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64The social ascription of obligations to engineersScience and Engineering Ethics 9 (3): 363-376. 2003.Discovering obligations that are ascribed to them by others is potentially an important element in the development of the moral imagination of engineers. Moral imagination cannot reasonably be developed by contemplating oneself and one’s task alone: there must be some element of discovering the expectations of people one could put at risk. In practice it may be impossible to meet ascribed obligations if they are completely general and allow no exceptions — for example if they demand an unlimited…Read more
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75Pervasion of what? Techno–human ecologies and their ubiquitous spiritsAI and Society 28 (1): 55-63. 2013.Are the robots coming? Is the singularity near? Will we be dominated by technology? The usual response to ethical issues raised by pervasive and ubiquitous technologies assumes a philosophical anthropology centered on existential autonomy and agency, a dualistic ontology separating humans from technology and the natural from the artificial, and a post-monotheistic dualist and creational spirituality. This paper explores an alternative, less modern vision of the “technological” future based on di…Read more
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407Moral appearances: emotions, robots, and human morality (review)Ethics and Information Technology 12 (3): 235-241. 2010.Can we build ‘moral robots’? If morality depends on emotions, the answer seems negative. Current robots do not meet standard necessary conditions for having emotions: they lack consciousness, mental states, and feelings. Moreover, it is not even clear how we might ever establish whether robots satisfy these conditions. Thus, at most, robots could be programmed to follow rules, but it would seem that such ‘psychopathic’ robots would be dangerous since they would lack full moral agency. However, I…Read more
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164Human development or human enhancement? A methodological reflection on capabilities and the evaluation of information technologiesEthics and Information Technology 13 (2): 81-92. 2011.Nussbaum’s version of the capability approach is not only a helpful approach to development problems but can also be employed as a general ethical-anthropological framework in ‘advanced’ societies. This paper explores its normative force for evaluating information technologies, with a particular focus on the issue of human enhancement. It suggests that the capability approach can be a useful way of to specify a workable and adequate level of analysis in human enhancement discussions, but argues …Read more
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104You, robot: on the linguistic construction of artificial others (review)AI and Society 26 (1): 61-69. 2011.How can we make sense of the idea of ‘personal’ or ‘social’ relations with robots? Starting from a social and phenomenological approach to human–robot relations, this paper explores how we can better understand and evaluate these relations by attending to the ways our conscious experience of the robot and the human–robot relation is mediated by language. It is argued that our talk about and to robots is not a mere representation of an objective robotic or social-interactive reality, but rather i…Read more
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59Engineering good: How engineering metaphors help us to understand the moral life and change societyScience and Engineering Ethics 16 (2): 371-385. 2010.Engineering can learn from ethics, but ethics can also learn from engineering. In this paper, I discuss what engineering metaphors can teach us about practical philosophy. Using metaphors such as calculation, performance, and open source, I articulate two opposing views of morality and politics: one that relies on images related to engineering as science and one that draws on images of engineering practice. I argue that the latter view and its metaphors provide a more adequate way to understand …Read more
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101The tragedy of the master: automation, vulnerability, and distanceEthics and Information Technology 17 (3): 219-229. 2015.Responding to long-standing warnings that robots and AI will enslave humans, I argue that the main problem we face is not that automation might turn us into slaves but, rather, that we remain masters. First I construct an argument concerning what I call ‘the tragedy of the master’: using the master–slave dialectic, I argue that automation technologies threaten to make us vulnerable, alienated, and automated masters. I elaborate the implications for power, knowledge, and experience. Then I critic…Read more
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76Criminals or Patients? Towards a Tragic Conception of Moral and Legal ResponsibilityCriminal Law and Philosophy 4 (2): 233-244. 2010.There is a gap between, on the one hand, the tragic character of human action and, on the other hand, our moral and legal conceptions of responsibility that focus on individual agency and absolute guilt. Drawing on Kierkegaardâs understanding of tragic action and engaging with contemporary discourse on moral luck, poetic justice, and relational responsibility, this paper argues for a reform of our legal practices based on a less âharshâ (Kierkegaard) conception of moral and legal responsib…Read more
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30This essay shows that a sharp distinction between ethics and aesthetics is unfruitful for thinking about how to live well with technologies, and in particular for understanding and evaluating how we cope with human existential vulnerability, which is crucially mediated by the development and use of technologies such as electronic ICTs. It is argued that vulnerability coping is a matter of ethics and art: it requires developing a kind of art and techne in the sense that it always involves technol…Read more
