Distributed agency: diffusion of responsibility as problematic result of the digitization of social action

Abstract

This article addresses the question of whether, in the course of increasing digital action and decision-making programs, the concept of responsibility is still adequate to describe relations between actors, reference objects and normativity, as it was the case in classical situations of division of labor. The first chapter sketches out the difference between social division of labor and digital social action, based on the approach of distributed social agency. In a second, more detailed section, theoretical approaches of diffused responsibility are outlined and subjected to plausibility checks using illustrative cases from the context of autonomous robotic weapon systems. Finally, a summary is given with regard to the question of the consequences for the theory of responsibility in the face of the digitalization of social action.