Abstract
Two theories of action—methodological individualism and composite agency theory—are compared, together with their associated concepts of moral responsibility. They agree that deeds are done by doers, and that moral responsibility for a deed lies with its doer, but they differ on the definition of the doer. Methodological individualism holds that doers are limited to human individuals. Composite agency theory, noting that most deeds can be done only by humans working in concert with nonhumans (this is especially clear when computers are involved), defines a doer as whatever combination of human and nonhuman entities is necessary to accomplish a deed. Methodological individualism limits moral responsibility to human individuals while composite agency theory attributes it to the combination of humans and nonhumans that did the deed. Objections to this view of moral responsibility, and responses to them, are discussed. In the West, methodological individualism is shown to be rooted in humanistic modernity, while composite agency theory emerges from postmodernity. Nonwestern examples similar to both composite agency theory and methodological individualism are reviewed.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The participating countries are Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands Slovenia, and Croatia.
- 3.
I now prefer this term over “extended agency,” which I have used synonymously in earlier publications.
- 4.
See Selinger et al. (2011) for a critique of Illies and Meijers’s “action scheme” concept.
- 5.
I add “might not” to cover the responsibility for assuring that certain deeds or events do or do not happen in the future.
- 6.
See Hanson 2009:94–95.
- 7.
Nietzsche uses the example to make a point about ethics: if one distinguishes a being from what it does, one can then say it shouldn’t do it and condemn it for an immoral action. In that way the weak manage to emasculate the strong. This may be so, but I suggest that Nietzsche’s use of the bird of prey to prove it is misplaced because morality is grounded in rules for behavior and judgments about good and bad, right and wrong. These occur only in the realm of human culture and do not apply to purely natural events such as the behavior of birds of prey. Nevertheless, his definition of the doer in terms of the deed remains isomorphic with a composite agency theory of action as it has been presented here.
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Acknowledgement
I am grateful to Rex Martin, Richard DeGeorge, Deborah Johnson, Evan Selinger and Louise Hanson for their penetrating and very helpful comments as this essay took its present form.
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Hanson, F.A. (2014). Which Came First, the Doer or the Deed?. In: Kroes, P., Verbeek, PP. (eds) The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7914-3_4
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