Short abstract:

In this talk, I undertake a critical reflection on technology-driven trans- and posthumanism (TH/PH) in light of the philosopher of technology Günther Anders. His philosophy helps us to rethink TH/PH as an existential response to the "human obsolescence" (Anders 1956) vis-à-vis (digital) technology.G

Long abstract:

The human desire to evolve into something new, better, higher is a common theme in Western thought. One of the most prominent contemporary currents of thought in this regard is transhumanism and posthumanism (TH/PH) (cf. Coenen 2009). These are scientific-intellectual, technophile and economic-libertarian movements dedicated to human enhancement – i.e. the “expansion of human abilities through technical [as well as genetic and neuroscientific] modification of the body” (Dickel 2016, 101).

In this paper, I engage in a critical reflection on TH/PH in light of the philosopher of technology Günther Anders. Although a thinker of the 20th century, Anders’ work is impressively relevant to the digital age and contemporary human existence. Years before Jean-Paul Sartre, Anders explored human’s “enstrangedness from the world” (Müller 2016, 5). This implies an alienation from the world, considering the absence of any essence (“Weltfremdheit” in Anders’ words). Therefore, humans compensate for this lack by relying on technical artefacts: “artificiality is the nature of the human beings” (Anders 2009 [1936/37], 209).

Since Anders’ time, industrial and digital technologies have evolved enormously. With Anders, humans feel deprived, curtailed and ‘obsolescent’ (“antiquiert”) (Anders 1956) in comparison to these technologies. I argue that Anders’ philosophy helps us to rethink TH/PH as responses to this “Promethean shame” (ibid.) and as ways out of ‘human obsolescence’. Humans aim to bridge the “Promethean gap” (ibid.), which separates perfect and immortal, i.e. replaceable and repairable, technology from imperfect and mortal human beings, by becoming transhuman or posthuman.

Short abstract:

This paper discusses two performativities at play within classical philosophy of technology and the empirical turn: 1. Conceptualizations of technology reveal specific ethical insights and conceal others. 2. Ethical convictions attract particular conceptualizations of technology and repel others.

Long abstract:

This paper investigates two performativities that are at play within classical philosophy of technology and the empirical turn. Firstly, we show that particular conceptualizations of technology reveal specific ethical insights and conceal others. Secondly, we argue that how philosophers come to understand technology is also driven by particular normative convictions that are more or less compatible with different understandings of what technology is. This indicates that technology ethics should not come after, but be part of conceptualizing technology too.

Our investigation starts with classical philosophers of technology, focussing on Martin Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse and Jacques Ellul. We explore how their conceptualization of technology as an abstract phenomenon reveals a particular way of doing technology ethics and conceals other ethical considerations, especially those surrounding concrete technological artifacts. Moreover, we provide a contextualization of these philosophers to see how some of their normative convictions surrounding ethical foundationalism and freedom performed their particular way of conceptualizing technology as well.

We apply a similar approach to the empirical turn, exploring how their conceptualization of technology in terms of concrete technological artifacts performs an undermining of the ethical insights put forward by classical philosophers of technology. We argue that this empirical conceptualization was performed by a growing recognition of normative considerations surrounding concrete, technological artifacts, which classical philosophers of technology long overlooked.

A case study towards technomoral change within the safety domain of Eindhoven municipality seeks to exemplify the necessity of considering ethical insights arising from both classical and empirical philosophy of technology.

Short abstract:

This contribution presents a methodological approach for the analysis of dynamical socio-technical systems based on the hybridisation of the post-empirical turn philosophy of technology and STS studies on socio-technical systems.

Long abstract:

This paper presents a new approach to the analysis of dynamical socio-technical systems base in the hybridisation of the philosophy of technology after the empirical turn (Kroes and Meijers 2000; Achterhuis 2001) and the STS tradition on large socio-technical systems (Hughes 1986, 1994). As other authors have also pointed out (e.g. Geels and Schot 2007; Sovacool et al. 2018), mature technological systems perform adaptations in order to maintain themselves. However, socio-technical systems have been studied from static approaches that make it difficult to capture the dynamics of a mature system.

I use the forces of classical mechanics as an explanatory metaphor. Centripetal forces are real forces causally associated with the action of some agent outside the body on which they act. On the other hand, centrifugal force is the tendency of an object to resist any change in its state of rest or motion (Newton, 1999). In my view, the function of the system or the socio-technical imaginary (STIs) Jasanoff and Kim 2015; Jasanoff and Simmet 2021) acts as a centripetal force that tries to capture the elements of its technological environment. In contrast, the dissonant STI of the environmental agents maintain pressure in the opposite direction. Dissonant STIs act as centrifugal forces pushing the system to open up by making adaptations in order to extend its dominance and maintain itself. This contribution presents a methodological proposal that explains the complexity of this process (Fernández-Jimeno, 2024). The proposal will be illustrated through various cases.

