Archive | 2019
Beyond the Doctrine of Double Effect: A Formal Model of True Self-sacrifice
Abstract
The doctrine of double effect (\\(\\mathcal {{DDE}}\\)) is an ethical principle that can account for human judgment in moral dilemmas: situations in which all available options have large good and bad consequences. We have previously formalized \\(\\mathcal {{DDE}}\\) in a computational logic that can be implemented in robots. \\(\\mathcal {{DDE}}\\), as an ethical principle for robots, is attractive for a number of reasons: (1) Empirical studies have found that \\(\\mathcal {{DDE}}\\) is used by untrained humans; (2) many legal systems use \\(\\mathcal {{DDE}}\\); and finally, (3) the doctrine is a hybrid of the two major opposing families of ethical theories (consequentialist/utilitarian theories versus deontological theories). In spite of all its attractive features, we have found that \\(\\mathcal {{DDE}}\\) does not fully account for human behavior in many ethically challenging situations. Specifically, standard \\(\\mathcal {{DDE}}\\) fails in situations wherein humans have the option of self-sacrifice. Accordingly, we present an enhancement of our \\(\\mathcal {{DDE}}\\)-formalism to handle self-sacrifice; we end by looking ahead to future work.