The Contextual Autonomy Principle: When and Why Social Service Robots Are Perceived as Ethical

ABSTRACT As social service robots move into both public and private settings, perceived ethicality becomes a key condition of adoption. We propose that the same robotic capability can acquire different ethical meanings depending on context, governance form, and social presence. Across three studies, we show that restaurant (vs. home) deployment increases perceived ethicality, which in turn increases intention to use. We further show that human‐in‐the‐loop oversight is evaluated as more ethical than full autonomy in the home, whereas the reverse emerges in restaurants, primarily when social presence is high. Guided neural topic modeling further reveals that practical utility is more salient in homes, whereas dining innovation is more salient in restaurants. These findings advance a contextual autonomy principle, position perceived ethicality as a legitimacy judgment that links context and governance to adoption, and identify social presence as the condition under which robot governance becomes morally diagnostic.