Granting artificial intelligences (AIs) moral status creates a set of ethical dilemmas stemming from our ability to control their preferences. As an illustrative example, if we could program an artificial system worthy of moral agency to experience suffering when encountering the color violet, then we appear to have created a scenario where we have a moral imperative to remove any violet objects from our surroundings. AIs in this situation can effectively “hijack” our moral landscape, altering the moral valence of arbitrary (...) world states. In this work, we formalize the phenomenon of moral hijacking, analyze its implications from the perspective of several ethical systems, and propose recommendations for constraining novel preference creation in moral agents. (shrink)

Antiochus, bishop of Ptolemais (d. 407?) is a little studied author. The analysis of the few pages that survive of his oeuvre shows that he was at the crossroads between Antioch and Cappadocia, but largely under the influence of the latter in his terminology and theological tenets. He shows strong links with both Severian of Gabala, an author somehow acquainted with the Cappadocian positions, and a Cappadocian Pseudo-Chrysostom active in Constantinople around the year 390. His predication may have contributed to (...) shape the mariology in Proclus of Constantinople (both authors certainly knew each other). The Excursus evokes the connection between the unique unidentified fragment of the florilegium transmitted by ms. Paris, BnF, grec 1491 and the pseudo-chrysostomic homily In natale Redemptoris (CPG 5068). (shrink)

Moral panic theory has long explained how episodes of public alarm emerge in response to perceived threats to social order. Classical accounts generally implied that episodes of alarm would move toward interpretive closure, allowing disagreement to shift from disputes over what has happened to disagreements over how institutions should respond. However, some controversies follow this trajectory while others remain open, as competing interpretations continue to circulate across publics. This article argues that variation in these trajectories depends on interpretive authority: the (...) capacity of institutional actors to secure recognition of their interpretations across publics. Where institutional interpretations achieve broad recognition, controversy becomes organized around a common account of the disturbance and disagreement shifts toward questions of response. Where recognition fails, competing interpretations remain publicly viable and conflict persists over both the meaning of events and who has the authority to define them. The article develops a distinction between closed and open moral panics and treats closure not as the expected endpoint of panic but as a sociological achievement requiring explanation. Through conceptual reconstruction and comparative illustration, it shows how failures of interpretive authority help explain the persistence of controversy, proliferating interpretations, and the increasingly open character of contemporary moral conflicts. (shrink)

Severian of Gabala’s homilies and Pseudo-Theodoret’s Quaestiones et responsiones ad Orthodoxos exhibit some notable parallels. Such links show that a marginal current of the Antiochene school was still thriving by the end of the 5th century, i.e. the most probable date of QRO.

The earliest instance of φωτιστήριον « baptistery » in Antioch appears in the year 517, in a Syriac gloss to one of Severus’s homilies, perhaps in connectionwith his pastoral policies. Even if φωτιστήριον was formed according to same pattern as βαπτιστήριον, both nouns seem independent. John Chrysostom and an Antiochian Pseudo-Chrysostom do not mention at all the baptistery, but only the font (κολυμβήϑρα). The evidence indicates that during the 5th century φωτιστήριον was almost exclusively used in Constantinople and might have (...) been created there. Some texts indicate that the word might have been the preferred name for the baptistery of a « cathedral » church, at least in Constantinople. (shrink)

According to Cornelis Datema, the still mysterious Leontius of Con-stantinople preached sometime around 557, whereas Michel Asmus places him between the end of the 4th century and the mid-5th century. This paper contends that the memory of a deceased bishop that closes the homily Nat. refers to Theodore I, patriarch of Constantinople, who died on 28 December 687. The article also shows that Leontius cannot possibly have lived earlier than the mid-6th century.