Department of Health, Ethics and Society, CAPHRI & GROW, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Bioethics Institute Ghent and METAMEDICA, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2022 Dec 5;28(6):64. doi: 10.1007/s11948-022-00420-2.
The implementation of care robotics in care settings is identified by some authors as a disruptive innovation, in the sense that it will upend the praxis of care. It is an open ethical question whether this alleged disruption will also have a transformative impact on established ethical concepts and principles. One prevalent worry is that the implementation of care robots will turn deception into a routine component of elderly care, at least to the extent that these robots will function as simulacra for something that they are not (i.e. human caregivers). At face value, this may indeed seem to indicate a concern for how this technology may upend existing practices and relationships within a care setting. Yet, on closer inspection, this reaction may rather point to a rediscovery and a revaluation of a particularly well-entrenched value or virtue, i.e. veracity. The virtue of veracity is one of the values that is mobilized to argue against a substitution of human caregivers (while a combination of care robots and human caregivers is much more accepted). The subject of this paper is to explore how the moral panic surrounding care robots should not so much be interpreted as an anticipated and probable disruptor in a care setting, but rather as a sensitizing - in a way conservationist - argument that identifies veracity as an established value that is supposed to be protected and advanced in present day and future care settings.
一些作者认为，护理机器人在护理环境中的应用是一种颠覆性创新，因为它将颠覆护理实践。一个悬而未决的伦理问题是，这种所谓的颠覆是否也会对既定的伦理概念和原则产生变革性影响。一个普遍的担忧是，护理机器人的实施将把欺骗变成老年护理的常规组成部分，至少在这些机器人作为它们不是的东西（即人类护理者）的模拟物的程度上。从表面上看，这似乎确实表明了人们对这项技术可能颠覆护理环境中现有实践和关系的担忧。然而，仔细观察，这种反应可能更多地指向对一种特别根深蒂固的价值观或美德的重新发现和重新评价，即真实性。真实性的美德是为反对替代人类护理者而调动的价值观之一（而护理机器人和人类护理者的结合则更容易被接受）。本文的主题是探讨围绕护理机器人的道德恐慌不应被解读为护理环境中预期和可能的颠覆者，而应被视为一种敏感化——以一种保守主义的方式——的论点，即把真实性视为一种既定的价值，应该在当今和未来的护理环境中得到保护和推进。
