Artificial agency, consciousness, and the criteria for moral agency: what properties must an artificial agent have to be a moral agent?
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There is general agreement that moral agency requires the capacity to perform intentional (or purposeful) actions, understand moral norms, and make decisions based on moral norms.
“While the concept of moral agency, like the concept of consciousness, is controversial, there is general agreement that moral agency requires the capacity to perform intentional (or purposeful) actions, understand moral norms, and make decisions based on moral norms.”
From The ethics of using artificial intelligence in scientific research: new guidance needed for a new tool (2025) · cites this paper as [95]
Moral agency capacities presuppose additional capacities such as consciousness, self-awareness, personal memory, perception, general intelligence, and emotions.
“These capacities also presuppose additional capacities, such as consciousness, self-awareness, personal memory, perception, general intelligence, and emotions [46, 95, 213].”
From The ethics of using artificial intelligence in scientific research: new guidance needed for a new tool (2025) · cites this paper as [95]
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In AI We Trust: Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, and Reliability
Ryan, M. (2020) · Science and Engineering Ethics · doi:10.1007/s11948-020-00228-y · Cited by 600 · see citing works
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“These capacities also presuppose additional capacities, such as consciousness, self-awareness, personal memory, perception, general intelligence, and emotions [46, 95, 213].”
Critiquing the Reasons for Making Artificial Moral Agents
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Can artificial intelligences be moral agents?
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Do Algorithms Shape Character? Considering Algorithmic Ethical Subjectivation
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Distributed Cognition and Distributed Morality: Agency, Artifacts and Systems
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Perspectives about artificial moral agents
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Köhler, S. (2020) · Science and engineering ethics · doi:10.1007/s11948-020-00259-5 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
“6 There a good reasons to make this assumption (see e.g. Himma 2009; Purves et al. 2015; Sparrow 2007), but independently of this, questions of who is responsible when such AI perform actions with harmful outcomes are also only really interesting if they are not moral agents.”
BackgroundDesigning robots that do no harm: understanding the challenges of Ethics for Robots
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Artificial moral agents: should machines take ethical responsibility?
Reiter, P., Norman, U., Weinberger, N., & Bruno, B. (2025) · 2025 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts (ARSO) · doi:10.1109/arso64737.2025.11124921 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
- Authors
- Himma, K. E.
- Affiliations
- Seattle Pacific University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Himma, Kenneth Einar
- ORCID
- Himma, Kenneth Einar
- Venue
- Ethics and Information Technology
- Published
- 2008-08-15
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 19-29
- ISSN
- 1388-1957 (ISSN-L)
- 1572-8439
- OpenAlex
- W2023377725
- Cited by
- 276
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 40 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 9 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 35.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Ethics and Information Technology (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Literary and Philosophical Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophical Ethics and Theory
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Keywords
- artificial agency, moral agency, consciousness, artificial intelligence, accountability, pain
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