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Mindshaping and Robotics

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Sociality and Normativity for Robots

Part of the book series: Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality ((SIPS))

Abstract

Social robotics attempts to build robots able to interact with humans and other robots. Philosophical and scientific research in social cognition can provide social robotics research with models of social cognition to implement those models in mechanic agents. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, I present and defend a framework in social cognition known as mindshaping. According to it, human beings are biologically predisposed to learn and teach cultural and rational norms and complex cultural patterns of behavior that enhance social cognition. Secondly, I will highlight how this framework can open new research perspectives in the area of social robotics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There are several differences concerning the way those authors approximate those basic ideas. For instance, while McGeer (2007) dubs it the regulative view and emphasize the different ways we maintain the norms and routines, Zawidzki (2013) focuses on the developmental and evolutionary aspects of it. Although I appeal to several of those authors, during my exposition, I mostly elaborate from Zawidzki’s ideas.

  2. 2.

    In spite of the agreement, an increasing number of dissenters against centrality have emerged in the recent years (Gallagher, 2001; Hutto & Ratcliffe, 2007; Leudar & Costall, 2009). All these scholars share their refusal to the importance that the orthodoxy has assigned to mentalizing in the explanation of social cognition. This set of views is often called interactionism (Gallagher, 2004). According to it, social exchanges are usually facilitated for basic forms of socio-cognitive mechanisms including perceiving bodily movement as a goal-directed intentional movement, coordinating expressions and gestures or following gaze mechanisms.

  3. 3.

    One may object that understanding those norms of rationality requires the attribution of mental states. However, there is a more deflationist interpretation of those kinds of situations. Interpreting a particular behavior as being a rational only requires understanding an action as aiming a specific goal and constituting the most rational means given the environmental constraints. For different versions of this deflationist interpretation of behavior are the non-mentalistic version of “the intentional stance” (Zawidzki, 2013), “the teleological stance” (Gergely & Csibra, 2003) or “the situation theory” (Perner & Roessler, 2010). See also Sect. 6.3.1.

  4. 4.

    Mindshaping mechanisms are a heterogeneous class. They can vary according to different variables: the target, the model, etc. Notice, for instance, that the mindshaping mechanism can be implemented in the mind that is shaped or in the mind that shapes the other mind.

  5. 5.

    Traditionally, the appearance of full-fledged mental states ascriptions appears around four (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). However, recent studies point out to a far shorter age, around 12 months (Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005). However, those studies are subjected to more deflationist interpretations. Namely, considering that children can pass the tests thank the teleological stance or a similar low-level capacity (see Rakoczy, 2015, for a discussion).

  6. 6.

    This is a simplified version of the thesis. Zawidzki defends the idea that those environments enhanced cooperation of our ancestors. However, as soon as the environments started changing, the population began a process of balkanization which exerts a selective pressure for the emergence of mindshaping and group selection (see Zawidzki, 2013, Ch. 4 for more details).

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the comments by Fernando Martinez Manrique, Johanna Seibt, Raul Hakli, the Ph.D. students of the Philosophy Department 1 at Universidad de Granada, Charlie White and the audience at the Robo-Philosophy Conference 2014. Research for this paper was funded by the Spanish Government through Research Projects FFI2015-65953-P and the fellowship FPI BES-2012-052157.

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  1. Dpto. Filosofía I, Edificio Psicología, Universidad de Granada, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Víctor Fernández Castro

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  1. Víctor Fernández Castro
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Correspondence to Víctor Fernández Castro .

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  1. Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Raul Hakli

  2. Research Unit for Robophilosophy, Department for Philosophy and History of Ideas, School of Culture and Society Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Johanna Seibt

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Fernández Castro, V. (2017). Mindshaping and Robotics. In: Hakli, R., Seibt, J. (eds) Sociality and Normativity for Robots. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53133-5_6

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