Abstract
AbstractThis article offers a novel reading of the criticisms of sex robots put forward by theCampaign Against Sex Robots(CASR). Focusing on the implication of a loss of empathy, it structures CASR’s worries as anargument from moral degradationcentered around the potential effects on sexbot users’ sexual and moral subjectivity. This argument is subsequently explored through the combined lenses of postphenomenology and the ethical phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas. In so doing, it describes the type of human-technology relations that sexbots invite, identifying alterity as a central feature. It also highlights how alterity, responsibility, and subjectivity are intimately connected. However, that connection is distinctly different in sexual circumstances, making current versions of Levinasian roboethics largely inapplicable for the ethics of sexbots. To overcome this, the article delves into Levinas’ phenomenology of Eros and identifies voluptuousness as a type of enjoyment of the Other that is different from the enjoyment invited by current sexbots and is compatible with responsibility. Based on this, the article provides examples of how this phenomenology of Eros can inspire the design of future sexbots in ways that alleviate some of CASR’s concerns.
Highlights
As technological advancements increasingly facilitate the design of relatively affordable, interactive, and engaging sex robots, the latter have been receiving increased media and academic attention
This article engaged with criticisms put forward by the Campaign Against Sex Robots (CASR), which worries about increased objectification of women if sex robot use were to become normal
It discussed two current readings of this argument: one as an argument from analogy and one from symbolic consequences. Neither of these genuinely engage with a central point made by CASR: that a decrease in empathy is likely to result from the use of sex robots
Summary
As technological advancements increasingly facilitate the design of relatively affordable, interactive, and engaging sex robots, the latter have been receiving increased media and academic attention. What is not immediately clear, is how this outcome is related to CASR’s other concerns presented above This in turn obfuscates the process by which the objectification is supposed to come about. As it stands, the list does not present a structured argument Does this frustrate the search for constructive solutions (for which we would benefit from a more well-ordered causal chain), but it makes empirical investigations into the merits of the argument rather difficult.. The rest of the article substantiates this proposed argument using and combining insights from postphenomenology and Levinas’ ethical phenomenology. It ends with some initial recommendations for future, more responsible, sexbot design
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