Hi folks
In following the thinking on Artificial Moral Agents it becomes clear that "wisdom" and the "teaching of wisdom" need serious addressment.
For example, I see no evidence that a repurposing of the university around such current problems such as climate change, global warming or resource management constitutes teaching of wisdom. Rather it is more of an example of a bottom up approach to addressing larger issues such as "Ethics".
There is an interesting passage in "Moral Machines":
"In 1975, the same year Holland [John] invented genetic algorithms, E. O. Wilson proposed that the science of sociobiology might give rise to a 'precise account of the evolution of ethics.' Putting these two ideas together raises the prospect that A-life could produce moral agents. If the foundational values of human society are rooted in humans' biological heritage, then it might be reasonable to presume that these values would reemerge in a sufficiently rich simulation of natural selection.
Both the issues surrounding A-life or artificial intelligence and the current concerns around the environment are interesting starting points for arriving at, for example, an idea of what "ethics" might be. We can attack this from a global perspective, the grand theory, and try to reach conclusions at the level of praxis or one can do this bottom up by assembling evidence and trying to fit the pieces into a grand vision.
Both approaches are used by the hard sciences separately or in combination, the results, of which, have proven to yield dramatic insights validating the methodologies and where they have been applied. As I have stated previously, such "science envy" has never proven to be transferable to the humanities and social arena, except, perhaps, EO Wilson's attempt at socio-biology in recent times, skipping over the gross arena of eugenics. And alternatives to the science method have proven elusive or far from being as comprehensive or universal.
In fact, I would argue that using issues such as the environment as an approach to education turns a university into a vocational school more focused on problems than in the original intent of the western university as embodied in the Germanic tradition.
In the US "school" has become preK->16 with the original idea of an academic community relegated to the level of PhD programs but at both ends (16 and 20) there is an emphasis on the practical- the world outside of The Academy. This, in some institutions has weakened the humanities because it has been hard to define what these graduates would do with their investment.
The problems that AMA's present point out that we are a long way from reaching such a keen understanding that we can continue the downward slope to a pragmatic approach to post secondary education at any level.
thoughts?
tom
tom abeles
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