Do Artifacts Have Ethics?: Technology, Politics, and the Moral Life

Accounts of the ethical challenges raised by new technologies seem to come at us weekly if not daily. It's becoming harder to believe that technologies are merely neutral artifacts of no political consequence. But what to do with this realization? How can we learn to think more deeply about the moral and political significance of our tools and devices?

The reflections gathered in this collection attempt to clear the ground for the sort of thinking we must undertake in order to understand the place of emerging technologies in our personal lives and in our society. They draw on a variety of sources—philosophical, sociological, historical, and literary—in order to elucidate the nature of our situation and the character of the moral and political life in the digital age.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part One: Foundations and Frameworks

  Do Artifacts Have Ethics?

  One Does Not Simply Add Ethics to Technology

  Does Technology Evolve More Quickly Than Ethical Norms?

  Why We Can't Have Humane Technology

  Evaluating the Promise of Technological Outsourcing

  The Ethics of Technological Mediation

  There Is No "We"

  What Do We Want, Really?

Part Two: Political Contexts

  Democracy and Technology

  Presidential Debates and Social Media, or Why Neil Postman Was Right

  Leo Marx On the Source of Technological Pessimism

  Technological Enchantments and the End of Modernity

  Technology, Moral Discourse, and Political Communities

Part Three: Case Studies

  The Ethics of Information Literacy

  To Act, Or Not to Act On Social Media

  Attention and the Moral Life

  The Conscience of a Machine

  Beyond the Trolley Car: The Moral Pedagogy of Ethical Tools

  Why A Life Made Easier By Technology May Not Necessarily Be Happier

  Machines, Work, and the Value of People

  Growing Up With AI

  On the Moral Implications of Willful Acts of Virtual Harm

  Et in Facebook ego

  Troubles We Must Not Refuse

  How To Think About Memory and Technology

  Privacy and Human Flourishing

  The Transhumanist Promise: Happiness You Cannot Refuse