealed the priming materials influenced their reasoning. The authors’ priming interventions were inadequate for improving breach recognition compared to the control group. More nuanced and targeted priming interventions are suggested for future studies. Appropriate application of ICT Code of Conduct can be measured by collecting student/employee responses to breach/non-breach scenario pairs based on the Code and embedded with ethical principles. Shared awareness and protection of ICT resources. Compliance with ICT Codes of Conduct by students is under-investigated. This study shows that code-based scenarios can measure understanding and suggest that targeted priming might offer a non-resource intensive training approach.
Evils, Wrongs and Dignity
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-07-2013
Autonomous vehicles and ethical settings
Publisher: Oxford University PressNew York
Date: 14-11-2022
DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780197639191.003.0011
Abstract: While autonomous vehicles (AVs) are not designed to harm people, harming people is an inevitable by-product of their operation. How are AVs to deal ethically with situations where harming people is inevitable? Rather than focus on the much-discussed question of what choices AVs should make, we can also ask the much less discussed question of who gets to decide what AVs should do in such cases. Here there are two key options: AVs with a personal ethics setting (PES) or an “ethical knob” that end users can control or AVs with a mandatory ethics setting (MES) that end users cannot control. Which option, a PES or an MES, is best and why? This chapter argues, by drawing on the choice architecture literature, in favor of a hybrid view that requires mandated default choice settings while allowing for limited end user control.
Evil, virtue, and education in Kant
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 19-06-2019
Kant on the limits of human evil
Publisher: Philosophy Documentation Center
Date: 2009
DOI: 10.5840/JPR_2009_13
Resisting the Gamer's Dilemma
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 28-07-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S10676-022-09655-W
Abstract: Intuitively, many people seem to hold that engaging in acts of virtual murder in videogames is morally permissible, whereas engaging in acts of virtual child molestation is morally impermissible. The Gamer’s Dilemma (Luck in Ethics Inf Technol 11:31–36, 2009) challenges these intuitions by arguing that it is unclear whether there is a morally relevant difference between these two types of virtual actions. There are two main responses in the literature to this dilemma. First, attempts to resolve the dilemma by defending an account of the relevant moral differences between virtual murder and virtual child molestation. Second, attempts to dissolve the dilemma by undermining the intuitions that ground it. In this paper, we argue that a narrow version of the Gamer’s Dilemma seems to survive attempts to resolve or dissolve it away entirely, since neither approach seems to be able to solve the dilemma for all cases. We thus provide a contextually sensitive version of the dilemma that more accurately tracks onto the intuitions of gamers. However, we also argue that the intuitions that ground the narrow version of the Dilemma may not have a moral foundation, and we put forward alternative non-moral normative foundations that seem to better account for the remaining intuitive difference between the two types of virtual actions. We also respond to proposed solutions to the Gamer’s Dilemma in novel ways and set out areas for future empirical work in this area.
Is radical evil banal? Is banal evil radical?
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2007
Abstract: There has been much recent debate concerning how Hannah Arendt's concepts of radical evil and the banality of evil `fit together', if at all. I argue that the first of these concepts deals with a certain type of evil, in particular the evil that occurred in the Nazi death c s. The second deals with a certain type of perpetrator of evil, in particular the banal `nobody', Eichmann. As such, bar a localized incompatibility in regard to Arendt's early account of the motivation of perpetrators of radical evil, these two concepts are independent but nonetheless highly complementary.
The effect of morality meters on ethical decision making in video games
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2023
Kantian ethics, dignity and perfection
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date: 02-08-2017
Abstract: In this volume Paul Formosa sets out a novel approach to Kantian ethics as an ethics of dignity by focusing on the Formula of Humanity as a normative principle distinct from the Formula of Universal Law. By situating the Kantian conception of dignity within the wider literature on dignity, he develops an important distinction between status dignity, which all rational agents have, and achievement dignity, which all rational agents should aspire to. He then explores constructivist and realist views on the foundation of the dignity of rational agents, before developing a compelling account of who does and does not have status dignity and of what kind of achievement dignity or virtue we, as vulnerable rational agents, can and should strive for. His study will be highly valuable for those interested in Kant& apos s ethical, moral and political philosophies.
Related Organisations
Related Funding Activities
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120100320
Start Date: 03-2012
End Date: 07-2016
Amount: $375,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP190100734
Start Date: 06-2019
End Date: 12-2024
Amount: $241,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP200102131
Start Date: 06-2020
End Date: 12-2024
Amount: $375,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity