Administrative Information
| Title | Virtue Ethics |
| Duration | 30 |
| Module | A |
| Lesson Type | Interactive Session |
| Focus | Ethical - Ethics Fundamentals |
| Topic | Virtue in ethical decisions |
Keywords
Virtue,Aristotle,Ethics,
Learning Goals
- Learner is able to prepare argumentation for an AI related case study.
- Learner can formulate their own point of view in relation to virtue ethics, and discuss it with peers.
- Learner is able to create their own personal virtue and value profile.
Expected Preparation
Learning Events to be Completed Before
Obligatory for Students
None.
Optional for Students
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [1]
References and background for students
None.
Recommended for Teachers
- The Maslow pyramid
Maslow's hierarchy of needs, including his five categories of need and specific examples (adapted from Maslow, 1943, Maslow, 1954/1970),
Lesson materials
- Slides: Support material for the interactive session on virtue ethics
Instructions for Teachers
This session requires some craft from the lecturer as the the personal virtue/value profile is not something to share with classmates or the lecturer. This needs to be clarified right away, the students should work under the assumption that whatever they sketch on paper will remain for themselves. The lecturer needs to ensure that students won't peek into each other's work to create a safe environment. Besides these notes, the sessions might be organized considering the following aspectes/topics:
- Everyone take a piece of paper. No cloud-based solutions.
- Introduce a hierarchical system of values, like the Maslow pyramid
- Clarify that virtues in virtue ethics are often, but not always and necessarily hierarchical
- The point of making it hierarchical is that in the next step we can ask the students to start from the top and try to grasp what 1) the ultimate value is what they strive for (a state, like happiness, inner peace, contentedness, professional success, fun) 2) what their highest virtue aspiration is (a personal characteristic, like courage, honesty, etc). For both, we ask them to create subsumed levels (things that support the thing on the top, recursively.
- When the theory is known, we put it into practice
- Ask them to try and make connections between the value and the virtue graph. Which supports which item? Draw arrows.
- We don't discuss these, preferably not even for the bolder students that will offer this. We ask them to destroy it or put it into a safe place but not share, and perhaps revisit it in a year.
- Students will try to create their own personal virtue and value profile, and their own hierarchical system of values.
- Discuss general questions and explain that the point of the exercise is self-reflection.
Topics to cover
- Introduction and preparation (5 min)
- Interactive discussion (moderated) (20 min)
- Wrap-up and take aways (5 mins)
Acknowledgements
The Human-Centered AI Masters programme was Co-Financed by the Connecting Europe Facility of the European Union Under Grant â„–CEF-TC-2020-1 Digital Skills 2020-EU-IA-0068.