This is a great question, and one with a very long history. There's a key ambiguity in it though, that should be clarified at the start: 'what would it have to be for us to consider it sentient?' might be read metaphysically or epistemologically. To read it metaphysically is to ask what, in fact, is sufficient for the robot to be sentient; to read it epistemologically is to ask what evidence would be sufficient for us, or any third party, to judge that the robot is sentient. The difference is important because it might be that there is some essential feature to sentience, but it is not one which would ever allow us to judge with any confidence/reliability that some creature other than ourselves possesses it. ....

That said, a good starting point for you would be Descartes's Discourse on Method, where he argues (in brief) that the possession of genuine linguistic competence and general rationality are marks of the 'mental', or of 'sentience' broadly construed; he holds that no purely mechanical/physical account could ever explain why a creature demonstrates those properties, and while his account is dated, there's no question that 'language' and 'reason' remain very challenging things even today, for researchers in Artificial Intelligence to instantiate in 'robots.' Then, after Descartes, skip a few centuries and read John Searle's famous and controversial paper, "Minds, Brains, and Programs" originally in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, in 1980 -- which set of a decades-long debate over whether any computer or computer program could ever actually instantiate mental states (as opposed to merely mimic them). If you read that paper, and then google 'responses to Searle's Minds Brains Programs' (or more generally 'responses to Searle's Chinese Room Thought Experiment') you will get plenty for you to chew over as you contemplate your excellent question!

hope that's a useful start --

ap

The other classic paper on this issue is Alan Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", from 1950, which articulates what has come to be known as the "Turing Test". Turing's idea was to set up an experiment. A modern version might use some kind of internet chat program. You are talking with two other "people". One really is a person. The other is a computer. You can talk to them for as long as you like, about whatever you like. Then if you can't tell the difference, Turing says, the computer is intelligent. Obviously, this is, at first blush, what Andrew calls an "epistemological" approach to the problem, but Turing doesn't see it just that way.

Let me mention, by the way, that 2012 is also the "Alan Turing Year", celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth. Turing had a very interesting, and tragic, life. Not only was he one of the founders of modern computer science, he put his genius to work for the British military during World War II and helped crack the German codes. The tragic part lies in Turing's being prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952 and then being forced to take female hormones as "treatment" instead of being sent to prison. He committed suicide in 1954, at the age of 41.

"I recognize that there is some not inconsiderable paradox in doubting the very idea of being able to form a thought and using thought to achieve that doubt". Well spotted! Suppose that your doubts about memory lead you this: "I cannot trust any thought, including this one". Where do you go from there? It doesn't look as though the paradoxical nature the thought undermines it in such a way that you can conclude that it is false, and proceed to trust some thoughts. It sort of leaves you with nowhere to go.

I agree with Stephen. Memory is not that unreliable. It is much less reliable than we think. When we seem to remember things our brains seem to do a lot of construction and interpretation, and present to us a partly made-up image of some past even as if it were a perfectly accurate representation. This can get us into trouble. But our short-term memory is pretty good and serves its purpose. It is not hard to keep track of the thoughts involved in a short line of reasoning. It also gets a lot easier if we write them down. We can the create longer lines of reasoning by understanding shorter ones and stringing their conclusions together, keeping track of the overall structure. Memory, combined with pen and paper (or today's equivalents) is good enough to support reason as a discursive process.

Very interesting question, but as a non-kant specialist I would answer this. It's not clear to me that the p/n distinction is a metaphysical one, i.e. one between two different kinds of objects, one 'out there in itself' and one 'in here, as perceived by our minds." Rather it seems to me more an epistemological one, ie two different ways of thinking about one and the same objects: there's the sun-in-itself, and the sun-as-it-appears, but that is one object (the same sun) thought about two different ways, not two distinct objects. (Perhaps Kant scholars interpret the distinction differently ....) But on htis understanding, the noumenal doesn't seem so exotic or supernatural or require a leap of faith, etc.; it just seems a reflection of the (perhaps obvious) fact that in thinking and perceiving about x we cannot but employ the cognitive apparatus we have, and that that apparatus will influence the process in various ways ... Moreover, "to reject the supernatural" could also be understood purely within the phenomenal realm: one who rejects the supernatural so construed denies that the world-as-it-appears contains any beings or phenomean that override the various laws of that world .... So in both cases (where the p/n distinction is epistemic and where we restrict supernatural to the p world) we could reject the supernatural w/o rejecting the noumenal ....

hope that's useful--

ap

This strong position seems awfully black and white to me. It's easy enough to distinguish "failing to accomplish goal x" from "failing to accomplish goal y," generally speaking, so why not use that? So of course it's plausible that something would fail to accomplish its creator's intended goals while inadvertently accomplishing some other "goal." Of course, that latter sounded awkward -- what is it to have a goal (for a project such as a film) if not a deliberate or intentional one, and what is success if not 'fulfilling one's intended goal"? In other words, if (in your example) the film was not intended to be hilarious then it didn't have the goal of being hilarious, in which case it could not be counted as "successful" if "success" = fulfilling one's goals ... But then again, "success" means different things -- not merely 'accomplishing one's goal' but (in this case, say) "making money" or "making people laugh" etc.... But then again, again, as I think more about it, I'm leaning towards the view that we SHOULD define the success of a venture as "accomplishing its goals" -- so in your example that film would count as a failure, and a miserable one at that, after all, despite being "good" at making people laugh.

