Can the technological mediation approach improve technology assessment? A critical view from ‘within’

Abstract

The technological mediation approach aspires to complement current Technology Assessment (TA) practices. It aims to do so by addressing ethical concerns from 'within' human-technology relations leading to ethical Constructive Technology Assessment (eCTA), as articulated by Kiran, Asle H., Nelly Oudshoorn, and Peter-Paul Verbeek in their 2015 article. In this paper, we problematize this ambition. Firstly, we situate the technological mediation approach in the history of TA. Secondly, as a study into the normativity from 'within' humantechnology relations, we reveal the phenomenological and existential origins of Verbeek's technological mediation approach. Thirdly, we show that there are two possible readings of this approach: a strong and a weak one. The weak reading can augment current TA practices but is eventually uncommitted to the idea of technological mediation. The strong reading defines a wholly new scope for our engagement with (emerging) technologies but is incompatible with existing TA approaches.

What is morally at stake when using algorithms to make medical diagnoses? Expanding the discussion beyond risks and harms

“…TMT combines empirical and philosophical analysis to reflect on people’s current or anticipated interactions with new technologies, as well as on the myriad normative, epistemic, and existential concerns that such interactions may give rise to [ 22 – 24 ]. Given its phenomenological origins, TMT primarily uses case studies to analyze human–technology relations at the micro-level, while maintaining a rigorous philosophical perspective on how technologies help shaping people’s moral views, preferences, choices, and actions.…”

“…TMT considers technologies to be mediators of human–world relations [ 18 ]. As mediators, technologies “co-shape, enable, challenge or change the engagement of people with the world” [ 22 , p. 302], thereby actively shaping human experiences, practices, and value frameworks. Overall, the aim of TMT is to examine how people relate to themselves and to the world around them in view of specific technologies—looking at the quality and structure of such relations [ 18 , pp.…”

The Safekeeping of Being - A Leadership Responsibility

“…Brey (2017) suggest that there are five distinct approaches to ethical reflection on emerging technologies, as shown in Table 2 below. (Kiran et al, 2015) in order to address normative deficits in technology assessment (de Boer et al, 2018). In these forms, technology assessment becomes a practical way of doing ethics.…”

How Scientific Instruments Speak

“…Thing Knowledge (2004). 3 While they diverge in their specific approaches regarding the role of technologies in scientific practice, Giere and Baird share the intuition that the production of scientific knowledge is not something that is exclusively limited to the human realm and that technologies actively shape how scientists understand the world.…”

“…In this chapter, I argue that both Baird and Giere problematically assume (i) that scientific instruments have a universally determined function and (ii) that all human members of a scientific collective 4 have immediate access to this function. However, empirical 3 Another branch within philosophers of science, known as New Experimentalism, also attempts to do justice to the importance of scientific instruments. However, rather than focusing on the general importance of scientific instruments, this work is specifically concerned with the use of scientific instruments in relation to experiments.…”