Technology Ethics

Dr.P.Madhu

What happened to technology?

• Hyper-specialized• Globally commercialized• Tending to be fully owned by corporates• Tendentious to be autonomously organic!- ca-

pable of transforming human sociality & indi-viduality

• De-materialized!

• Adorno critically observes technology function-ing as an ideology or ideological weapon, and, as such, once more, as a man's instrument of domination by man

• Adorno comments on the manipulative charac-ter of the relations the technology produced

• Science and technology is understood as an instrument and means of power!

• Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts abso-lutely!

• Heidegger holds that technology is neither an instrum-ent nor a means, but a connecting el-ement and a kind of armour that models and sets up man according to its measure and necessity (the technician or the technological individual), and at the same time establishes reality as an instrument (of accumulation) and as a stock (for consumption).

Heidegger observes, the technique can not be seen as potential development of man’s hands anymore, but Something different, like a potency or an autono-

mous power, to which man is nothing but a means or an instrument, and in which, he is captured as an object orraw material when he sets himself up in the network ofthe technological production of the real

• For Heidegger the ultimate un-ethics is the ‘da-sein’ completely thrown into the status of ‘dasman’- the un—creative everyday human!

as science and technique become autonomous, generating the predominance of the techno-sci-

ences,the technique could not be dominated by men;

then, the spell turns itself against the wizard, … will

install itskingdom on the devastated earth, amidst docile

and domesticated human individuals.

History of Technology

3 major phases:1. Steam Machine2. Internal Combustion Machine3. Transistor- Chip Telecommunication Biotechnology

so far restricted to the material things, showed thepower of extending itself to humans themselves,

and oftaking him as the object of its processes

• Autonomy of market ensured autonomy of technology

• Autonomy of technology ensured enslavement of

science to technology and market!

• History of science & technology is said to have under-gone double split:

1. Science is split from morality2. Technology was split from Science

• together with this double split, a deep re-directing of science and technique happened in modern times, when they got into the market and submitted them-selves to the business imperatives and to the interest of powerful groups

• It was then that the blind forces of the market, the regulations of politics and the pressures of the reason of State (including the ones with war purposes), interposed and imposed themselves upon the ends and ideals of the techno-sciences

• It was then that there was the sacrifice of the scientist's intellectual curiosity and freedom to think, and the end of the technologist or techno-bureaucrat's apparent autonomy, men-tioned by Heidegger, once his capacity for cre-ation and his power to really do things do not belong to him, the technologist, but to the cap-ital and its multiple agents.

The result is a third split: the split between sci-ence and technology in face of society as a whole, when they are submitted to groups of interest, and are privatised by the market forces, when the sciences - that had generated technology, which is appropriated by the mar-ket, together with technology - showed them-selves entirely impotent, without the slightest possibility of reversing this state of things

Science exist for technology, and technology for market and market exist for corporates!

Science has become the salve to technology, in-stead of a rational or moral engine as it was expected!

• While its limitations are passed on to the marginalized, its benefits accumulated to the affluent and thus caused a deep social divide.

The ethical question!

What should we do to hu-manise technique?

The solution may be something related to the three splits mentioned before:

1. Science’s split from morality2. Technology’s split from Science3. Technology splitted away to accommodate

corporate interests

• Re-link Science with (secular) morality• Re-link Technology with Science• Re-link technology to human autonomy (by de-

linking it from the corporate interests)

• The ethics we talk about cannot be just that of an heroic individual- rather it can be a sys-temic and collectivist ethics!

• Because science is no-longer and activity at the backyard of a scientist!

• Nor, Technology happens at the backyard of a tecnologist!

• Ethics is no longer competence of a heroic in-dividual, rather, it is always redefined collec-tivist endevour

• Because science and technology is a collec-tivist activity!

• As for the re-linking between science and technology, it will demand the scientist to be actively engaged with technology, and he, to-gether with the technologist, beyond the mar-ket forces and the world of business, will be responsible for defining the courses of tech-nique and science themselves.

i.e. Technology ethics demands a P2P(?) world!

• It is not the ‘Individual’ or the ‘society’ but col-lective effervescence that constitute ethics!

• An ethical world de-mythifies both the ‘indi-vidual’ and the ‘society’, and founds co-opera-tively working collective praxis!- an egoless praxis!

Typology of ethics

Phenomenology vs positivism

For those ethicists that can be called phenomenologists, what is good is given in the situation, derived from the logic and language of the situation, or from dialogue and debate about "goodness" per se.

Positivists, on the other hand argue that we should observe the real world and inductively derive ethical principles

Rules vs. Consequences (deontologists vs. consequentialists).

Ethicists that are in the deontological camp believe good actions result from following the correct rules of behavior, which generally are thought to be universal and applicable to all.

These rules are based on religious beliefs, intuition, or aesthetic belief.

Consequentialists, in contrast, believe that general rules are not specific enough to guide action, and feel instead that we must look to the consequences of our actions, and take those actions which produce the best results or consequences

Individuals vs. Collectivities (micro vs. macro levels).

