Is My Car Evil?
A Review of Non-Anthropocentric Theories ofMoral Agency
Tommaso Barbetta*

Introduction
January 22, 2018. It is Monday morning and aseriously by the press? One of the reasons ishuge firetruck is stationing in the middle of thethat, apparently, the man sitting at the driverInterstate 405, in California. A car, travelling atseat was not actually driving the car during the

100 km/h, proceeds right toward the truck

accident. But not because he fell asleep at thewithout slowing down. Nothing obstructs thewheel, nor because he was distracted by aview of the driver. There is no malfunctioning

notification from his smartphone. He

in the electrical system and the hydraulicdeliberately chose not to drive. Indeed, someone

brakes are fully operative, ready to beelse was driving the car in his place. But here

activated. Yet, the driver does not push theis the issue: that someone, the entity that was

brake pedal. The car continues its run, getting

really behind the wheel during the accident,

closer and closer to the firetruck parked in thewas not a human being. It was the“autopilot”.

centre of the road. The impact seems now

It was a piece of software.

inevitable. The vehicle crashes into the back ofNowadays smart technologies substituting us

the red truck. The metallic front of the car

and acting for us are everywhere. We arefolds in on itself. Surprisingly, the driver is safe.

quickly getting used to delegating everyday

1

This time nobody got injured.

tasks to a multitude of artefacts. Artefacts that

More than 1 million people die every year inconstantly mediate our experience of reality

traffic accidents all over the world (WHO 2015).

and help us in the process of making decisions.

However, quite curiously, this banal collision

Yet, from a moral point of view, we do notcaught the attention of some of the mostreally know how to consider all these entities.2

popular newspapers around the globe. Why

What can be said about the above-mentioned

was this relatively harmless incident taken so

software that destroyed a car and that could* University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, ITASIA D2
キーワード：Actor-network theory, Information ethics, posthumanism, moral agency, responsibility, morality of technology.

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have killed its owner? Is it responsible for theyears several non-anthropocentric theories ofaccident? Is the company that designed it

agency have emerged. In particular, actor-

responsible? Or should we rather blame the

network theory (ANT) has provided an

human driver, who was supposed to - but

effective framework for the assessment of thepresumably did not - keep his hands on therole played by artefacts, and other kinds of non-steering wheel and be vigilant in order to takehuman entities, in our society.4 However, it iscontrol of the car before the collision. And what

not yet clear if and how a notion of agency

about the algorithm that in 2012 made Knightdetached from intentionality, such as that of

3

ANT, could be translated to ethics. Once it is

Can it be blamed for the disruption of thefreed from intentionality, is moral agency acompany? Nobody designs trading algorithms

characteristic of a specific category of entities,

with the intention of breaking a company apartsuch as humans, living beings or algorithms, oror causing a market to crash, but that iscould it be ascribed to anything? Furthermore,

nonetheless what they ended up doing in somehow could the question of responsibility becases (MacKenzie 2014, 3). On the surface,reframed in order to fit an ontology according(quasi-)autonomous technologies appear toto which agency is always distributed among

behave as if they could make decisions and act

multiple actors?

Capital lose 440 million USD in 45 minutes?

on their own. However, the lack of intentions -After a brief overview of the instrumentalist

besides those delegated by humans - behindapproach to technology embraced by standard

such Boolean logic, has led consequentialists toanthropocentric moral theories, the present

cast serious doubts over the significance of

paper investigates these questions by reviewing

recognizing the actions performed by artefacts

the literature of ANT (along with its

as morally charged (Peterson and Spahn 2011).

postphenomenological adaptation). Furthermore,

Due to their devotion to the idea ofin the final sections, the article turns tointentionality, standard ethical theories haveinformation ethics (IE), a non-anthropocentricbeen unable to recognize the moral implications

ethical theory influenced by computer science,of information and communication technologies

whose different definition of moral agency(ICT) such as the one adopted by the above-might help us to solve some of the difficulties ofmentioned autopilot.

an ANT-informed ethics.

