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The paper «Responsibility Gaps and Retributive Dispositions: Evidence from the US, Japan and Germany» by the two DSI members Markus Christen and Markus Kneer was published in the current issue of the journal «Science and Engineering Ethics».
Abstract of the paper:
Danaher (2016) has argued that increasing robotization can lead to retribution gaps: Situations in which the normative fact that nobody can be justly held responsible for a harmful outcome stands in conflict with our retributivist moral dispositions. In this paper, we report a cross-cultural empirical study based on Sparrow’s (2007) famous example of an autonomous weapon system committing a war crime, which was conducted with participants from the US, Japan and Germany. We find that (1) people manifest a considerable willingness to hold autonomous systems morally responsible, (2) partially exculpate human agents when interacting with such systems, and that more generally (3) the possibility of normative responsibility gaps is indeed at odds with people’s pronounced retributivist inclinations. We discuss what these results mean for potential implications of the retribution gap and other positions in the responsibility gap literature.
Science and Engineering Ethics is an international multidisciplinary journal dedicated to exploring ethical issues associated with science and engineering, covering professional education, research and practice as well as the effects of technological innovations and research findings on society.
The full article can be read here:
Responsibility Gaps and Retributive Dispositions: Evidence from the US, Japan and Germany
