The Moral Status of Machines - Essay Example

While humans may qualify to be called machines keeping these factors in mind, there is a very important factor that humans contain that machines do not; Emotions. Humans have feelings. They can not only think, but also evaluate the pros and cons of different options and select the most suitable option in a given context. Machines do not have this capability. Some machines like computers do have the capability to evaluate the different variables of certain mathematical procedures, but that knowledge is fed into the computer by humans themselves. A computer does not have the capability to feel for something nor does any other machine. On this basis, it is irrational to define humans as complex machines. Hence, on the basis of the argument that humans are much more than complex machines, it is not justified to comment upon the moral status of machines as the laws of machines are different from those of humans. While a human can be sentenced to death for having committed the murder of another human, a machine cannot be dealt with in the same way since the machine cannot commit murders in the first place. Likewise, turning a computer off is not similar to committing murder.

In concluding, on the basis of the points discussed in this paper, it is wrong to think of the act of turning a computer off as murdering it because only living things can be murdered, non-living things cannot. It is inappropriate to call people machines on the basis of the complexity and immensity of their intellectual power because such a characterization overlooks the fact that humans have emotions as well which machines do not irrespective of their level of complexity.