Outside the field of ethics, over the last 30

1 Instrumentalism

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From the point of view of standard

approach seems to ignore the existence ofcontemporary ethical theories, such asartefacts that are able to learn from thedeontology, contractualism andenvironment, correct themselves and makeconsequentialism, it would be incorrect todecisions that were not intended either by theirconsider an artefact as a moral agent. In

producers, or by their users. Take the case ofstandard ethics by definition an action is moral

the autopilot mentioned in the introduction,

only as long as it is initiated by some kind ofwhich relies on a computer vision system: thisintentional state of mind, i.e. only if it is thesystem was built on an artificial neural network

product of a conscious reason (Himma 2009,

where code is not entered line by line by

Koops et al. 2010). Given this definition, there is

human programmers and whose output is often

no way my car could be a moral agent since,

obscure to the original creators themselves. It

due to the limits of our current technologies, awould be inaccurate to hold a human

computer cannot possibly have intentional

programmer responsible for the individualstates of mind.

choices made by such kinds of software

By accepting intentionality as a necessary(Matthias 2004).

condition for moral action, standard ethicalMoreover, standard ethical theories seem totheories therefore set a clear separation

downplay the role of technologies in mediating

between human entities, which reflect, makethe state of mind of individual humans. The

decisions and have intentions and free will, on

increasing adoption of neuromarketingthe one hand, and purely neutral artefacts, on

strategies attests the widespread awarenessthe other. To rephrase the (in)famous slogan ofamong commercial corporations of the influence

the American National Rifle Association: carsthat ad-hoc physiological stimuli might have on

don’t kill people, people kill people. An artefact

the behaviour of consumers. For example, the– be it a car or a gun - is only a merelayout and atmospherics of most casinos are

instrument, and as such it has always different

designed to make customers move following

possible uses. It is ultimately the human user

specific patterns and keep them playing as long

who determines what to do with it (Pitt 2014).

as possible (Schüll 2012). This kind of artificial

Responsibility lies always in a human.

environment is by no means neutral. Rather, it

Because of their commitment to the idea ofactively manipulates the perceptions of its

moral responsibility, standard ethical theories

users. What we call addiction is not theare incapable of recognizing many of theunidirectional product of the harmful decisions

pressing moral issues of our information

made by an (genetically) impaired brain. It is asociety. First of all, a strong anthropocentric

relational phenomenon involving a human and

Is My Car Evil? A Review of Non-Anthropocentric Theories of Moral Agency109

an environment often - but not necessarily -and disadvantages of the adoption of a notion ofdesigned to make use of his limitations.

agency influenced by ANT, focusing on the

The following sections investigate advantages

moral issues raised by the crash.

2 Actor-network theory
Developed in the early 1980s in the field ofbest way to take into consideration how asociology of scientific knowledge, ANT is aheterogeneous set of non-human entities, fromheterogeneous set of linguistic categories thatmicrobes to airbags, participates in our

initially emerged to trace the active role of non-collective life is to adopt a “network-likehuman entities in the analysis of scientificontology”(Latour 1996, 370).

practices (Latour 1983). The common ground,

The next sections investigate the ethicalshared by the social scientists adopting this

implications of this ontological stance. Following

analytical framework, is a non-anthropocentrica review of the key concepts of symmetry andview of reality based on the concept ofmediation, the article discusses how the notions

network. According to Bruno Latour, theof “prescription” and “distributed agency”

author who more than anyone else has unfolded

might inform a moral analysis of non-humanthe philosophical consequences of ANT, theentities.

2.1 Principle of symmetry
ANT is based on the idea that there is anacts, any node that contributes to a network.

ontological symmetry between humans andAn actor is defined by its action, and sincenon-human entities. This is sometimes referred“there is no other way to define an action but

to as the“principle of generalized symmetry”

by asking what other actors are modified,(Callon 1986). Human beings, biologicaltransformed, perturbed or created”(Latourorganisms, material objects and abstract

1999, 122), it follows that an actor is necessarily

entities are all part of the same reality. Given

defined by its relations with other actors within

this principle, a common terminology, one

a network.

which is not biased by the previously

According to John Law (1992), from anmentioned human vs. non-human dichotomy, isanalytical standpoint this symmetrical approachneeded by social scientists.“Actor”(or“actant”)

leads us to a radical rejection of any differenceis the term used to express the minimum unit

in kind between humans and objects. Humansof our reality. An actor is literally anything thatare not at the centre of the universe anymore.

