Robot Ethics

In her essential book, philosopher Janina Loh addresses the moral challenges that play a role in the construction of robots as well as in dealing with them: Are robots autonomous? Can they act morally? Do they have a moral value? Should they have rights? Who is responsible when a robot harms a human being?

The question as to the attribution of responsibility not only relates to ethical considerations about robots, but offers an incredible bridge to further areas of human interaction; for example, in decisions about the use of and handling of robots in politics (political responsibility), economics (economic responsibility, consumer responsibility, and corporate responsibility, also known as corporate social responsibility) and law (legal responsibility). Loh critically discusses these as well as other ethical questions and introduces some of the most important solutions.

»Janina Loh asks about the status and the importance of current robotic systems: Are they still useful tools or are they becoming autonomous actors that need to be given a moral and legal status? These are the types of questions Loh attends to in her readily comprehensible and enlightening introduction to the new subdiscipline of robot ethics.« Johanna Seifert, Philosophie Magazin

»[The book] is distinguished by an extremely detailed and balanced presentation of the current, quite heterogenous state of research on robot ethics.« bulletin.ch