Can Technological Artefacts Be Moral Agents?

In this paper we discuss the hypothesis that, ‘moral agency is distributed over both humans and technological artefacts’, recently proposed by Peter-Paul Verbeek. We present some arguments for thinking that Verbeek is mistaken. We argue that artefacts such as bridges, word processors, or bombs can n...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Peterson, Martin, Spahn, Andreas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2010
Materias:
Article
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183318/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20927601
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11948-010-9241-3
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author Peterson, Martin
Spahn, Andreas
author_facet Peterson, Martin
Spahn, Andreas
author_sort Peterson, Martin
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description In this paper we discuss the hypothesis that, ‘moral agency is distributed over both humans and technological artefacts’, recently proposed by Peter-Paul Verbeek. We present some arguments for thinking that Verbeek is mistaken. We argue that artefacts such as bridges, word processors, or bombs can never be (part of) moral agents. After having discussed some possible responses, as well as a moderate view proposed by Illies and Meijers, we conclude that technological artefacts are neutral tools that are at most bearers of instrumental value.
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spelling pubmed-31833182011-10-04 Can Technological Artefacts Be Moral Agents? Peterson, Martin Spahn, Andreas Sci Eng Ethics Article In this paper we discuss the hypothesis that, ‘moral agency is distributed over both humans and technological artefacts’, recently proposed by Peter-Paul Verbeek. We present some arguments for thinking that Verbeek is mistaken. We argue that artefacts such as bridges, word processors, or bombs can never be (part of) moral agents. After having discussed some possible responses, as well as a moderate view proposed by Illies and Meijers, we conclude that technological artefacts are neutral tools that are at most bearers of instrumental value. Springer Netherlands 2010-10-08 2011 /pmc/articles/PMC3183318/ /pubmed/20927601 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11948-010-9241-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2010 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
spellingShingle Article
Peterson, Martin
Spahn, Andreas
Can Technological Artefacts Be Moral Agents?
title Can Technological Artefacts Be Moral Agents?
title_full Can Technological Artefacts Be Moral Agents?
title_fullStr Can Technological Artefacts Be Moral Agents?
title_full_unstemmed Can Technological Artefacts Be Moral Agents?
title_short Can Technological Artefacts Be Moral Agents?
title_sort can technological artefacts be moral agents?
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183318/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20927601
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11948-010-9241-3
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