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They are equal to any other entity. However, itview on ethics. In the article, Latour openly

would be a mistake to read ANT’s analyticalcriticizes standard ethical approaches that

norms as moral norms. Indeed, justifying adivide technology and morality into two

moral symmetry on the basis of an ontologicalseparated realms, that of means, on the one

symmetry would be logically flawed: the fact

hand, and that of ends, on the other. Artefacts

that reality is in a certain way does not imply

cannot be reduced to mere means, since theythat we ought to act accordingly - something

lay the conditions for our actions, and thus

which was pointed out already by Hume (1896).

mediate our behaviour. According to Latour,“We need, I think, to distinguish between ethics

what we call “human” cannot exist

and sociology. The one may - indeed should -independently from the technologicalinform the other, but they are not identical. To

mediations it is intertwined with (Latour 2002,

say that there is no fundamental difference252).“Generalizing the notion of affordance, we

between people and objects is an analytical

could say that the quasi-subjects which we all

stance, not an ethical position. And to say thisare, become such thanks to the quasi-objects

does not mean that we have to treat the people

which populate our universe”(Latour 2002, 252-in our lives as machines.”(Law 1992, 383). Law

253). We, as quasi-subjects, are free either tois – rightly – afraid of the consequences of a

accept or reject the programmes of action - themisinterpretation of the principle of symmetry.

affordances - embodied by the artefacts

Yet, he leaves the door open for a possible

surrounding us, but nonetheless our behaviour

contribution of ANT to ethics.

is necessarily mediated by them. A moral

In an article titled “Morality andapproach informed by the relational ontology ofTechnology”, Latour (2002) takes on this task

ANT, is therefore one that focuses on technicaland attempts to elaborate an ANT-informed

mediations.

2.2 Mediations
In ANT the way actors interact with eachthe case of non-autonomous cars, for example,

other is referred to as mediation. Two actors,

human drivers control the wheels using thetwo nodes of a network, always interact withsteering wheel. At this level of abstraction, theeach other by the means of a third actor

steering wheel is a mediator. However, the(Latour 1996, 378). Given an actor A and an

steering wheel is merely an interface and there

actor B, their interaction necessarily occurs

is a series of other mediators between it andthrough the mediation of an actor C. This third

the wheels: e.g. a steering column, several

actor C is a“mediator”(Latour 1996, 373). In

sensors, an electronic control unit and a motor,

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all translate the mechanical torque of theyet reached full autonomy and from time tosteering wheel operated by the driver into thetime require the human driver to take control

actual steering. Moreover, it has to beof the vehicle. The human driver is now

remarked that this is not a one-dimensional

supposed to assume the role of “drive

chain, but a heterogeneous network. By

monitor”, ready to take control of the car

assuming different levels of abstraction, we

whenever the software is perceived to be doing

would recognize that different kinds of entities

something wrong. Given this new role, it seems

mediate the way we control a car: roads andthat in our example both the human and thetraffic signals obviously play a part, but also thesoftware made a mistake. The human wasvoice of a car navigation system telling us what

wrong since he did not correct the autopilot.

to do, as well as the interiorized gaze of theYet, it has been demonstrated that the highauthority that keeps us from breaking trafficlevel of automation of current software lets

rules. Modifying any of these actors mighthumans disengage from the driving task, toproduce a different driving experience andsuch an extent that they become potentiallydifferent subjectivities.

less attentive and therefore unable to take

The autopilot illustrates how the introduction

control when necessary (Banks et al 2018). Untilof a new mediator might change the way

recently, driving has been a bodily experience:

humans perceive the environment and act. The

drivers received a feedback at every

control of the car is delegated to software,

movement, and contextual cues activatedwhich dissociates the body of the human driver

habitual responses. The autopilot does not justfrom the movement of the vehicle. The carchange the car; it also changes the humankeeps driving on its own. However, the self-

driver as a subject. The way we look and feel

driving systems currently available have not

the road is different.

2.3 Prescription
Initially employed by Madeleine Akrich“Like a film script, technical objects define a(1992), the notion of prescription conceptualizes

framework of action together with the actors

one of the key insights of ANT: i.e. the idea

and the space in which they are supposed tothat humans are able to inscribe programs ofact”(Akrich 1992, 208).5 Software is the mostaction into things and act at distance. In theobvious example of prescription - it literally is aprocess of creation of an artefact, designers

collection of scripts encoded by a programmer -,envision the way the artefact is assumed to

but the concept can be extended to any kindinteract with us and inscribe such vision in it.

artefact even outside the realm of ICT. Latour

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gives the example of the speed bump (Latourshould not forget that designers do not act

