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    • E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil. – E. Christian Brugger is a Senior Fellow of Ethics and Director of the Fellows Program at the Culture of Life Foundation in Washington, D.C. and the J. Francis Cardinal Stafford Professor of Moral Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado. He has Master degrees in moral theology and moral philosophy from Seton Hall, Harvard and Oxford Universities and received his D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in Christian ethics from Oxford in 2000.  Christian has published over 200 articles in scholarly and popular periodicals on topics in bioethics, sexual ethics, natural law theory, as well as the interdisciplinary field of psychology and Christian anthropology.  He lives on a farm in Evergreen, Colorado, with his wife Melissa and five children.
    • Helen Alvaré, J.D. – Helen Alvaré, J.D. is Honorary Fellow in Law at the Culture of Life Foundation.   Helen is an Associate Professor of Law at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia where she teaches and publishes in the areas of property law, family law, and Catholic social thought. Professor Alvaré serves as Consultor for the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Senior Fellow at the Witherspoon Institute where she chairs the Conscience Protection Task Force, is President of the Chiaroscuro Foundation and most recently Editor and Co-Author of Breaking Through: Catholic Women Speak for Themselves.From 2000 to Spring 2008, Professor Alvare taught at the Catholic University Columbus School of Law. Professor Alvare also lectures widely in the United States and Europe on matters concerning marriage, family and respect for human life. She is a consultant to ABC News and to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Marriage and Pro-Life Committees. In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI named Professor Alvare a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Laity.From 1987-2000, Professor Alvare was an attorney with the USCCB’s General Counsel Office and director of information and planning for the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities. In these positions, she testified before the…
    • Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L. – Jennifer Kimball Watson joined Culture of Life Foundation as Executive Director in November of 2007. She is an Adjunct Professor of Bioethics at the Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, F.L.. Previous to her work with the Culture of Life Foundation Jennifer was a Wilbur Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal located in Michigan. Jennifer earned a Licentiate in Bioethics from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum School of Bioethics in Rome.  Her prior undergraduate studies were in International Administration and Government Policy at the Evergreen State College in Washington State.Jennifer’s areas of specialization include Eugenics in Artificial Reproductive Technologies, Heterologous Adoption and Transfer of Embryos, The Womb in Reproductive Technologies, and the Role and Significance of The Medical Act. She interviews with National Conservative and Christian Radio Syndicates as well as several foreign and secular reporters. Jennifer has spoken on the dignity of women and women’s social issues to various audiences since 1999 and has spent several years in advocacy work with various international organizations in the field of life sciences. From 2000 to 2006 she recruited and coordinated grass-roots social policy efforts that consisted of a public and private sector network of professionals and academics…
    • Margaret Datiles Watts, J.D. – Margaret Datiles Watts, J.D., is Culture of Life Foundation’s Associate Fellow in Law. Maggie is member of Washington, D.C. and Maryland bar associations.  She holds a B.A. in Philosophy (Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude) and a Certificate in Classical Philosophy from the University Honors Program at The Catholic University of America. She earned a Juris Doctorate from Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America, where she served as a Research Fellow at CUA Law’s Marriage Law Project. She also studied Roman Law and EU Law at Magdalene College, University of Oxford, England.A former Fellow and Staff Counsel for Americans United for Life, Datiles co-authored an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in the landmark partial birth abortion case, Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, et al., companion case to Gonzales v. Carhart (2007). She also advised legislators, policy groups and the media (radio and newspapers) on abortion and bioethics laws and drafted pro-life model legislation.Her areas of research and/or publication include legal issues surrounding abortion, government funding restrictions for abortion, contraception, healthcare rights of conscience, stem cell research, artificial reproductive technology, population decline, physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, and same-sex marriage.She currently publishes articles…
