Artificial Companions: Empathy and Vulnerability Mirroring in Human-Robot Relations
-
Mark Coeckelbergh
Under what conditions can robots become companions and what are the ethical issues that might arise in human-robot companionship relations? I argue that the possibility and future of robots as companions depends (among other things) on the robot’s capacity to be a recipient of human empathy, and that one necessary condition for this to happen is that the robot mirrors human vulnerabilities. For the purpose of these arguments, I make a distinction between empathy-as-cognition and empathy-as-feeling, connecting the latter to the moral sentiment tradition and its concept of “fellow feeling.” Furthermore, I sympathise with the intuition that vulnerability mirroring raises the ethical issue of deception. However, given the importance of appearance in social relations, problems with the concept of deception, and contemporary technologies that question the artificial-natural distinction, we cannot easily justify the underlying assumptions of the deception objection. If we want to hold on to them, we need convincing answers to these problems.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Editorial
- The Convergence of the Physical, Mental and Virtual
- Article
- Artificial Companions: Empathy and Vulnerability Mirroring in Human-Robot Relations
- Brain Gene Transfer and Brain Implants
- Neuroethical Issues in Neurogenetic and Neuro-Implantation Technology: The Need for Pragmatism and Preparedness in Practice and Policy
- Brain-Computer Interaction and Medical Access to the Brain: Individual, Social and Ethical Implications
- Future Issues with Robots and Cyborgs
- Brain-Machine Interfaces and Personal Responsibility for Action - Maybe Not As Complicated After All
- New Questions, or Only Old Questions in a New Guise?
- Kevin Warwick's Experiment 1: Future Identity
- A Reply to My Commentators
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Editorial
- The Convergence of the Physical, Mental and Virtual
- Article
- Artificial Companions: Empathy and Vulnerability Mirroring in Human-Robot Relations
- Brain Gene Transfer and Brain Implants
- Neuroethical Issues in Neurogenetic and Neuro-Implantation Technology: The Need for Pragmatism and Preparedness in Practice and Policy
- Brain-Computer Interaction and Medical Access to the Brain: Individual, Social and Ethical Implications
- Future Issues with Robots and Cyborgs
- Brain-Machine Interfaces and Personal Responsibility for Action - Maybe Not As Complicated After All
- New Questions, or Only Old Questions in a New Guise?
- Kevin Warwick's Experiment 1: Future Identity
- A Reply to My Commentators