1999, 185), a very simple technology used toautonomously. They are part of larger

make drivers slow down. In this case the script

networks. Designers typically operate inside

is materially built into the road.

organizations and follow decisions taken

The notion of prescription has several ethicalelsewhere – e.g. the product planning

implications. Scripts might be implemented todepartment. Moreover, the notion of“good”isproduce“moral delegations”(Latour 1999, 217).

context-dependent and might diverge

Designers can inscribe moral instructions into

fundamentally depending on the aims of thetechnologies, in order to make users behaveorganization in which designers operate. Fromaccordingly. This commonly occurs throughthe point of view of a car maker, the best

patterns of punishment and rewards. The

autopilot is not necessarily the safest one.

acoustic signals and visual messages produced

Indeed, at the current technological stage, theby a car, telling the driver to fasten his seatbelt

safest autopilot would probably be one that

- or, in more recent cars, to hold the steeringneeds the human driver to never release thewheel while a self-driving system is enabled -,steering wheel and be constantly attentive.

are examples of moral delegation.

However, this would undermine thetheconvenience of the system itself, making it lesspostphenomenologist Peter Paul Verbeek

appealing to consumers, something which thestresses the necessity for a proactive approach

CEO of the company that manufactured theto technology. Given “that technologies

car mentioned in the introduction clearly

inevitably play a mediating role in the actions

recognizes:“This is crux of matter: can’t makeof users”, what we need to do is to moralize

system too annoying or people won’t use it”.6

our technological environment (Verbeek 2006,

A few months after the accident the same377). But who is supposed to moralize ourcompany released a software update thattechnologies? According to Verbeek, the script

strongly increased the frequency of the“holdapproach“reveals a specific responsibility ofthe steering wheel”alert signals whenever a

the designer, who can be seen as the inscriber

driver is not touching the steering wheel.7 Asof scripts”(Verbeek 2006, 362). It is thus thefar as we know, a different prescription might

duty of designers to anticipate technologicalhave made the driver take control of the car inmediations and moralize technology intime, thus avoiding the accident. Yet, blaming

accordance.

the designers for letting the driver get too

Buildingon

thisnotion,Design becomes a political matter and hascomplacent would be inaccurate, since it

fundamental moral implications. However, we

neglects the larger network that determined

Is My Car Evil? A Review of Non-Anthropocentric Theories of Moral Agency

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such design in the first place and erases theagency of the human behind the wheel.

2.4 Distributed agency
While the concept of mediation is used tothe crash, claiming that it is the assemblage

deconstruct the interaction between two actors,

composed by the driver plus the sensors plus

the idea of distributed agency (Callon andthe software plus the engineers plus the

Muniesa 2005) allows us to analyse an event,stationary firetruck and so on, that issuch as the incident described in the

responsible for the collision of the car ends up

introduction, as a network composed by a sum

emptying the notion of responsibility of itsof microtransactions.8 The concept in itself does

meaning, transforming it into a uselessnot define a special kind of agency: in principle,

category. It seems that ultimately nobody

any action can be seen as distributed across ashould be recognized as responsible: neither the

network.

manufacturing company, nor the engineers thatJ a n e B e n n e t’s analysis of the Northdeveloped the software, nor the owner of theAmerican blackout that occurred in 2003 is acar, nor the law, nor the software itself. Bennet

clear example of how this concept can begoes as far as to claim that the idea of“strong

applied (Bennet 2005). According to Bennet, theresponsibility”is empirically false (Bennet 2005,

blackout that affected 45 million people cannot

463). However, even this assumption does not

be reduced to one individual cause and nonecessarily imply an incompatibility between

singular entity can be held responsible for it.

the concept of distributed agency and moral

Human omissions, the growing demand foranalysis.“A distributive notion of agency does

electricity by a collective of consumers, legal

interfere with the project of blaming, but it

deregulations, economic transactions, thedoes not thereby abandon the project of

movement of electrons, etc. - the effects of all

identifying (what Arendt called) the sources ofthese actions put together have collectively

harmful effects”(Bennet 2005, 463). Bennet iscontributed to the blackout. Once they

quietly suggesting that moral analysis does notintersect, a broad set of small - apparently

necessarily coincide with responsibility-

negligible - actions performed by different kinds

assignment. An idea that – as we will see - isof entities, might generate huge consequences.

