Philip Brey

A growing literature testifies to the persistence of place as an incorrigible aspect of human experience, identity, and morality. Place is a common ground for thought and action, a community of experienced particulars that avoids solipsism and universalism. It draws us into the philosophy of the ordinary, into familiarity as a form of knowledge, into the wisdom of proximity. Each of these essays offers a philosophy of place, and reminds us that such philosophies ultimately decide how we make, use, and understand places, whether as accidents, instruments, or fields of care.

Ethical impact assessment (EIA) is a structured approach to evaluating the ethical implications of technology and innovation. In recent years, it has gained momentum among policy-makers, research funders, and technology developers seeking more systematic ways to address ethical concerns. EIA was developed to fill key gaps in existing ethics and impact assessment frameworks by offering a method capable of identifying both current and anticipated ethical issues, particularly in relation to emerging technologies, and connecting these insights to real-world governance and decision-making processes. EIA is characterized by several defining features: a modular and systematic methodology, a forward-looking orientation, consideration of the entire technology lifecycle, a dedicated focus on emerging technologies, and intentional integration with technology governance. While EIA has seen growing uptake in practice, it remains underexplored in academic literature. This essay introduces EIA to scholarly audiences with the aim of fostering further research and interdisciplinary dialogue. It outlines the conceptual and methodological foundations of EIA, explores its practical application, charts its historical development and diffusion, situates it in relation to other ethics and impact assessment approaches, and reflects critically on its current limitations and future potential.

Ethical impact assessment (EIA) is a structured approach to evaluating the ethical implications of technology and innovation. In recent years, it has gained momentum among policy-makers, research funders, and technology developers seeking more systematic ways to address ethical concerns. EIA was developed to fill key gaps in existing ethics and impact assessment frameworks by offering a method capable of identifying both current and anticipated ethical issues, particularly in relation to emerging technologies, and connecting these insights to real-world governance and decision-making processes. EIA is characterized by several defining features: a modular and systematic methodology, a forward-looking orientation, consideration of the entire technology lifecycle, a dedicated focus on emerging technologies, and intentional integration with technology governance. While EIA has seen growing uptake in practice, it remains underexplored in academic literature. This essay introduces EIA to scholarly audiences with the aim of fostering further research and interdisciplinary dialogue. It outlines the conceptual and methodological foundations of EIA, explores its practical application, charts its historical development and diffusion, situates it in relation to other ethics and impact assessment approaches, and reflects critically on its current limitations and future potential.

This chapter provides a theoretical lens on conceptual disruption. It offers a typology of conceptual disruption, discusses its relation to conceptual engineering, and sketches a programmatic view of the implications of conceptual disruption for the ethics of technology. We begin by distinguishing between three different kinds of conceptual disruptions: conceptual gaps, conceptual overlaps, and conceptual misalignments. Subsequently, we distinguish between different mechanisms of conceptual disruption, and two modes of conceptual change. We point out that disruptions may be induced by technology, but can also be triggered by intercultural exchanges. Conceptual disruptions frequently yield conceptual uncertainty and may call for conceptual and ethical inquiry. We argue that a useful approach to address conceptual disruptions is to engage in conceptual engineering. We outline what conceptual engineering involves and argue that discussions on conceptual disruption and conceptual engineering can benefit from closer integration. In closing, we discuss the relevance of studying conceptual disruption for technology ethics, and point to the promise of this line of research to innovate practical philosophy at large.

A major concern surrounding the metaverse is that users may face significant threats to their individual rights, including pervasive surveillance, manipulative immersive advertising, and various forms of harassment or abuse within virtual environments. This chapter of The Metaverse: A Critical Assessment explores these risks and considers strategies for protecting five key rights: security, privacy, freedom, equality, and property. In immersive environments, security extends beyond traditional cybersecurity to include harassment and stalking that can feel immediate and personal. Freedom encompasses not only speech but also movement, behavior, and presence—each vulnerable to monitoring, censorship, or manipulation. Privacy is under intense pressure, as platforms can collect and analyze biometric, behavioral, and emotional data in real time. Equality is at risk due to barriers to access to virtual spaces, embedded biases in platform design, and biases in moderation practices, potentially reinforcing real-world disparities. Finally, property rights grow more complex as users invest in virtual assets and identities that may lack clear ownership protections and remain subject to platform control. The chapter highlights the need for proactive safeguards to ensure that individual rights are upheld as immersive digital environments continue to evolve.

