Autonomy, Manipulation, and Respect (for Mortals)

Acta Analytica, 2019

This is a pre-print of an article published in Acta Analytica. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-019-00407-y The paper focuses on the nature and moral status of manipulation. I analyse a popular account of manipulation by Robert Noggle and assess a challenge that has been posed by Moti Gorin. I argue that Noggle's theory can fend off the challenge. The analysis is instructive in that it enables one to look more closely at the nature of manipulation. I argue, contrary to some proposed accounts, that manipulation essentially involves deception about the manipulator's intentions. Secondly, since manipulation contains an element of deception, it is, I maintain, prima facie immoral. Finally, I analyze and explain away several examples of allegedly morally non-problematic manipulation.

Journal of Studies in Social Sciences, 2014

The study investigates how manipulators and manipulation deviate from some law principles of communication. The research falls within a comprehensive framework of manipulation It starts from the four features of fraiming accredited by R. M. Entman (1993): define problem, diagnose causes, make moral judgments, and suggest remedies. Analytical, manipulation is framed as follows: a) manipulation is defined as influencing persuasive intervention, b) manipulation illicit causes consists of interests regarding the "other"; persuasive joints of manipulation are mostly unethical and consist of induction of toxic opinions, attitudes and behaviors; there are two remedies for manipulation: refusal manipulation and detection plus annihilation of manipulation. However, design the fundamental features of manipulation over raster of principles of the Communication Law. It is found that the manipulation violates the following principles of Communication Law: the principle of accountability and responsibility, the principle of truth, the principle of good faith, the principle of impartiality and objectivity.

International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, 2014

The study aims to explore and classify the theories of manipulation. Our thesis is that manipulation constitutes a form of manipulative utilisation of communication; in fact, manipulation is communication, is manipulative communication. Taking into account that under the action of manipulation the judgement of the manipulated is paralysed, in individualising the manipulative persuasive intervention, we emphasise that the effect of mental paralysis is achieved by the manipulator coordinating their efforts directly by means of the manipulating message with indirect influences induced by the situation of manipulation. In this regard, one may delimit two types of theories: the theory of message manipulation and theory of situational manipulation. The reality is that manipulation is message-situational and situational-message to the same extent.

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2006

Consider manipulation in which one agent, avoiding force, threat, or fraud mobilizes some non-concern motive of another so as to induce this other to behave or move differently than she would otherwise have behaved or moved, given her circumstances and her initial ranking of concerns. As an instance, imagine that I get us to miss the opening of a play that I have grudgingly agreed to attend by engaging your sublimated compulsive tendency to check the stove when we are halfway to the theatre. Such motive manipulation is, I take it, widely regarded as morally worrisome. If it really is morally worrisome, then we should be able to explain adequately why it is so. But existing condemnations of manipulation come up short in this regard. In this paper, I develop and defend a more plausible account of the moral status of this phenomenon. Key words autonomy. bypass conception of autonomy. historical conception of autonomy. manipulation. motive manipulation Manipulation comes in many guises. One agent might manipulate another by means of deception. She might, for instance, tell another falsely that she needs gas money to get her small children home from the county fair. Or a manipulator might employ a threat that does not rise to the level of coercion. She might, for instance, seek to seduce another by telling him that she will cease to be his friend unless he acquiesces to sex immediately. Or an agent might manipulate another by artificially constraining this other's options. She might, for instance, publicize another's secret vow to stop smoking to make it harder for him to bum cigarettes. I could go on, for variants of manipulation are legion. Perhaps one agent can manipulate another without intending to do so. But morally speaking, the most interesting cases of manipulation are intentional, not accidental. In what follows, I shall focus on a subset of such cases, understanding "manipulation" accordingly.

American philosophical quarterly

This is an author's archived version of a paper published in American Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 33 (1996): 43-55. Any references should be to the final published version.

AI and Ethics

Persuasive online technologies were initially designed and used to gain insights into the online behavior of individuals to personalize advertising campaigns in an effort to influence people and convince them to buy certain products. But recently, these technologies have blurred the lines and morphed into technologies that covertly and gradually manipulate people into attaining a goal that is predetermined by the algorithm and disregards the decision-making rights of the individual. This may lead to people exercising decisions that do not align with their personal values and beliefs, and rob them of their autonomy—an ethical principle, in the absence of which the application of these technologies may be unethical. However, not all technologies that are persuasive are necessarily manipulative which require the careful consideration of a couple of elements to determine whether or not technologies are manipulative and ultimately whether their application is ethical or not. In this arti...

The Routledge Handbook of Autonomy, 2022

It is commonly thought that manipulation threatens personal autonomy. This chapter investigates different explanations of this threat.

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2017

This paper introduces the category of 'non-deceptive manipulation that causes false beliefs', analyzes how it narrows the traditional scope of 'deception', and draws moral implications.

Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, 2023

This chapter helps to illuminate the practical meaning of respecting a person’s autonomy, by focusing on manipulation. Many instances of manipulation are intuitively morally worrisome in virtue of disrespecting the manipulee’s autonomy. On the basis of such normative intuitions, this chapter argues that “the manipulee’s autonomy” here can be understood as the manipulee’s “deliberative project:” her interrelated ongoing efforts to manage her conduct by committing and adhering to normative stances, ideals, policies, plans, goals, and the like. The significance of this precisification comes out in comparison to various alternatives. For example, it may be argued that some manipulations disrespect the manipulee’s autonomy merely due to diminishing the manipulee’s rationality. But this chapter suggests that the relevance of rationality in a particular type of situation depends on the extent to which being rational is important from the manipulee’s perspective, in light of the manipulee’s particular deliberative project. So diminishing the manipulee’s rationality is not necessarily disrespectful toward the manipulee's autonomy. *Authored by Ron Aboodi and Shlomo Cohen*