AI Delegation and the Conditions of Ethical Personhood: A CFLC Perspective
Validation Cflc · PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation) · 2026
From the CFLC (Cognitive Fiduciary Life Cycle) perspective, current and foreseeable computationalist AI lacks sufficient conditions for becoming an ethical person, because it cannot be injured by its own commitments. The deep root of this proposition lies in “epistemic debt”—the ontological structure of human understanding. Unlike mainstream frameworks that treat cognition as an accumulation of capabilities, CFLC argues that subjectivity exists through borrowing from the external, and this borrowing constitutes an irreversible binding. Based on this “repayment crisis,” this paper explores why AI systems, under current and foreseeable conditions, cannot satisfy the constitutive conditions of ethical personhood. This paper proposes three ontological limitations of AI systems—temporal deficit, confirmation bias automation, and category blindness—and establishes a triple legal-status classification of “pure tool / fiduciary agent / ethical person.” Pressure tests from contemporary empirical cases demonstrate that AI’s “zero-debt production” model masks the structural absence of ethical personhood in the era of technological acceleration. This paper proposes the “Injurability Test Protocol” as an operational definition of falsification conditions, providing structural standards for discussions on AI ethical personhood; it simultaneously invites readers to provide alternative interpretations to test theoretical boundaries. It must be emphasized that this negative diagnosis does not mean AI is safe or harmless—on the contrary, the unilateral debt accumulation, cognitive drag, and zero-debt production caused by fiduciary agents are real risks that warrant vigilance and constitute an important issue at the policy level. 【Plain-language formulation of the core argument】 If asked to explain the core argument of this paper in one sentence without jargon: when AI makes a commitment, it does not “feel” injured, and therefore cannot truly bear responsibility. All technical terms in this paper (epistemic debt, sedimentation, occupation, D-Layer, etc.) are elaborations of this core argument, not substitutes for it. If the reader ever feels that terminology obscures the argument, they may return to this plain-language formulation.