also at the centre of Floridi’s work on

While the analytical advantages of the notion

information ethics.

of distributed agency are fairly clear, the moral
implications are more complicated. The idea of
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2.5 Ethical issues of ANTAs Verbeek has stressed in his work, thepatientness would in fact be equally contingent.

idea that technological mediations shape our

The limit of ANT is not so much the lack ofperception of reality and frame our behaviours

a definition of moral patients, but rather theis a major contribution of ANT to the field oflack of a clear definition of the category of

ethics (Verbeek 2005, 2006). According to

moral agents. An army of drones and a tsunami

Verbeek, this insight encourages a proactive

are both actors that could kill people, but areapproach to ethics: given that purely

they both also moral agents? Following

autonomous humans do not exist and that ourVerbeek’s phenomenology, it could be argued

moral decisions are necessarily mediated bythat ultimately the discriminant between thesetechnologies, the new task of ethics is that oftwo forms of agency is human intentionality.

moralizing our material environments. But

From this point of view, things behave morally

what moral orientation should designers follow

whenever they are human products: drones arein this quest for moralizing technologies? Whatmoral agents, while a tsunami is not. Such aactors should they consider as the moral

definition, however, seems to contradict thepatients of their work? Humans, biologicalprinciple of symmetry by assuming an a prioriorganisms, organizations? ANT cannot tell us

distinction between human and non-humanwhat is good and what is wrong, or how we areactors. Due to this contradiction, this definition

supposed to act in specific situations. This ispartially falls back into a weak form of

because ANT does not assess which entities

anthropocentrism and does not offer ashould be considered as moral patients - i.e. thepersuasive explanation for the behaviour ofobjects of moral action. This is not necessarily

artefacts that do not follow the script of theira limit, since ANT does not aim at producing acreators.

normative theory of ethics. Rather, it is

In order to avoid the ghosts ofsupposed to provide an agnostic tool-kit foranthropocentrism a different definition of moral

ethical analysis, which, in principle, could beagency is needed. The next sections explore

adopted by different ethical theories. According

how IE has tackled this same issue and has

to ANT’s flat ontology, any theory of ethicalproduced a coherent definition of moral agency.

3 Information Ethics
Information ethics (IE) has its origins in thethe theoretical counterpart of computer ethics

late 1990s, when Luciano Floridi proposed it as– a subject that at that time was largely

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neglected by moral philosophers (Floridi 1999).

information is the lowest common denominator

IE has emerged within the broader field of

shared by any entity (Floridi 2010, 94). Thisphilosophy of information. Developed in the

ontological assumption leads Floridi to define

context of the expansion of ICT, philosophy of

IE as an extension of ecological ethics:“allinformation has two fundamental aims

entities, qua informational objects, have an

according to Floridi: clarifying the nature of

intrinsic moral value”and therefore have to bewhat we call information, on the one hand, andtaken into account as moral patients (Floridi

investigating the possible philosophical2010, 89). 9 Thus, in contrast to ANT, IE

applications of frameworks and methodologies

provides a clear definition of the category ofdeveloped in the field of computer science, on“moral patients”. Adopting the concept of

the other (Floridi 2011a, 14).

infosphere - the informational adaptation of the

Like ANT, IE is also informed by a non-idea of the biosphere - Floridi goes as far as toanthropocentric understanding of reality.

claim that, since every informational entity is a

However, their ontologies are based on entirely

moral patient, the general moral principle

different assumptions. ANT is a relational

according to which any action should be

ontology. Being necessarily means“being inoriented to is that of avoiding entropy - i.e. loss

relation”to something. IE, instead, is based onof information.

an informational ontology, and claims that

3.1 Moral agents
Adopting the method of levels of abstraction
10

an entity must be:(LoA) , IE draws a distinction between the

1. Interactive: it has an input and an output,

category of“moral patients”and that of“moral

through which it interacts with theagents”. As already mentioned, IE considers

environment.

every informational entity populating the

2. Autonomous: it has relative control over its

infosphere as a moral patient. However, itinternal condition, so that it can perform an

specifies that not every informational entity is

action without the direct command of othernecessarily also a moral agent. Moral agentsactors.

are a subclass of the larger category of moral

3. Adaptable: it can learn - i.e. it can change thepatients. In contrast to ANT, IE clearly definesinternal rules that determine its actions, inwhat kind of actions and what kind of entities

response to interactions with the

can be morally qualifiable. According to Floridi

environment.

