Overview
- 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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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.
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Table of contents (13 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Evaluating New Technologies: An Introduction
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Front Matter
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A Case Study: Ultrafast Communication
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Front Matter
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Evaluating New Technologies: Methodological Issues
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Front Matter
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Evaluating New Technologies: Uncertainty and Precaution
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Front Matter
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Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Evaluating New Technologies
Book Subtitle: Methodological Problems for the Ethical Assessment of Technology Developments.
Editors: Paul Sollie, Marcus Düwell
Series Title: The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2229-5
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Hardcover ISBN: 978-90-481-2228-8Published: 15 April 2009
Softcover ISBN: 978-90-481-8477-4Published: 28 October 2010
eBook ISBN: 978-90-481-2229-5Published: 03 April 2009
Series ISSN: 1875-0044
Series E-ISSN: 1875-0036
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 205
Topics: Ethics, Philosophy of Technology, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary