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7Vulnerability and imagination in the Snorre a gas blowout and recoveryWorld Oil 229 (1): 33-41. 2008.The safety-critical work in the field of business performance optimization has created the conditions that led to a near-disastrous subsea rupture in 2004 during a slot recovery operation. The successful recovery depended on the imaginative capabilities of the platform crew in trying to decide the courses of action. Statoil lost control of a well on the Snorre A TLP on the Norwegian Continental Shelf but the platform did not ignite. Followed by the safety procedures, oil production was shut down…Read more
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Vulnerability to Natural HazardsIn Paolo Gardoni, Colleen Murphy & Arden Rowell (eds.), Risk Analysis of Natural Hazards, Springer. pp. 27-41. 2016.Risk analysis and risk management are ways for humans to cope with natural disaster risk. This chapter connects discussions about risk with reflections on nature, technology, vulnerability, and modernity. In particular, it raises questions regarding the natural/human distinction and how human societies and cultures cope with risk. How “natural” are hazards, given human interventions inand interpretations of events, and what are the limitations of “objective” modernapproaches to risk? The chapter…Read more
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26Personal Robots, Appearance, and Human GoodInternational Journal of Social Robotics 1 (3): 217-221. 2009.The development of pet robots, toy robots, and sex robots suggests a near-future scenario of habitual living with 'personal' robots. How should we evaluate their potential impact on the quality of our lives and existence?In this paper, I argue for an approach to ethics of personal robots that advocates a methodological turn from robots to humans, from mind to interaction, from intelligent thinking to social-emotional being, from reality to appearance, from right to good, from external criteria t…Read more
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12The spider and the webIn Psychology of Risk Perception, Nova Science Publishers. pp. 133-145. 2010.Evolutionary biology shows that organisms have many traits that developed by natural selection as adaptations to their environment. The so-called 'mismatch theory' holds that if the environment changes faster than the ability of the organism to adapt and evolve, it finds itself mismatched to its environment. Studies in evolutionary psychology suggest that this is the case with many human emotional responses. In this essay I explore the implications of these studies for ethics of technological ri…Read more
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Moral CraftsmanshipIn Seana Moran, David Cropley & James Kaufman (eds.), The Ethics of Creativity, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 46-61. 2014.
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56E-care as craftsmanship: virtuous work, skilled engagement, and information technology in health careMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 16 (4): 807-816. 2013.Contemporary health care relies on electronic devices. These technologies are not ethically neutral but change the practice of care. In light of Sennett's work and that of other thinkers one worry is that "e-care"aEuro"care by means of new information and communication technologies-does not promote skilful and careful engagement with patients and hence is neither conducive to the quality of care nor to the virtues of the care worker. Attending to the kinds of knowledge involved in care work and …Read more
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15The art of living with ICTsFoundations of Science 22 (2): 339-348. 2017.This 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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Too close to kill, too far to talkIn Bridging Distances in Technology and Regulation, Wolf Legal Publishers. pp. 125-133. 2013.Like other teletechnological practices, drone fighting as remote fighting gives rise to a paradox with regard to the relation between ethics and distance: on the one hand, it bridges physical distance in the sense that it enables spying on people and killing people in other parts of the world. On the other hand, it seems to increase moral distance: if you are far away from your target, it becomes easier to kill. However, based on interviews with drone crew as published in the media, I show that …Read more
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14Alterity ex MachinaIn The Changing Face of Alterity, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 181-196. 2016.
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6Money Machines:Why We Need to Think about New and Alternative Financial Technologies?The European Financial Reivew. 2016.Technology is transforming global finance today in many ways. Designing and using alternative financial technologies may contribute to building a financially and ethically sustainable future.
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1Digitale Zukunft: Sind wir bereits Cyborgs?derStandard. At. 2016.Die Zukunft ist eine Zukunft der Technologie. Zugleich ist sie auch eine digitale Zukunft. Was muss geschehen, damit sie ethischen und moralischen Fragen gerecht wird?
