Accounting for the Moral Significance of Technology: Revisiting the Case of Non-Medical Sex Selection

Abstract

This article explores the moral significance of technology, reviewing a microfluidic chip for sperm sorting and its use for non-medical sex selection. I explore how a specific material setting of this new iteration of pre-pregnancy sex selection technology—with a promised low cost, non-invasive nature and possibility to use at home—fosters new and exacerbates existing ethical concerns. I compare this new technology with the existing sex selection methods of sperm sorting and Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis. Current ethical and political debates on emerging technologies predominantly focus on the quantifiable risk-and-benefit logic that invites an unequivocal “either-or” decision on their future and misses the contextual ethical impact of technology. The article aims to deepen the discussion on sex selection and supplement it with the analysis of the new technology’s ethical potential to alter human practices, perceptions and the evaluative concepts with which we approach it. I suggest that the technological mediation approach (Verbeek, 2005 , 2011 ) can be useful to ethically contextualize technologies and highlight the value of such considerations for the informed deliberation regarding their use, design and governance.

Values in responsible research and innovation: from entities to practices

“…As indicated above, comparative and historical research can put specific practices in perspective and help to formulate conclusions as to what is or is not likely to improve a specific practice (e.g. Swierstra, Stemerding, and Boenink 2009;Kudina 2018). Instead of assuming a moral point of view that transcends the limitations of human experience, a practicebased approach to identifying values contributes to the active construction of a collective viewpoint that is as inclusive as possible within the context at hand.…”

Love(rs) in the making: Moral subjectivity in the face of sexbots

“…Philosophers of technology have long recognized that technological artifacts are unavoidably value-laden and political [e.g., [19][20][21][22][23]. More to the point, some have also recognized that our interaction with these value-laden artifacts has important implications for our own moral development.…”

“…The seeking of the caress constitutes its essence by the fact that the caress does not know what it seeks" [37, p. 89]. 20 Levinas does not use the word "reciprocity" when discussing Eros, likely out of fear that it would imply thinking the lovers in terms of sameness, cf. "[i]n political life, taken unrebuked, humanity is understood from its worksa humanity of interchangeable men, of reciprocal relations" [36, p. 298].…”

To Your Good Health! Going to the Pub With Friends, Nursing Dying Patients, And ‘ER’ Receptionists: the Ubiquitous Rise of Risk Management and Maybe A ‘Prudential’ Bioethics?

“…Walker (2019) describes how our use of prostheses shapes our conceptualisation both of prosthetics themselves and of human bodies. Kudina (2019) discusses how the application of new technologies, in this case sex selection technologies, can shape our ideas about sex, gender, and parental responsibility. Hofman addresses how human enhancement alters constructs about health in general (Hofman 2019), Elliott proposes a feedback loop whereby changing technical capacity might drive demand (Elliott 2019).…”