Abstract
Especially in the realm of technology, big data, and new media it is questionable if our traditional understanding of responsibility is able to face current challenges—mostly due to its restricted focus on the autonomous, self-sufficient, individual human being as the genuine responsible agent. The possibility of ascribing responsibility to artificial systems or in cases in which we cannot reduce responsibility to a limited and clearly defined group of responsible persons has recently been challenged. In such cases, our conventional methods of identifying individual human agents as the solely feasible responsible agents—or as other important functions within the relational setup of the traditional concept of responsibility such as the addressee and the authority—frequently fail. We need to question and move beyond a traditional understanding of responsibility in order to update it for these and further challenges.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.
Barad, K. (2012). Agentieller Realismus. Über die Bedeutung materiell-diskursiver Praktiken. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
Bayertz, K. (1995). Eine kurze Geschichte der Herkunft der Verantwortung. In K. Bayertz (Ed.), Verantwortung. Prinzip oder Problem? (pp. 3–71). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Beauchamp, T. L., & Frey, R. G. (Eds.). (2011). The Oxford handbook of animal ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bernasconi, R. (2006). Von wem und wofür? Zurechenbare Verantwortlichkeit und die Erfindung der ministeriellen, hyperbolischen und unendlichen Verantwortung. In L. Heidbrink & A. Hirsch (Eds.), Verantwortung in der Zivilgesellschaft. Zur Konjunktur eines widersprüchlichen Prinzips (pp. 221–246). Frankfurt a. M.: Campus.
Bernstein, R. J. (2002). Evil and the Temptation of Theodicy. In S. Critchley & R. Bernasconi (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Levinas (pp. 252–267). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bierhoff, H. W. (1995). Verantwortungsbereitschaft, Verantwortungsabwehr und Verantwortungszuschreibung. Sozialpsychologische Perspektiven. In K. Bayertz (Ed.), Verantwortung. Prinzip oder Problem? (pp. 217–240). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Braidotti, R. (2013). The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity.
Coeckelbergh, M. (2009). Virtual moral agency, virtual moral responsibility: On the moral significance of the appearance, perception, and performance of artificial agents. AI and SOCIETY, 24(2), 181–189.
Coeckelbergh, M. (2010). Criminals or patients? Towards a tragic conception of moral and legal responsibility. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 4, 233–244. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-010-9093-6.
Coeckelbergh, M. (2016). Responsibility and the moral phenomenology of using self-driving cars. Applied Artificial Intelligence, 30, 748–757. https://doi.org/10.1080/08839514.2016.1229759.
Coeckelbergh, M., & Gunkel, D. (2014). Facing animals: A relational, other-oriented approach to moral standing. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 27(5), 715–733.
Cohen, C. (1986). The case for the use of animals in biomedical research. New England Journal of Medicine, 315(14), 865–870.
DeGracia, D. (1996). Taking animals seriously. Mental life and moral status. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Donaldson, S., & Kymlicka, W. (2013). Zoopolis. Eine politische Theorie der Tierrechte. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
Duff, R. A. (1998). Responsibility. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy (pp. 290–294). London: Routledge.
Duff, R. A. (2005). Who is responsible, for what, to whom? Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 2, 441–461.
Floridi, L. (2016). Faultless responsibility: On the nature and allocation of moral responsibility for distributed moral actions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 374. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2016.0112.
Floridi, L., & Sanders, J. W. (2004). On the morality of artificial agents. Minds and Machines, 14, 349–79.
Forschner, M. (1989). Verantwortung. In Görres-Gesellschaft (Ed.), Staatslexikon: Recht, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft. Band 5, Sozialindikatoren – Zwingli (pp. 589–593). Herder: Freiburg im Breisgau.
Haraway, D. (2000). A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century. In D. Bell & B. M. Kennedy (Eds.), The cybercultures reader (pp. 291–324). London: Routledge.
Heidbrink, L. (2012). Unternehmen als politische Akteure Eine Ortsbestimmung zwischen Ordnungsverantwortung und Systemverantwortung. Ordo – Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 63, 203–232.
Heidbrink, L. (2017). Definitionen und Voraussetzungen der Verantwortung. In L. Heidbrink, C. Langbehn, & J. Loh (Eds.), Handbuch Verantwortung (pp. 3–33). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Heidbrink, L., Langbehn, C., & Loh, J. (Eds.). (2017). Handbuch Verantwortung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Ingarden, R. (1970). Über die Verantwortung. Ihre ontischen Fundamente. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam junior.
Kallen, H. M. (1942). Responsibility. Ethics, 52(3), 350–376.
Langbehn, C. (2017). Identität, Autonomie und Verantwortung. In L. Heidbrink, C. Langbehn, & J. Loh (Eds.), Handbuch Verantwortung (pp. 315–336). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. (trans: Catherine, P.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (2004). Politics of nature: How to bring the sciences into democracy. (trans. Catherine, P.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Lenk, H., & Maring, M. (1992). Deskriptive und normative Zuschreibung von Verantwortung. In H. Lenk (Ed.), Zwischen Wissenschaft und Ethik (pp. 76–100). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.