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4Romanticism and technology are widely assumed to be opposed to each other. Romanticism—understood as a reaction against rationalism and objectivity—is perhaps the last thing users and developers of information and communication technology (ICT) think about when they engage with computer programs and electronic devices. And yet, as Mark Coeckelbergh argues in this book, this way of thinking about technology is itself shaped by romanticism and obscures a better and deeper understanding of our rela…Read more
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115Moral Responsibility, Technology, and Experiences of the Tragic: From Kierkegaard to Offshore EngineeringScience and Engineering Ethics 18 (1): 35-48. 2012.The standard response to engineering disasters like the Deepwater Horizon case is to ascribe full moral responsibility to individuals and to collectives treated as individuals. However, this approach is inappropriate since concrete action and experience in engineering contexts seldom meets the criteria of our traditional moral theories. Technological action is often distributed rather than individual or collective, we lack full control of the technology and its consequences, and we lack knowledg…Read more
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57Imagination, distributed responsibility and vulnerable technological systems: The case of Snorre aScience and Engineering Ethics 13 (2): 235-248. 2007.An influential approach to engineering ethics is based on codes of ethics and the application of moral principles by individual practitioners. However, to better understand the ethical problems of complex technological systems and the moral reasoning involved in such contexts, we need other tools as well. In this article, we consider the role of imagination and develop a concept of distributed responsibility in order to capture a broader range of human abilities and dimensions of moral responsib…Read more
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60Growing Moral Relations: Critique of Moral Status AscriptionPalgrave-Macmillan. 2012.Machine generated contents note: -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction - The Problem of Moral Status -- PART I: MORAL ONTOLOGIES: FROM INDIVIDUAL TO RELATIONAL DOGMAS -- Individual Properties -- Appearance and Virtue -- Relations: Communitarian and Metaphysical -- Relations: Natural and Social -- Relations: Hybrid and Environmental -- Conclusion Part I: Diogenes's Challenge -- PART II: MORAL STATUS ASCRIPTION AND ITS CONDITIONS OF POSSIBILITY: A TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT -- Words and Sentences: Form…Read more
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16What are we doing? Microblogging, the ordinary private, and the primacy of the presentJournal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society 9 (2): 127-136. 2011.Purpose – This paper aims to better understand the cultural-philosophical significance of microblogging. In this way it seeks to inform evaluations of this new medium and of the culture and society it co-shapes and in which it is rooted. Design/methodology/approach – Engaging in philosophical reflection inspired by philosophy of technology, political philosophy, and cultural history, this paper identifies and discusses some structural features of microblogging such as Twitter. Findings – This pa…Read more
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122Various arguments have been provided for drawing non-humans such as animals and artificial agents into the sphere of moral consideration. In this paper, I argue for a shift from an ontological to a social-philosophical approach: instead of asking what an entity is, we should try to conceptually grasp the quasi-social dimension of relations between non-humans and humans. This allows me to reconsider the problem of justice, in particular distributive justice . Engaging with the work of Rawls, I sh…Read more
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125The Moral Standing of Machines: Towards a Relational and Non-Cartesian Moral HermeneuticsPhilosophy and Technology 27 (1): 61-77. 2014.Should we give moral standing to machines? In this paper, I explore the implications of a relational approach to moral standing for thinking about machines, in particular autonomous, intelligent robots. I show how my version of this approach, which focuses on moral relations and on the conditions of possibility of moral status ascription, provides a way to take critical distance from what I call the “standard” approach to thinking about moral status and moral standing, which is based on properti…Read more
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56Artificial agents, good care, and modernityTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 36 (4): 265-277. 2015.When is it ethically acceptable to use artificial agents in health care? This article articulates some criteria for good care and then discusses whether machines as artificial agents that take over care tasks meet these criteria. Particular attention is paid to intuitions about the meaning of ‘care’, ‘agency’, and ‘taking over’, but also to the care process as a labour process in a modern organizational and financial-economic context. It is argued that while there is in principle no objection to…Read more
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12Review of: Justifying blame: why free will matters and why it does not/Maureen Sie.-Amsterdam, Rodopi: 2005 (review)Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 98 (1). 2006.
