Some time in the near future your cat Tybalt, while sunning himself on the lawn, suffers a hair-raising experience which scars him for life. The first you know about it are the catcalls that alert you to a standoff between feline and machine, just before you glimpse Tybalt haring it for the catflap. Examining your poor moggy you realise that next door’s automated lawnmower, after forcing its way through a gap in the fence, has mistaken your cat for an unruly patch of couch grass, giving him the fade cut he never wanted.
You decide to sue. Poor Tybalt! His coat will never be the same; and there’s the PTSD to think about. The case seems cut and dried. Your lawyer, though, face like a prune, sighs and tells it straight. Things have changed, he says. The problem is not whether to sue, but who to sue. In the past you might have claimed that the manufacturer had overlooked a dangerous flaw in the lawnmower, or worse, seen one and ignored it. Tybalt would be rolling in catnip. Alternatively, your neighbour might be at fault if they had used the mower inappropriately, just like if they set off a firework and burned your shed down, or drove their car into your 4x4 while intoxicated. Tua culpa. But neither of those situations applies anymore. You see, he explains, your machine is a snowflake. Not the atmosphere-susceptible delinquent of teenage parlance, he qualifies. He means an actual snowflake.
この記事は Philosophy Now の August/September 2020 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は Philosophy Now の August/September 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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