一、Alexander Hevelkeamp;Julian Nida-Ruuml;melin：Responsibility for Crashes of Autonomous Vehicles: An Ethical Analysis
Abstract
A number of companies including Google and BMW are currently working on the development of autonomous cars. But if fully autonomous cars are going to drive on our roads, it must be decided who is to be held responsible in case of accidents. This involves not only legal questions, but also moral ones. The first question discussed is whether we should try to design the tort liability for car manufacturers in a way that will help along the development and improvement of autonomous vehicles. In particular, Patrick Linrsquo;s concern that any security gain derived from the introduction of autonomous cars would constitute a trade-off in human lives will be addressed. The second question is whether it would be morally permissible to impose liability on the user based on a duty to pay attention to the road and traffic and to intervene when necessary to avoid accidents. Doubts about the moral legitimacy of such a scheme are based on the notion that it is a form of defamation if a person is held to blame for causing the death of another by his inattention if he never had a real chance to intervene. Therefore, the legitimacy of such an approach would depend on the user having an actual chance to do so. The last option discussed in this paper is a system in which a person using an autonomous vehicle has no duty (and possibly no way) of interfering, but is still held (financially, not criminally) responsible for possible accidents. Two ways of doing so are discussed, but only one is judged morally feasible.
Introduction
“Cars crash. So too will autonomous vehicles, a new generation of vehicles under development that are capable of operating on roadways without direct human control.” (Marchant and Lindor 2012) We can probably expect this assumption to be correct.Footnote1 This leads to a central legal question surrounding the use of fully autonomous cars: who should be made responsible if such a crash occurs? The present article will discuss this question from an ethical standpoint.
We will assume that it will be possible to design autonomous vehicles which cause fewer and less severe accidents than cars steered by the average driver. “If autonomous vehicles have statistically more, or more severe, accidents than standard cars, then such vehicles will not be legally viable for widespread use.” (Marchant and Lindor 2012) The same is probably true from a moral, political or economic perspective. Therefore, if autonomous cars prove less safe than human-driven ones, that would render the questions raised in this article moot.
Responsibility of the Manufacturer
Holding the manufacturers responsible for any crash caused by the vehicle would probably be the most obvious solution. They are, after all “ultimately responsible for the final product”(Marchant and Lindor 2012): the vehicle including the system guiding it. If there is some flaw (or some design decision)Footnote2 in the system, which tends to cause accidents in certain situations, they probably knew or should have known about it but sold the defective autonomous cars anyway. Why should they not have to take responsibility?
The clearest answer is a practical one: if in the case of crashes involving autonomous vehicles the main responsibility were to be that of the manufacturers, “the liability burden on the manufacturer may be prohibitive of further development.” (Marchant and Lindor 2012) Of course, full legislative protection from liability would probably also have undesirable effects: “it diminishes, if not eliminates, the incentives for manufacturers to make marginal improvements in the safety of their products in order to prevent liability.” (Marchant and Lindor 2012) Could a partial liability be designed in such a way that the continuous development and improvement of autonomous vehicles would not be impeded but promoted? It seems likely, but this question would have to be discussed and answered elsewhere. An ethical analysis would not solve it.
There is, on the other hand, the question of whether we should try to promote the development of autonomous cars to begin with. In other words: should we try to design the liability for autonomous vehicles in such a way that it promotes their continuous development and improvement? Should such vehicles be allowed on our streets? These questions can be addressed through normative ethics. If there are good moral reasons for finding the development and introduction of autonomous cars to be desirable, this can produce a moral obligation for the state to fashion the legal responsibility for crashes of autonomous cars in a way which helps the development and improvement of autonomous cars.
There are many arguments which can be made in favour of or against the introduction of autonomous cars. Possible problems include privacy issues (Glancy 
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