This is Technology Ethics: An Introduction

Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvii

1 What is Technology (From an Ethical Point of View)? 1
1.1 A Hut in the Black Forest 1
1.2 The Question Concerning Technology: The Instrumental Theory of Technology from Martin Heidegger to Joanna Bryson 3
1.3 “Post- Phenomenology” and the Mediation Theory of Technology 7
1.4 Technologies Conceived of as Being More Than Mere Means or Instruments 11
1.5 Technologies Regarded as Moral Agents 13
1.6 Technologies Regarded as Moral Patients 16
1.7 Some of the Key Types of Technologies That Will Be Discussed at Greater Length in Later Chapters of the Book 19
Annotated Bibliography 24

2 What is Ethics? (and, in Particular, What is Technology Ethics)? 25
2.1 Two Campaigns 25
2.2 The Ethics of Virtue and Human Flourishing in Ancient Greece 28
2.3 Ancient Chinese Confucianism and Traditional Southern African Ubuntu Ethics 32
2.4 Kantian Ethics 36
2.5 Utilitarianism and Consequentialist Ethical Theories 39
2.6 If Ethics More Generally Can Be All the Things Discussed in the Previous Sections, then What Does this Mean for Technology Ethics in Particular? 44
2.7 How Technology Ethics Can Challenge and Create a Need for Extensions of More General Ethical Theory 46
Annotated Bibliography 49

3 Methods of Technology Ethics: The Ethics of Self- Driving Cars as a Case Study 51
3.1 Methodologies of Ethics? 51
3.2 The Ethics of Self- Driving Cars 53
3.3 Ethics by Committee 56
3.4 Ethics by Analogy: The Trolley Problem Comparison 58
3.5 Empirical Ethics 61
3.6 Applying Traditional Ethical Theories 65
3.7 Which Method(s) Should We Use in Technology Ethics? Only One or Many? 70
Annotated Bibliography 74

4 Artificial Intelligence, Value Alignment, and the Control Problem 76
4.1 Averting a Nuclear War 76
4.2 What Is Artificial Intelligence and What Is the Value Alignment Problem? 79
4.3 The Good and the Bad, and Instrumental and Non- Instrumental Values and Principles 83
4.4 Instrumentally Positive Value- Alignment of Technologies 86
4.5 Instrumentally Negative Misalignment of Technologies 87
4.6 Positive Non- Instrumental Value Alignment of Technologies 90
4.7 Negative Non- Instrumental Value Misalignment of Technologies 94
4.8 The Control Problem 96
4.9 Control as a Value: Instrumental or Non- Instrumental? And Are There Some Technologies It Might Be Wrong to Try to Control? 99
Annotated Bibliography 102

5 Behavior Change Technologies, Gamification, Personal Autonomy, and the Value of Control 104
5.1 A Better You? 104
5.2 Behavior Change Technologies and Gamification 107
5.3 Control: Three Basic Observations 110
5.4 Key Dimensions of Control Discussed in Different Areas of Philosophy 112
5.5 Behavior Change Technologies and the “Subjects” and “Objects” of Control 116
5.6 The Value and Ethical Importance of Control 120
5.7 Concluding This Chapter 123
Annotated Bibliography 125

6 Responsibility and Technology: Mind the Gap(s)? 127
6.1 Two Events 127
6.2 What Is Responsibility? Different Ways in Which People Can Be Held Responsible and Different Things for Which People Can Be Held Responsible 130
6.3 Responsibility Gaps: General Background 134
6.4 Responsibility Gaps Created by Technologies 138