and Sanders (2004), to qualify as a moral agent,

Before examining the implications of these116

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criteria, it is necessary to clarify that thesoftware through supervised-learning? Even

definition of autonomy presented here does notthough the car would ultimately be able tocoincide with that repudiated by ANT. Floridi’schange its internal rules by downloading anddefinition of autonomy does not imply the

updating the software, and even though thepossibility of pure autonomous decisions, norcode would be written mostly by machines

does it imply the existence of some kind ofrather than human programmers, in this casetranscendental subjectivity or free will. It is a

the individual vehicle would not be considered

quasi-autonomy: a partial control that a systema moral agent. However, we can adopt a higher

can exert on its internal state. Moreover,

LoA, and look at the car as part of a larger

depending on the LoA that we choose, a (quasi-)

system that includes the neural networks

autonomous system can be decomposed into a

adopted, as well as the engineers that tweak

network. For example,“depending on the LoA

the software, monitor its learning process andadopted, the autopilot can be considered as arelease updates. At this LoA, the car could besingle actor that performs the operation of

considered as part of a larger moral agent.

flying an airplane or as a set of interacting

A second implication is that intentionality is

actors that execute the subtasks of that

not accounted as a necessary condition of moral

operation”(Turilli 2011, 377).

agency. This leads us back to Bennet’s

Let us now examine the implications of suchcomment concerning“strong responsibility”

a definition of moral agency. First of all, in IE(see 2.4). Bennet claimed that, if agency ismoral agency is not limited to individual

distributed across a network, it is not possible

humans, but can be attributed to biologicalto appoint individual actors as morallyorganisms, to organizations, and to IT-artefacts,

responsible for an event. A notion of moral

provided that they follow the three criteria justagency without intentionality encounters thementioned. However, actions of entities that dosame obstacle. An autopilot might be able to

not meet these criteria, such as a tsunami or atake autonomous decisions, but can it be

speed bump, cannot be accounted as moral. Can

blamed for its mistakes? Even if that was thean autopilot software be considered a moral

case, due to the lack of self-consciousness,

agent from this perspective? It depends. If it isattributing legal personhood to IT-artefacts andcapable of making decisions and learning frompunishing them in case of wrongdoing seems

the environment - e.g. using reinforcement

completely meaningless - if not impossible

learning -, yes. However, what if the car is not(Koops et al. 2010). This dilemma makes us faceable to autonomously change its internal rules,

what Matthias has called the“responsibility

but collects data that is then used to train thegap”(Matthias 2004), a condition of increasing

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distance between human creators/users andarguing that responsibility-oriented ethics has

IT-artefacts, where nobody is liable for the

been unable to acknowledge the role of artificial

wrongdoing of a machine.

agents, Floridi does not dismiss the concept ofFloridi is able to solve this apparent deadlock

responsibility in toto. In IE humans haveby drawing a distinction “between moral

responsibilities towards the whole infosphere.

responsibility, which requires intentions,

They bear“ecopoietic responsibilities”(Floridi

consciousness and other mental attitudes, and2011a, 91) - i.e. they are responsible for the

moral accountability”(Floridi 2011a, 88). A

creation and the well-being of the environment.

distinction, which, according to the author,

Similarly to what is suggested by ANT,

finally frees normative ethical theory from thehumans have a peculiar position in the moral

shadow of anthropocentrism and, mostoutlook of IE: they are not the only moral

importantly, from the“regress of looking foragents in this world, but they are nonethelessthe responsible individual when something evil

special due to their ability to create artefacts.

happens”(Floridi 2011a, 88). However, while

Conclusion
Focusing on the example of a self-driving car,prescriptions. However, it also runs the risk ofthis article has reviewed the possible

falling into a bottomless relativism according toadvantages, as well as the limits, of an ANT-

which nothing/nobody can ever be blamed. IE

informed theory of ethics, and has briefly

seems to avoid this relativist deadlock byillustrated the alternative definition of moral

providing a narrower definition of moral

agency provided by IE. Despite their different

agency, which focuses exclusively on

ontological foundations, ANT and IE haveautonomous entities capable of learning fromencountered similar challenges in thethe environment and changing their internal

development of a non-anthropocentric moral

rules. Ultimately, both ANT and IE attempt toapproach and have often reached comparable

shift the focus of ethical analysis from moral

conclusions in tackling some of these issues.

