In previous work, drawing on virtue ethics, I have argued that we may demonstrate morally significant vices in our treatment of robots. Even if an agent’s “cruel” treatment of a robot has no implications for their future behaviour towards people or animals, I believe that it may reveal something about their character, which in turn gives us reason to criticise their actions. Viciousness towards robots is real viciousness. However, I don’t have the same intuition about virtuous behaviour. That is to say, I see no reason to think that “kind” treatment of a robot reflects well on an agent’s character nor do I have any inclination to praise it. At first sight, at least, this is puzzling: if we should morally evaluate some of our relationships with robots why not all of them? In this paper, I argue that these conflicting intuitions may be reconciled by drawing on further claims about the nature of virtue and vice and the moral significance of self-deception. Neglecting the moral reality of the targets of our actions is little barrier to vice and may sometimes be characteristic of it. However, virtue requires an exercise of practical wisdom that may be vitiated by failure to attend to the distinction between representation and reality. Thus, while enjoying representations of unethical behaviour is unethical, acting out fantasies of good behaviour with robots is, at best morally neutral. Only in the rare circumstance where someone might be forgiven for mistaking a robot for a real animal or person may spontaneous responses to robots be virtuous.

在先前的工作中，我基于美德伦理学认为，在对待机器人方面，我们可能会展示出具有道德意义的恶习。即使代理商对机器人的“残酷”对待不会影响他们未来对人或动物的行为，但我相信它可能会揭示出有关他们的性格的某些信息，从而使我们有理由批评他们的行为。对机器人的恶意是真正的恶意。但是，我对道德的看法并不相同行为。就是说，我没有理由认为对机器人的“善待”对待能够很好地反映出代理人的性格，也没有任何理由去称赞它。至少乍一看，这令人感到困惑：如果我们应该从道德上评估我们与机器人的某些关系，为什么不全部与机器人建立联系呢？在本文中，我认为可以通过对美德与恶行的本质以及自欺欺人的道德意义的进一步主张来调和这些矛盾的直觉。忽略我们行动目标的道德现实，几乎无碍恶行，并且有时可能是其特征。然而，美德需要实践智慧的运用，而实践智慧则可能因未能关注表现与现实之间的区别而被削弱。因此，尽管享受不道德行为的表现是不道德的，用机器人表现出良好行为的幻想在道德上是中立的。仅在罕见的情况下，可能有人因将机器人误认为是真实的动物或人而被宽恕，才可能对机器人自发地做出回应。