Abstract
This article explores the implications of what it means to moralize about future technological innovations. Specifically, I comment on three papers that explore what seems to be an impending social reality: the availability of life-like sex robots. In response, I critically assess what it means to moralize about future technological innovations from a fully secular perspective; i.e., a perspective grounded in an immanent, socio-historically contingent view. I review the arguments of Nancy Jecker (Sociable robots for later life: Carebots, friendbots, and sexbots. In: Fan R., Cherry M.J. (eds) Sex robots: Their social impact and the future of human relations. Springer, Lisse, 2022), Mark Howard and Robert Sparrow (Nudge, nudge, wink wink: Sex robots as social influencers. In: Fan R, Cherry MJ (eds) Sex robots: Their social impact and the future of human relations. Springer, Lisse, 2022), and Wang Jue (Should we develop empathy for social robots? In: Fan R., Cherry M.J. (eds) Sex robots: Their social impact and the future of human relations. Springer, Lisse, 2022) concerning the permissible limits of human-robot sexual interaction. I argue that we are in a poor epistemic position regarding what the actual future human response will be towards sex robots and how such developments will affect society. Given such a poor epistemic position, I argue that moralizing about future trends, like human-robot sex, is difficult because we do not have the relevant facts with which to work. Furthermore, I remain sceptical as to policy recommendations based on socio-historically contingent moral viewpoints because they do not carry any in principle moral authority to direct what future others may or may not do with their own private property. Moreover, such recommendations may not even possess moral appeal to future persons or societies as secular morality is plural and consistently develops anew.
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Notes
- 1.
Just to name a few. Jecker includes charts in her paper of the different capabilities she argues that friendbots, carebots, and sexbots provide. See, e.g. the charts on pages 30, 33 and 37.
- 2.
Interestingly, Wang calls this process of conscious knowledge suspension a process of dehumanization. Specifically, the dehumanization of “our existence, by being reduced and confined to as if, we become oblivious about what is special about being human” (2022, p. 53).
- 3.
As a caregiver to my grandfather, I wish I had a carebot to help me better serve him. I could use help with activities that require upper body strength, for example. If I had a carebot that could help me lift him, my ability to care for him would certainly be enhanced.
- 4.
Secular moral views are especially hard to predict because they tend to reject theological and tradition-based standards of justification for moral rightness and instead embrace self-exploration and individual reflection as the standard for what constitutes right moral living. For a good contrast between secular and traditional approaches to ethical issues like sex-robots, see Mark Cherry’s contribution to this volume, “Could You Marry a Sex Robot? Shifting Sexual Norms and the Transformation of the Family” (2022).
- 5.
There are myriad examples of how strange historical morality seems, for example, to modern persons. Consider, for example, the widespread eighteenth and nineteenth century belief that masturbation posed such a risk to one’s “health” that it was commonly considered a disease. See Engelhardt (1974) for more on the “disease” of masturbation.
- 6.
- 7.
Insofar as we are speculating about the future, science fiction is as relevant a source as any to posit potential human-robot interaction. For example, Star Wars characters often hold affective relationships with droids that vary in depth from character to character. Consider the difference between Luke Skywalker, who treats his droid R2D2 like a faithful companion, but more akin to how we might think of a human-dog relationship than a human-human relationship, and his father Anakin Skywalker, who elevates his relationship with R2D2 to a much deeper form of interaction. For example, Anakin refuses to wipe the memory of R2D2, despite the security threat that his memory possesses. It is relevant to note also that Anakin makes C3P0 keep his mother company after he leaves. Roque 1 is a side story in the Star Wars saga that attempts to humanize the droid K-2SO by exploring the various “prejudices” that exist in the Star Wars universe against droids (i.e., they are not mourned when shot down in battle). The robot in science fiction that more approximates the sex robot authors in this volume may have in mind is Data, the robot from Star Trek : The Next Generation, who states that he is “fully functional” sexually and is seen as so similar to man that Captain Picard awards him forbearance rights in the episode “Measure of a Man”. All of the characters form deep, human-human-like relationships with Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
- 8.
Consider the contrast in language they use concerning the public health role of sex therapy of which they approve and the “exploitative” commercial interests of all other offerings of sex robots. Or, consider how they speak about private business in their section on “alien power” (p. 70): “While not unfamiliar to government administering of public policy, alien control is more likely to occur when behavioural interventions are employed for private interests, most notably corporations who rarely meet the requirements of public transparency or democratic participation vital to personal autonomy.”
- 9.
Many latex condoms are soaked in casein, a milk derivative to make them soft and pliable. They are not considered a vegan product to some vegans as a result. Some vegans warn against the use of latex condoms. See, e.g., Vukovik (2014).
- 10.
There are no female robots. There are robots shaped like biological females. Sex robots are not women. They do not share important properties with women. For example, they are not subject to the evolutionary impulses that explain common, general patterns in the female’s search for a mate. They do not self-consciously experience emotions like betrayal and they do not, for example, experience the female-specific rush of bonding hormones released after females engage intimately.
- 11.
The assumption here is that when we represent something, we wish to represent it as it exists in reality, as far as we are able to do so. There might be dissenters who would argue that we ought to represent things as better than they are in reality or that we do not have the obligation accurately to represent things. These are important side conversations that I do not have the space to address here.
- 12.
Thornton and Bowmaker explain further that “the wedge that prohibition drives between the cost of production and the final selling price provides an incentive for illegal drug sellers to bribe law enforcement officers, judges, and politicians for protection against capture, prosecution, and incarceration” (2008, p. 62).
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Evans, K.K. (2021). Sex Robots and Views from Nowhere: A Commentary on Jecker, Howard and Sparrow, and Wang. In: Fan, R., Cherry, M.J. (eds) Sex Robots. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 28. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82280-4_10
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