Exploring Techno-Moral Change: The Case of the ObesityPill

Abstract

Technology is a major force in modern societies, co-shaping most of its aspects, including established moral norms and values. Technology Assessment aims to explore the consequences of New and Emerging Science and Technology [NEST] in advance, to help create better technology. This article develops a method for enhancing our moral imagination with regard to future techno-moral change. At the core of this method lies so-called NEST-ethics, the argumentative patterns and tropes that constitute the 'grammar' of ethical discussions about emerging technologies. This grammar can be applied to explore at forehand the moral controversies and even the moral changes that are provoked by these technologies. In the form of alternative techno-moral scenarios these explorations can be used to inform and enhance public deliberation on the desirability of the NEST in question. This results in a type of ethical TA that is self-reflective regarding its own moral standards. To illustrate our method, we offer 'fragments' of a techno-moral scenario on the moral consequences of the introduction of a future ObesityPill. Keywords Techno-moral scenarios • Ethical technology assessmentTechnology has developed into a major force in modern societies, now coshaping most aspects of it. In the words of the American pragmatist John Dewey: 'Steam and electricity have done more to alter the conditions under which men associate together than all the agencies which affected human relationships before our time.' (Dewey, 1954) (p.323) Sometimes technology leads to happy results, sometimes to less happy ones, most often to an ambiguous mix of both. From the standpoint of modern democracy, it is important that those living with the consequences of technology, the citizens, have at least some say in the direction of its further development (Bijker, 2001;Feenberg, 1999;Sclove, 1995). This citizen participation can both be argued for as being of intrinsic value -people have a right to exert democratic influence over the powers that bind them -or in more instrumental terms: mobilizing different points of view leads to better knowledge and thus to

The Paradox of E-Numbers: Ethical, Aesthetic, and Cultural Concerns in the Dutch Discourse on Food Additives

“…There is nothing unreasonable about that: where food has become highly technological and the quest for good food is scientized (cf. Te Molder and Gutteling 2003), consumers may have good reasons to question the reliability of professionals, their dependence on expert information, or even to decide to turn (Swierstra 2002;Swierstra et al 2009). …”

Smart-Glasses: Exposing and Elucidating the Ethical Issues

“…This is a highly relevant critique as the approach that we applied addresses a wide range of topics and includes existing (H)TA methodology, e.g., ethical Technology Assessment (eTA) particularly preoccupied with quantifiable risk (Palm and Hansson 2006), "hard impact" (T. Swierstra 2015) and "soft impact" approaches (van der Burg 2009; T. Swierstra and te Molder 2012; T. Swierstra et al 2009), technological mediations (Verbeek 2011), as well as other approaches (Sollie and Düwell 2009).…”

Digital ‘solutions’ to unhealthy lifestyle ‘problems’: the construction of social and personal risks in the development of eCoaches

“…Technical-ethical scenarios are fictional narratives of possible future ethical controversies that provide a tool for anticipating interactions between new technologies and society and exploring the role that normative perspectives or moral values play in these interactions (Boenink, Swierstra, & Stemerding, 2010;Lucivero, 2013;Swierstra, Stemerding, & Boenink, 2009). Scenarios were developed following Boenink et al (2010): gleaning field notes for dichotomous distinctions made by developers and listing these without exclusion or ranking, then categorising distinctions and noting potential tensions.…”