Abstract

The enthusiastic introduction of artificial agents in society raises many questions relating to humanity. One of the questions that comes up has to do with the place of social robots in society. While social robots tend to be awarded legal personhood, it is unclear that they should automatically be considered moral persons. A closely related concern has to do with the kind of membership to community that can be allocated to social robots. Are humans to consider social robots as members of the moral community in virtue of their presence in society and their interaction with persons in society? I will analyze the membership of social robots in society using the framework of the Afro-communitarian view of persons in community. The overall aim is to arrive at a plausible way to situate social robots in community with persons. The Afro-communitarian view of persons accommodates humans, nonhuman animals, as well as the environment. In this chapter, I aim to test whether the Afro-communitarian view of person could be stretched to accommodate social robots as well.