Sociable Robots: Technology, Automation, and Human Relationships in Postmodern Society

Abstract

One of the challenges in thinking about sex robots is that the use of automation in sexual relationships does not line up neatly into moral and social categories. Instead, one finds themes of friendship and dignity, empathy, and socialization as important human and moral issues tied to sexual practices. However, such themes are always understood within the context of the particular language and framework of a specific moral community. This means that fully to explore many of the questions raised by sex robots, such themes will need to be situated within the context of a particular moral community and its assumptions, values, and moral commitments. The challenge, however, is that in a secular, postmodern society, one will find quite different views expressed in various moral communities. We know, for example, that different religious communities have differing views on appropriate and inappropriate sexual behavior depending on the broader context of a community’s vision and its moral commitments. As a result, it should come as no surprise that various moral and religious communities are likely to come to rather different conclusions regarding the ethical permissibility, implications for personal virtue or vice, or cultural harms and benefits of sex robots. Confronted by such a pluralism of moralities, rather than a single moral narrative, the only defensible moral position in the secular context, as I argue, is the libertarian position. Since one cannot assume that others will share the same moral values, rankings, and premises in resolving moral controversies (since reason cannot discover a content-full moral vision that all rational agents are compelled to accept), then one will have to rely on the moral authority of individual moral agents. Controversies surrounding the ownership and use of the human body (e.g., use and sale of blood products, participation in human experimentation, sex robots) can only be resolved on a secular level by the agreement of the parties involved.