CrossRef Open Access 2026

Austere Moral Ecologies and Artificial Agents

Manuel Vargas

Abstrak

Abstract There are underappreciated moral costs for deploying artificially intelligent agents in our present bureaucratically and market‐structured world. Currently, AI systems lack the interiority and mutual vulnerability required for genuine moral relationality. As such, their integration into social “nodes,” or places of individual and organizational interaction, make our moral ecology more austere, reducing morally sensitive interactions. In turn, this loss of morally sensitive nodes reduces the opportunities for developing moral skills, which typically benefit from moral and dialogic friction. The result is increased pressure to defer to institutional defaults and to tolerate an erosion of individual moral agency. Finally, this situation may decrease our desire for mutuality. Each of these things has consequences for Christian understandings of imago Dei , the epistemology of ethics, and ethical mutuality.

Penulis (1)

M

Manuel Vargas

Format Sitasi

Vargas, M. (2026). Austere Moral Ecologies and Artificial Agents. https://doi.org/10.1111/moth.70074

Akses Cepat

Lihat di Sumber doi.org/10.1111/moth.70074
Informasi Jurnal
Tahun Terbit
2026
Bahasa
en
Sumber Database
CrossRef
DOI
10.1111/moth.70074
Akses
Open Access ✓