Moral difference between humans and robots: paternalism and human-relative reason

Public Reason and Moral Bioenhancement

The Rawlsian model of public justification is proposed for the assessment of politics of moral enhancement, in alternative to the neo-republican model proposed in these debates by Robert Sparrow. The central idea of the Rawlsian model of public justification is represented by the liberal principle of legitimacy, although it is extended in relation to the domain that Rawls sees as proper for its...

Moral Bioenhancement, Freedom and Reason

In this paper we reply to the most important objections to our advocacy of moral enhancement by biomedical means - moral bioenhancement - that John Harris advances in his new book How to be Good. These objections are to effect that such moral enhancement undercuts both moral reasoning and freedom. The latter objection is directed more specifically at what we have called the God Machine, a super...

Human Robots and Robotic Humans

Humans and machines are, at present, viewed as two distinct categories differentiated by their unique biological or artificial configuration and capabilities. This chapter argues that the two will, in the near future, increasingly partake of the nature of the other as a result of technological enhancement. A number of recent developments within the field of robotics are already causing the trad...

Red Reason and Green Rights Illuminationist.Anthropology and Human Rights

Haptic Communication Between Humans and Robots

This paper introduces the haptic communication robots we developed and proposes a method for detecting human positions and postures based on haptic interaction between humanoid robots and humans. We have developed two types of humanoid robots that have tactile sensors embedded in a soft skin that covers the robot’s entire body as tools for studying haptic communication. Tactile sensation could ...