Moral Complexity in Traffic: Advancing the ADC Model for Automated Driving Systems

The incorporation of ethical settings in Automated Driving Systems (ADSs) has been extensively discussed in recent years with the goal of enhancing potential stakeholders' trust in the new technology. However, a comprehensive ethical framework for ADS decision-making, capable of merging multiple ethical considerations and investigating their consistency is currently missing. This paper addresses this gap by providing a taxonomy of ADS decision-making based on the Agent-Deed-Consequences (ADC) model of moral judgment. Specifically, we identify three main components of traffic moral judgment: driving style, traffic rules compliance, and risk distribution. Then, we suggest distinguishable ethical settings for each traffic component.