We are glad to announce that 4TU.ethics will organize a new PhD course on the Philosophy and Ethics of AI. The course will take place in Wageningen February or March 2025. 

Aim / objective

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.

We are excited to announce that the 4TU.Ethics workshop about critical theory and philosophy of technology will take place on the 13th of December 2024 at Utrecht University! Our target audience are PhD candidates working on the ethics and philosophy of technology with a curiosity towards critical theory. Other interested people (ReMa students and other researchers) are welcome to inquire about possibilities via email. The day will be centered around the question: 

Moral philosophy before the mid-Twentieth Century developed under the implicit assumption that outcomes could be treated as determinate. Risks and probabilities, when mentioned, were treated as a side issue. By contrast, our current understanding of agency and causation is probabilistic and uncertain. Ethical discussion has intensified around the causes of risk, such as technology and medical interventions. Moral philosophy and applied ethics have developed new concepts and tools in response, such as expected utility theory and ethical technology assessment. In addition, there is significant attention to the disruptive normative uncertainties surrounding fast-paced societal and technological change. This is an exciting area of philosophical and interdisciplinary research.

Ethics and Technology PhD programme candidates.

This course focuses on present-day and particularly continental philosophical approaches to technology and science. The course consists of 12 sessions (120mins), with 6 sessions centering around authors (e.g. Heidegger, Simondon, Stiegler), and the other six sessions being more thematic (e.g. Synthetic Cell, AI, Anthropocene). Confirmed lecturers include Prof. Peter-Paul Verbeek; dr. Vincent Blok; Prof. Tamar Sharon; and Prof. Susanna Lindberg. (see below for a full overview)

The joint ESDiT / 4TU.Ethics international conference on “Rethinking Ethics – Reimagining Technology” will take place from October 2nd to October 4th at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. 

Technology has the potential to contribute to a just society, but unfortunately, some technologies only reinforce existing inequalities. To address this issue, methods such as Value Sensitive Design and ethics-by-design have gained popularity over the past decade. These methods aim to integrate values, like justice, into the early stages of technology design and development.