Overview
- Traces recent proposals that ascribe some form of moral agency to technology and technical artefacts
- Contains a plethora of arguments and counterarguments on the moral status of technology and technical artefacts
- Presents work that connects with many sub-disciplines of philosophy, and with disciplines beyond philosophy
Part of the book series: Philosophy of Engineering and Technology (POET, volume 17)
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Table of contents (13 chapters)
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Front Matter
Keywords
- Agency in humans and artifacts
- Artefactual moral agency
- Artefactural agency
- Artificial agents and their moral nature
- Instrumental and non-instrumental values of artefacts
- Moral significance of technology
- Post-human sociomaterial agency
- Value sensitive design
- Values in Chemistry and Engineering
- Values in technologies
- humans and artefacts
- structural ethics approach to moral agents
About this book
This book considers the question: to what extent does it make sense to qualify technical artefacts as moral entities? The authors’ contributions trace recent proposals and topics including instrumental and non-instrumental values of artefacts, agency and artefactual agency, values in and around technologies, and the moral significance of technology.
The editors’ introduction explains that as ‘agents’ rather than simply passive instruments, technical artefacts may actively influence their users, changing the way they perceive the world, the way they act in the world and the way they interact with each other.
This volume features the work of various experts from around the world, representing a variety of positions on the topic. Contributions explore the contested discourse on agency in humans and artefacts, defend the Value Neutrality Thesis by arguing that technological artefacts do not contain, have or exhibit values, or argue that moral agency involves both human andnon-human elements.
The book also investigates technological fields that are subject to negative moral valuations due to the harmful effects of some of their products. It includes an analysis of some difficulties arising in Artificial Intelligence and an exploration of values in Chemistry and in Engineering. The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts is an advanced exploration of the various dimensions of the relations between technology and morality
Reviews
From the book reviews:
“The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts is a 13 chapter book discussing the morality of technology. … it is an important book, for it gives insight as to the role of what we as engineers produce and how that is used, in a moral sense, by our customers. Highly recommended.” (Richard J. Peppin, Noise Control Engineering Journal, Vol. 62 (4), July-August, 2014)Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts
Editors: Peter Kroes, Peter-Paul Verbeek
Series Title: Philosophy of Engineering and Technology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7914-3
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Hardcover ISBN: 978-94-007-7913-6Published: 21 January 2014
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-024-0525-5Published: 17 September 2016
eBook ISBN: 978-94-007-7914-3Published: 08 January 2014
Series ISSN: 1879-7202
Series E-ISSN: 1879-7210
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VI, 248
Number of Illustrations: 4 b/w illustrations
Topics: Philosophy of Technology, Engineering, general, Political Philosophy