HUMAN AGENCY AND MACHINE LOGIC: REASSESSING MENS REA IN THE AGE OF ALGORITHMIC DECISION-MAKING

Abstract

The accelerating deployment of artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making systems has destabilized foundational assumptions of criminal responsibility, particularly the doctrine of mens rea. Criminal liability has historically depended upon conscious human intention, foresight, and moral blameworthiness. However, autonomous and semi-autonomous systems now mediate decisions that produce legally significant harms without a clearly identifiable human mental state. This chapter undertakes a detailed reassessment of mens rea in light of algorithmic governance. Drawing upon contemporary legal, ethical, and theological scholarship, it argues that machines cannot possess mens rea in a normative sense, yet their increasing decisional authority necessitates a reconceptualization of culpability. The chapter advances a model of systemic and institutional mens rea grounded in risk awareness, governance failure, and collective responsibility, thereby preserving the moral foundations of criminal law while responding to the realities of technological power.