Abstract
This paper is a continuation of a previous work where I argued that social expectations driving researches and developments in care robotics are not based on the simplistic optimism in a new commercial artifact but, involve a meaningful transformation of two rational features of human reality – ontology and normativity. In this paper my aim is to take a step forwards by investigating the kind of care relationship that could exist between a robot and a human. Usually, we take care of things and people because we love them, or else we want to give them support in their suffering. However, continuing to only value this sense of care, in a future rendered increasingly transparent and abstract by technology, may mean losing sight of the fact that taking care of others also means taking care of ourselves. If we completely entrust robots with the role of caring, the bigger concern is not the foreseeable decrease in the “humanity” in healthcare contexts, but the much more challenging notion of people surrendering the value and meaning in their lives. Since caring about something means, firstly, giving it value, a society passively nursed by technology is a society unable to give value to things and people. In order to avoid this risk, new approaches are required, no longer based on love or solidarity, but responsibility. I have named this approach “I tech care” and this paper aims to provide a general overview of the main concepts involved.
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Notes
- 1.
I speak about “human rationality” because, in my view, the predicted dissemination of assistive and care robotics constitutes a hugely challenging topic not only for some rational cultures – as the western world and its epistemological paradigms – rather of human beings as such. Whether the Enlightenment was still a form of rationality developed in Europe and North America, thanks or because of globalization, today the worldwide techno-scientific cultures move toward a general convergence. According to a report commissioned by the U.S. National Science Foundation and Department of Commerce we are aiming for a “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance” (http://www.wtec.org/ConvergingTechnologies/Report/NBIC_report.pdf). I do not sustain that technological progress is in itself a factor of human development. On the contrary, in my view, without freedom and democracy technology alone does not improve the human condition (Sen, 1999). But I am also convinced that the socialization and globalization of technologies we are witnessing – and healthcare robots are an emblematic example – will expand regardless of cultures and religions. These two processes end up complementing and hybridizing old and new myths (Hughes, 2012).
- 2.
Aristotle, in his doctrine of causality, defined four different typologies of cause of a manufactured thing (Metaphysics, I, 3). Considering the classic example of the statue, the sculptor is the efficient cause, bronze the material cause, the form taken by the statue is the formal cause, and the worship of the deity is the final cause.
- 3.
In this conception of “real abstraction” I was inspired by the work of Roberto Finelli and his reinterpretation of the link between Hegelian and Marxist philosophies (see Finelli, 1999).
- 4.
It could be argued, at least, that without freedom no level of abstraction is possible, but I would define this kind of abstraction – recalling one of Hegel’s conceptions – a sort of “bad infinity” (schlechte Unendlichkeit), that is simply the finite repeated infinitely, an abstraction that is always realized in half, a representation of the world that denies itself and is forced to resort to false images to explain the contents of the real (Encyclopaedia, §93).
- 5.
- 6.
The philosophical debate on the theme of solidarity is very broad. Therefore it is difficult to give a complete account. Generally speaking, the idea of solidarity I refer to owes very much to authors such as Rorty (1989), Honneth (1995), Habermas (1998), and Benhabib (2002). According to their views, the processes of socialization in contemporary society have little to do with conventional drives. Social cohesion is no longer a matter of membership to a family, a clan, a class. As already Durkheim predicted by analyzing the division of labor, the modern concept of solidarity requires no empathy or identity with others with whom we are in solidarity. Instead, it requires the acceptance of the other as other, an acknowledgment based on a discourse of justice and not on belonging or benevolence (Habermas, 1998). Solidarity, justice and care, then, become two sides of the same coin. By treating the other according to the norms of friendship, love and care, our humanity is declared, but also our individuality as a person. The moral categories that follow such interactions are responsibility, relationships, and participation. The corresponding moral feelings are love, care, sympathy and solidarity (Benhabib, 2002).
- 7.
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Acknowledgements
This paper is a continuation of a previous work (Carnevale, 2014) and it is one of the outcomes of the Research Unit “Social Asymmetries and Political Inclusion: Concepts, methods, and policies”, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa (Prin 2010–2011: Local Coordinator, Barbara Henry; National Coordinator, Laura Bazzicalupo).
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Carnevale, A. (2017). “I Tech Care”: How Healthcare Robotics Can Change the Future of Love, Solidarity, and Responsibility. In: Hakli, R., Seibt, J. (eds) Sociality and Normativity for Robots. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53133-5_11
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