Thanks for an interesting question!

ap

This is an interesting and difficult question. One might start with the presumption that a company's hiring may be conducted in whatever way its top officers deem most advantageous. Thus imagine a company that has two positions to fill and is considering four candidates. The hiring officers rank these candidates in the following order: Alice, Ben, Celia, David. So they would like to hire Alice and Ben. But unfortunately Alice is married to David, and she will decline unless David is also made an offer. So the hiring officers discuss whether the firm is better off with Alice and David or with Ben and Celia. They determine that the Alice-David combination is more advantageous, and so they promise Alice that, if she accepts, David will also be hired.

Does Ben have a complaint in this case? I don't think so. It is true that, other things equal, he would add more value to the firm than David would. But other things are not equal: if Ben is hired over David, then Alice will decline; whereas if David is hired over Ben, then Alice will accept. The firm prudently prefers Alice-David over Ben-Celia, and Ben has no good claim that the firm should reward some specific merit that is distinct from contribution to the firm's overall success. In the relevant sense, David does contribute more than Ben after all because he ensures Alice's services for the company.

Despite this presumption, spousal hiring might still be deemed unethical on two distinct grounds. First, participation in a hiring practice might be unethical because of its large-scale effects. Here is a clear-cut example. Firms have reason to hire people whom their customers will like. If most customers have some religious or racial prejudice, then the practice of preferring job candidates whom customers will like constitutes systematic discrimination against job candidates of the disliked religion or race. Firms ought not to participate in such a pattern of discrimination even if they are legally permitted to do so. Does this example have an analogue in spousal hiring? It might. There might be in some society a group of people held in low esteem -- short males, say -- who find it hard to find a spouse. The social disadvantage of this group would be compounded by a practice of spousal hiring: while short males are very rarely beneficiaries of spousal hires (nearly all of them are involuntary bachelors), they would much more often lose opportunities on account of spousal hires. If such a situation obtained, firms have a moral reason not to engage in spousal hires, at least in cases where the passed-over candidate would be a member of the disadvantaged group.

The second ground for judging spousal hiring unethical despite the presumption is connected to the fact that those insiders who can influence the hiring process do not always act in the best interest of the firm. Imagine a case where three candidates have applied for a job opening. In terms of qualifications, it seems rather clear that the candidates should be ranked in the order Frank, Gina, Henry. But Henry's wife Edith is already working for the firm, and she lets it be known that she would leave if someone other than Henry were hired. Now Edith is actually less qualified than Gina; if Frank were hired and Edith left, the firm would -- with Frank and Gina -- be better off than it would be with Edith and Henry. So the firm would be well advised to ignore Edith's threat. But Edith lobbies the people she knows in the firm and pressures them to help her get Henry hired. If the relevant people succumb to this lobbying and damage the firm by offering the job to Henry rather than to Frank, then their conduct would normally be unethical by violating their fiduciary duty to the firm in a way that also unreasonably deprives Frank of a job offer he merits.

I have sketched reasons of two kinds that, if present, might make a spousal hire unethical. I don't think such reasons are decisive -- there might always be further morally significant reasons in play on the other side (e.g., Henry needs the job to survive because his daily medicine is unaffordable without the company's health insurance policy). But I do think that these reasons typically support the conclusion that a spousal hire is unethical -- and that most cases of unethical spousal hiring involve self-dealing by insiders (reasons of the second kind).

This is an important and difficult question. If we answer in the affirmative, then suspects are likely to know that they may be lied to by law enforcement agents. Still, they may nonetheless often be fooled or tripped up (they don't know when an officer is lying and when she is being truthful), and this in turn could lead to more convictions of guilty people which in turn would reduce recidivism and increase deterrence, thereby reducing the victimization of citizens by criminals.

I would think that a practice of telling lies that may be helpful for finding the truth (e.g., by eliciting a full confession) is justifiable if the reduction in crime it engenders is sufficiently large -- and this is quite large. Such a practice should be carefully circumscribed and supervised to minimize harm and to suppress abuse. And the lies should be revealed to those who end up not being charged -- and revealed also to those who will be charged, and before their trial.

Circumscription is important. Lies should not be very painful (e.g., telling a suspect falsely that his beloved mother has died) nor risk provoking a false confession (e.g., telling a suspect falsely that his buddy has implicated him and that he can save himself from the death penalty only by admitting to the crime in question). An example of a permissible lie would be telling a suspect falsely that a certain witness to what happened has survived and will be able to testify.

Part of what makes it wrong to hit or torture people is surely that such behavior causes pain. It follows naturally that, when such conduct is wrong, it is more wrong when it inflicts more pain. An unprovoked slap on your thigh by a stranger is a lesser wrong than a full strength blow to your nose.

By the same logic, it would seem to be less wrong to hit a stranger if you ensure (perhaps by first inviting him to a good glass of Scotch or through prior local anaesthesia) that he feels little or no pain. And it would then also seem less wrong if you hit his "bad" leg (where he has lost feeling after a botched appendicitis) rather than his "good" leg (which has normal pain sensitivity). This is easily extended to saying that it is less wrong to hit one stranger's "bad" leg than another stranger's "good" leg. And this in turn pretty much is the proposition you query: other things equal, a behavior is less wrong if it causes less pain.

Of course, it does not follow that a behavior is not wrong if it causes no pain. Hitting someone may well be wrong even if it causes no pain at all. It invades the other's personal space, possibly humiliates him, violating his dignity and self-respect. Still, the behavior would be even more wrong if it also inflicted pain.