Modern Technology and Ethical Issues

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Modern Technology and Ethical Issues

• E 124 Lecture 2
• Spring 2003

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Ethics and the Impact of Technology on Society

• What do we mean by ethics?
• What do we mean by technology?
• What do we mean by impact?
• What do we mean by society?

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What Do We Mean by Impacts?

• Intended impacts (benefits) influenced and
  determined by our assumptions, values and
  beliefs.
• Undesirable consequences (factual).
• Imprecision in data and models (risk).
• Unintended impacts (axiological).
• Indeterminacy and ignorance.

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What Do We Mean by Technology?
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What Is Technology?

• The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language
  (OED) defines technology as, a discourse or
  treatise on an art or arts the scientific study
  of the practical or industrial arts.
• Its roots come from the Greek language that
  combines systematic treatment with art or
  craft.

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Technology (Continued)

• Ian Barbour defines technology as
• the application of organized knowledge to
  practical tasks by ordered systems of people and
  machines.

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Technology (Continued)

• Organized knowledge includes practical
  experience, invention and scientific theories.
• Practical tasks include both the production of
  material goods and the provision of services,
  i.e. the products.
• Application by ordered systems of people and
  machines refer to the process of engineering and
  the tools engineers (and others) use.

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What Does Technology Mean?

• Drawing from Heidegger and his interpreters,
  rather than technology being an object or
  complex of objects and techniques, (which are a
  means to an end) that seem passive and activated
  by us only

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The Meaning of Technology (Continued)

• it is an autonomous organizing activity with
  which humans themselves are organized. the
  essence of technology reveals it as a vast system
  of organization
• which encompasses us rather than standing
• objectively and passively ready for our
  direction and control

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What Is Science?

• Protocol of methodologies for the discovery of
  fact through measurement, peer review, public
  validation and debate, and by replication by
  others of the same experiments.
• Seems to be the best fact-finding technique
  developed by humans.

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Where Do Ethical Issues Arise?

• Genetically Modified Organisms and Transgenic
  Plants in Agriculture.
• Global Warming.
• High-level Radioactive Waste Disposal.
• Stem Cell Research and Cloning.
• Privacy Issues on the Internet.
• Nanotechnology

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Genetically Modified Crops and Transgenic Plants
in Agriculture.

• Cultural shifts in farming due to the
  introduction of terminator seeds.
• The anecdotal evidence of allergies to
  genetically modified crops.
• The lack of an adequate risk assessment
  methodology to quantify unintended ecological
  consequences.
• Resistance of intestinal bacteria to antibiotics.
• The preservation of natural genetic crop-lines.

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High-level Radioactive Waste Disposal.

• Inter-generational risk.
• The disparity between those who reap the benefits
  of nuclear power and those who take the burden of
  the waste.
• Proliferation of plutonium and nuclear weapons.
• The uncertainty in our ability to predict and
  forecast over geological time scales.

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Global Warming

• Green-house gas emission reduction disparity
  between the developing and developed countries.
• The indeterminacy of environmental and ecological
  impacts of fossil fuel use and remediation
  measures.
• Paradigmatic science vs. regulatory science.
• The disparity among nations/regions in the use of
  the worlds energy and other resources.

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Stem Cell Research and Cloning

• Preservation versus modification of the human
  germ line.
• When does life begin?
• Who owns biological information (genomics) and
  biological materials (cells, tissues, organs).
• Bio-terrorism, eugenics and the predisposition to
  diseases.
• The rights to employment and medical insurance.

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Privacy Issues and the Internet

• Intellectual property rights regarding everything
  from music to software.
• Rights to privacy regarding search patterns,
  consumer purchasing and personal (e.g. medical)
  records.

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Nanotechnology

• Regulation (regulation verses free enterprise)
• Robustness of the technology against accidents
  (biological interfacing, self-replication,
  environmental issues)
• Misuse (warfare, cosmetic enhancement)

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What Do We Mean by Society?

• How do we draw boundaries?
• Who says what the boundaries are?
• Are we concerned with local or global impacts?
  Inter-generational impacts?
• Spatial/temporal?
• Multi-stakeholder versus individual?
• Who is the public? Who represents the public?