New Directions in Understanding Ethics and Technology

这一努力考察了科学技术研究（STS）中最近工作的含义，以理解伦理与技术之间的联系。它整合了两个研究领域的见解，这两个领域在过去二十年中有了显著的发展：技术的社会研究；与技术相关的应用和实践伦理。STS技术理论为理解伦理与技术之间的联系提供了丰富的基础，因为它们揭示了技术与社会之间的密切联系，特别是技术的社会塑造。STS学者拒绝了技术只是出现然后产生社会影响的观点。他们现在更喜欢技术和社会更复杂、共同创造的模式。然而，许多伦理学家继续使用一种模型，即技术完好无损地到达，然后产生影响，即威胁到特定的社会价值观或引发伦理问题。当技术与社会之间的无缝连接被更好地理解时，许多新的和有前途的伦理和技术研究方向变得明显。本项目旨在发展、阐述、说明和传播道德与技术之间联系的理论解释（或多个理论解释），这一解释结合并建立在STS社会塑造/共同创造理论的基础上。该项目的主要任务将是引出STS理论对伦理学的影响。这一努力将从三个方向出发。STS理论表明，技术不应该仅仅被理解为物质对象，而是与社会制度、社会实践和人际关系一起的物质对象。这种观点认为，道德和价值问题可能出现在技术生命周期的任何阶段，从设计到制造，到营销和分销，到采用和使用。其次，大量STS文献阐述了物质对象设计中体现的价值观，这对理解道德价值观“在”物质对象中的可能性具有巨大的意义。第三，理解伦理与技术之间的联系，可以更好地理解人类在技术介导的活动中的作用，从而更好地理解人类对这些活动的责任。这个项目本质上是哲学和理论的，而不是经验的。虽然将进行的研究将利用技术的实证研究，但该项目的方法是概念性、专题性和分析性的。研究者是一位哲学家，他在STS和应用/实践伦理学领域工作，特别是在计算机技术中的伦理问题。其中包括两名博士后研究助理，一名具有STS背景的博士后和一名具有伦理学背景的博士后。每个人都将接受培训，以了解对方的领域，以便双方都能协助理论账户的发展和个人项目的工作。

This endeavor examines the implications of recent work in Science and Technology Studies (STS) for understanding the connection between ethics and technology. It involves integration of insights from two fields of research that have significantly evolved in the last two decades: Social studies of technology; andApplied and practical ethics related to technology.STS theories of technology provide a rich foundation for understanding the connection between ethics and technology insofar as they reveal the intimate connections between technology and society, and especially the social shaping of technology. STS scholars have rejected the idea that technologies simply appear and then have social impacts. They now favor more complex, co-creation models of technology and society. However, many ethicists continue to use a model of technology arriving intact and then having impacts, i.e., threatening particular social values or raising ethical issues. When the seamless connection between technology and society is better understood, many new and promising directions for research on ethics and technology become apparent. This project aims to develop, articulate, illustrate, and disseminate a theoretical account (or accounts) of the connection between ethics and technology, an account that incorporates and builds on STS social shaping/co-creation theories. The major task of the project will be to draw out the implications of STS theory for ethics. Three directions will serve as starting places for this endeavor. STS theory suggests that technology should be understood to be not just material objects but material objects together with social institutions, social practices, and human relationships. In this view, ethical and value issues may be present at any point in the life cycle of a technology, from design, to manufacture, to marketing and distribution, to adoption and use. Second, a good deal of STS literature addresses the values embodied in the design of material objects and this has enormous implications for understanding the possibility of moral values being 'in' material objects. Third, understanding the connection between ethics and technology opens up the possibility of better understanding the role of human agency in technology-mediated activities and consequently the accountability of humans for such activities. The project is philosophical and theoretical in nature, not empirical. While the research to be done will draw on empirical studies of technology, the methodology of the project is conceptual, thematic, and analytical. The investigator is a philosopher who has worked both in STS and in the field of applied/ practical ethics, especially ethical issues in computer technology. Two post-doctoral research associates, one post-doc with a background in STS and one with a background in ethics are involved. Each will be trained to understand the other field so that both can assist in the development of the theoretical account and work on an individual project.