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Samenvatting Ethics of Technology (FI3V19019)
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SV Ethics of TechnologyLecture 1 - What is technology (from an ethical point of view)?
The Question Concerning Technology (Heidegger)
“Everyone knows the two statements that answer our question. One says: Technology is
a means to an end. The other says: Technology is a human activity. The two definitions
belong together. …to posit ends and to procure and use the means to them is a human
activity.”
o Instrumental theory
o Anthropological theory
o Heidegger adds that technology is also a form of “revealing”
The current conception of technology, according to which it is a means and a human
activity, can therefore be called the instrumental and anthropological definition of
technology.
Modern technology too is a means to an end. That is why the instrumental conception of
technology conditions every attempt to bring man into the right relation to technology.
Everything depends on our manipulating technology in the proper manner as a means.
Technologies are tools
Technologies are means to human ends
Technologies are in themselves value-neutral
o Guns don’t kill people, people kill people
Robots should be slaves
The potential of robotics should be understood as the potential to extend our own
abilities and to address our own goals.
A robot is any artificial entity situated in the real world that transforms perception into
action. If a digital assistant listens and talks to a human, it is a robot — it is an agent, an
actor, living in and changing the world.
Agents transmit, create and may even destroy information, including human opinions
and reputations. Digital agents may use the Internet to actively purchase goods or
services, thus causing the movement of physical objects as well as ideas.
Robots should be servants you own
Technologies are our human property, which we can buy and sell
Therefore: we should regard technologies as tools, and means to our ends (“robots
should be slaves”)
Therefore: we should avoid creating robots that trigger social & non instrumental
responses in people
Fundamental claims:
1. Having servants is good and useful, provided no one is dehumanised.
2. A robot can be a servant without being a person.
3. It is right and natural for people to own robots.
4. It would be wrong to let people think that their robots are persons.
We choose those motivations and design the decision-making system. All their goals are
derived from us.
Robots are often overly personified.
1. First, this is because of our desire to have the power of creating life.
2. Second, this is because we are not certain what it means to be human, so we
currently offer the term to anything that senses, acts, remembers and speaks.
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, My conclusion is that we are obliged not to the robots, but to our society. We are obliged
to educate consumers and producers alike to their real obligations with respect to
robotics.
Post-Phenomenology
An updated version of the anthropological theory of technology
Peter-Paul Verbeek: technologies “mediate” our relation to the world
Technologies mediate:
o (1) our experiences/perceptions (“inputs”) &
o (2) what we are able to do/how we are able to do it (“outputs”)
o …including what we are inclined to do
Against the idea that technologies are value- neutral:
In shaping our perceptions and actions, technologies also shape our values and goals
o “guns don’t kill, people kill people”??? A man with a gun = a gunman
Technologies contain intended and unintended “scripts” ( they “tell us” what to do)
Kant & Bryson comparison
Kant: persons vs. things
Kant: anything that is not a person can be treated as a mere means. Persons should be
treated as ends-in-themselves, and never as mere means
Bryson (translated into Kantian terms): technologies should always be treated as things
and as mere means, and never as ends-in-themselves
Some very different perspectives that are becoming increasingly widely accepted by
philosophers of technology:
Some technologies can be moral agents
Some technologies (e.g. robots with AI) can be persons
Some technologies should be treated with moral consideration, i.e. not as mere means,
but as ends-in-themselves
Some technologies can be our friends or romantic partners
o These views are very far away from the instrumental theory of technology!!!
Conclusion: a range of ways of understanding what technologies are/can be:
The traditional instrumental theory (= all technologies are value- neutral tools, and
means to human ends)
Bryson’s normative version of the instrumental theory
The anthropological perspective (including post-phenomenology and mediation theory)
The non-instrumental theory (= some technologies can be persons, moral agents, have
moral status, be our friends, etc.)
Materializing Morality - Design Ethics and Technological Mediation
Phenomenology: the philosophical analysis of the structure of the relations between
humans and their life-world.
Within the praxis perspective, the central question is how artifacts mediate people’s
actions and the way they live their lives. While perception, from a phenomenological
point of view, consists in the way the world is present for humans, praxis can be seen as
the way humans are present in their world.
An important difference with respect to the mediation of perception, however, is the
way in which action-mediating artifacts are present. Artifacts mediate action not only
from a ready-to-hand position but also from a present-at-hand position. A gun, to
mention an unpleasant example, mediates action from a ready-to-hand position,
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, translating “express my anger” or “take revenge” into “kill that person.” A speed bump,
however, cannot be embodied. It will never be ready-to-hand; it exerts influence on
people’s actions from a present-at-hand position.
The translation of action has a structure of invitation and inhibition, the transformation
of perception a structure of amplification and reduction.
Lecture 2 – Methods of Technology Ethics: the ethics of self-driving
cars as a case study
The Reflective Equilibrium Method
Reflective equilibrium as a methodology for ethics research
o a state of balance or coherence among a set of beliefs arrived at by a process of
deliberative mutual adjustment among general principles and particular
judgements.
o For example, if we find out that a baby has been murdered, we might think that
this is terrible and feel quite bad about it. Given a moral intuition, the method of
reflective equilibrium says that we should try to generalize and come up with a
general moral principle that explains this intuition.
o The method of reflective equilibrium serves the aim of defining a realistic and
stable social order by determining a practically coherent set of principles that
are grounded in the right way in the source of our moral motivation, such that
we will be disposed to comply with them.
Ethics by analogy: e.g. the trolley problem analogy
3 worries about comparing the ethics of self-driving cars with the trolley problem:
1. simplified thought experiments vs. the messiness of real-life ethics
2. moral and legal responsibility
3. known and certain facts vs. risks and uncertainty
Empirical ethics: 3 worries:
1. lack of real-world experience (cf. Collingridge dilemma)
2. gut reactions vs. arguments
3. inconsistent attitudes
Some challenges related to applying the traditional moral theories to new technologies
(like robots and AI):
The “who is the moral agent?” problem
The theories were developed with human-human interaction in mind, before there were
technologies like AI, robots, self-driving cars, etc.
Our own shared human moral sensibilities (which express themselves in our traditional
ethical theories) also developed before we lived in the modern world
Controversies about methods – and should all ethics researchers use the same method?
Nassim JafariNaimi: some methods – such as the method of constructing trolley
problems – are morally problematic!
o JafariNaimi: Discussing trolley problem cases displays moral insensitivity
John Harris: the moral machine project (“empirical ethics”) also makes morally
problematic assumptions!
o Harris: it makes the morally problematic assumption that we should allow
machines to make life-and-death decisions
One possible response to JafariNaimi & Harris: even if trolley problems and the moral
machine project are problematic, they can still be indirectly useful. à explaining what is
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