Yes, the thought is that we can add to the robots whatever is necessary to make them count as moral agents (albeit weird ones) who are eligible to participate in the contractualist's imagined agreement.
Scanlon's reason for saving drowning kids is not that they're drowning, but that they could reasonably reject a principle according to wh…
Yes, the thought is that we can add to the robots whatever is necessary to make them count as moral agents (albeit weird ones) who are eligible to participate in the contractualist's imagined agreement.
Scanlon's reason for saving drowning kids is not that they're drowning, but that they could reasonably reject a principle according to which you failed to intervene when you could easily save them. And the robots can similarly reject a principle according to which you fail to intervene in the face of easily-rescued paperclips. Since he cares nothing for well-being in particular, but only for whatever principles emerge from the contractualist process, it seems like these two reasons are -- for the contractualist -- on a par.
Yes, the thought is that we can add to the robots whatever is necessary to make them count as moral agents (albeit weird ones) who are eligible to participate in the contractualist's imagined agreement.
Scanlon's reason for saving drowning kids is not that they're drowning, but that they could reasonably reject a principle according to which you failed to intervene when you could easily save them. And the robots can similarly reject a principle according to which you fail to intervene in the face of easily-rescued paperclips. Since he cares nothing for well-being in particular, but only for whatever principles emerge from the contractualist process, it seems like these two reasons are -- for the contractualist -- on a par.