James H. Moor

Work

• Ethical impact agents: machine systems carrying an ethical impact whether intended or not. Moor gives the example of a watch causing a worker to be on work on time. As well as Ethical impact agents there are Unethical impact agents. Certain agents can be unethical impact agents at certain times and ethical impact agents at other times. He gives the example of what he calls a 'Goodman agent', named after philosopher Nelson Goodman. The Goodman agent compares dates "this was generated by programming yearly dates using only the last two digits of the year, which resulted in dates beyond 2000 being misleadingly treated as earlier than those in the late twentieth century. Thus the Goodman agent was an ethical impact agent before 2000, and an unethical impact agent thereafter."
• Implicit ethical agents: machines constrained to avoid unethical outcomes.
• Explicit ethical agents: Machines which have algorithms to act ethical.
• Full ethical agents: Machines that are ethical in the same way humans are

Awards

• SIGCAS Making a Difference Award, 2003
• Barwise Prize, 2006

  Selected publications

• The Digital Phoenix: How Computers Are Changing Philosophy, Revised Edition,, Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publishers, 2000.
• Cyberphilosophy: The Intersection of Philosophy and Computing, Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publishers, 2002.
• The Turing Test: The Elusive Standard of Artificial Intelligence, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003.
• Nanoethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Nanotechnology, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007.
• The Logic Book, 5th Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, 2009.
• Some Implications of a Sample of Practical Turing Tests, Minds and Machines, Springer, 2013.