Effects of Moral-Emotional Behavior and Intentionality on Mind Attribution and Evaluation of Social Robots

Robots are generally not considered full moral agents and therefore not appropriate loci of moral responsibility; however, research suggests that people may attribute mental capacities associated with moral agency as well as moral responsibility to robots. We investigate the extent to which descriptions of social robots as minded agents or mechanical machines differentially impact moral judgments of robots’ morally and emotionally relevant actions. In two experiments we considered cognitive and emotional aspects of moral judgments: mind attribution and moral evaluations as well as people’s emotional response, a key component in accounts of moral responsibility. Participants (N = 82) read and subsequently rated 42 stories about robots’ actions, which differed in level of intentionality and moral-emotional quality of information. Although minded as opposed to mechanical descriptions positively influenced mind attribution and attributed moral responsibility, participants’ emotional response and moral evaluations were largely dominated by the moral-emotional content of information. In addition, the presentation of an image alongside information negatively affected the influence of minded descriptions of robots on mind attribution. Our findings demonstrate that robots are ascribed moral responsibility even though by current theoretical accounts they are not suitable moral agents. Robots that are described as minded are furthermore attributed greater agency and moral responsibility. We discuss the impact of our findings for theoretical discussions about the ethics of AI and robots.