responsibility to moral accountability. The two

ANT lets us recognize artefacts as moral

theories would argue that, while a self-driving

agents and gives us the tools to deconstruct

car cannot be responsible for an accident, it

any event into a network. It allows us to

could, nonetheless, be a source of harmful

investigate how artefacts concretely mediate

effects: i.e. it could be seen as morally

our ethical decisions - e.g. in terms ofaccountable. However, both ANT and IE have118

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not been clear enough in distinguishing andof two different kinds of moral agency - e.g.

defining these two concepts. How does“weak”

human vs. non-human moral agency? These areresponsibility differ from moral accountability,

issues that need further investigation.

and do these two concepts imply the existence1Peter Valdes-Dapena, 2018,“Tesla in Autopilot mode crashes into fire truck.”CNN,
http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/23/technology/tesla-fire-truck-crash/index.html, accessed 01/09/2018.

2
3

In this text the terms morality and ethics are used interchangeably.
Matthew Philipps, 2012,“Knight Shows How to Lose $440 Million in 30 Minutes”, Bloomberg.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-08-02/knight-shows-how-to-lose-440-million-in-30-minutes,

accessed

01/09/2018.
4

The focus on ANT and Information Ethics (IE) is motivated by their explicit reference to non-human moral agency. Due tothe lack of space this paper does not consider the moral implications of other posthumanist approaches.

5Is should be stressed that in contrast to technological determinism, scripts can be more or less flexible. Users of technologies
might resist against scripts by rejecting or by hacking them (Oudshoorn et al. 2002).

6

Elon Musk, 2018, Twitter. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1005879049493725186, accessed 01/09/2018.

7Fred Lambert, 2018, Electrek, https://electrek.co/2018/06/11/tesla-autopilot-update-nag-hands-wheel/, accessed 01/09/2018.

8

A similar idea can be found in the work of several authors influenced by ANT. Latour (1999) uses the term“composition”,
while Bennet (2005) talks about“agency of assemblages”and“distributive agency”.

9

According to Doyle (2010), it is unclear why informational entities would have an intrinsic moral value.

10

For a detailed explanation of the method of levels of abstraction see Floridi (2011b).

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Tommaso

Barbetta（とまぞ・ばるべった）［生年月］1990 年 5 月［出身大学または最終学歴］ヴェネツィア・カ・フォスカリ大学［専攻領域］STS, プラットフォーム・スターディーズ［所属］東京大学大学院学際情報学府博士課程

120

アジア・北アフリカ研究家修士課程修了

東京大学大学院情報学環紀要

情報学研究

№96

Is My Car Evil?
A Review of Non-Anthropocentric Theories ofMoral Agency
Tommaso Barbetta*

Smart-technologies substituting us and acting for us have become increasingly ubiquitousover the last decade. We are quickly getting used to delegating everyday tasks to a multitude ofartefacts. Artefacts that constantly mediate our experience of reality and help us in the process ofmaking decisions. However, from a moral point of view, we do not yet know how to consider all these
entities.
In the social sciences, Actor-network Theory (ANT) has provided a consistent framework forthe analysis of non-human agency. This has been theoretically possible thanks to the detachmentof the notion of agency from that of human intentionality. However, it is not clear if and how a
notion of agency detached from intentionality could also be embraced by the field of ethics. Whatis the usefulness of ascribing moral agency to non-human entities? Would such a new notion of
moral agency be a characteristic of one specific category of entities, or could it be ascribed toanything? Furthermore, how could the question of responsibility be reframed in order to fit a nonanthropocentric ethical approach?
The paper focuses on the crash of a self-driving car, an example which is used to review
advantages and limits of an ethical framework informed by ANT. Moreover, the article illustrates
the alternative non-anthropocentric approach of Information Ethics (IE), highlighting the potentials
of its narrower definition of moral agency. Ultimately, the paper shows that, despite their different
ontological foundations, ANT and IE reach comparable conclusions in the moral analysis of the car
crash: both these theories leave in fact the door open for the assessment of the moral agency of aself-driving system. This is possible due to a conceptual shift from the idea of moral responsibility tothat of moral accountability, terms which, however, still lack a fully consistent definition.

* University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, ITASIA D2
Key Words：Actor-network theory, Information ethics, posthumanism, moral agency, responsibility, morality of technology.

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