Ontology and Normativity in the Care-Robot Relationship

Robots are an emerging technology in many areas such as military engineering, logistic services, and autonomous vehicles. One of the most promising areas of their implementation is human care. Care robots (CRs) have not yet been commercialized but evidence suggests that their future use will be substantial and challenging. Consequently, to understand this challenge, we first need to understand why CRs represent for people and healthcare systems a long-awaited relief. Patients, institutions, and companies are progressively investing their hopes, public and private resources for fostering the commercialization of CRs. Why? In this paper I will reconstruct the conceptual framework behind this expectation. I will argue that it is not based on a simplistic hope in a new commercial artifact but rather, it rests on the basic changes of two rational features of human reality – ontology and normativity. These two dimensions of reality – classically thought of as separate – will be challenged and increasingly interconnected by the imminent development of emerging technologies, and particularly by the developments of CRs.