# Scratch Pad *Quick notes, surfaced content, things to have on hand today* ## Baruzzo Oral Exam — Reference ### Passages to Press 1. **Neutrality + embodies values** — She claims ontological neutrality and that artefacts embody values in the same sentence. If values are relational properties rather than intrinsic ones, that's defensible — but she needs to say so clearly. > I support the following thesis: technology helps constitute moral agency, it can embody values but all responsibility relies on humans, on who made the technology. Technology doesn't have morality in itself as it is, intrinsically (ontological neutrality). Instead, morality stays in the relation between technology and the people (relational normativity). 2. **"Phenomenological"** — She conflates an epistemic claim (we can't observe others' moral reasoning) with an ontological one (morality is constituted by inner states). Ask what "phenomenological" is doing here. > I say it is inside, because it depends on beliefs, past experiences, freedom of choice, intentions. From the outside you will never be one hundred per cent sure about a person's thought that leads to a decision, it's something you cannot "see" with your five senses, it's something phenomenological. But we all know we have something inside. 3. **"Neutral intrinsically" → "constitutes the world"** — Two sentences apart and pulling in opposite directions. If artefacts genuinely constitute the moral world, in what sense are they neutral? > The object is neutral intrinsically, but we give it the power, we insert ethical and non ethical values in it. We, humans, see and use that object in a particular way, because we project our inside on the outside. Therefore, I claim technology helps constitute moral agency not because it has in itself (intrinsically), nor because it is a moral being (like we are); but because it constitutes and performs the world (extrinsically). 4. **Gun self-contradiction** — "He'll kill with or without a gun" immediately followed by the affordances point about pressure to pull the trigger. She holds both without noticing the conflict. > And yes, it's not guns that kill people, it is the people. In fact, if somebody wants to kill, he will do it if he has a gun or not; but we should also consider that there's a lot more pressure to pull the trigger if the man has the gun in his hand than if he doesn't. Following Gibson's affordances, the gun 'invites' a specific type of action. 5. **Target drift** — Moves from technology in general to AI/computers (Noorman & Johnson section) without flagging the shift or asking whether AI raises distinct questions from bridges and hammers. > Noorman & Johnson (2014) argue that the language we use (words like 'autonomous', 'intelligent', 'conscious') leads us to project human characteristics onto artifacts. This creates the illusion that computers possess a form of human-like intentionality. It is a linguistic error: do not confuse technical effectiveness with morality, the authors say. ### General Weaknesses - **Book-report structure**: Author says X, I agree/disagree — no sustained dialectical development of her own position. - **Charitable reconstruction**: Verbeek's mediation theory flattened to "man and machine merge." Her objections don't engage the strongest version. - **Sunset/mountain examples**: Don't anticipate the obvious reply — designed artefacts with intended functions are relevantly different from natural objects. - **"Ingenuity" claim**: "If somebody really wants to do something he can do it no matter what the design is" — undercuts her own thesis that technology constitutes the moral world. - **Gibson**: Name-dropped but not explicated. Affordances are relational properties — actually supports her thesis more than she realises. - **Chinese Room/p-zombie vs. Floridi**: Right instinct, but doesn't explain why these thought experiments bear on Floridi's deliberately functionalist framework. - **Brey critique**: "What knowledge is he adding?" — dismissive rather than analytically precise. ## Cicala Oral Exam — Reference ### Passages to Press 1. **"Moral delegation thesis" — original or relabelled Latour?** He presents this as his own contribution ("which I call"), but it's essentially Latour's delegation concept repackaged. Probe whether he can articulate what's genuinely novel here. Also framed as a "third way" beyond instrumentalism and determinism — but how does it actually differ from Verbeek's mediation? > In this work, I intend to propose and defend a third way, which I call the "moral delegation thesis" taking Latour's concept of delegation as a basis. For Bruno Latour, delegation is the act by which human beings entrust a task, an action or a moral prescription to an object. This process transforms a moral prescription into a mechanism. 2. **"Representative of our will, guaranteeing precision and consistency"** — Smuggles in a normative claim that consistency is morally desirable. Consistent enforcement of a bad norm is worse than inconsistent enforcement. Reliability treated as straightforwardly positive without interrogation. > The artefact is no longer just a piece of metal, but becomes a representative of our will, guaranteeing precision and consistency that humans do not always have. Delegation shifts the ethical effort from the subject to the object. 