Mors ex Machina: Technology, Embodiment and the Organization of Destruction

In: Organization studies: an international multidisciplinary journal devoted to the study of organizations, organizing, and the organized in and between societies, Volume 36, Issue 5, p. 621-641

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.