Confucian ritual propriety is key to prevent moral degradation driven by AI.

So far, I have described the Confucian paradigm of moral skill and virtue acquisition and the normative role of Confucian li in this paradigm. The Confucian paradigm and its attention to rituals offer a different picture of technology-driven moral deskilling. Instead of viewing it as a problem that arises from faulty or irresponsible choices of technology design and use by designers and users, the Confucian paradigm views the problem as an indication of a disfunction of Confucian li caused by new technology, which occurs when technology transforms or disrupts human practices in ways that prompt individuals and the society to neglect the rituals in their community and tradition. Recall Vallor’s case of robot caregivers: Robot caregivers are morally questionable when they reduce and remove the opportunity for individuals to exercise care and acquire the relevant virtues through care practice. Her response to the problem is to remind of the importance of not designing and implementing care robots in ways that replace human beings in tasks of care and related virtues and only in ways that complement them in performing these tasks. Similarly, the Confucian paradigm requires us to limit the design and implementation of care robots in ways that do not supersede the roles and responsibilities of human beings in caring. According to the Confucian paradigm, however, the problem with technology-driven moral deskilling is not simply an individual problem as per Vallor’s suggestion, i.e., that individuals lack opportunities to exercise moral skills and acquire virtues, which, of course, is also recognized by the Confucian paradigm, robot caregivers become morally problematic when they drive us to ignore the rituals of care in one’s community and tradition, i.e., the performance of specific behaviors and expression of specific attitudes of care in the care environment. Since rituals give human actions meaning and make them meaningful to us, the loss of the rituals of care entails the loss of meaning of care as well. So construed, the problem of technology-driven moral deskilling is a much broader shared and collective matter. In response to technology-driven moral deskilling, the Confucian paradigm can argue for the establishment of Confucian li as the normative standard for technology design and use. Here, a recent proposal of Confucian robot ethics from JeeLoo Liu [38] is instructive.10 Liu derives three moral rules for robot ethics from three Confucian virtues: Firstly, based on the virtue of loyalty (zhong) to one’s role, she asserts that (CR1) robots must first and foremost fulfill their assigned role; secondly, based on the virtue of reciprocity (shu), she argues that (CR2) robots should not act in ways that would afflict the highest displeasure or the lowest preference onto other human beings, when other options are available; and, finally, based on the virtue of humanity (ren), she claims that (CR3) robots must render assistance to human beings in their pursuit of moral improvement, unless doing so would violate (CR1) and (CR2), and they must also refuse assistance to human beings when their projects would bring out their evil qualities or produce immorality. While Liu formulates the three moral rules in terms of Confucian virtues, Confucian li can be readily incorporated into (CR1) and (CR3) and then be used as an answer to the problem of moral deskilling. For instance, Confucian li can specify and clarify the role(s) robots should be assigned in (CR1) and so, to avoid overstepping the relational and role responsibility, ought to be fulfilled by humans. Relatedly, Confucian li describes one means for individuals to achieve moral improvement, and thus to concretize the idea of moral improvement and moral degradation in (CR3). Using the case of robot caregivers as an illustration, (CR1) and (CR3) together should avoid the problem of technology-driven moral deskilling by preventing robot caregivers from overtaking the relational and role responsibility that is central in the rituals of care, i.e., (CR1), and by ensuring robot caregivers only facilitate the performance of the rituals of care, i.e., (CR3). Now, one may object that the Confucian response to technology-driven moral deskilling does not differ from Vallor’s proposal of positing the opportunity to acquire moral skills as a normative boundary for design and deployment of technology, as the Confucian response too suggests designing and using technology in ways that do not interfere with performance of Confucian li, which, in turn, includes performance of moral skills. It is indeed true that the Confucian response also takes into consideration people’s opportunity to acquire moral skills because exercising one’s moral skills is part and parcel of proper ritual performance. By attending to rituals, however, the Confucian response introduces a more holistic view of the problem of technology-driven moral deskilling and turns the focus from technology’s impacts on individuals’ values and virtues to its impacts on human practices. Notably, the Confucian response views the problem as stemming from technology’s transformative and disruptive impacts on the nature of human activities, including the manner in which the activities are carried out, e.g., how and why, when robot caregivers are implemented, some behaviors and attitudes are no longer deemed as valuable and meaningful in the care practice. In this respect, the Confucian response requires going beyond maintaining the opportunity to exercise moral skills and affirms the value and meaningfulness of moral skills qua part of rituals.11 In short, the Confucian response looks to (re)shape technologically mediated activities through the existing rituals (cf. [39]). Moreover, as Confucian li serves as a normative guidance in rethinking the technologically mediated activities, designers and users are required to consider the social, political, and cultural factors related to the activities, as these factors inform them what rituals are relevant and how the rituals ought to be enacted. The attention to rituals, therefore, helps dispel the indefensible hyper-rational and autonomous understanding of person. Furthermore, the Confucian response foregrounds the bodily-performative dimension in technologically mediated activities, as Confucian li aims to cultivate individuals’ effortless and spontaneous reactions to everyday ethical encounters by refining and modulating their emotional and physical experience. Accordingly, in rethinking the technologically mediated activities, the bodily influences of technology, in particular the possibility of structuring bodily movements through technology design and use [40,41], and the affective influences from different technologies [42] will be explicitly considered in the Confucian response. In fact, the Confucian response may even warrant proactively shaping individuals’ bodily and emotional states in accordance with Confucian li in technologically mediated activities, i.e., (CR3). Kristina Niedderer [43,44] has recently advanced the idea of “mindful design” and explored the possibility of raising users’ attentiveness to the relational, social, and environmental consequences of their actions through the design of objects. One of the examples she mentions is to design mobile phones to “shout back” at their users should they talk too loudly in public. Here, the design is intended to alert the users to the disrupting impacts they have on others around them and lead them to adjust the level of their voice [44]. “Mindful design” converges with the Confucian response in their concerns over people’s inattentiveness to social convention, etiquette, and other patterns of courteous behaviors and the resulting behaviors and attitudes. Hence, one can imagine that the Confucian response advocates designing technology that enables individuals to be more attentive to the rituals in various circumstances. In other words, the Confucian response shall defend a ritualization of technology to facilitate individual and societal flourishing.