A Theory of (Sexual) Justice: the roboethician's edition

Abstract

Sex robots have been gaining significant traction in the media and in pop culture. Each new launch of an updated model or a new entrepreneurial innovation on the sex robot market was signaled and discussed at length in the media. Simultaneously, Hollywood productions and popular TV series have graphically illustrated and brought forth serious questions regarding human – sex robot relationship. Unsurprisingly, philosophical interest is already extensive, with a series of papers and books tackling a wide array of issues related to sexbots. The purpose of my paper is that of exploring one potential deployment of sex robots: as a solution for addressing claims of sexual justice. I will begin with a short overview of the debate regarding sex rights for people with disabilities and argue that a Rawlsian account of sexual justice is possible. One of the main claims of the paper will be that there might be a strong link between sex rights and Rawlsian primary goods. I will then argue that, from a Rawlsian framework, it makes sense to adopt an anthropocentric meta-ethical approach to human – sex robot interactions. In the last part of the paper, I will present and criticize the main objections that have been brought against the manufacture and selling of sex robots. Even assuming that the objections were correct, they do not hold in the case of the use of sex robots by people with mental or physical disabilities.