Includes bibliographical references and index.

Intro; Contents; Preface; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Research Question; Organization and Method; Outcomes and Results; 1 Thinking the Unthinkable; 1.1 Robot; 1.2 Rights; 1.3 Robot Rights or the Unthinkable; 1.4 Summary; 2 !S1.!S2: Robots Cannot Have Rights; Robots Should Not Have Rights; 2.1 Default Understanding; 2.2 Literally Instrumental; 2.3 Instrumentalism at Work; 2.4 Duty Now and for the Future; 2.5 Complications, Difficulties, and Potential Problems; 2.6 Summary; 3 S1.S2: Robots Can Have Rights; Robots Should Have Rights; 3.1 Evidence, Instances, and Examples

3.2 Complications, Difficulties, and Potential Problems3.3 Summary; 4 S1 !S2: Although Robots Can Have Rights, Robots Should Not Have Rights; 4.1 The Argument; 4.2 Complications, Difficulties, and Potential Problems; 4.3 Summary; 5 !S1 S2: Even If Robots Cannot Have Rights, Robots Should Have Rights; 5.1 Arguments and Evidence; 5.2 Complications, Difficulties, and Potential Problems; 5.3 Summary; 6 Thinking Otherwise; 6.1 Levinas 101; 6.2 Applied (Levinasian) Philosophy; 6.3 Complications, Difficulties, and Potential Problems; 6.4 Summary; Notes; Introduction; Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3

Chapter 4Chapter 5; Chapter 6; References; Index

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We are in the midst of a robot invasion, as devices of different configurations and capabilities slowly but surely come to take up increasingly important positions in everyday social reality-self-driving vehicles, recommendation algorithms, machine learning decision making systems, and social robots of various forms and functions. Although considerable attention has already been devoted to the subject of robots and responsibility, the question concerning the social status of these artifacts has been largely overlooked. 0In this book, David Gunkel offers a provocative attempt to think about what has been previously regarded as unthinkable: whether and to what extent robots and other technological artifacts of our own making can and should have any claim to moral and legal standing.In his analysis, Gunkel invokes the philosophical distinction (developed by David Hume) between "is" and "ought" in order to evaluate and analyze the different arguments regarding the question of robot rights. In the course of his examination, Gunkel finds that none of the existing positions or proposals hold up under scrutiny. In response to this, he then offers an innovative alternative proposal that effectively flips the script on the is/ought problem by introducing another, altogether different way to conceptualize the social situation of robots and the opportunities.

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