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  • © 2011

Doing Good with Technologies:

Taking Responsibility for the Social Role of Emerging Technologies

Authors:

  • Unique interdisciplinary research on Social Technology Studies and Philosophy of Technology
  • New model of responsibility for technology on Life Ethics / Virtue Ethics
  • Brings Ethics back into Actor-Network Theory (ANT)
  • Combines classical ethicists with the social role of technologies
  • Features a case study on intelligent cars

Part of the book series: Philosophy of Engineering and Technology (POET, volume 4)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vii
  2. Mastering Technologies

    • Katinka Waelbers
    Pages 11-29
  3. Actor-Networks and Taking Responsibility

    • Katinka Waelbers
    Pages 31-49
  4. Human Practices in Technological Contexts

    • Katinka Waelbers
    Pages 73-90
  5. Tools for a Forward-Looking Responsibility

    • Katinka Waelbers
    Pages 91-105
  6. Will We Accept Responsibility?

    • Katinka Waelbers
    Pages 133-138
  7. Back Matter

    Pages 139-150

About this book

20th century technologies like cars, the Internet, and the contraceptive pill have altered our actions, changed our perceptions and influenced our moral ideas, for better and worse. Upcoming technologies are bound to fulfill their own unique social roles. How can we advance this social role so that it will support the good live and limit undesired changes? This book explores whether we can take a forward looking responsibility to optimize the social roles of technologies. In doing so, the book discusses three issues: first, it aims to understand the social role of technologies; second, it explores what it means to accept responsibility for this social role, and; third, it searches for some forward looking tools that help us to see how new technologies may influence human behavior. In a rather unique approach, this book combines the influential sociological research of Bruno Latour on the social impacts of technologies with the contemporary Aristotelianism of Alasdair MacIntyre.

Authors and Affiliations

  • , Department of Philosophy, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, Netherlands

    Katinka Waelbers

About the author

Katinka Waelbers is a researcher at the philosophy department at the Maastricht University. Her research interests range broadly in bio-ethics, philosophy of technology, environmental philosophy, and political philosophy. She studied Science & Policy (BSc and MSc) and Philosophy (Ba and MSc) at the Utrecht University. She participated in multiple research projects in bio-ethics, environmental ethics, and ethics of technology at the Utrecht University (1998-2005). In 2005, she decided to focus on the philosophy of technology and she went to the University of Twente. There, her work focused on responsibility and future technologies such as nano-technology, IT, and the intelligent car of the future. Since november 2010, she is employed at the Maastricht University to reflect about the future techno-social and techno-moral change. She authored multiple articles and reports, and published several books.

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access