This brief introduction to The Metaverse: A Critical Assessment sets the stage for an in-depth examination of the metaverse—its definition, potential applications, enabling technologies, societal implications, and ethical concerns. It outlines the current state of metaverse development and public perception, offering a preliminary definition and previewing the book’s structure. The book’s aim is to inform stakeholders about the metaverse’s opportunities and risks, providing practical guidance for its responsible development, use, and governance as a potentially transformative digital platform.

This chapter of The Metaverse: A Critical Assessment explores how the metaverse can be developed and governed responsibly. Responsible development and governance involve not only maximizing potential benefits but also proactively mitigating risks by upholding rights, maintaining ethical standards, and promoting individual and collective well-being—ensuring that the metaverse serves the public good. It also requires meaningful engagement from all stakeholders involved in its design, deployment, and use. To support this, the chapter presents strategies, guidelines, and methods for addressing social and ethical challenges across the metaverse’s lifecycle. Key questions include: How can social and ethical risks be effectively identified and mitigated? What roles and responsibilities do different actors hold, and how can they collaborate toward shared goals? The chapter begins with a general multistakeholder framework for responsible governance, followed by approaches to responsible development and operation. Each section considers the actions key actors can take—and the responsibilities they bear—to ensure the metaverse evolves in a just, inclusive, and accountable way.

This chapter of the book The Metaverse: A Critical Assessment aims to answer the question what the metaverse is or could be. It first investigates this question through a history of the metaverse as an evolving concept and ongoing technological pursuit. Next, it explores the concept of the metaverse through key characteristics, such as immersiveness, persistence, interoperability, and multifunctionality, examining what they entail and how essential they are to defining the metaverse. Third, it examines the key enabling technologies driving its development and use, including virtual and augmented reality, 3D modeling and animation, artificial intelligence, blockchain, Internet of Things and foundational infrastructure systems. The chapter concludes by proposing a definition of the metaverse, informed by the preceding discussion, while recognizing ongoing ambiguities in the terminology.

This chapter of The Metaverse: A Critical Assessment explores the potential benefits and risks of the metaverse for individuals and society at large. At the individual level, the central question is whether the metaverse can enhance human well-being; at the societal level, whether it can contribute to the public good by strengthening key social institutions such as education, healthcare, and democratic governance, as well as supporting civic life and environmental sustainability. The first section focuses on individual well-being, examining how metaverse use may both support and undermine aspects such as pleasure, health, achievement, meaning, personal growth, and social connection—with particular attention to risks for mental health and social well-being. The next section assesses the metaverse’s potential to serve the public good by evaluating its impact on domains like work, education, healthcare, public discourse, and civic engagement. It also considers whether the social and political structures within the metaverse can promote social cohesion and resilience and democratic governance. The final section addresses the metaverse’s environmental implications, recognizing sustainability as a critical component of the public good.

This chapter of The Metaverse: A Critical Assessment addresses the question of whether—and under what conditions—a metaverse will emerge. It begins by examining the driving forces behind its development, focusing on potential benefits for users and society. These include general advantages, such as enhanced cognitive support and novel experiences, as well as sector-specific improvements in areas like healthcare, commerce, and education. The chapter argues that the metaverse offers meaningful benefits over current technologies.It then considers the business case, concluding that while technological and investment challenges are likely surmountable, user acceptance may prove the most significant barrier. The analysis identifies key obstacles in user acceptance and explores how they might be overcome. Next, the chapter situates the metaverse within four broader technological and societal trends, each of which supports the plausibility of its eventual realization. These trends highlight the metaverse not as an isolated phenomenon but as part of a wider digital, social, and economic evolution. The chapter concludes with a tentative answer to the central question—“Will there be a metaverse?”—offering a balanced assessment of its prospects as a future digital platform.