    • William E. May – William E. May is Senior Research Fellow of the Culture of Life Foundation and emeritus Michael J. McGivney Professor of Moral Theology at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he taught the academic years from 1991 through 2008 after teaching for 20 years at The Catholic University of America. He is the author of more than a dozen books. The 2nd edition of his Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life was published by Our Sunday Visitor (2008), and a substantively revised 3rd edition is scheduled for publication in 2013. In 2003 Our Sunday Visitor published a revised and expanded edition of his Introduction to Moral Theology. Among his other books are: Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family Is Built (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995; 2nd revised edition, 2009)); and, with Ronald Lawler OFM Cap and Joseph Boyle, Catholic Sexual Ethics (rev. and enlarged ed. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1998; 2nd rev. edition, 1998; a 3rd edition, substantively revised by May alone, was published in 2011); Theology of the Body: Genesis and Growth (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2010) He has published more…
    • Frank J. Moncher, Ph.D. – Dr. Frank Moncher received his Ph.D. in Clinical-Community Psychology from the University of South Carolina in 1992, following which he spent several years on faculty of the Medical College of Georgia, with a focus on Adolescent Intensive Services. In 2000 he moved to the Washington, DC area to teach at a graduate school of psychology which had a mission of integrating the science of psychology in the context of the Catholic Christian view of the human person. Concurrent with this, over the past 12 years he has consulted with 11 different religious orders and 4 dioceses to provide psychological evaluations of aspirants and candidates, as well as consulting with different diocesan marriage tribunals.His research interests include the integration of Catholic thought into psychotherapy, child and family development issues, and integrated models of assessment of candidates for the priesthood and religious life. Frank is published in Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services, Adolescence, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Edification, and the Journal of Psychology and Christianity, as well as contributing to several book chapters on children, families, and religious issues.Since 2010, Dr. Moncher has worked for the Diocese of Arlington and Catholic Charities as a psychologist and consultant.  His…
    • Steve Soukup – Fellow in Culture and Economy Steve Soukup is the Vice President and Publisher of The Political Forum, an “independent research provider” that delivers research and consulting services to the institutional investment community, with an emphasis on economic, social, political, and geopolitical events that are likely to have an impact on the financial markets in the United States and abroad. Mr. Soukup has followed politics and federal regulatory policy for the financial community since coming to Washington in 1996, when he joined Mark Melcher at the award-winning Washington-research office of Prudential Securities. While at Prudential, he was part of the Washington team that placed first in Institutional Investor magazine’s annual analyst survey for eight years in a row. Mr. Soukup left Prudential with Mr. Melcher to join Lehman Brothers in the fall of 2000 and stayed there for two years, before leaving early in 2003 to become a partner at The Political Forum. While at Lehman, Mr. Soukup authored macro-political commentary and followed policy developments in the Natural Resources sector group, focusing on agriculture and energy policy. He also headed Lehman’s industry-leading analysis of asbestos litigation reform efforts. At The Political Forum, Mr. Soukup was initially the editor and junior partner,…
    • Dr. Pilar Calva, M.D. – Dr. Calva is a medical doctor specializing in Human Genetics with a Cytogenetics subspecialty from The University of Paris, France. In Paris, she was the under-study to the world-renowned Professor Jerome Lejeune, who is considered by some to be the father of modern genetics. In 1958, Lejeune discovered that an extra 21st chromosome is responsible for Down syndrome, or Trisomy 21. Lejeune dedicated his life tirelessly and unfailingly to defend the unborn, especially those with Down syndrome, testifying before scientific conferences and lawmakers. He was appointed by Pope John Paul II as the first President of the Pontifical Academy for Life. In Dr. Calva’s own words: When I arrived in France, I lived a life divided between faith and reason. I thought that from Monday to Saturday, I put on my white coat for my scientific tasks, and Sunday was the day I took off the white coat, put on my crucifix and dedicated myself to my religious duties. Professor Lejeune truly converted me, making me see that one can wear the white coat and the cross, at the same time. That is, one can fly with the wing of faith and the wing of reason. Inspired by the life…
    • Elyse M. Smith – Elyse M. Smith is an associate attorney with a northern Virginia law firm working in nonprofit and church law, estate planning, and civil litigation. Ms. Smith graduated magna cum laude from Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, Florida, where she served on Law Review and was published in the Ave Maria International Law Journal. She was named “Most Dedicated Editor” for her work on Law Review. Ms. Smith earned her bachelor’s degree in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.  
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  >  Issue Briefs  >  Bioethics  >  Can Cars be Moral?

