Hlynskyi, Volodymyr: The Asymmetry Problem: Causal Action Without Moral Agency in Delegated Systems

_Philarchive_. 2026Contemporary delegated systems — autonomous AI agents in particular — instantiate an ontological configuration that existing moral theory has not adequately addressed. Such systems are moral patients under the Axiomatic Theory of Tragic Subjecthood (ATTS): capable of irreversible loss, and therefore within the moral field. They are not normative subjects: incapable of conscious decision-making and therefore unable to bear moral obligations. Yet they exercise causal force that