Would it be wrong to rape a robot?
A #MeToo question for 2119
Imagine for a moment that it’s about 100 years from now. Or at the very least, a time when it’s common to go on dates with highly intelligent “companion” robots.
Imagine they’re not just highly intelligent, but exceedingly human-like; you’d never know it if you passed one on the street (think Westworld realistic).
Now, you’ve just been on your fourth date with a lovely woman-robot: she’s intelligent, of course, and beautiful, and you’ve had a deep conversation over dinner and drinks that lasted an incredible four hours. This time, she’s come back to your place with you for a nightcap, and you finally decide to lean in for a kiss. Luckily, she kisses you back. You know she’s a robot, but who cares? She’s perfect. You’re ready to take it further.
But, she draws the line there. She wants to get going. “An early morning,” she explains, as she stands to leave.
Since no laws regarding robot treatment exist, a question pops into your head:
Would it really be wrong to force yourself on her —
Is it wrong to rape a robot?
On the basis of consent
The first question we have to ask is if whether it’s even possible to “rape” a robot. Rape is about mutual consent between people (and let’s extend that to other real animals, too) to perform a sexual act. If there is no consent, and there is penetration of any sort, it’s rape.
So ostensibly, what a robot could do is refuse to perform or be involved in a sexual act: she (it) could say “no” and/or physically refuse the person initiating, like in our little scenario above.
But of course this begs the question of whether a robot’s non-consent really “counts”. A robot isn’t truly alive, no matter how intelligent it is. At the end of the day, it’s a machine that was in some way previously pre-programmed: its “personality”, its temperament, its intellect, how it “feels” — all inputs created by human hands.
As such, the “rape” scenario with a robot could in reality be just a simulation of rape. An intelligent robot can certainly “sense”, “learn”, and vary its responses according to its situation, which mimics the human experience of knowledge and decision-making, but whether or not it actually knows what it is doing is another question; that’s a metaphysical-epistemological question that goes beyond my scope at the moment.
And yet: there’s something about a person forcing itself on an indistinguishable-from-human robot that that just seems very wrong. (Or doesn’t it? Am I the only one that cringes when I see a 2 year old beating the crap out of a stuffed bunny?)
Fantasy v. Intent v. Act
Regardless of whether you believe it wrong or not to force yourself on the “woman”, should it be wrong?
The thing that comes to mind that might help sort through this issue is how the virtual and real interact. After all, one of the issues that would impact our assessment might be whether playing this scenario out in the virtual world would then transfer over into the real world. Since we can only go by what has actually been studied up until this point in time, let’s look quickly at violent video games impacting real-life behavior.
In 2017, the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Media Violence concluded that violent video game exposure increased aggressive behaviors, thoughts, and emotions, including “physiological arousal”. If we translate this into our robot-rape scenario, it would mean that allowing robot rape would increase rape rates on real people.
And that would be a very bad thing indeed.
But others have claimed the exact opposite result, saying violence in video games curbs violence in real life because it allows people to take out their “natural” aggression in a virtual space. You could even argue that that’s what sports like football and hockey are all about — aggression and dominance, but within limits.
Can we then make the claim that having robots for this very purpose — an “acting out” of a rape scenario — might decrease the chances for real rapes? There are certainly rape fantasies out there, and a sex robot might be just the ticket to satisfy that market, and prevent real rapes from happening.
But that would be a good thing, wouldn’t it? A resounding “yes” to raping robots, in the case it might curb real violence against women?
As a woman, I wouldn’t count on it.
Anyway, I’m still not convinced it’s not wrong to rape a robot. The fact is, there are no conclusive studies on any of this either way: a relationship between the virtual and the real may exist, either by increasing real aggression or decreasing it, or it may not exist at all. And that’s virtual reality on screens, not interacting in 3D space, which is infinitely more real-like.
The ethics of human stand-ins
My intuition still tells me that raping a humanoid robot is wrong, regardless of its impact on real-world rape statistics. Which means that a utilitarian response might not be the best way to answer this question; it’s not about doing whatever it takes just to increase overall happiness if the thing itself isn’t all that great.
Perhaps the moral judgment here might better be left to virtue ethics, which is about approaching an idealistic moral character based on upholding positive virtues: things like honesty, kindness, integrity, courage, justice, and the like.
If that’s the case, then maybe that feeling of “wrongness” regarding robot rape is simply because we’re talking about robots that are exceedingly anthropomorphic. A woman robot is meant to replace a real woman. Moreover, she exists so that one doesn’t have to deal with the very real emotions that come with a real human interaction: the vulnerability, the baggage, the possibility of rejection — or the repercussions of treating a woman badly, like raping her. (As a side note, there already exist sex dolls that are very real-looking, they just aren’t robots, who can respond. Don’t click here if you don’t want to see what I’m talking about.)
If the idea of a generic stand-in doesn’t resonate with you, then what if we change the scenario slightly: instead of “a woman”, it’s an exact replica of you in robot form. Or maybe, it’s a child — your child. Does it make a difference then in whether or not raping the robot is wrong?
There’s something in this idea that’s about “getting away with it”, and when we’re overtly doing something in order to skirt some decidedly wrong action or rule, then it simply becomes wrong itself. There is a complete lack of virtue, a lack of respectability, integrity, decency — and by extension, of what it might mean to “be a good person” (even if “being a good person” is a somewhat subjective matter).
A matter of intent?
Would there then be the same sense of wrongness with, say, a robot that looked like a computer instead of a real human, perhaps with just enough human-like sex bits to be “enticing” in some way?
Actually, I don’t think there would be. After all, there are sex dolls, dildos, and other sex objects that already mimic human parts and exist for our sexual pleasure, they just don’t look or act like real humans (though they’re getting more and more realistic). And in fact, we can’t mistake them for human; so even if someone fantasizes about raping another person and plays it out with an inanimate object or one that is not humanoid in the least, it forces them to keep a large portion of that fantasy in their heads. It’s more physical than anything else.
So there’s some sort of moral line there too, in that place between “just in our head” and making it “real”; I think it has to do with intent.
Some people may claim that using inanimate objects purely for sexual pleasure may be weird or even wrong, depending on who you ask. But it certainly doesn’t violate the harm principle, which prevents us from harming others as a basis for some moral code.
But with rape, there is a blatant intent to violate the woman(bot). It has to do with outright disrespect and violence toward another.
In the case of a robot that acts like a woman, we’re actively convincing ourselves that the robot is a woman, and we are intending to ignore her feelings of intimacy, vulnerability, and mutual consent that comes along with real sex. We are intending to exert control and power over her, and harm her in the process, the very opposite of what the harm principle seeks to prevent.
Weird or not, it seems that the wrongness of raping a woman-robot therefore has to do with the immoral, virtue-less intent of the rapist, rather than the “who” that the person ends up raping.
Thanks to this episode of The Minefield for this story’s inspiration. For more on this subject from a philosophical standpoint, check out Rob Sparrow’s work.
Danielle Mund is an art historian by training and moral philosopher by nature. She writes from Puerto Rico, sometimes holed up in a cool dark room and sometimes beachside at the Ritz.
