IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2016 - 87

the coconut, and the coconut must
obey gravity. Although the bad outcome is the same, the human exercised will, the coconut did not, the
human is therefore morally accountable for the outcome and the coconut is not. Similarly, the ability to
apprehend consequences has long
been held to be a prerequisite, with
the effect of excluding some from
moral assessment - the coconut of
course, but also infants, the mentally ill, and others "not of right mind."
But while it might be so that
coconuts, infants, and those not of
right mind are rightly excused on
grounds of an absence of will and/
or an absence of knowledge of consequences, the same cannot be said
in the case of computer systems or
stone axes. For unlike the coconut
palms, infants and those not of right
mind, the computer system and the
axe are technologies and as such, are
designed, manufactured, and operated in consort with human will, and
with forethought of consequences.
Technologies are in this sense wilful
and consequential: they materialize a
will to act and materialize imagined
consequences of that action.
The stone axe or the computer
system is of course without freewill (in the sense of autonomous
will), and is without certain knowledge of consequences, but they are
not formed as they are, and do not
act as they do, innocent of will, or
separated from prescience of consequences. Technologies do not have
a will of their own to exercise freely
in foreknowledge of consequences,
and nor do they act on their own, as
autonomous beings - but nor do we.
As has been argued in Parts Three
and Four, the acts of humans and
of technologies are not unilaterally
exercised. Neither humans nor technologies are capable of magic. A will
to act and the choice of action available to us is formed in relation to
our capacity to act, which is mediatDECEmber 2016

ed in conjunction with technologies
and with the world. We are both in
it together, Neanderthals and axes,
doctors and computer systems.
Just as we act together, our will to
act, our ability to act otherwise, and
our prescience of means and ends,
emerge in relation to one another
- humans and technologies. A technology cannot be excused from the
realm of will, simply because that
will is not possessed independent
of human design, manufacture, and
operation. The edge of the axe materializes an "in order to" that stands
independent of the origins of that
ordering in its very materiality. The
Doctor's computer system is not
without purpose. The material ordering of an "in order to," of purposes,
and functions, is the materialization
of will, and there is nothing in any of
this that might not have been other,
given different human conditions
and different material conditions.
A stone may not have any shape
whatsoever, but it may have many
shapes, materializing many different relations and orderings, suggesting many strategies, foreseeing
many different outcomes, depending upon the particular negotiations
of human will and the materiality of
the stone. A vast number of choices
(but not free choices) are exercised
in the design, manufacture, and use
of technologies like a stone axe or
computer system, and the choices
that have been negotiated are material in this substance, in this place,
doing this.
The doctor's system for example,
may be other than it is and may act
in ways other than it acts, and that it
is as it is, is an act of will (but not free
will), emergent as humans negotiate with non-human technologies in
design, manufacture, and operation.
When the anthropologists arrive
from Andromeda and start looking
for expressions of desire, of will,
they will examine the "in order to"
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

of constructions like stone axes and
computer systems and the choices
that have been made as we have
negotiated means and ends with the
world. Our will is not free to express
as we might wish, it is constrained
and it is opened out by an obdurate
world that provides the resources
and sets the rules for ordering. But
the will we are able to express, however much compromised, is present
in our technologies. In this sense,
technologies do "have" will, and
the choices that have been made in
negotiating an "in order to" with an
obdurate world are made through
a process of negotiating both the
means and the likely ends with the
world of non-humans.
So far in this series it has been
argued that moral accountability is
not in principle restricted to humans
(Part Two), that non-humans do act
in the world (Part Three), that they
are not just tools or "dumb instruments (Part Four), and that they
materialize will and forethought of
consequences (Part Five). Next it will
be argued that "dilution of responsibility" poses no barrier to the moral
accountability of technologies.

Author Information
Michael Arnold is with the School of
Historical and Philosophical Studies,
University of Melbourne, Melbourne,
Australia.
Christopher Pearce is with the
School of Medicine, Dentistry and
Health Sciences, the University of
Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.

Acknowledgment
This series of short papers is a
heavily revised version of an earlier
publication [1].

Reference

[1] M. Arnold and C. Pearce, "Is technology innocent? Holding technologies to moral
account," IEEE Technology and Society
Mag, vol. 27, pp. 44-50, 2008.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2016