Robots at War and at Home
Shannon Vallor · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2016
Robotics and their ethical implications are discussed through the developing study of robot ethics (or ‘roboethics’). Various philosophical approaches currently drive this field, and virtue ethics can supply an essential and uniquely valuable moral perspective. For example, virtue ethics illuminates specific ethical challenges associated with military robotics, especially those with lethal and autonomous or semi-autonomous capabilities. An analysis of these challenges is deepened by a consideration of the virtue of technomoral courage. Meanwhile, robots in caring roles in homes and hospitals (‘carebots’) present their own ethical challenges. Virtue ethics and care ethics show that it is only when we consider care as a technomoral virtue that we are able to fathom the full ethical implications of carebots and their use.