Abstract
This essay reconstructs and explores the fundamental premises of the arguments in section two of Sex Robots: Their Social Impact and the Future of Human Relations. This section compasses essays from scholars both East and West. Mark J. Cherry argues, for example, that while a Traditional Christian could easily appreciate the sinfulness of sex with a robot, such a conclusion will make little sense from a purely secular perspective. Ellen Zhang explores such issues from within the richness of the Daoist tradition, while Lawrence Yung and Hanhui Xu draw on the intellectual and moral riches of Confucianism. Here, my goal is critically to examine their assumptions and arguments, so as better to comprehend their conclusions regarding sex robots. As readers will discover, one general conclusion is clear, however, despite what many may argue, there is little, if any, moral consensus on such matters.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, in a major chapter of this classic we read: “Yin corresponds to motionless and its energy symbolizes the Earth, yang corresponds to motion and its energy symbolizes the Heaven; so yin and yang are the ways of Heaven and Earth. As the birth, growth, development, harvesting and storing of all things are all carried out according the rule of growth and decline of yin and yang, so yin and yang are the guiding principles of all things. In the mutual victory or defeat of yin and yang, the situation will be of numerous varieties, so yin and yang are the parents of variations. Yin grows while yang is in vigour and yin becomes deficient while yang is weakened. From birth to death all things are following the principle of yin and yang, so yin and yang are the foundation of generating and killing. When the yin and yang are harmonized, the sprit will emerge, so yin and yang are the mansions of spirit” (translation adapted from Wu and Wu 2005, p. 31).
- 2.
For a detailed account of essential qi in Chinese thought, see Bian and Fan (2021).
- 3.
For example, it is reported in the classic that “those who knew the Dao of keeping a good health in ancient times always kept in their behavior in daily life in accordance with the principle of yin and yang. They kept in conformity with the art of prophecy based on the interaction of yin and yang. They were able to modulate their daily life in harmony with the way of recuperating the essence and vital energy, thus they could master and practice the Dao of preserving a good health. Their daily life behaviors were all kept in regular patterns, such as their food and drink were of fixed quantity, their activities were conducted in regular times, and they never overworked. In this way, they could maintain both in the body and in the spirit substantiality, and were able to live to the old age of more than one hundred years” (adapted from Wu and Wu 2005, pp. 7–8).
- 4.
For example, it is pointed out in the classic that “the people nowadays are quite different. They do not recuperate themselves according to the Dao of preserving a good health, but run in counter to it. They are addicted to drink without temperance, keep idling as an ordinary, indulge in sexual pleasures and use up their vital energy and ruin their health. They do not protect their primordial energies carefully as handling a utensil full of valuable things. They do not understand the importance of saving their energy but waste it rashly by doing whatever to their liking. They know not the joy of keeping a good health and have no regular pattern of their daily food, drink and activities. Therefore, they become decrepit when they are only fifty” (adapted from Wu and Wu 2005, p. 8).
- 5.
Xu ’s view is substantiated by the classical Confucian literature. Indeed, relevant Confucian ideas are coded in several Confucian classics as follows, for example. “The ritual of marriage is intended to be a bond of love between families of different surnames, with a view, in its retrospective character, to secure the services in the ancestral temple, and in its prospective character, to secure the continuance of the family line” (Liji: Hunyi; adapted from Legge 1967, p. 428). “The Dao of the exemplar person may be found in its simple elements between the husband and the wife, but in its utmost reaches it is displayed in the operations of Heaven and Earth” (Liji: Zhongyong; adapted from Legge 1967, p. 305). “There are three ways of being an unfilial son. The most serious is to have no heir. Shun married without telling his father for fear of not having an heir. To the exemplar person, this was as good as having told his father” (Mencius 4A: 26; adapted from Lau 2003, p. 169).
- 6.
Mencius’ original account can be found in the Mencius 2A: 6. For its English version, see Lau 2003, p. 73.
- 7.
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer who suggested that I explicitly state all hidden premises, especially a premise about “representation,” in each of my relevant step argument reconstructions offered in this section to make them formally valid.
- 8.
“Because meaning is social, the representational content of symbols or actions is determined by reference to the understandings of a relevant community. For sentences or utterances in a language, the relevant community is the set of speakers fluent in that language. For actions or social practices the relevant group is less clearly defined but ‘the community’ or ‘society’ are the most plausible reference points. When it comes to what this group understands an action to represent, we might look to what the majority of members actually conclude upon encountering it or to what a representative member of the community would conclude in circumstances that were appropriately idealized (for instance, were they to be a fully informed and scrupulous follower of the relevant sematic codes). …What sex with a robot represents, then, will depend upon what other members of the community are inclined to infer when they witness or learn about it. …As a result, at least while the community of robot fetishists remains a very small minority, the meaning of the action will still be determined by what it would mean were a representative member of the larger community to perform the act” (Sparrow 2017, p. 472, italics in the original).
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Fan, R. (2021). Sex Robots, Marriage, Health, Procreation, and Human Image. In: Fan, R., Cherry, M.J. (eds) Sex Robots. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 28. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82280-4_11
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