Abstract
It is almost a foregone conclusion that robots cannot be morally responsible agents, both because they lack traditional features of moral agency like consciousness, intentionality, or empathy and because of the apparent senselessness of holding them accountable. Moreover, although some theorists include them in the moral community as moral patients, on the Strawsonian picture of moral community as requiring moral responsibility, robots are typically excluded from membership. By looking closely at our actual moral responsibility practices, however, I determine that the agency reflected and cultivated by them is limited to the kind of moral agency of which some robots are capable, not the philosophically demanding sort behind the traditional view. Hence, moral rule-abiding robots (if feasible) can be sufficiently morally responsible and thus moral community members, despite certain deficits. Alternative accountability structures could address these deficits, which I argue ought to be in place for those existing moral community members who share these deficits.
Highlights
I have argued that the level of moral agency required for moral community membership, insofar as that membership is a matter of responsible agency, is behavioral moral agency
This conclusion is a result of an analysis of the ways our moral responsibility practices function – both in terms of reflecting and fostering moral agency
Given 1) a methodology which takes our practices as evidence of responsibility and the fact that these practices largely address behavior, 2) a conception of morality as a set of rules which enable social cooperation, and 3) the Strawsonian picture of moral community as being a matter of responsible agency, the view that moral rule-abiding robots are responsible and moral community members, becomes plausible
Summary
Strawson’s landmark essay, “Freedom and Resentment” (Strawson, 2008), morally responsible agency is taken to be a matter of being a fitting target of our responsibility practices.1 What exactly this fittingness consists in varies by account, but in most basic terms, per Strawson (see Wallace, 1994), it is an agent’s capacity to fulfill society’s basic normative demands and expectations. We value the capacity to recognize and respond to moral reasons This level of agency is neither reflected nor cultivated by our responsibility practices.
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