Are Technologies Innocent?: Part Six: The Dilution of Responsibility Argument [Commentary]

Abstract

In Part One of the series it was suggested that technologies are not innocent, and should be held to moral account. In most interpretations of Western moral philosophy, moral judgement does not extend to nonhumans, and for non-humans to be included, a number of objections need to be overcome. The objections include: the arguments that morality is the exclusivity domain of humans (considered in Part Two), the argument that non-humans don't really act (considered in Part Three), the argument that technologies are just dumb instrument (considered in Part Four), the free will argument (considered in Part Five) and the dilution of responsibility argument (considered here in Part Six).