3. **"Functional agents and mediators"** — These do very different philosophical work. A mediator (Verbeek) transforms subject-world relations; a functional agent implies something closer to genuine agency. He collapses them without noticing the different commitments. > I will argue that artefacts are not neutral spectators, but act as functional agents and mediators. Morality does not reside exclusively within the subject but is distributed and deposited in matter and code through processes of delegation. 4. **"Artefacts have morality precisely because they structure our perception"** — Structuring perception ≠ having morality. Glasses structure perception; they don't have morality. The "precisely because" signals a tight inference that isn't there. > On the contrary, I defend the idea that artefacts have morality precisely because they structure our perception, deciding for us what is relevant and what is not. Following Peter-Paul Verbeek's phenomenology, we must admit that technology never stands between us and the world but is like a lens that helps to constitute reality. ### Unargued Strong Claims (examples to press) - "The artefact does not merely show a fact; it creates the moral situation itself." (§4) - "Without that technological delegate, the ethical dilemma would not even have the terms to be formulated." (§4) - "AI is never neutral because every decision it makes is an imposition of one value over another." (§6) - "If a technical network is configured to prioritize profit over safety, it is the entire network that is immoral." (§11) ### General Weaknesses - **Latour doing too much lifting**: No engagement with criticisms, especially the standard worry that symmetrical treatment of human/non-human actors blurs causal influence and genuine agency. This is the objection the essay most needs to handle. - **Distributed responsibility undermines itself**: §10 promises delegation *extends* responsibility; §11 argues "the choice belongs to the network itself" and morality is "no longer a human monopoly." These pull against each other. - **Ambiguity of central thesis**: Oscillates between modest claim (designers encode values, artefacts constrain behaviour) and strong claim (artefacts are delegated moral agents). Never disambiguated. - **Winner's bridges**: Treated as settled fact; historical accuracy contested. Also overstates permanence — bridges can be demolished or modified. - **AI section thin**: Value drift introduced via one example. No engagement with whether AI delegation is qualitatively different from speed-bump delegation. - **"Phenomenology" loose**: Appears in headings but actual phenomenological content thin. Verbeek's postphenomenological framework not properly explicated. --- # What's Happening *Active threads and today's activity — updated by /harvest* ## Active ## Sessions - 09:03 - "please add this to today's dauly note. if there..." — please add this to today's dauly note. if there is no note for today 6 Feb 20... - 09:03 - "please add this to today's dauly note. if there..." — please add this to today's dauly note. if there is no note for today 6 Feb 20... - 09:05 - "Please can you give me links for the most impor..." — Please can you give me links for the most important notes that have been crea... - 09:05 - "Please can you give me links for the most impor..." — Please can you give me links for the most important notes that have been crea... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 14:59 - "please such through my vault thoroughly, and se..." — please such through my vault thoroughly, and see if there is anything in my p... - 14:59 - "please such through my vault thoroughly, and se..." — please such through my vault thoroughly, and see if there is anything in my p... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 17:27 - "Plan multi-agent stress test of Floridi argument" — take a look at my generating philosophy session note and the various sections... - 17:27 - "Plan multi-agent stress test of Floridi argument" — take a look at my generating philosophy session note and the various sections... - 18:16 - "obsidian://open?vault=My%20Obsidian%20Vault&fil..." — obsidian://open?vault=My%20Obsidian%20Vault&file=Writing%2Fresearch%2Fgenerat... - 18:16 - "obsidian://open?vault=My%20Obsidian%20Vault&fil..." — obsidian://open?vault=My%20Obsidian%20Vault&file=Writing%2Fresearch%2Fgenerat... - 18:28 - "Find web-clipped Claude chat note" — sometime today i made a new note using obsidian web clipper. it was a chat wi... - 18:28 - "Find web-clipped Claude chat note" — sometime today i made a new note using obsidian web clipper. it was a chat wi... - 18:45 - "Rewrite manuscript scene in philosophical style" — User: obsidian://open?vault=My%20Obsidian%20Vault&file=Writing%2Fresearch%2Fg... - 18:45 - "Rewrite manuscript scene in philosophical style" — User: obsidian://open?vault=My%20Obsidian%20Vault&file=Writing%2Fresearch%2Fg... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... - 09:53 - "I have just added a note with the title "LLMs a..." — I have just added a note with the title "LLMs and analytic philosophy through... ## Actions ---