Some Moral Bases for the Legal Protection of Robots

This chapter bridges theoretical analysis with practical implications, exploring the moral grounds for extending legal protection to robots. It considers the idea of granting legal personhood to sapient robots, arguing that if machines were to attain comparable cognitive capacities to humans, granting them legal rights would become a moral imperative. However, this proposal is bound to face practical challenges like the problem of other minds; hence, it is crucial to explore different approaches to moral decision making under uncertainty. The chapter contends that the risks associated with moral underinclusion outweigh those linked to overinclusion, ultimately advocating for a precautionary approach. Furthermore, it examines the notion of legal protection for robots with human- or animal-like appearance and interactive capacities (e.g., social robots), even if they have no moral status. Drawing on studies that reveal the human inclination to anthropomorphize machines, the chapter argues that allowing humans to freely abuse social robots could have detrimental effects on their own moral character and undermine social morality more generally. This provides a rationale for extending legal protection to social robots.