Ethicists differ on the locus of moral authority even as they agree individual decision making is the proper subject of ethics

moral authority is located in the individual who through selfanalysis and reflection comes to develop a set or rules, or engages in an analysis of selfinterest.

Others argue that moral authority must be located in larger collectivities -- the organization, society or polity

The former allows individuals to set their own rules, their ethics, regardless of society. The latter introduces a potential moral relativism of a different sort: whatever the group believes is best becomes the rule.

Collective phenomenologists

From this perspective answer:

"Should I throw beer cans on the road as I drive along,“

“Is it OK to hack a software”

“Is it OK to tap a telephone conversation”

Individual- phenomenolo-gists

This school argues that individuals shall come to know what is right by looking inward to universal and timeless rules derived from their religious belief, intuitions about "rightness," and self analysis

From this perspective answer:

"Should I throw beer cans on the road as I drive along,“

“Is it OK to hack a software”

“Is it OK to tap a telephone conversation”

Collective Consequentialists

Utilitarian

“Is it OK to hack a software”

“Is it OK to tap a telephone conversation”

"Should I throw beer cans on the road as I drive along,“

Individual Consequentialists

From this perspective answer:

"Should I throw beer cans on the road as I drive along,“

“Is it OK to hack a software”

“Is it OK to tap a telephone conversation”

“I want unobstructed freedom, but I will obstruct yours”

Most classical and contemporary ethicists argue, for instance, that ethics involves the choices of fiee people, who are informed and rational.

All agree that under these conditions, individuals are responsible, accountable, and liable, and that a good society is one in which due process obtains,

that is, there is a fair and impartial process exists for determining responsibility, accountability and liability

Individual Vs collective ethics!

"formal organizations are not moral persons, and have no moral responsibilities, they have no moral rights" (Ladd, 1970)

Now, more than individuals the ‘corporations’ decide life! Then, there can be no moral order?

Is personal ethics still relevant?

Such organizations are told by their mentor gurus: "there is one and only one responsibility of business. ... to increase its profits Friedman, 1965; 1970

These large organizations gradually own every technology! They thus act as individuals! – Owner individuals with special rights.

What is the moral significance of such statements :

"Computers flatten hierarchies“

"Computers eliminate the need for middle managers“

“It is a computer error”

Is computer a moral agent?

An ethics of information systems is impossible without an understanding of how information technologies affect human choice, human action, and human potential.

Technology, in other words, does not stand "outside" of society, acting upon it, but instead technology--its manufacturers, benefactors, users--is a social phenomenon itself subject to all the constraints of other social actors.

Among these constraints is the notion of social responsibility: you can and will be held accountable for your actions.

But- who are YOU? In the corporate world? Do you have an agency power? Or just a pon in the corporate games?- where the corporate is not a person!

Are the corporates emerge into uncontrollable ‘organisms’?

Can there be any collective democratic action to demand corporate ethics? Technology ethics?

Can deliberate democracy be possible in technology management?

If not possible, it makes ethics impossible in technology!

What can be done?

five major constellations of issues in IT ethical space

(1) information rights and obligations,

(2) property rights and obligations,

(3) system quality,

(4) accountability and control, and

(5) quality of life.

4 significant levels where ethical is-sues arise

Individual

Organization/ corporate

Polity

Society

( note: this classification is becoming unrealistic! The corporate ‘organism’ is swallowing the rest!)

For the time being let us assume they exist with equal strength- just to think about a possible ethical order!

A contract is possible only when signatories of the contract willfully agree upon the contents of the contract!

Local variant of the macro-contract!

Manufactured consent?Will of the Leviathan?

Bad ethics 1: Infringe on privacy

Because information technology creates new opportunities to deny privacy and inhibit access to information, ethical questions are posed to individuals and larger collectivities

Bad ethics 2. Denying right to informa-tion

Can a closed source software be ready to respect its users right to information?

Bad ethics 3: Property rights

Does the new technology infringe on individual property right? Right to alter, modify, share?...

Are the “trade secret, copyright, and patent law” ethical?

Both ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguers cry fowl!

Bad ethics 4: no one is accountable!

Who is responsible if a software caused injury to some one?

new information technologies are challenging existing liability law and social practices for holding individuals and institutions accountable

The mother of all bad ethics:

turning human beings into bare-life!

About the content of IT!

• Intercultural Information Ethics (IIE)• It deals with the impact of information and

communication technology (ICT) on different cultures as well as with the discussion on ICT from different cultural perspectives.

• IEE concerns are• privacy, • Piracy• Cyber crime• intellectual property, • online communities, • governmentality, • gender issues, • mobile phones, • health care, • and the digital divide

IEE concerns

• How the computers work the same way ev-erywhere though they are embedded in dif-ferent cultural and moral contexts which means that there is not such a thing as a neu-tral technology.

• the mutual influence between culture and technology at an inter- as well as at a trans-cultural level