My claim in this presentation is that sex-robots would fundamentally be worsening the degeneration of pedophilia into child abuse, because it is a self-indulgence, despite technology’s ambivalent moral value. In the first part, I will provide a model of ethics that emphasizes self-work in order to develop morality, based on  Aristotle (1999, e. g. 1103a, 1170a) and Kierkegaard (1980, 35-6 and 129-38; 1987, 254-5). 

In the second part, I will use that model to provide an argument supported by empirical data for my claim in a case study on pedophilia and sex-robots. Following  Aristotle and Kierkegaard, I will suggest that child abuses happen from a lack of self-development and the orientation of an individual towards the satisfaction of wrong desires. Thus, the possibility of mediating abuses with artificial beings cannot offer a way to prevent child abuse in the long term, because it would only reinforce the attraction of wrong desires instead of helping one to be aware and work on themselves. 

This view seems to align with recent research highlighting the lack of evidence for a positive moral outcome on such therapeutic use (Devlin, 2018, 197/226).