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Children-Robot Friendship, Moral Agency, and Aristotelian Virtue Development

Authors :
Mihaela Constantinescu
Radu Uszkai
Constantin Vică
Cristina Voinea
Source :
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, Vol 9 (2022)
Publication Year :
2022
Publisher :
Frontiers Media S.A., 2022.

Abstract

Social robots are increasingly developed for the companionship of children. In this article we explore the moral implications of children-robot friendships using the Aristotelian framework of virtue ethics. We adopt a moderate position and argue that, although robots cannot be virtue friends, they can nonetheless enable children to exercise ethical and intellectual virtues. The Aristotelian requirements for true friendship apply only partly to children: unlike adults, children relate to friendship as an educational play of exploration, which is constitutive of the way they acquire and develop virtues. We highlight that there is a relevant difference between the way we evaluate adult-robot friendship compared to children-robot friendship, which is rooted in the difference in moral agency and moral responsibility that generate the asymmetries in the moral status ascribed to adults versus children. We look into the role played by imaginary companions (IC) and personified objects (PO) in children’s moral development and claim that robots, understood as Personified Robotic Objects (PROs), play a similar role with such fictional entities, enabling children to exercise affection, moral imagination and reasoning, thus contributing to their development as virtuous adults. Nonetheless, we argue that adequate use of robots for children’s moral development is conditioned by several requirements related to design, technology and moral responsibility.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
22969144
Volume :
9
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Frontiers in Robotics and AI
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.66a722042c964f18b4f029896d29c2f8
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2022.818489