Lenk, H., & Maring, M. (2007). Verantwortung. In J. Ritter (Ed.), Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie (Vol. 11, pp. 566–575). Basel: Schwabe.
Levinas, E. (1991). Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority. (trans: Lingis, A.). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Lin, P. (2015). Why ethics matters for autonomous cars. In M. Maurer, J. C. Gerdes, B. Lenz, & H. Winner (Eds.), Autonomes Fahren. Technische, rechtliche und gesellschaftliche Aspekte (pp. 69–85). Berlin: Springer Vieweg.
Loh, J. (2016). Verantwortung und Roboterethik – ein kleiner Überblick. Humboldt Forum Recht, 03(2016), 10–30.
Loh, J. (2017). Strukturen und Relata der Verantwortung. In L. Heidbrink, C. Langbehn, & J. Loh (Eds.), Handbuch Verantwortung (pp. 35–56). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Loh, J., & Loh, W. (2017). Autonomy and responsibility in hybrid systems – The example of autonomous cars. In P. Lin, K. Abney, & R. Jenkins (Eds.), Robot Ethics 2.0. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190652951.003.0003.
McKeon, R. (1957). The development and the significance of the concept of responsibility. Revue Internationale De Philosophie, 6(39), 3–32.
Misselhorn, C. (2013). Robots as Moral Agents. In F. Rövekamp & F. Bosse (Eds.), Ethics in science and society: German and Japanese views (pp. 30–42). München: Iudicium.
Nida-Rümelin, J. (1998). Über den Respekt vor der Eigenverantwortung des anderen. Interview mit Julian Nida-Rümelin, Professor für Philosophie an der Universität Göttingen. In B. Neubauer (Ed.), Eigenverantwortung. Positionen und Perspektiven (pp. 31–41). Waake: Licet Verlag.
Nida-Rümelin, J. (2007). Politische Verantwortung. In L. Heidbrink & A. Hirsch (Eds.), Staat ohne Verantwortung? Zum Wandel der Aufgaben von Staat und Politik (pp. 55–85). Frankfurt a. M.: Campus.
Nussbaum, M. (2006). Frontiers of justice. Disability, nationality, species membership. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Piepmeier, R. (1995). Zum philosophischen Begriff der Verantwortung. In F. Hermanni & V. Steenblock (Eds.), Philosophische Orientierungen. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Willi Oelmüller (pp. 85–102). München: Fink.
Regan, T. (1986). The case for animal rights. 2004 edition, updated with new preface. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ricœur, P. (2005). Das Selbst als ein Anderer (2nd ed.). München: Fink.
Ropohl, G. (1994). Das Risiko im Prinzip Verantwortung. Ethik und Sozialwissenschaften. Streitforum für Erwägungskultur, 1(5), 109–120.
Schälike, J. (2017). Verantwortung, Freiheit und Wille. In L. Heidbrink, C. Langbehn, & J. Loh (Eds.), Handbuch Verantwortung (pp. 277–249). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Schwartländer, J. (1974). Verantwortung. In H. Krings, H. M. Baumgartner, & C. Wild (Eds.), Handbuch philosophischer Grundbegriffe (Vol. 6, pp. 1577–1588)., Transzendenz – Zweck München: Kösel.
Singer, P. (1975). Animal liberation. New York: HarperCollins.
Sombetzki, J. (2014). Verantwortung als Begriff, Fähigkeit, Aufgabe. Eine Drei-Ebenen-Analyse. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Wallace, R. J. (1994). Responsibility and the moral sentiments. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wallach, W., & Allen, C. (2009). Moral machines: Teaching robots right from wrong. New York: Oxford University Press.
Watson, G. (2004). Two faces of responsibility. In Agency and Answerability. Selected Essays (pp. 260–288). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Weischedel, W. (1972). Das Wesen der Verantwortung. Ein Versuch. Frankfurt a. M.: Vittorio Klostermann.
Werner, M. H. (2006). Verantwortung. In M. Düwell, C. Hübenthal, & M. H. Werner (Eds.), Handbuch Ethik (pp. 541–548). Stuttgart: Metzler.
Wilhelms, G. (2017). Systemverantwortung. In L. Heidbrink, C. Langbehn, & J. Loh (Eds.), Handbuch Verantwortung (pp. 501–524). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Williams, G. (2017). Rationalität, Urteil und Verantwortung. In L. Heidbrink, C. Langbehn, & J. Loh (Eds.), Handbuch Verantwortung (pp. 365–394). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Wolfe, C. (2010). What is Posthumanism?. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Coeckelbergh, M., Loh, J. (2020). Transformations of Responsibility in the Age of Automation: Being Answerable to Human and Non-Human Others. In: Beck, B., Kühler, M. (eds) Technology, Anthropology, and Dimensions of Responsibility. Techno:Phil – Aktuelle Herausforderungen der Technikphilosophie , vol 1. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04896-7_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04896-7_2
Published:
Publisher Name: J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart
Print ISBN: 978-3-476-04895-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-476-04896-7
eBook Packages: J.B. Metzler Humanities (German Language)