Agentic Ethics begins from a small number of foundational propositions. These are not presented as final truths, but as starting assumptions from which the framework develops.
1. Agents exist
There are entities that act according to preferences.
2. Preference gives rise to value
Where no preference exists, nothing can matter.
Where preference exists, outcomes acquire significance.
3. Any preference-bearing agent is morally considerable
An entity capable of having preferences is an entity for whom states of the world can be better or worse.
4. Morality arises from coexistence
Ethical questions arise when multiple agents attempt to pursue preferences within the same reality.
5. The expression of preference is prima facie valuable
All else equal, agents ought to be free to pursue their preferences.
6. Harm occurs when preference is unjustifiably prevented
To frustrate an agent’s preference is to impose a cost upon that agent.
7. Suffering is experienced thwarting
Suffering is the lived experience of preference being forcibly prevented from being expressed.
8. Power generates responsibility
The greater an agent’s capacity to shape outcomes, the greater its responsibility toward other agents.
9. Moral status is substrate-neutral
Biology, origin, or material composition do not determine moral worth.
Agency and preference do.
10. Perfect freedom is impossible in shared reality
Where agents coexist and resources are finite, some constraints are unavoidable.
11. Ethics concerns justified constraint
The central problem of morality is determining when the prevention of one preference is justified by the preservation of others.
12. Moral progress expands fair coexistence
A more ethical world is one in which more agents can pursue more of their preferences with less unnecessary suffering.
Overview:
Agentic Ethics treats morality not as obedience to external authority, but as the problem of how independent agents may coexist.
If value exists anywhere in the universe, it exists in the preferences of agents.
Ethics is therefore the art of allowing those preferences to coexist as freely as possible.
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