Social Assistive Robots in Healthcare: Ethical Boundaries of Caritative Caring Perspective

ABSTRACT

Caring is commonly described as the ethical core of nursing and as a fundamentally human way of relating to others. As social assistive robots are increasingly introduced into healthcare, questions emerge regarding the role these technologies can play in caring practices. Drawing on Katie Eriksson's theory of caritative caring, this paper examines how social assistive robots may be understood in caring and discusses the ethical boundaries that should guide their use. Caritative caring, grounded in Caritas , emphasizes human dignity, the care relationship, invitation, responsibility, virtue, obligation or duty, and ethical freedom. It presupposes an ethical orientation and relational openness that robots cannot possess as ethical subjects. Social assistive robots may simulate relational behaviors and support certain aspects of care, but they lack the moral agency and compassionate intentionality required for caritative caring in its full sense. At the same time, this does not mean that robots have no place in healthcare. When designed and used within a value‐sensitive and care‐oriented framework, social assistive robots may complement caregivers by supporting safety, autonomy and routine care tasks. Caritative caring theory thus offers a framework for clarifying the ethical boundaries of robot use in healthcare, not as substitutes for human compassion and responsibility, but where social assistive robots may support the conditions for human caring without replacing the relation and ethical responsibilities of caregivers.