Research on the Ethical Dilemmas of Nursing Robots Assisted Home-based Elderly Care: Based on Value Sensitive Design Theory / 中国医学伦理学

ABSTRACT

With aging population becoming increasingly prominent, more intelligent, integrated, and anthropomorphic nursing robots are becoming an important option for future home-based elderly care. However, a series of ethical dilemmas may arise when nursing robots that provide long-term services participate in the social life of the elderly as social entities. For example, the encroachment of low-level interaction between humans and nursing robots on the high-level interaction between humans, as well as the dispute over the definition of responsibility caused by unclear moral subjects. The value sensitive design theory advocates incorporating value into technical design, and based on its conceptual research, empirical research, and iterative approach, it can be found that the fundamental reason for the above-mentioned ethical dilemma lies in the confusion and dislocation of the ternary nursing relationship among human caregivers, the elderly, and nursing robots. Accordingly, this paper proposed to clarify the user status of the elderly and human caregivers, while nursing robots serve as auxiliary tools to meet the nursing needs of the elderly, protect and enhance the well-being of the elderly.