The Moral Standing of Social Robots, Untapped Insights from Africa
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Date
2022
Authors
Jecker, N.S.
Atiure, C.A.
Ajei, M.O.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Philosophy & Technology
Abstract
This paper presents an African relational view of social robots’ moral standing
which draws on the philosophy of ubuntu (humanness). The introduction (Section 1)
places the question of moral standing in historical and cultural contexts. Section 2
demonstrates an ubuntu framework by applying it to the fictional case of a social
robot named Klara, taken from Ishiguro’s novel, Klara and the Sun. We argue that
an ubuntu ethic assigns moral standing to Klara based on her relational qualities
and pro-social virtues. Section 3 introduces a second fictional case, taken from
McKeown’s novel, Machines Like Me, in which a social robot named Adam displays
intrinsic qualities, such as sentience, rationality, and deductive moral reasoning, yet
lacks close social ties to particular people. We argue that Adam is not a person in the
African sense; however, he qualifies as a person according to many standard Western
views, such as Kantian and utilitarian ethics. Section 4 further elaborates the African relational view by comparing the moral standing of social robots and humans
in a forced-choice scenario. Section 5 replies to objections. We conclude that an
African relational approach captures important insights about the moral standing of
social robots that many Western accounts miss and should be better incorporated
into global frameworks for designing and deploying social robots.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Personhood, Artifcial intelligence, African philosophy