This article argues in defence of human–robot friendship. I begin by outlining the standard Aristotelian view of friendship, according to which there are certain necessary conditions which x must meet in order to ‘be a friend’. I explain how the current literature typically uses this Aristotelian view to object to human–robot friendships on theoretical and ethical grounds. Theoretically, a robot cannot be our friend because it cannot meet the requisite necessary conditions for friendship. Ethically, human–robot friendships are wrong because they (...) are deceptive, and could also make it more likely that we will favour ‘perfect’ robots, and disrespect, exploit, or exclude other human beings. To argue against the above position, I begin by outlining and assessing current attempts to reject the theoretical argument—that we cannot befriend robots. I argue that the current attempts are problematic, and do little to support the claim that we can be friends with robots now. I then use the standard Aristotelian view as a touchstone to develop a new degrees-of-friendship view. On my view, it is theoretically possible for humans to have some degree of friendship with social robots now. I explain how my view avoids ethical concerns about human–robot friendships being deceptive, and/or leading to the disrespect, exploitation, or exclusion of other human beings. (shrink)

Most philosophical accounts of human rights accept that all persons have human rights. Typically, ‘personhood’ is understood as unitary and binary. It is unitary because there is generally supposed to be a single threshold property required for personhood. It is binary because it is all-or-nothing: you are either a person or you are not. A difficulty with binary views is that there will typically be subjects, like children and those with dementia, who do not meet the threshold, and so who (...) are not persons with human rights, on these accounts. It is consequently unclear how we ought to treat these subjects. This is the problem of marginal cases. I argue that we cannot resolve the problem of marginal cases if we accept a unitary, binary view of personhood. Instead, I develop a new non-binary personhood account of human rights, and defend two main claims. First, there are many, scalar properties, the having of which are conducive to personhood. Second, different subjects have different human rights depending on which of these properties they have, and what threats apply to them. On my view, and contra most existing accounts, most marginal cases have some degree of personhood and are entitled to some human rights. (shrink)