Was It Good for You Too? The New Natural Law Theory and the Paradoxical Good of Sexbots

Goldstein, Joshua D.

doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262036689.003.0010

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Sex robots should not be built and used at all . Starting from the assumption that human-human sexual and romantic relationships are most healthy and ethically superior to all human-robot pseudorelations and to the use of sexualized and sexist robotic objects, authors with different political [ 109 ], philosophical [ 119 ], feminist [ 114 , 115 ], theological [ 100 , 120 ], engineering [ 122 ], and legal [ 118 ] academic backgrounds reject further developments in this field. They call for bans and boycotts, stigmatization of, and abstinence from sex robots.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design, Use, and Effects of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots: Scoping Review

Döring¹,

Mohseni²,

Walter³

2020

J Med Internet Res

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Background Although sex toys representing human body parts are widely accepted and normalized, human-like full-body sex dolls and sex robots have elicited highly controversial debates. Objective This systematic scoping review of the academic literature on sex dolls and sex robots, the first of its kind, aimed to examine the extent and type of existing academic knowledge and to identify research gaps against this backdrop. Methods A comprehensive multidisciplinary, multidatabase search strategy was used. All steps of literature search and selection, data charting, and synthesis followed the leading methodological guideline, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews checklist. A total of 29 (17 peer reviewed) and 98 publications (32 peer reviewed) for sex dolls and sex robots, respectively, from 1993 to 2019 were included. Results According to the topics and methodologies, the sex doll and sex robot publications were divided into 5 and 6 groups, respectively. The majority of publications were theoretical papers. Thus far, no observational or experimental research exists that uses actual sex dolls or sex robots as stimulus material. Conclusions There is a need to improve the theoretical elaboration and the scope and depth of empirical research examining the sexual uses of human-like full-body material artifacts, particularly concerning not only risks but also opportunities for sexual and social well-being.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design, Use, and Effects of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots: Scoping Review

Döring¹,

Mohseni²,

Walter³

2020

J Med Internet Res

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“…Some arguments in favour of the 'fostering sociality' hypothesis claim that sexbots will help to reduce social and emotional isolation [34], to treat relationship difficulties and erectile dysfunction, and to encourage withdrawn or differently able people to experience intimacy and sexuality, which may otherwise remain remote and unfulfilled needs for them [5]. Studies [35][36][37] suggest that individuals who have some impediments against having a fulfilled sexual life could benefit from sexbots. Loneliness could be one of the reasons for prompting adults to make alternative choices for finding a sexual companion [38].…”

Section: The Controversial Scientific "Sexbots" Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

Sexbots as Synthetic Companions: Comparing Attitudes of Official Sex Offenders and Non-Offenders

Zara

Veggi

Farrington

2021

Int J of Soc Robotics

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This is the first Italian study to examine views on sexbots of adult male sex offenders and non-offenders, and their perceptions of sexbots as sexual partners, and sexbots as a means to prevent sexual violence. In order to explore these aspects 344 adult males were involved in the study. The study carried out two types of comparisons. 100 male sex offenders were compared with 244 male non-offenders. Also, sex offenders were divided into child molesters and rapists. Preliminary findings suggest that sex offenders were less open than non-offenders to sexbots, showed a lower acceptance of them, and were more likely to dismiss the possibility of having an intimate and sexual relationship with a sexbot. Sex offenders were also less likely than non-offenders to believe that the risk of sexual violence against people could be reduced if a sexbot was used in the treatment of sex offenders. No differences were found between child molesters and rapists. Though no definitive conclusion can be drawn about what role sexbots might play in the prevention and treatment of sex offending, this study emphasizes the importance of both exploring how sexbots are both perceived and understood. Sex offenders in this study showed a high dynamic sexual risk and, paradoxically, despite, or because of, their sexual deviance (e.g. deficits in sexual self-regulation), they were more inclined to see sexbots as just machines and were reluctant to imagine them as social agents, i.e. as intimate or sexual arousal partners. How sex offenders differ in their dynamic risk and criminal careers can inform experts about the mechanisms that take place and can challenge their engagement in treatment and intervention.

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“…There has also been recent discussion of other ethical questions related to sex robots-such as whether a natural law approach to sexual ethics would necessarily rule out sex between humans and robots or not (Goldstein 2017). But as far as we know, none of these contributions to the ethics of sex robots have so far tackled the issue investigated in this article, namely, whether and under what conditions it might be ethically problematic to try to create sex robots to which humans would be emotionally attached.…”

Section: The Ethics Of Sex Robots Thus Farmentioning

confidence: 99%

It Loves Me, It Loves Me Not

Nyholm

Frank

2019

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology

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Drawing on insights from robotics, psychology, and human-computer interaction, developers of sex robots are currently aiming to create emotional bonds of attachment and even love between human users and their products. This is done by creating robots that can exhibit a range of facial expressions, that are made with human-like artificial skin, and that possess a rich vocabulary with many conversational possibilities. In light of the human tendency to anthropomorphize artefacts, we can expect that designers will have some success and that this will lead to the attribution of mental states to the robot that the robot does not actually have, as well as the inducement of significant emotional responses in the user. This raises the question of whether it might be ethically problematic to try to develop robots that appear to love their users. We discuss three possible ethical concerns about this aim: first, that designers may be taking advantage of users’ emotional vulnerability; second, that users may be deceived; and, third, that relationships with robots may block off the possibility of more meaningful relationships with other humans. We argue that developers should attend to the ethical constraints suggested by these concerns in their development of increasingly humanoid sex robots. We discuss two different ways in which they might do so.

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Was It Good for You Too? The New Natural Law Theory and the Paradoxical Good of Sexbots

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Design, Use, and Effects of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots: Scoping Review

Design, Use, and Effects of Sex Dolls and Sex Robots: Scoping Review

Sexbots as Synthetic Companions: Comparing Attitudes of Official Sex Offenders and Non-Offenders

It Loves Me, It Loves Me Not

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