Hello, dear friend, you can consult us at any time if you have any questions, add WeChat: THEend8_
COMP4920 - First Essay Questions
Word length - 800w-1000w in total (not including bibliography or footnotes).
Due date - Week 4 - Monday March 4, 18:00.
Value - 20% of final mark.
Please submit your essay via turnitin.
Answer either one (1), or two (2), of the following questions. If you are answering one (1)
of the following questions, your answer must not be greater than 1000w. If you are answering
two (2) of the following questions, then the combined word count for both of your answers
must not be greater than 1000w in total. Do not answer more than two (2) of the following
questions.
1. Expound non-cognitivism in meta-ethics. Do you find it plausible? Why or why not?
Justify - that is give reasons for - your answer.
2. Assume that computer science is being established as a licensed profession (along the
lines of law and medicine). Assume also that you have been tasked with the formulation
of the ethical guidelines for the governing association of this new profession. How might
the use of act versus rule utilitarianism to motivate the ethical guidelines for this profes-
sional association of computer science result in different professional guidelines? Which
of act and rule utilitarianism do you prefer for this purpose? Why? Justify - that is give
reasons for - your answer.
3. Expound and assess rule-based/Kantian ethics. Analyse the extent to which such an
ethics might be used to design an automated ethics. What do you think that the risks
and opportunities of such an automated ethics might be? Why? Justify your answer
with explicit, detailed, expositional reference to at least one of the suggested readings in
section 1.3 below.
4. Is kicking a robot dog morally wrong, or morally permissible? In your answer, make
explicit detailed reference to virtue ethics. Which answer or answers might virtue ethics
give us? Are any of these answers correct? Why? Justify your answer with explicit
reference to at least one of the suggested readings in section 1.4 below.
1
5. In The uselessness of AI ethics (2022), Luke Munn criticises much practice in AI ethics.
Do you think that Munn’s criticism is justified, and that his proposed solutions are suf-
ficient? Why? Justify your argument with explicit detailed reference to Elettra Bietti’s
From ethics washing to ethics bashing: a view on tech ethics from within moral philoso-
phy (2020). Please see section 1.5 below for further details.
This is the end of your questions. There are no more questions.
Please read on for essay tips, referencing guidelines, UNSW’s plagiarism protocols, and an
important rule with regard to ChatGPT.
2
1 Essay writing tips
1.1 For Question 1 above
This question is for those of you who like to delve straight into the more abstract, theoretical
issues.
Note - a good essay will engage with contrary points of view, and provide responses to them.
Question 1 is a question. So your essay needs to be an answer to this question. Then, and
this is super important, you need to give reasons to your reader for why it is that you think
your answer(s) is(are) the correct one(s). Your goal is to convince your reader that you are
right!
Question 1 is written in such a way as to make it easier for you to do all of this. The first thing
that Question 1 asks you to do is to explicate and explain error theory. So, best to do this as
clearly and succinctly as you can. Get to the point right way. Start fast. Note that there is note
than one variety of error theory.
The second thing that Question 1 asks you is state whether or not your find error theory plausi-
ble. Your answer here might turn on which variety of error theory you are considering.
The third thing that Question 1 asks you is to dig in to the reasons that you have for your
answer(s) above.
No matter what your answer here, it is the next part of Question 1 that is super important.
The next thing that Question 1 asks you to do is to justify to the reader why the reasons that you
give your reader are good reasons. This is the important part! Your goal here is to convince
your reader that your reasons are the best reasons.
Note again - a good essay will engage with contrary points of view, and provide responses to
them.
The trick here is to anticipate possible objections to your arguments, and then respond to these
with more arguments. An argument is a reason or reasons for believing a statement or claim.
Constructing good arguments is a skill that we learn through practice. Here, like all essays, it
is important that you get a good draft up and running so that you can reflect upon it and revise it.
1.2 For Question 2 above
This is a fun question. Whereas Question 1 above is largely theoretical, Question 2 is more
applied. It really is a question - well actually it is a bunch of questions - and this means that
your essay should be an answer to it. Then, and this is super important, you need to give
reasons to your reader for why it is that you think your answer(s) is the correct one. Your goal
is to convince your reader that you are right! So, let’s move through Question 2 carefully, one
sub-question at a time.
The first thing that Question 2 asks you to do is to make a pair of assumptions - so you do
not need to justify or give reasons for these. Firstly that computer science is about to become
a licensed profession. This means that one could become barred from practicing computer
science legally. Secondly that your job is to draw up guidelines for the association that governs
this profession.
The third thing that Question 2 asks you to do is to explain how you think that act and rule
3
utilitarianism might cause one to design different guidelines for such an association, should
either of these utilitarianisms be used to constrain the design of such guidelines. So, this part
of the question is of a “compare and contrast” nature.
