The TU Delft is looking for a 4-year, fully funded PhD candidate to work on the project “The Role of Moral Creativity in Responsible Technology Development” embedded in the ESDiT programme.
This project investigates the role of creativity (including artistic creativity) in moral decision-making, especially in connection with the innovation of technologies. The envisaged outcomes of this project include a theory of the role of creativity in the responsible development and anticipation of new technologies and the establishment of methodological tools for transdisciplinary collaborations, including artists, philosophers, and technology developers. The PhD project will investigate these questions by combining philosophical reasoning with participation in transdisciplinary collaborations involving artists who work at the intersection of art, technology and society. To make this possible, we have established a collaboration with Waag Futurelab, which has experience with the exercise of moral creativity in artistic practice surrounding technologies.
The supervisory team for this position will consist of Dr. Mandi Astola (TU Delft), Dr. Julia Hermann (University of Twente), and Prof. Dr. Sabine Roeser (TU Delft). The position is based in the Ethics and Philosophy of Technology Section of the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management (TPM) at TU Delft.
Are you interested in this vacancy? Please apply before 30 August 2024.
Research Proposal
For a long time, philosophers have thought about moral problems in terms of dilemmas (problems with two possible options for action), such as the Trolley Dilemma. However, hardly any real-life choice is a dilemma in the strict sense. There is often a potentially infinite number of choices that a moral agent can make in response to a problem. Coming up with these potential responses and reflecting on what they might mean and how they might play out in the world requires creativity. The development of new technology is fundamentally a creative as well as morally loaded activity. If it is to happen in a responsible manner, it should involve moral creativity and imagination. Art and design can be powerful tools for the imagination of possible and desirable futures to which new technologies should contribute, or undesirable futures to which they should not contribute. Philosophers, including Aristotle, John Dewey and Martha Nussbaum, have emphasized the connection between artistic creativity and moral decision-making.
This project investigates the role of creativity (including artistic creativity) in moral decision-making, especially in connection with the innovation of technologies. The envisaged outcomes of this project include a theory of the role of creativity in the responsible development and anticipation of new technologies and the establishment of methodological tools for transdisciplinary collaborations, including artists, philosophers, and technology developers. Questions to focus on may include, but are not limited to: How should we understand the forms of creativity involved in moral decision-making? What is the relationship between moral creativity, moral agency, and moral responsibility? What is the role of moral creativity (as a competency of an individual or a product of social interactions) in anticipating the disruptive potential of new technologies? Are there moral limits to the exercise of creativity in technology development? How can moral imagination contribute to responsible innovation? What role can art, design and mattering play in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)?
The PhD project will investigate these questions by combining philosophical reasoning with participation in transdisciplinary collaborations involving artists who work at the intersection of art, technology and society. To make this possible, we have established a collaboration with Waag Futurelab, which has experience with the exercise of moral creativity in artistic practice surrounding technologies. The PhD student will be involved in one or more trans-disciplinary projects initiated by Waag, in which designers, artists, and scientists work together to create an open, honest and inclusive future. The themes of the projects the PhD student could be involved in, depending on their interests, include but are not limited to:
- Environmental imaginaries
- The interconnection between planetary health and social justice
- The foundations of labor-related technologies used for high-tech horticultural production in the Netherlands
All of these projects are transdisciplinary, meaning that they involve scientists from different disciplines as well as artists and other partners from outside the university. Participating in one or more of these projects will provide the PhD student with the opportunity to experience and study the workings of transdisciplinary collaborations and to gain insights into how moral creativity relates to responsible innovation processes.
Suitable theories and approaches for this project include but are not restricted to virtue ethics, virtue and vice epistemology, care ethics, scenario-based approaches, responsible futuring, and thinking through (speculative) design. We welcome approaches from non-Western philosophical traditions.
More information
You can find the vacancy on the website of the TU Delft via this link