Standard Research Grant: Stuck with the Dominant Urban Form? Technology and the Limits of Ethics in the Built Environment

标准研究补助金：受困于占主导地位的城市形态？

• 批准号: 0646739
• 负责人: Robert Kirkman
• 金额: $ 10.5万
• 依托单位: Georgia Tech Research Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-05-15 至 2010-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0646739&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Standard; Research; Grant; Stuck; Dominant

This project, funded by the Ethics and Values Studies component of the Science and Society Program, involves an empirical study into one aspect of the relationship between ethics and technology. Moral agents who are caught up in sociotechnical ensembles can find themselves stuck as a result, by which we mean that their capacity to engage in ethical deliberation and ethical action is limited or redirected by factors beyond their control. Decisions about how and where to live and how, what, and where to build are ethical decisions to the extent that they have some bearing on human well-being, justice, and sustainability. A crucial premise of the research is that the built environment may be construed as a large, decentralized sociotechnical ensemble. To the extent that this ensemble exhibits obduracy, the PIs expect that the built environment offers up myriad opportunities for getting stuck. To test a number of hypotheses that arise from this premise, the PIs will investigate a set of decisions that currently face a major metropolitan area: the proposed BeltLine in Atlanta, Georgia. The BeltLine is an ambitious plan for a transit corridor, parks, and new development along a ring of disused railroad tracks around downtown and midtown Atlanta. If it is completed as planned, the BeltLine would represent a major shift in the structure and future development of Atlanta as a built environment. The research will proceed in four phases: 1) archival research on the BeltLine proposal and the debate it has generated; 2) review and analysis of existing transcripts of semi-structured interviews conducted by the PI in 2003 as part of a related project; 3) new semi-structured interviews with residents of the Atlanta region; and 4) an online survey informed by the results of the previous phases. The PIs will consider in particular whether and to what extent people are stuck in their thinking about the BeltLine, and whether and to what extent these varieties of stuckness may be attributable to the obduracy or resistance of the existing sociotechnical infrastructure of Atlanta. The research draws from the literatures of several conventional disciplines (philosophy, economics, and technology studies, with some contributions from urban planning, moral psychology, and environmental psychology) to shed new light on a serious practical problem: the difficulty of thinking and acting ethically in complex situations. The research will make three distinct contributions to a growing movement in environmental ethics toward what is called a phenomenology of moral experience: 1) some account of whether and why it may be difficult to think and act ethically; 2) an extension of environmental ethics into the sociotechnical environment, where people actually live; and 3) empirical research into how people experience their various situations and prospects. The research will be useful to three overlapping audiences: 1) scholars in environmental philosophy, urban planning, technology studies, and related fields; 2) those involved directly in the decision about the BeltLine in Atlanta, including planners, policy makers, developers, and residents; 3) people in other metropolitan areas who are facing similar decisions. Accordingly, the research results will be disseminated through the popular press and through websites accessible to a broad public as well as through academic journals and conferences. In addition, the results of this research will influence the senior personnel's teaching in environmental ethics, economics, and policy.

该项目由科学与社会计划的伦理与价值观研究部分资助，涉及对伦理与技术之间关系的一个方面进行实证研究。 陷入社会技术合奏的道德行为者会发现自己因此陷入困境，我们的意思是，他们参与伦理思考和伦理行动的能力受到限制，或者被他们无法控制的因素重新引导。 关于如何和在哪里生活以及如何，什么和在哪里建设的决定是道德决定，因为它们对人类福祉，正义和可持续性有一定的影响。 研究的一个重要前提是，建筑环境可以被解释为一个大型的，分散的社会技术合奏。 在某种程度上，这个合奏表现出顽固，PI预计，建筑环境提供了无数的机会陷入困境。 为了检验这一前提下产生的一些假设，PI将调查一系列目前面临的主要大都市区的决策：拟议中的格鲁吉亚亚特兰大的环城线。 BeltLine是一个雄心勃勃的计划，它将沿着沿着环绕亚特兰大市中心和市中心的一圈废弃的铁路轨道建造一条交通走廊、公园和新的开发项目。 如果按计划完成，BeltLine将代表亚特兰大建筑环境结构和未来发展的重大转变。 研究将分四个阶段进行：1）对BeltLine提案及其引发的辩论进行档案研究; 2）审查和分析PI在2003年进行的半结构化访谈的现有记录，作为相关项目的一部分; 3）对亚特兰大地区居民进行新的半结构化访谈; 4）根据前几个阶段的结果进行在线调查。 PI将特别考虑人们是否以及在多大程度上陷入了对BeltLine的思考，以及是否以及在多大程度上这些各种各样的顽固性可能归因于亚特兰大现有社会技术基础设施的顽固性或阻力。 该研究借鉴了几个传统学科的文献（哲学，经济学和技术研究，以及城市规划，道德心理学和环境心理学的一些贡献），以揭示一个严重的实际问题：在复杂情况下思考和道德行为的困难。 这项研究将为环境伦理学中日益增长的运动做出三个不同的贡献，即所谓的道德体验现象学：1）对是否以及为什么难以道德地思考和行动的一些解释; 2）将环境伦理学扩展到社会技术环境中，人们实际生活的地方; 3）对人们如何体验他们的各种情况和前景的实证研究。 这项研究将有助于三个重叠的观众：1）学者在环境哲学，城市规划，技术研究，以及相关领域; 2）那些直接参与决策的关于环城线在亚特兰大，包括规划师，政策制定者，开发商和居民; 3）人在其他大都市地区谁是面临类似的决定。 因此，研究结果将通过大众媒体和广大公众可访问的网站以及学术期刊和会议传播。 此外，本研究之结果亦将影响高阶环境伦理学、经济学、政策学之教学。