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Contents
WHAT IS? ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 2
What is philosophy?..................................................................................................................................................................................... 2
What is culture? ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 2
What is technology? .................................................................................................................................................................................... 2
Four views of technology .................................................................................................................................................................................. 2
Technology as tools and machines (hardware) ............................................................................................................................................ 2
Technology as rules...................................................................................................................................................................................... 2
Technology as applied science ..................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Technology as a system ............................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Conflicting Visions of Technology - Discussed ................................................................................................................................................... 4
Technology as a system ............................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Living in a Technological Society .................................................................................................................................................................. 4
Conflicting Visions of technology ................................................................................................................................................................. 4
2 Conflicting Views of Technology ..................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Technological Optimism (omnipotence) ...................................................................................................................................................... 4
Technological Pessimism (impotence) ......................................................................................................................................................... 5
Technology is artificial ............................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Technology is autonomous/self-determining ......................................................................................................................................... 5
Technology has unintended consequences ............................................................................................................................................ 5
Science, Technology and Culture....................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Culture: Humans transform nature in two ways .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Culture as the Transformation of the natural world................................................................................................................................ 6
Culture as the Transformation of the natural in the human man......................................................................................................... 6
Culture: Two further features of culture ...................................................................................................................................................... 6
Science: What is science .............................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Science as a Culture Practice........................................................................................................................................................................ 7
Knowledge is virtue ................................................................................................................................................................................ 7
Knowledge is power ............................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Recap................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 8
Risk .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
The Engineers perspective .......................................................................................................................................................................... 9
The Laymans perspective (non-expert) ..................................................................................................................................................... 10
The Government Regulators perspective.................................................................................................................................................. 10
Superconducting Supercollider ....................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Technoscience ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
From applied science to Technoscience: technology cannot be regarded as the handmaiden of science it is central to scientific
practice ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 11
Co-dependency between Technoscience and political, public, economic and scientific communities:................................................ 11
Ethical considerations are unavoidable ................................................................................................................................................ 11
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 11
WHAT IS?
What is philosophy?
Philosophy looks at the questions behind our everyday enquiries: it is a stepping back from
the activity
Conceptual questions: It seeks to clarify the meaning of concepts, particularly abstract
concepts like person, freedom, justice, truth, reality, culture, technology
Questions of meaning: It considers the whys which remain untouched by other academic
disciplines, and asks questions about meaning-giving ideas by means of which we orientate
ourselves in our lives
What is culture?
In its broadest sense culture refers to the multiple ways in which humankind acts upon,
shapes and interprets its environment: culture is the transformation of nature
In this sense, culture is what separates us from non-human animals
One answer: higher intellectual expressions of mankind
Agriculture and horticulture
Culture as music/art/literature
What is technology?
Technology is everywhere but hidden: technology tends to fade into the background
It functions best when hidden
Systems become visible when something breaks down!
Technology as a system
Reflections:
If a tool is to count as technology, it has to be embedded in a community of
people who have the expertise to use it, maintain it and repair it
Technology includes the whole complex the train network, the cancer
screening programme, the cell phone communication network
Technology shifts who you are. (Imagine you had your cell phone stolen or
all power was to completely cease)
Tech Hardware vs Tech System:
Example: the cell phone in one country may not be part of the same system
as it is in another country (its social value may be quite different), but will be
made exactly the same
Compare how you and your parents or grandparents use cell phones
The way in which a technology is embedded may differ from family to
family, university to university, country to country
If technology shifts our way of being in the world, what does this say about it?
Who or what is initiating the shift?
To what extent does human society control the changing shape of technology?
To what extent does technology control the changing shape of human society?
Conflicting Visions of
Technology - Discussed
Technology as a system
Problem-solving (rules)
Relies upon some physical effect from nature (hardware)
Interwoven with science (applied science)
Includes the entire technological system hardware, software, users
Complexity!
Living in a Technological Society
Is it possible to reject (modern) technology?
Is this a bad thing? What attitude should we have towards our reliance on technology?
Conflicting Visions of technology
Technology solves problems it makes our lives easier
Medicine (eradication of childhood diseases, huge reduction in maternal mortality
rate, life-extending technologies, etc.)
