AI Romance and the Ethics of Care
Mar. 14th, 2023 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingWell lads, it took some research into real-life sci-fi technology (specifically Japanese caregiver robots) to get me here, but I finally started learning about "the ethics of care."
Apparently what happened is that, when they finally started letting women be college professors and publish in academic journals in the 1960s, many of these women began pushing back against "traditional" models of ethics. According to these older models, which were all formulated by men, we need to behave ethically because, if we don't, we will be punished by family, or punished by society, or punished by God, or punished by peers. Meanwhile, the "ethics of care" is just the idea that we should behave ethically toward other people because other people are human too.
This was and continues to be a "radical" system of ethics because it's difficult (for men? for Christians? for academics? idk) to conceive of people who don't share your ascribed status as fully human in the same way that you are. So like, are women fully human? Are children fully human? Are ethnic/racial minorities fully human? Are immigrants fully human? Are economically disadvantaged people fully human? Are disabled people fully human? Apparently "yes of course" is a difficult answer to arrive at, and it requires extremely sophisticated arguments to "prove."
Meanwhile, there's been a recent substream of "indigenous ethics of care" that applies to our relationship with the environment. This is also extremely controversial, as apparently the idea that "we should not harm other forms of life on this planet just because we can" is difficult to justify according to Greco-Roman systems of ethics that were formulated two millennia before the industrial revolution.
To me, this is just another reminder that I occupy an entirely different world than other people. Like, for me, the question of "are robots human" is meaningless in the face of the far more important issue of "can you romance them."
Apparently what happened is that, when they finally started letting women be college professors and publish in academic journals in the 1960s, many of these women began pushing back against "traditional" models of ethics. According to these older models, which were all formulated by men, we need to behave ethically because, if we don't, we will be punished by family, or punished by society, or punished by God, or punished by peers. Meanwhile, the "ethics of care" is just the idea that we should behave ethically toward other people because other people are human too.
This was and continues to be a "radical" system of ethics because it's difficult (for men? for Christians? for academics? idk) to conceive of people who don't share your ascribed status as fully human in the same way that you are. So like, are women fully human? Are children fully human? Are ethnic/racial minorities fully human? Are immigrants fully human? Are economically disadvantaged people fully human? Are disabled people fully human? Apparently "yes of course" is a difficult answer to arrive at, and it requires extremely sophisticated arguments to "prove."
Meanwhile, there's been a recent substream of "indigenous ethics of care" that applies to our relationship with the environment. This is also extremely controversial, as apparently the idea that "we should not harm other forms of life on this planet just because we can" is difficult to justify according to Greco-Roman systems of ethics that were formulated two millennia before the industrial revolution.
To me, this is just another reminder that I occupy an entirely different world than other people. Like, for me, the question of "are robots human" is meaningless in the face of the far more important issue of "can you romance them."
