Dear Francois,
In my arguments with a couple of ANT adherents, the argument was that
machines or artifacts do indeed possess direct agency. I won't go into the
full case, either their case or mine, but this as the representation made to
me. One took a slightly softer stance, admitting that it might not be so --
but it ought to be!
As far as legal responsibility, I know of no jurisdiction known in which a
court of law recognizes a machine as having legal standing. It is not a
matter of "extremes." The issue of standing, agency, and responsibility
before the law has always been limited to human beings. If you have a
valid legal case in which a machine has been held responsible, I'd be
interested to see the court record. I suspect the Latourians would like to
see that as well. It would, to paraphrase Clint Eastwood as lawman
Dirty Harry, "Make their day."
Yours,
Ken
On Sun, 19 Jun 2011 08:52:02 -0400, Francois Nsenga wrote:
--snip--
What I understood from Latour's ANT is that stakeholders or users often act
through or with the aid of machines. In fact, occasions when humans act
without the aid of artifacts are rather rare! Agency is not direct, it is
relayed for whatever purpose. Agency is often attributed to artifacts only
for the purpose of quick communication (the car hit the pedestrian, the
electronic device plays music loud, the man's suit seduced the lady, etc.
etc.)
Therefore, networks of machines can't they metaphorically stand, even at
extreme in the Court of law, for networks of their makers and/or users,
operators as well as many other stakeholders?
--snip--
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