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46Money as Medium and Tool in advance: Reading Simmel as a Philosopher of Technology to Understand Contemporary Financial ICTs and MediaTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 19 (3): 358-380. 2015.This article explores the relevance of Georg Simmel’s phenomenology of money and interpretation of modernity for understanding and evaluating contemporary financial information and communication technologies (ICTs). It reads Simmel as a philosopher of technology and phenomenologist whose view of money as a medium, a “pure” tool, and a social institution can help us to think about contemporary financial media and technologies. The analysis focuses on the social-spatial implications of financial I…Read more
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19Robot Enhanced Therapy for Children with Autism DisordersIEEE Technology and Society Magazine 35 (2): 54-66Children with autism spectrum disorders have persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction, as well as restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities [1]. The prevalence of autism is estimated at 1-2 per 1000, and close to 6 per 1000 for ASD [23]. ASD is a lifelong disorder, and many individuals need high levels of support throughout their lives [28]. Even though no cure has been found, early intervention is critical for a positive long-term outcome. T…Read more
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44Environmental VirtueEnvironmental Philosophy 8 (2): 141-169. 2011.Environmental virtue ethics faces the problem of motivation: there is a gap between knowledge and action. This paper first analyzes the roots of this problem and discusses possible solutions that require the use of imagination and information technology. Then it reformulates the problem of motivation and the question concerning environmental virtue by using the notion of skill. It sketches the contours of a non-Romantic and non-Stoic virtue ethics that attempts to move beyond dualist assumptions…Read more
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162Violent computer games, empathy, and cosmopolitanismEthics and Information Technology 9 (3): 219-231. 2007.Many philosophical and public discussions of the ethical aspects of violent computer games typically centre on the relation between playing violent videogames and its supposed direct consequences on violent behaviour. But such an approach rests on a controversial empirical claim, is often one-sided in the range of moral theories used, and remains on a general level with its focus on content alone. In response to these problems, I pick up Matt McCormick’s thesis that potential harm from playing c…Read more
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145Care robots and the future of ICT-mediated elderly care: a response to doom scenariosAI and Society 31 (4): 455-462. 2016.The discussion about robots in elderly care is populated by doom scenarios about a totally dehumanized care system in which elderly people are taken care of by machines. Such scenarios are helpful as they attend us to what we think is important with regard to the quality elderly care. However, this article argues that they are misleading in so far as they (1) assume that deception in care is always morally unacceptable, (2) suggest that robots and other information technologies necessarily decei…Read more
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90Technology as Skill and ActivityTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 16 (3): 208-230. 2012.Can we conceive of a philosophy of technology that is not technophobic, yet takes seriously the problem of alienation and human meaning-giving? This paperretrieves the concern with alienation, but brings it into dialogue with more recent philosophy of technology. It defines and responds to the problem of alienation in a way that avoids both old-style human-centered approaches and contemporary thingcentered or hybridity approaches. In contrast to the latter, it proposes to reconcile subject and o…Read more
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12Quantification Machines and Artificial Agents in Global Finance: Historical-Phenomenological Perspectives from Philosophy and Sociology of Technology and MoneyIn Ping Chen & Emiliano Ippoliti (eds.), Methods and Finance: A Unifying View on Finance, Mathematics and Philosophy, Springer. pp. 169-178. 2016.ABSTRACT: This paper raises questions regarding the societal, cultural and ethical significance of finance, mathematics, and financial-mathematical technologies, discussing in particular the phenomenon of quantification as mediated by contemporary electronic information and communication technologies (ICTS). It first relates the history of mathematics to the history of financial technologies, and argues, inspired by Simmel and Marcuse, that from ancient times to now there seems to be an evolutio…Read more
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44Mogelijkheid van een eiland: Houellebecqs heimwee naar de mensWijsgerig Perspectief 48 (1): 38. 2008.
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Justifying Blame: Why Free Will Matters and Why it Does Not (review)Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 1. 2006.This book shows why we can justify blaming people for their wrong actions even if free will turns out not to exist. Contrary to most contemporary thinking, we do this by focusing on the ordinary, everyday wrongs each of us commits, not on the extra-ordinary, “morally monstrous-like” crimes and weak-willed actions of some.
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10Whereas standard approaches to risk and vulnerability presuppose a strict separation between humans and their world, this book develops an existential-phenomenological approach according to which we are always already beings-at-risk. Moreover, it is argued that in our struggle against vulnerability, we create new vulnerabilities and thereby transform ourselves as much as we transform the world. Responding to the discussion about human enhancement and information technologies, the book then shows…Read more
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75With Hope and Imagination: Imaginative Moral Decision-Making in Neonatal Intensive Care UnitsEthical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (1): 3-21. 2007.Although the role of imagination in moral reasoning is often neglected, recent literature, mostly of pragmatist signature, points to imagination as one of its central elements. In this article we develop some of their arguments by looking at the moral role of imagination in practice, in particular the practice of neonatal intensive care. Drawing on empirical research, we analyze a decision-making process in various stages: delivery, staff meeting, and reflection afterwards. We show how imaginati…Read more