Seite 2: Fields of Applied Ethics and Machine Ethics

Applied ethics refers to definable subject areas and generates individual or special ethics. These ethics, where relevant, I will present briefly in the following, and machine ethics and other relevant disciplines will be outlined [1, 4].

The subject of information ethics is the morality of (in) the information society. It investigates, how we (have to) behave morally when offering and taking advantage of information and communication technologies (ICT), information systems and digital media [4]. From a certain perspective, information ethics that comprises computer, network and new media ethics, is at the core of special ethics, because these must necessarily deal with it, since ICT and information systems penetrate all application areas.

Technology ethics deals with moral issues regarding the use of engineering and technology. It can concern the technology of vehicles or weapons as well as nanotechnology or nuclear power [4]. In the information society, where more and more technologies include computer technology, technology ethics is particularly closely connected with information ethics or even partially submerges in it.

The subject of machine ethics is the morality of machines, in particular of (partially) autonomous systems like chatbots, certain robots and drones, and autonomous cars [9]. As machine ethics can be considered the counterpart of human ethics it is notably not a field of applied ethics, but a new "main ethics". The concept of morality is quite controversial here. It may be noted, however, that autonomous systems have to make more and more decisions of moral relevance and that these can be also explicitly morally justified, for example in annotated decision trees [5]. When robot ethics is not exactly understood as part of machine ethics, it can be associated with information and technology ethics.

Social robotics deals with (partially) autonomous machines, which interact and communicate with humans in compliance with social rules and which are realized sometimes in humanoid shape, and which are mobile [4]. In this context, some experts allow only physically existing robots, but others also virtually implemented robots such as crawlers, chatbots, social bots and intelligent agents. Social robots often pretend feelings, and one speaks of "emotional and social robotics". If the machines have to be able to take morally adequate decisions, machine ethics is again in demand.

Social sciences such as sociology and psychology theoretically and empirically investigate people’s social lives and thereby their individual concerns. The subjects of sociology are the prerequisites, processes and consequences of living together as humans in the form of agents and patients of acts. The subjects of psychology are the experience and behavior of humans in the course of their lives.