Short abstract:

Technology mediates our access to the world. However, the complexity and opaqueness of AI-based systems, as well as higher forms of automatization and autonomization of systems, pose new risks that require another approach in technology ethics that considers the role of models and simulations.

Long abstract:

Technology is sometimes defined as an amount or system of connected artifacts. (Ropohl, 2010, p. 42), (VDI, 2000, p. 2) This usually entails an instrumental reduction of artifacts serving as tools to achieve goals set by humans. (Pitt, 2014) To address these reductionist views, various approaches have been proposed in recent decades, such as ideas that stem from Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language (Coeckelbergh, 2019), postphenomenological approaches (Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek), dialectical approaches (Hubig, 2006) or lines of thought that emerged from Technology Assessment. (Grunwald & Julliard, 2005, p. 127) All approaches have in common that technology mediates in a certain way our access to the world and to us. (This explains presumably also the intricate relation of philosophy of technology with anthropological statements like e.g., that we are “deficient beings” (Arnold Gehlen).)

Each form of mediation entails a certain ethical viewpoint on technology. From an instrumentalist perspective, artifacts appear just as means and are value-neutral or -free. (Pitt, 2014) From a postphenomenological perspective, technology appears to be shaping our access to the world. Consequently, technology is imbued with values. (van de Poel & Verbeek, 2014) Despite the convincing arguments that both approaches present, it can be doubted that they adequately grasp the challenges of technology ethics. Technological systems are much more complex than tools like guns or hammers. Some systems are highly automated and act partly autonomously (like self-driving cars). Additionally, there are systems that have a high depth of engagement into the human (e.g., chips implanted into the brain). For instance, self-driving cars operate within a complex system and interact with humans (pedestrians, human drivers). Research in this field is based, for example, on game-theoretic models and empirical investigations. (Gogoll & Müller, 2017), (Karpus, Krüger, Tovar Verba, Bahrami, & Deroy, 2021), (Krügel & Uhl) Models and simulations mediate our understanding of such technological systems. Hence, it is argued that models and simulations need to play a more crucial role in technology ethics to adequately grasp the challenges of new technologies.

The talk makes four contributions. First, approaches in the philosophy of technology are systematized regarding how they conceptualize technology as mediating access to the world. Second, the ethical implications of the different conceptualizations are analyzed. Third, the problematic issues of each conceptualization are discussed with regard to the challenges of technology ethics. In the end, an approach to technology ethics is proposed that stems rather from a philosophy of science perspective.

References:

Coeckelbergh, M. (2019). Moved by Machines: Performance Metaphors and Philosophy of Technology. New York.

Gogoll, J., & Müller, J. (2017). Autonomous Cars: In Favor of a Mandatory Ethics Setting. Sci Eng Ethics, 23(3), pp. 681-700.

Grunwald, A., & Julliard, Y. (2005). Technik als Reflexionsbegriff: Überlegungen zur semantischen Struktur des Redens über Technik. Philosophia naturalis(42), pp. 127-157.

Hubig, C. (2006). Die Kunst des Möglichen I: Technikphilosophie als Reflexion der Medialität. Bielefeld.

Karpus, J., Krüger, A., Tovar Verba, J., Bahrami, B., & Deroy, O. (2021). Algorithm exploitation: Humans are keen to exploit benevolent AI. iScience, 24(6), pp. 1-16.

Krügel, S., & Uhl, M. (n.d.). Autonomous vehicles and moral judgments under risk. Transportation research part A: policy and practice, 155, pp. 1-10.

Pitt, J. C. (2014). “Guns Don’t Kill, People Kill”; Values in and/or Around Technologies. In Kroes, Peter, & P.-P. Verbeek (Eds.), The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology (Vol. 17, pp. 89–101). Dordrecht.

Ropohl, G. (2010). Technikbegriffe zwischen Äquivokation und Reflexion. In G. Banse, & A. Grunwald (Eds.), Technik und Kultur: Bedingungs- und Beeinflussungsverhältnisse (pp. 41-54). Karlsruhe.

van de Poel, I., & Verbeek, P.-P. (2014). Can technology embody values? In P. Kroes, & P.-P. Verbeek (Eds.), The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology (Vol. 17, pp. 103-124). Heidelberg/New York/London.

