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Evaluating New Technologies

Methodological Problems for the Ethical Assessment of Technology Developments.

  • Book
  • © 2009

Overview

Editors:
  1. Paul Sollie

    1. Utrecht University Ethics Institute, Heidelberglaan 8, Netherlands

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Marcus Düwell

    1. Utrecht University Ethics Institute, Heidelberglaan 8, Netherlands

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Takes a proactive attitude towards dealing with complex new technology developments
  • Focus on uncertainty in ethics and technology, which is, contrary to the concept of risk, highly underappreciated in this field
  • Different methodological approaches to dealing with uncertainty

Part of the book series: The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology (ELTE, volume 3)

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-VIII
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  2. Evaluating New Technologies: An Introduction

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. Evaluating New Technologies: An Introduction

      • Paul Sollie, Marcus Düwell
      Pages 1-8

  3. A Case Study: Ultrafast Communication

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9
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    2. Ethical Aspects of Research in Ultrafast Communication

      • Alfred Driessen
      Pages 11-19

    3. Whose Responsibility Is It Anyway? Dealing with the Consequences of New Technologies

      • Anton Vedder, Bart Custers
      Pages 21-34

    4. Ethics in and During Technological Research; An Addition to IT Ethics and Science Ethics

      • Anke van Gorp
      Pages 35-49

    5. The Need for a Value-Sensitive Design of Communication Infrastructures

      • Noëmi Manders-Huits, Jeroen van den Hoven
      Pages 51-60

  4. Evaluating New Technologies: Methodological Issues

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 61-61
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    2. The Moral Relevance of Technological Artifacts

      • Peter-Paul Verbeek
      Pages 63-77

    3. Interdisciplinarity, Applied Ethics and Social Science

      • Niels Nijsingh, Marcus Düwell
      Pages 79-92

    4. Facts or Fiction? A Critique on Vision Assessment as a Tool for Technology Assessment

      • Nicole C. Karafyllis
      Pages 93-117

    5. Exploring Techno-Moral Change: The Case of the ObesityPill

      • Tsjalling Swierstra, Dirk Stemerding, Marianne Boenink
      Pages 119-138

  5. Evaluating New Technologies: Uncertainty and Precaution

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 139-139
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    2. On Uncertainty in Ethics and Technology

      • Paul Sollie
      Pages 141-158

    3. New Technologies, Common Sense and the Paradoxical Precautionary Principle

      • Steve Clarke
      Pages 159-173

    4. Complex Technology, Complex Calculations: Uses and Abuses of Precautionary Reasoning in Law

      • Deryck Beyleveld, Roger Brownsword
      Pages 175-190

    5. Ethics of Technology at the Frontier of Uncertainty: A Gewirthian Perspective

      • Paul Sollie
      Pages 191-205
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Keywords

About this book

human practices? How are we to morally evaluate technology developments that have open horizons, encompass uncertainties, and lack control? Technology is in- uential on society; technological innovations act upon the perception of ourselves, the world, and our relation with fellow humans and other objects. Technology is changing everything we do by creating new entities (such as software, nanop- ticles, or Internet), by changing the scale of activities (e. g. vast amounts of data about people can be stored and analysed, and not infrequently without people - ing aware of this), by generating new kinds of knowledge (for instance about i- nesses, the human genome and so on). Technologies, as a consequence, impinge upon our morality and for this reason an ethics of technology should not wait passively until moral problems arise and not only focus on identi ed and exi- ing moral problems, but contemplate technology developments and possible - pacts proactively. However, this is easier said than done, because a prospective and proactive evaluation of technology developments is complicated by complexity and uncertainty. The uncertainty of technology development is closely related to one of the str- ing features of technology, namely what Jim Moor has coined logical malleability. (1985, 269) Technological devices are logically malleable in that they can be shaped to do any activity that can be characterised in terms of logical operations.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Utrecht University Ethics Institute, Heidelberglaan 8, Netherlands

    Paul Sollie, Marcus Düwell

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