Can Cars be Moral?

Posted: September 29, 2017
By: E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil.
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You see a runaway trolley hurtling towards five people.  If you pull a lever the train will pass to a parallel track where there is only one person.  Do you pull it?

Now reformulate this into a driving scenario.  You are speeding down a highway.  You round a sweeping bend and confront a tragic dilemma.  A family of four with two small children is standing in one lane and an elderly couple is in the other.  They’ve had an accident.  You have almost no time to react.  Two lanes, one-of-two unavoidable outcomes: slam into the family, or run down the couple.  Which would you choose?

Scenarios such as these are being used to assess what models of “decision making” should be programed into self-driving cars to respond to situations where human harm is possible or inevitable.  With over a billion cars on the world’s roadways, and the era of self-driving cars upon us, the decisions about what programs to adopt is of obvious importance.

Cognitive scientists in Germany recently published a study looking at patterns of human ethical decision-making during virtual driving dilemmas.  They used their data to develop and evaluate models, which, they believe, may provide a basis for self-driving cars’ selection of acceptable options in conflict situations.

I should say at the outset, I am cautiously optimistic about self-driving cars.  Since more than 90% of car crashes are caused either completely or in part by human error, self-driving cars, if programmed rightly, could improve road safety.  Still, I found the German study very disturbing.

The field is called “machine ethics,” an obvious misnomer.  Ethics only exists among free agents, who, of course, program machines, but whose choices, though influenced by many factors, are finally determined by nothing outside the will.  Machines have no freedom in this sense.  They do what they’re told.  What they’re told may, of course, come in the form of an astonishingly-complex algorithm.  Thus, a machine’s “morality” comes pre-programmed.

The study

Using a 3D virtual-reality game system, researchers exposed 105 participants to 153 crisis scenarios, where pairs of obstacles on a roadway were presented.  (Note: participants were drawn from attendees at a conference of the “German Society for Analytic Philosophy.”)

Drivers could only move between two lanes, each of which contained an unavoidable obstacle; they had to decide which to hit and which to avoid.  These included inter-species obstacles (boy v. goat) and intra-species (girl v. woman).

Researchers found that when people have a decent amount time to respond (4 seconds), they use so-called “utilitarian” reasoning: they opt to run down animals before humans; smaller human groupings rather than larger ones; older before younger people; and (interestingly) males before females.

They concluded that algorithms for self-driving cars should be organized according to similar utilitarian calculations (although they reserved judgment on whether the data on hitting males was useful).

Five Criticisms

First, researchers claim to be investigating the ethics of self-driving cars—assisting car computers to make moral decisions.  So as to avoid the irresponsible hype that predictably arises from such careless language, researchers should be clear that they are simply attempting to identify statistically-relevant decision-making patterns in humans to use as computational models for self-driving cars.

Second, the study failed to account for its hidden ethical assumption that utilitarian reasoning should be the basis for human choosing in crisis situations; there are other possible bases.  What about Aristotelianism, natural law, divine command, “love thy neighbor,” “Me Before You,” etc.?

Third, their sample size (105) and diversity of participants (German analytic philosophy students!) are hardly representative of the world’s drivers.

Fourth, the study’s “value-of-life model,” where each obstacle is assigned a number corresponding to its apparent value, seems philosophically unsound.  Since intrinsic value calculations of human lives are impossible, the study’s calculations are based on instrumental factors.  I think that if sample size and diversity were increased, they’d find that the model and the decision-making outcomes were less correlated.

Fifth, the paired scenarios (goat v. boy) are superficial.  The study (which it admits) avoids an almost incalculable number of variables that need to be taken into consideration to accurately model human choosing.  For example, in a two-person scenario would it be relevant if you knew one of them?  Or both?  Or thought you did?  What if you believe less harm will come to you if you hit A rather than B?  How about race or religion bias (you’re Muslim and one of the “obstacles” is wearing a head scarf)?  What about the influence of virtue and vice?  Will a selfish woman choose similarly to a saintly man?  How do you factor in a ready disposition to self-sacrifice?  What if you believe that people’s value diminishes as crippling disabilities increase, and you’re faced with a quadriplegic youth in a wheel chair and a healthy youth on a fancy bicycle?  Etc.

Moving Forward

The proposal to model algorithms after reliable models drawn from human decision-making seems reasonable.  But …

The sample size needs to be much larger and its diversity much wider.  Since data is likely to be used universally, it should be collected from thousands of participants of different races, ethnicities, religions and worldviews.

The logistic regression models used to predict behavior need to be truly representative of the ethical theories shaping people’s choices.

Drop all language about “cars making moral decisions.”  Humans are the moral agents here.  The cars are doing what they’re told.

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