VDI. (2000). Richtlinie 3780: Technikbewertung, Begriffe und Grundlagen . Berlin.

Verbeek, P.-P. (2015, May - June). Beyond interaction: a short introduction to mediation theory. Interactions, 22(3), pp. 26–31.

Short abstract:

This paper compares co-productionist approaches in STS and post-phenomenological approaches in the philosophy of technology and considers why the latter has incorporated various insights from STS, while STS has been reluctant to think in (post)phenomenological terms.

Long abstract:

This paper hones in on two approaches to interpreting technologies in STS and philosophy: co-production and post-phenomenology.

Both emerge as a response to the perceived essentialism and reductionism of the earlier approaches they seek to supplant. Thus, both are imagined to offer more empirically robust or logically consistent accounts of technology. And both respond to these issues by striving for dynamic, interactionist, and relational theories and claim that traditional dualisms – subject and object, social and technical – are mutually co-constituted.

However, despite the conceptual overlaps and potential for complementarity, so far cross-pollination has been fairly one sided. Post-phenomenologists have incorporated co-productionist STS approaches into their interpretative frameworks: while the locus of interpretation tends to be the points where people experience technologies, co-constitution means accounting for technoscience. On the other hand, (post)phenomenology has been conspicuously absent (or dismissed) from STS work.

I consider some of the possible reasons for this absence and explore potential avenues for integrating (post)phenomenological considerations into STS, and reinvigorating STS’s philosophical work more broadly. I argue that a key issue is that, despite STS’s so-called “ontological turn,” technologies enter co-productionist interpretative frameworks predominantly as actor objects. Thus, epistemology is treated as prior to ontology. In turn, questions of technological intrinsicality remain at arms length, whereas post-phenomenologists, while wary of essentialism, engage such questions earnestly. I illustrate these issues by reconsidering a classic case of technological interpretation in STS: that of the bicycle, however by also tracing its more recent history, in addition to its formative development.

Short abstract:

Participatory technology development is usually subjectivist, not allowing for the assessment of moral claims. Moral theories may help out, but these suffer from absolutist terminologies and conceptualisations. Articulating the methodology of moral theory helps to overcome this problem.

Long abstract:

The development and endorsement of participatory approaches to technology development is particularly strong within the field of STS, but this field maintains a number of assumptions that diminish the quality of participation. To start with, there is the tendency to maintain subjectivist moral starting points, meaning that no external ethical standards are necessary to evaluate the moral quality of these outcomes. Not only does the emphasis on procedural aspects potentially compromise the substantive ethical quality of participation, but it may also reinforce biases and assumptions entertained by participants.

Moral theory may help to overcome these problems by establishing criteria for deciding upon the quality of the moral claims forwarded in deliberation. The uptake of these criteria in participatory methods, however, appears to be complicated by the tendency of moral philosophers to phrase their work in terms of ‘moral truths’, which raises the suspicion of hubris among scholars from the social sciences.

This is not necessarily so, the idea of ‘moral truths’ can be taken as a methodological starting point that allows us to come closer to the truth by eradicating false statements. In line with Popper’s falsification principle, moral theorists aim to asymptotically approach the truth while never giving an answer to what is really true. Indeed, like scientific knowledge can be helpful for societal discussions, convictions informed by moral theories can be constructive in debates. Such a re-articulation can make moral theory more supportive of the design of participatory arrangements, allowing normative claims to be forwarded and tested.

Short abstract:

The talk will present an argument for the positive value of technological utopias and their relation to the idea of justice without denying the risks of engaging with them.

Long abstract:

Most technological developments are accompanied with unrealistic expectations and promises. Some of these expectations take the shape of bold predictions and they are driven by corporate interests. Perhaps, in this way, they fulfill distinct functions to orient decision-making in complex societies (Beckert 2016). Others, however, take a more distinct narrative form and envision how technology and society might be reshaped in the future. We might consider those as technological utopias - despite the vagueness of the term. Is it worth it - as STS scholars and philosophers of technology - to study and engage with those narratives? This question as I will argue can be answered positively insofar as technological utopias could advance discussions about justice. In my presentation, I will outline three ways in which technological utopias can do this. Taken together, this will provide reasons for STS scholars and philosophers of technology to consider technological utopias. These reasons are distinct from reasons to embrace any particular technological utopias or even consider them models or blueprints for the governance of technologies in the present. Hence, my talk considers the methodological question: Are technological utopias worthy objects of study for STS and philosophy of technology?