Agriculture
Transport and communication
On the other hand, technology also creates problems
Pollution, environmental damage
New technologies also raise new (philosophical and moral!) questions
2 Conflicting Views of
Technology
Technological Optimism (omnipotence)
we are in control
we can use technology to bend the course of nature to our will
Technology is value-neutral: if things go wrong, the problem is with humans and not with
technology itself. Instrumentalist view of technology.
We are in control! Bacon: Knowledge is power
When things do go wrong (eg. environmental degradation) technology will eventually solve
the problem
Technology progress (control of nature)
Technology freedom
from our vulnerability to nature
from mental drudgery that can be outsourced
from physical labour (why is this desirable?)
Technology equality
What view of human nature is associated with technological optimism?
Exemptionalism (Uncountable): The belief that the relationship between humans
and the natural environment is unimportant because humans are "exempt" from
other creatures.
A problem with this view: it assumes that technology will not fall into the wrong hands and
that technology will not be abused
To make sure this doesnt happen, control is necessary
Conflicts with idea that technological progress increases freedom and equality
Universally valid: The particular identity/circumstances of the scientist is irrelevant, i.e. any
competent scientist must be able to reproduce the same results
Coherent (systematic): A given insight must fit into a larger whole, and be consistent with,
other insights
Recap
Life Orientation
This is the totality of meaning-giving ideas according to which we organise our lives.
We exhibit these meaning-giving ideas in our daily activities, which are aimed at
achieving a larger life-strategy it is the vision we have for our lives, how we think
our lives ought to play out.
Examples: knowledge is important, it is desirable to be educated, life is
meaningful when shared, family matters, beauty improves quality of life,
diversity is enriching
These meaning-giving ideas are the basis on which we transform the natural in us.
Value-neutral
If technology was value neutral, you would be in complete control of how exactly
technologies influence and change your lives.
The idea is that people have values, technology does not have values.
Technology cannot change the way you live your life except if you explicitly want it
to.
However: if technology has unintended consequences, if it changes the way you
inhabit the world in ways you did not necessarily predict and control, then it is not
value neutral.
Culture
Risk
The Engineers perspective
Engineers definition of risk:
A compound measure of the probability and magnitude of adverse effect (harm).
Is harm quantifiable?
Some forms of harm (for example, economic and physical impairments) are
quantifiable
Other forms of harm (psychological harm, decreases in quality of life) are more
difficult to quantify
Harm is an evaluative concept
Harm is an invasion or limitation of freedom or well-being (of a person or of any other being
or aspect of the environment)
Harm also involves moral evaluation
Personal harm = setting back of interests
Harm is at least partially subjective and context-dependent
In high risk technologies, two characteristics which make them susceptible to accidents:
tight coupling: failure in one part of a chemical plant quickly affects failure in
another part
complex interaction: parts of system can interact in unanticipated ways
Example: chemical plant, nuclear power plant, space missions
Normalizing of deviance:
Accepting anomaly and increasing boundary of acceptable risk
This is particularly dangerous in the face of advancing technology (where the set standards
are no longer adequate)
Important to note:
Engineers should adopt a critical attitude in the assessment of risk and be aware of
perspectives other than their own.
The Laymans perspective (non-expert)
The public (laypeople) have the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of low-probability
risks and to underestimate the likelihood of high-probability risks
Availability heuristic just one cognitive bias which makes most people poor assessors of
risk
But, the public also differs from the risk-expert in terms of what makes risk acceptable
2 features of acceptable risk that are not taken into account by cost-benefit analysis (the
risk-expert), but which are important to the layperson:
Informed Consent:
has 3 components:
1) A person must not be coerced (act freely)
2) The relevant information must be provided
3) A person must be rational and competent
Just Distribution:
Whether risks are distributed fairly
Benefits and risks should be equitably distributed
It is unjust if one party is exposed to risk while another party reaps the
benefits
Scientists and policymakers have different priorities when it comes to scientific studies:
Scientists have bias to avoid false positives, whereas policy makers have a bias to
avoid false negatives.
It is more expensive to eliminate false negatives than false positives (due to a larger
sample size), so these studies are less likely to be run.
Studies are sometimes privately funded and scientists may have a vested interest in
eliminating false positives
Superconducting Supercollider
Technoscience
Conclusion
Technology is not just a set of devices that we use
Rather, technology is bound up with culture, and cannot be separated from political,
economic, and ethical considerations