This book offers an extensive assessment of the nature and feasibility of the metaverse and is the first to critically examine its social and ethical implications. The metaverse is, in essence, an envisioned future merger of virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) and the internet, enabling real-time immersive interaction and activities like work, play, socializing, and entertainment. Major tech companies like Meta, Microsoft, Apple and NVIDIA have been investing billions in metaverse technologies, with generative AI accelerating progress. This book examines how these efforts could culminate in the metaverse, exploring its potential forms, implications, and the social and ethical challenges it may pose—along with recommendations for responsible innovation. The book is aimed at stakeholders shaping the metaverse—developers, creators, investors, business leaders, and thought leaders in technologies like VR, AR, Web3, blockchain, and AI. It also serves scholars and students in applied ethics, the social sciences, and the humanities, including fields such as media studies, psychology, and law. General readers interested in the metaverse and emerging technologies will find it both accessible and engaging. Endorsements: "In this book, the talented and eloquent philosopher Philip Brey carefully explains the history and ideas behind the metaverse, and the prospects for its further development and adoption. That detailed information, meticulously presented, makes this a valuable read. But that is just the start. In later chapters, Brey just as skillfully describes the opportunities and vulnerabilities that a metaverse is likely to generate. These chapters are thorough, precise, and offer profound insights into our possible futures. Some of the possibilities are exciting. Others are frightening." –Keith W. Miller, University of Missouri–St. Louis.

This article traces the historical development of the ethics of emerging technologies. It argues that during the late 2000s and 2010s, the field of ethics of technology transformed from a fragmented, reactive, and methodologically underdeveloped discipline focused on mature technologies and lacking policy orientation into a more cohesive, proactive, methodologically sophisticated, and policy-focused field with a strong emphasis on emerging technologies. An agenda for this transition was set in Jim Moor’s seminal publication “Why We Need Better Ethics for Emerging Technologies”.

In this essay, a new approach for the ethical study of emerging technology ethics will be presented, called anticipatory technology ethics (ATE). The ethics of emerging technology is the study of ethical issues at the R&D and introduction stage of technology development through anticipation of possible future devices, applications, and social consequences. I will argue that a major problem for its development is the problem of uncertainty, which can only be overcome through methodologically sound forecasting and futures studies. I will then consider three contemporary approaches to the ethics of emerging technologies that use forecasting: ethical technology assessment, the techno-ethical scenarios approach and the ETICA approach, and I considered their strengths and weaknesses. Based on this critical study, I then present my own approach: ATE. ATE is a conceptually and methodologically rich approach for the ethical analysis of emerging technologies that incorporates a large variety of ethical principles, issues, objects and levels of analysis, and research aims. It is ready to be applied to contemporary and future emerging technologies. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s11569-012-0141-7 Authors Philip A. E. Brey, Department of Philosophy, School of Behavioral Sciences, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands Journal NanoEthics Online ISSN 1871-4765 Print ISSN 1871-4757.

This paper provides a systematic literature review, analysis and discussion of methods that are proposed to practise ethics in research and innovation. Ethical considerations concerning the impacts of R&I are increasingly important, due to the quickening pace of technological innovation and the ubiquitous use of the outcomes of R&I processes in society. For this reason, several methods for practising ethics have been developed in different fields of R&I. The paper first of all presents a systematic search of academic sources that present and discuss such methods. Secondly, it provides a categorisation of these methods according to three main kinds: ex ante methods, dealing with emerging technologies, intra methods, dealing with technology design, and ex post methods, dealing with ethical analysis of existing technologies. Thirdly, it discusses the methods by considering problems in the way they deal with the uncertainty of technological change, ethical technology design, the identification, analysis and resolving of ethical impacts of technologies and stakeholder participation. The results and discussion of our literature review are valuable for gaining an overview of the state of the art and serve as an outline of a future research agenda of methods for practising ethics in R&I.

This chapter identifies and analyzes ethical issues in video surveillance, with a focus on applications that involve video analytics and facial recognition technology. The first part of the analysis focuses on ethical issues in video analytics, which are techniques that automatically analyze preexisting or gathered video data. Ethical issues are discussed in relation to processes of identification, classification, detection, and tracking of persons. Next, facial recognition technology is discussed, particularly its use in surveillance, and its ethical challenges are investigated. Finally, we focus on three advanced video analytics techniques: facial analysis, behavior analysis, and emotional analysis, which raise additional serious ethical issues.

This anthology examines the practical role of well-being in contemporary society. It discusses developments such as globalization, consumerism and the rapid innovation and use of new and emerging technologies and focuses on the significant impact of these developments on the well-being of people living today. The anthology brings together researchers from various disciplines, including psychology, economics, sociology, philosophy and development studies. It provides concrete insight on the role and importance of well-being in contemporary society, using a mix of empirical grounding, philosophical rigour and an emphasis on real-world applications. It is unique in that it seeks to understand the relation between well-being research and its application towards real problems.

