Morality And Ethics - I, Robot Theme Of Morality And Ethics | I, Robot by Isaac Asimov- Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

If you expected a lot of mindless adventure in I, Robot, then you were probably surprised by how much these stories focus on morality and ethics and how few explosions there are. In I, Robot, one of the central questions that robots and humans face is how to live a moral life—except for the robots, this question is already answered since they have the Three Laws to follow. In fact, the Three Laws almost ensure that the robots are better than people—unless the people follow the Three Laws also. Unfortunately, although they seem pretty simple, the Three Laws seem to trip up some robots that try to be moral, which is why US Robots has to keep Susan Calvin and other robopsychologists on the payroll.

Questions About Morality and Ethics

1. Are robots really more moral than humans? Are you convinced by Susan Calvin's argument about how the Three Laws map onto human moral systems in "Evidence"?
2. The Three Laws are presented in a fairly clear matter—something is either allowed (and good) or not allowed (and bad); but what sort of wiggle room do the robots find in these laws? Is there any gray area in morality or is everything in this book easily divided up into good and bad?
3. What's the relation between morality and some of the other themes of this book, like Fear and Choice? For instance, the robots don't have a choice about being moral—does that change what you think about their morality?
4. In the real world, religion is often associated with morality; but religion doesn't seem to play a big role in this book. So is there a relation between morality and religion in this book? Is there an argument in this book about how those two are or aren't connected?

Chew on This

Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

Morality in I, Robot is purely a matter of acting correctly—and not at all a matter of thinking, feeling, or believing correctly. So it doesn't matter what you think as long as you act correctly.

Morality in I, Robot is connected to the positronic brain, which means that morality has a physical effect on the universe (or on the math that describes the universe). In other words, morality isn't an abstract concept, but a concrete part of the world.