Aim / objective

The course runs across five days, with each day covering one dimension of philosophy of technology: metaphysics, (meta)ethics, politics, applied ethics. For each topic there will be at least one invited lecture from someone from the 4TU.Ethics network, and at least one interactive exercise. Every day, the course will also entail interactive activities in which students will discuss the course’s authors and topics in relation to their own research interests.

In 2025, the first edition be taught of Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies.  This course will take place February 17th to 21st in Utrecht.

Technology has the potential to enhance human autonomy and freedom, yet it can also pose risks by manipulating users or undermining autonomy in subtle ways. To address this issue, methods such as Value Sensitive Design and ethics-by-design have gained popularity over the past decade. These approaches are crucial for embedding core values, like human autonomy, into the early stages of technology design and development.

This course acquaints students with current theories and approaches to the relations between mind, body, and technology. Our entry point is the central role of the human mind in the European and Anglo-American tradition of Philosophy. Simply put, human beings are considered to have a specific kind of mind, that makes them human.

Promises and expectations concerning new and emerging science and technologies (NEST) abound in contemporary societies. How should we anticipate and evaluate these new and emerging sciences and technologies and the impacts they may have on society? In this course we start by identifying the specific challenges emerging technologies pose to their ethical and societal evaluation. Since NEST are not fully developed yet, the object of evaluation is rather elusive and replete with uncertainties. Taking a pragmatist approach to the ethical and societal evaluation of NEST, the course subsequently first investigates the informal, (‘de facto’) processes of anticipation and evaluation of NEST taking place in society, analysing their character, strengths and weaknesses. We then ask how more systematic (‘dedicated’) methods to anticipate and/or evaluate NEST (developed in technology assessment, ethics and STS more generally) could contribute to the quality of societal anticipation and evaluation of NEST. To what extent can such methods help to make innovation processes more reflective of societal and moral value and responsible (as recent calls for ‘Responsible Research & Innovation’ seem to suggest)? What do these methods assume about what ‘good anticipation and evaluation’ of NEST entails, and how valid are these assumptions? What is the role and added value of ethical and Technology Assessment -expertise? The course ends with two sessions dedicated to topical subjects (capita selecta) in the philosophical, ethical and social science literature on anticipation and evaluation of NEST, which may vary from year to year.