Abstract
For Aristotle, human beings are deeply social creatures, a trait that contributes to the meaningfulness of our lives. In more recent philosophy, Jean-Paul Sartre similarly argued that our existence is informed by our unavoidable social relations, even as he also emphasized the quest for individual freedom. What happens when the “Other” in these relationships are artifacts, such as robots? Can robots liberate us from our existential dependence on other humans? Should they do so, in light of Aristotelian and Sartrean ethics? With recent technological advancements, an increasing amount of scholarly literature has emerged about the use, meaning, and limits of innovations such as sex- or love-robots. In this article, we will first explore the relevance of Aristotle’s virtue ethics in relation to romantic love (
) and social technologies. We will then examine Sartre’s existentialism as in some respects a continuation of Aristotelian ethics and assess its applicability to
in our technological age. Finally, we will conduct a case study on love-robots, reviewing recent scientific studies to evaluate their ethical and social implications from the perspectives of Aristotle and Sartre. We argue that neither Aristotle nor Sartre would endorse the view of love-robots as part of our social well-being.