Transformers and Philosophy – Geoffrey Allan Plauché, PHD https://gaplauche.com Writer, Editor, Web Designer Sat, 11 Jun 2011 20:40:37 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 Liberty, Virtue, and the Autobot Way https://gaplauche.com/blog/2009/12/08/liberty-virtue-and-the-autobot-way/ Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:02:27 +0000 http://gaplauche.com/?p=843 That was to be the subtitle for my chapter in Open Court‘s recent addition to their Popular Culture and Philosophy series, Transformers and Philosophy: More Than Meets the Mind. Alas, no subtitles made it into the book.

I have received official permission to provide a pdf copy of my chapter, “Freedom Is the Right of All Sentient Beings,” on my website. Technically, I don’t think I really need legal permission; I don’t recall signing over to Open Court the copyright that federal law automatically vests in me as the author. Anyway, download it from that link and enjoy!

The chapter title comes from a quote by Optimus Prime in the first of the recent live action movies. The chapter itself is kind of a condensed and lite version of the Aristotelian-liberal theory of virtue ethics and natural rights explained in more detail in my dissertation, applied to the transformers and to artificial intelligences more generally.

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