Law, human agency and autonomic computing : the philosophy of law meets the philosophy of technology

Autonomic computing and ambient intelligence, reconfiguring human perceptions and experience, challenge traditional philosophical conceptions of both self-constitution and agency of the human subject in relation to its human and nonhuman environment, with crucial consequences for the theory and practice of constitutional self-government. Perturbing and/or emancipatory as they may appear to philosophers and lawyers, these issues provide an unprecedented occasion for interdisciplinary exchanges and cross-fertilization, and allow a new field of inquiry to emerge, combining the approaches and methods of philosophy of technology and philosophy of law. Exploring the transformations of self-constitution, individual agency and constitutional self-government in the advanced information society on the cusp of an age of autonomic computing and ambient intelligence, provides a litmus test for a trans-disciplinary philosophical inquiry enriching current debates in the fields of both legal philosophy and philosophy of technology. The proposed volume brings together philosophers of both disciplines to reflect and launch a dialogue around the theme of autonomic computing and the transformations of human agency. With contributions from Roger Brownsword, Rafael Capurro, Jos de Mul, Massimo Durante, Mireille Hildebrandt, Don Ihde, Jannos Kallinikos, Hyo Yoon Kang, Paul Mathias, Stefano Rodotà, Antoinette Rouvroy, Bibi Van den Bergh and Peter-Paul Verbeek.