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  • Mors Ex Machina

    Rights statement: The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Organization Studies, 36 (5), 2015, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2015 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Organization Studies page: http://oss.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/

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Mors ex Machina: technology, embodiment and the organization of destruction

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>05/2015
<mark>Journal</mark>Organization Studies
Issue number5
Volume36
Number of pages21
Pages (from-to)621-641
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date17/03/15
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

The article argues that the organization of destruction requires the same level of attention that organization studies have typically accorded to the organization of production. Taking as its starting point recent debates in the field concerning the embodied character of organizational ethics, the present paper sets out to explore what we might call the contemporary ‘automation of warfare’ by focusing on the proposed deployment of autonomous robots capable of exercising lethal force while governed by the ‘ethical constraints’ dictated by the Laws of War. Acknowledging the ‘technical’ challenges inherent in the development of ‘ethical warrior robots’, we propose that the importance of such technological fixes for the management of human conflict primarily lies not in their status as (potentially) functional artefacts but rather in their role as material expressions of the moral and philosophical conflicts haunting Atlantic (post?)modernity.

Bibliographic note

The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Organization Studies, 36 (5), 2015, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2015 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Organization Studies page: http://oss.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/