All Things Have Standing

In this beginning we ponder the foundations of our humanity. What is the basic psychology of human nature? What is the essence of the human being, and being human? What is time? What is the relationship between being and time? How does addressing these vital questions help us understand everyday life?

Human development is a path. How is our path different from other animals? What are our instincts for emotional attachment? Why are humans hyper-social uber-cooperative collaborators? What is culture? Why does culture engage our loyalties and stir our passions? And how does culture help us find meaning amidst existential anxiety?

Human beings can envision the future. How does this affect our thinking, feeling, and being? Is self - awareness a dreadful burden or the ultimate joy of being human, or both? What is the impact of the uniquely human awareness of personal mortality on behavior and motivation? Are there grounds for hope?

Narrative is thought to be the first use of human language. People have been telling stories and listening to stories since the inception of our species. Four storytellers from different cultures describe and discuss the rich heritage of stories in the human community.

A musical musing on the usefulness of human uncertainty

Beginning with the question “How can all things have ethical standing?” Prof. DiBona introduces traditional ideas behind Western thinking about otherness and how this has led to a culture of violence against each other and the natural world.

What is the “other”? How does altering our way of thinking about the other change how we anticipate – or expect – others to be and act? What is radical hospitality? What are its benefits?

Starting with the question “What is an ethics of things?” Prof. DiBona describes Prof. Benso’s joining of two traditions of Western thought. What does an examination of our way of talking about things teach us about our relationship to those things? What does “thing” mean? Are language and behavior conjoined?

In this culminating lecture in the story of the “other,” we reach the end of the beginning. Drawing on the powerful thinking of his contemporaries, Prof. DiBona guides us to an optimistic, life - affirming celebration of difference, and with Prof. Benso, calls for a daily life of tenderness and festivity. Is this a reason to hope?

Scholars from African, Pacific Indigenous, and Asian cultures share their professional and personal insights about what “all things have standing” means in their lives, to their emotional well-being, and in their fears and joy. What do these traditions have in common? What can Western culture learn from them? Our scholars share their wishes for humanity.

Dianne Dillon-Ridgley proposes a relationship with our physical environment that replaces what Martin Heidegger critically called “standing reserve” – the widely believed notion that all things have meaning only to the extent that they prove useful to humans.

Environmental lawyer Kathy Robb explains the relationship between ethics and the law. What do we mean when we say that our physical environment has standing?

Dianne Dillon-Ridgley calls for a thoughtful, deliberate process of designing our fate by “re-membering our future,” that is, populating our lives with specific elements of character like humility and justice.

Kathy Robb addresses the question: As we shift from a human centric to an ecocentric view of ethical and legal standing, which rights of personhood might be applied to things in our environment?

Dianne Dillon-Ridgley explores the nature of tenderness applied to the physical world and its relationship to justice. Using historical examples, she asks us to consider how making difficult decisions today can bring justice to what may be legal, but lacks morality and inclusion.

What is environmental justice? Environmental lawyer Kathy Robb explores the notion that, in addition to standing, entities need voice, information, and access to give power to enforcement on their behalf.

A satirical look at the morality of property rights and the environment.

Scholar Wendell Wallach, who has spent decades exploring the development of roboethics, is a “friendly skeptic” with regard to the advent of true artificial general intelligence (AGI). But he is very aware that we are moving into a period of functional morality for machines and, thus, may need to accept moral standing for these new beings.

Wendell Wallach explores capacities beyond reason – the suprarational – that are required for moral agency: hybrid systems that learn from the bottom up and apply moral models from the top down.

Wallach looks at the commonalities and differences between humans and advanced thinking machines to identify where the biggest challenges and strengths arise in AGI development – what humans have that machines do not, and what humans lack.

What kind of morality could machine morality be? Prof. Shannon Vallor raises complex ethical issues: Does rule-following constitute morality? What is the role of moral understanding in ethical standing? and more.

What would it take for intelligent machines to attain personhood? Prof. Shannon Vallor explores this question, deeply troubling to many and yet for others, a cause for a promising reassessment of what it means to be a person.

In this closing chapter of our journey through the ethics of artificial intelligence, Prof. Shannon Vallor explores the fundamental philosophical and practical question humanity must answer if we are to live harmoniously with smart machines: Is it possible to build a machine that has virtue?