The third thing that Question 2 asks you is this - do you prefer either act or rule utilitarianism
for the purpose above? A sensible start here would be to explain both act and rule utilitarianism.
It is open for you to say that you think that both act and rule utilitarianism are so terrible for
the task that you dislike each of them equally. The important thing is that you state why it is
that you think this, and give detailed reasons for your belief. Similarly, it is open for you to say
that, on balance, you think that both act and rule utilitarianism are good, and equally good at
the task. Here too, the important thing is that you provide em reasons.
Note again again - a good essay will engage with contrary points of view, and provide responses
to them.
1.3 For Question 3 above
The first thing that Question 3 is asking you to do is to expound Kantian ethics. ”Expound” is
just a fancy way of asking you describe and explain something in detail.
The second thing that Question 3 is asking you to do is to assess Kantian ethics. So, this is a
great opportunity for you to state what it is that you think about Kantian ethics, why you think
it, and what reasons you have for your reader to agree with you that you are right!
As always, a very useful thing to do here is to anticipate and articulate possible objections to
your point of view, and to then respond to them in detail.
The third thing that Question 3 ask you is just how useful you think a Kantian ethics might
be for automated ethics. Another name for automated ethics is “machine ethics”. Automated
ethics is the automation of ethical/moral decision making. In other words, it is the attempt to
make moral decision making computable. This is just to say that it is that attempt to subsume
moral decision making within a finite mechanical process.
The fourth and fifth things that Question 3 asks you respectively are to give reasons for your
answer to the third thing, and to then argue for and justify these reasons. I am sure that you can
see a pattern here by now :)
Again as always, a very useful thing to do here is to anticipate and articulate possible objec-
tions to your point of view, and to then respond to them in detail.
Here are some readings that will help you with your answer to Question 1. Note that all of
them can be found on Google Scholar (you will need to be inside the UNSW network to access
some of them, so VPN is essential if you are not on campus):
Manna, R. and Nath, R. (2021): Kantian Moral Agency and the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence,
Problemos vol. 100, pp. 139–151.
Nath, R., and Sahu, V. (2021): The problem of machine ethics in artificial intelligence, AI &
Society, 35:103–111.
Tonkens, R. (2009): A Challenge for Machine Ethics, Minds & Machines (2009) 19:421–438.
Singh, L. (2022): Automated Kantian Ethics: A Faithful Implementation.
Online at https://github.com/lsingh123/automatedkantianethics
4
1.4 For Question 4 above
The first thing that Question 4 asks you is what you think about the moral status is of kicking a
robot dog. A good answer here would give some space to the considerations that motivate your
answer.
The second thing that Question 4 ask you is to engage in detail with virtue ethics! This is fun,
as there is a lot of great literature out there on this very same topic. Think about it now for just a
moment. Neither utilitarianism nor Kantian ethics give as any obvious reason for why it is that
kicking a robot dog is the wrong thing to do. In spite of this, some people have felt that there is
/something/ wrong with kicking a robot dog. There is some great literature on this topic. The
videos of the Boston Dynamics robot dog ”Spot” being kicked led to a very interesting debate,
and virtue ethics payed a central role in it.
Again as always, a very useful thing to do here is to anticipate and articulate possible objec-
tions to your point of view, and to then respond to them in detail.
The other things that Question 1 asks you require you to engage with this literature. Here is
the literature. Again, note that all of them can be found on Google Scholar (you will need to
be inside the UNSW network to access some of them, so VPN is essential if you are not on
campus):
Coeckelbergh, M. (2021): How to Use Virtue Ethics for Thinking About the Moral Standing
of Social Robots: A Relational Interpretation in Terms of Practices, Habits, and Performance,
International Journal of Social Robotics, 13:31–40.
Sparrow, S. (2021): Virtue and Vice in Our Relationships with Robots: Is There an Asymmetry
and How Might it be Explained? International Journal of Social Robotics (2021) 13:23–29.
Coeckelbergh, M. (2021): Does kindness towards robots lead to virtue? A reply to Sparrow’s
asymmetry argument, Ethics and Information Technology (2021) 23:649–656.
Coeckelbergh, M. (2021): Should We Treat Teddy Bear 2.0 as a Kantian Dog? Four Argu-
ments for the Indirect Moral Standing of Personal Social Robots, with Implications for Think-
ing About Animals and Humans, Minds and Machines (2021) 31:337–360.
1.5 For Question 5 above
Question 5 makes explicit reference to the two readings that are on webcms for the lecture on
ethics washing. I have combined them there into a single pdf. There is no need for you to look
for extra readings for Question 5. However, if you want to do so, then there is certainly no
prohibition against it!