This essay argues for a new turn after the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology: the societal turn, which is the turn from reflective philosophy of technology (academic philosophy concerned with analysis and understanding) to constructive philosophy of technology (philosophy that is directly involved in solving practical problems in society). The essay aims to describe in detail what a constructive approach would look like and how it could be achieved. It claims that at least in the European Union, the conditions for a constructive philosophy of technology are favorable, due to the emergence in both policy and academics of the notion of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). It then goes on to describe how a constructive philosophy of technology can contribute to better technology development, better technology policy and better implementation and use of technology, through engineering-oriented, policy-oriented and useoriented approaches to research.

In this dissertation, it is investigated what role cognitive science is to play in a thoroughly naturalized epistemology and philosophy of science. The dissertation consists of four parts. In part I, the aim is to investigate what research questions and methods are valid in a naturalized approach to issues in epistemology and philosophy of science. This part contains a critical discussion of contemporary naturalistic approaches, in particular the cognitive approaches of Alvin Goldman, Paul Thagard, Paul Churchland, and Ron Giere. Following this discussion, a number of descriptive, explanatory and normative projects in epistemology and the philosophy of science is outlined, and it is investigated how these are best approached methodologically. ;In part II, the aim is to investigate the proper relation between cognitive and sociological approaches in the study of knowledge. I begin with an assessment of the reducibility of aspects of science to cognitive states and processes, implying that their descriptive analysis is a task of a cognitive philosophy of science. Next, the role of social and cognitive factors in the explanation and in the evaluation of knowledge states and processes is examined. Finally, I analyze cognitive and sociological methodologies in the study of science, in particular those of Thagard, Giere, David Bloor and Steve Woolgar, and outline my own methodology. ;In Part III, a cognitive framework is outlined for a cognitive epistemology and philosophy of science. This framework integrates connectionist approaches in cognitive science with enactivist approaches and work in schema theory and cognitive model theory. ;In part IV, this cognitive framework is applied in an investigation of the structure and function of theoretical knowledge. I begin with a general analysis of the theoretical structure of knowledge. Next, I investigate various theoretical functions: prediction, descriptive-analysis, explanation and unification, and analyze these in terms of the problem-solving abilities they confer. Next, I propose a cognitive account of scientific theories that integrates model-theoretic and Kuhnian perspectives, and assigns a central role to iconic models in science. Finally, I propose cognitive-pragmatic analyses of realism, truth, and epistemic virtue.

Modern technology has changed the way we live, work, play, communicate, fight, love, and die. Yet few works have systematically explored these changes in light of their implications for individual and social welfare. How can we conceptualize and evaluate the influence of technology on human well-being? Bringing together scholars from a cross-section of disciplines, this volume combines an empirical investigation of technology and its social, psychological, and political effects, and a philosophical analysis and evaluation of the implications of such effects.

In this essay, a new approach to the ethics of emerging information technology will be presented, called anticipatory technology ethics (ATE). The ethics of emerging technology is the study of ethical issues at the R&D and introduction stage of technology development through anticipation of possible future devices, applications, and social consequences. In the essay, I will first locate emerging technology in the technology development cycle, after which I will consider ethical approaches to emerging technologies, as well as obstacles in developing such approaches. I will argue that any sound approach must centrally include futures studies of technology. I then present ATE and some applications of it to emerging information technologies. In ATE, ethical analysis is performed at three levels, the technology, artifact and application levels, and at each levels distinct types of ethical questions are asked. ATE analyses result in the identification and evaluation of a broad range of ethical issues that can be anticipated in relation to an emerging information technology. This ethical analysis can then be used for ethical recommendations for design or governance.

This essay considers the impact of digital networks in organizations on worker autonomy. Worker autonomy, the control that workers have over their own work situation, is claimed in this essay to be a key determinant for the quality of work, as well as an important moral goal. Digital networks pose significant threats to worker autonomy as well as opportunities for its enhancement. In this essay, the notion of worker autonomy is analyzed and evaluated for its importance and moral relevance. It is then considered how digital networks both threaten worker autonomy and offer opportunities for its enhancement. Three major opportunities (enhanced communicative powers, increased informedness, teleworking) and threats (electronic monitoring, task prestructuring, and dependency creation) are discussed and analyzed. Finally, the dynamics that determine the impact on worker autonomy of the introduction of a digital network in organizations are investigated. A particular model for analyzing these dynamics and their impacts, Bryan Pfaffenberger's model of a technological drama. It will be illustrated how this model illuminates these dynamics by analyzing them as a dialectic of strategies of technological regularization by design constituencies and technological adjustment by impact constituencies. It will also be assessed what role network design has in this process.