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4Robot Enhanced Therapy for Children with AutismIEEE Technology and Society Magazine 37 (1): 30-39. 2018.The development of social robots for children with autism has been a growth field for the past 15 years. This article reviews studies in robots and autism as a neurodevelopmental disorder that impacts socialcommunication development, and the ways social robots could help children with autism develop social skills. Drawing on ethics research from the EU-funded Development of Robot-Enhanced Therapy for Children with Autism project, this paper explores how ethics evolves and developed in this Europ…Read more
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8Human-Autonomous Systems Cooperation raises several ethical and philosophical issues that need to be addressed not only at the stage of implementation of the system but also preferably at the stage of development. This paper identifies and discusses some of these issues, with a specific focus on human-machine cooperation problems and chances, focusing usage of these systems in military contexts. It is argued that ethical, philosophical, and technical problems include data security and monitoring…Read more
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23Technology and the good societyTechnology in Society 52 4-9. 2018.How can we best theorize technology and the good society? This essay responds to this issue by showing how our assumptions about the meaning of the social and the political influence our evaluations of the impact of new technologies on society, and how, conversely, new technologies also shape the concepts we use to evaluate them. In the course of the analysis, the essay offers a polemic that questions individualist approaches to the good society and individualist assumptions about the social, es…Read more
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15Good healthcare is in the “how”In Machine Medical Ethics, Springer. pp. 33-47. 2015.What do we mean by good healthcare, and do machines threaten it? If good care requires expertise, then what kind of expertise is this? If good care is “human” care, does this necessarily mean “non-technological” care? If not, then what should be the precise role of machines in medicine and healthcare? This chapter argues that good care relies on expert know-how and skills that enable care givers to care-fully engage with patients. Evaluating the introduction of new technologies such as robots or…Read more
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10Beyond “Nature”In Helen Kopnina & Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Environmental Anthropology, Routledge. pp. 105-116. 2017.
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The phenomenology of environmental health riskIn Friedo Zölzer & Gaston Meskens (eds.), Ethics of Environmental Health, Routledge. pp. 89-102. 2017.
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Risk and Public ImaginationIn The Ethics of Technological Risk, Earthscan Publications. pp. 202-219. 2009.
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66Ethics of healthcare roboticsRobotics And Autonomous Systems 86 152-161. 2016.How can we best identify, understand, and deal with ethical and societal issues raised by healthcare robotics? This paper argues that next to ethical analysis, classic technology assessment, and philosophical speculation we need forms of reflection, dialogue, and experiment that come, quite literally, much closer to innovation practices and contexts of use. The authors discuss a number of ways how to achieve that. Informed by their experience with “embedded” ethics in technical projects and with…Read more
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32Wittgenstein as a Philosopher of Technology: Tool Use, Forms of Life, Technique, and a Transcendental ArgumentHuman Studies 41 (2): 165-191. 2018.The work of Ludwig Wittgenstein is seldom used by philosophers of technology, let alone in a systematic way, and in general there has been little discussion about the role of language in relation to technology. Conversely, Wittgenstein scholars have paid little attention to technology in the work of Wittgenstein. In this paper we read the Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty in order to explore the relation between language use and technology use, and take some significant steps towards…Read more
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4Can We Choose Evil?In Considering Evil and Human Wickedness, Inter-disciplinary Press. pp. 339-354. 2004.
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Wider den TranshumanismusNeue Zürcher Zeitung. forthcoming.Mit der Entwicklung von Gen-, Nanotechnologie und Neurotechnolgie bekommt die Menschheit mehr und mehr die Mittel in die Hand, sich in Eigenregie evolutionär weiterzuentwickeln. Das ist gefährlich.
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2Cyborg Humanity and the Technologies of Human EnhancementIn Philosophy: Technology, Macmillan Reference. pp. 141-160. 2017.Philosophy: Technology is composed of fifteen chapters covering such topics as cyber warfare, designing children, video games and virtual reality, nanotechnology, and technology and the environment. The use of film, literature, art, case studies, and other disciplines or situations/events provide illustrations of human experiences which work as gateways to questions philosophers try to address. Chapters are written by eminent scholars, are peer reviewed, and offer bibliographies to encourage fur…Read more
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Risk Emotions and Risk JudgmentsIn Sabine Roeser (ed.), Emotions and Risky Technologies, Springer. pp. 213-230. 2010.
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32Drones, Morality, and VulnerabilityIn The Future of Drone Use, T.m.c. Asser Press. pp. 229-237. 2016.This chapter articulates and discusses several arguments against the lethal use of unmanned aerial vehicles, often called drones. A distinction is made between targeted killing, killing at a distance, and automated killing, which is used to map the arguments against lethal drones. After considering issues concerning thejustification of war, the argument that targeted killing makes it easier to start a war, and the argument that killing at a distance is problematic, this chapter focuses on two ar…Read more
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Digitalisierung verändert uns: User fragen, ein Wissenschafter antwortetderStandard. At. 2016.Automatisierungstechnik, Social Media und Smartphones beeinflussen nicht nur unseren Alltag, sondern verändern auch die Art und Weise, wie wir denken.