One thing to do in this case would be to look at the citations in Munn and Bietti’s articles and
follow your interests. Another thing to do would be to look up these two articles on Google
Scholar, and look up more recent papers that have references Munn and Bietti’s articles.
This is how own conducts one’s own research. Question 2 is exciting, but the obvious challenge
is that your essay is due before we cover this material in the lectures! So, this question is for
those of you like to live life on the edge :)
The most important hing to do here is the provide an answer to the question! And to give rea-
sons for your answer of course. Good reasons. Reasons that anticipate and respond to possible
5
objections.
2 Referencing guidelines
Your essay must follow the Harvard style in-text referencing system as described here:
https://www.student.unsw.edu.au/harvard-referencing
3 Plagiarism rules
It is very, very important that you do not fall afoul of UNSW’s plagiarism rules. You need to
read through and understand all of the following:
https://www.student.unsw.edu.au/plagiarism
I cannot over-emphasise just how serious this is.
4 ChatGPT
I have read through the recent document from UNSW’s Pro-Vice Chancellor on the issue of
ChatGPT. I find that this assessment in SENG/COMP4920 falls under the following rules
for simple editing assistance:
For this assessment task, you may use standard editing and referencing software,
but not Generative AI. You are permitted to use the full capabilities of the standard
software to answer the question (e.g. you may wish to specify particular software
such as Microsoft Office suite, Grammarly, etc.).
If the use of generative AI such as ChatGPT is detected, it will be regarded as
serious academic misconduct and subject to the standard penalties, which may
include 00FL, suspension and exclusion.
Here too, I really cannot over-emphasise just how serious this is.
5 Marking Guidelines
Hi everyone!
Thank you in advance for all of your essays - I know that they will be fantastic.
Below are some marking guidelines. Please note however, that the essay questions denote open
problems. This means that there will be many ways to satisfy the guidelines below. An open
problem is one for which there are many good solutions. They are different in kind to closed
problems - for which the correct solution is very tightly constrained, and for which the search
space for solutions is very limited. Answers to open problems cannot be auto-marked.
By contrast, the search space for open problems is big. Really big. For open problems, you
cannot just follow a set of codified instructions or a flow chart or a check-list, and arrive at a
good solution/answer.
For each of the questions, I have written already a guide to what a good answer involves on
the question sheet itself (under Assignments¿First Essay). Please do read through this advice
carefully!
There is further general advice at the bottom of this document.
6
Marking Guidelines:
<50% (FAIL) - You would have to try hard to fail, or just be very very late with you essay and
loose so many marks that it takes you below 50
50%-64% (PASS) - You answered the question(s) and gave basic reasons for your answers.
You demonstrated a basic grasp of the relevant course material.
65%-74% (CREDIT) - You answered the question(s) and gave reasons for your answers. You
anticipated objections to your reasons, articulated them, and articulated your responses to these
objections. You demonstrated a competent grasp of the course material. In your essay, you
engaged with the relevant course material at the relevant points in such a way for it to support
the points that you were making.
75%-84% (DISTINCTION) - You answered the question(s) and gave reasons for your answers.
You anticipated objections to your reasons, articulated them, and articulated your responses to
these objections. You demonstrated an excellent grasp of the course material. So much so that
your essay could be used to explain it to a third party. In your essay, you engaged with the
relevant course material at the relevant points in such a way for it to support the points that you
were making. You did this in a very fine-grained manner - locating individual arguments and
claims and citing them correctly. You reconstructed complex points and arguments from the
literature in your own words. Your arguments were clear.
>85% (HIGH DISTINCTION) - Stunning. All of the above qualities for a distinction, plus your
essay contains convincing arguments not anticipated by a marker, and makes genuine, novel
contributions to the issues. This might be achieved by having demonstrated an extraordinarily
subtle analysis of the relevant issues, or by having read and understood a wide range of relevant
literature that you discovered as a function of your own research, or by a combination of the
two.
General advice:
If you have not started on your first draft already, then get going! Then revise the draft as many
times as you can before the deadline. Essays left to the last minute are usually obvious (and not
very good).
You may write in the first person if you wish.
You are very welcome to pursue further research into the literature on relevant areas. Please
do be sure to use peer-reviewed academic sources (and not random magazine articles or videos
etc.).
Give reasons for the claims that you make, and back up claims about other people’s claims by
referring to the relevant literature and citing it properly.
Write your introduction at the very end. By this I mean write the rest of your essay first, and
then go back and write the introduction.
Read your drafts out loud to yourself. Trust me, you will spot a bunch of opportunities for
improvement that you will not spot otherwise.
A short sentence is a good sentence. English does not like long sentences. A long sentence in
English is a bad sentence.