Recents debates within energy ethics have focused on the framework of energy justice. The justice framework is often linked to Western ethical ideas, especially the human rights framework and the ideas of Western individualism. The presentation ongoing debate between human rights and the rights of nature. The analysis highlights the frequent association of human rights with social contract theories, identifying both the strengths and limitations of contractualist individualism.

Hopster lists among the potential targets of technologically induced social disruption ‘social relations, institutions, epistemic paradigms, foundational concepts, values, and the very nature of human cognition and experience’ (2021, 1). This is quite a heterogeneous list; it is not immediately obvious what unifies these objects as potential targets of disruption, if anything.

In traditional research on the relationship between human and technology, agency has always been a concept that has attracted much attention. Starting from Aristotle, agency is considered as an agent’s initiative in action. Since Giddens defined agency as the power of change, material agency has emerged.

Advanced neurotechnology applications record brain signals, process them, and use the data output to control software or hardware, make predictions about brain activity more generally, or as input for machine learning applications. Especially as it converges with artificial intelligence, neurotechnology is increasingly developing along lines aiming to produce ‘mind reading’ applications (e.g. Tang et al., 2023). Neuroethical responses to these developments often centre on assessing the veracity of mind reading claims (e.g.

In quantum technologies such as quantum computing, quantum sensing and quantum communication, engineers are working towards ingenious ways in which quantum states can be created, manipulated, exploited, and read out. However, how to comprehend the nature of such quantum states physically and metaphysically is far from obvious. With this development of quantum technologies gaining traction in recent decades, an argument can be made for the renewed importance of working towards a better understanding of both the physical and conceptual reality upon which these technologies rest.

As quantum technologies (QT) continue to progress and mature, the need to establish an ethical framework for their development becomes increasingly apparent. This urgency is emphasized by QT's significant geopolitical and corporate value, with global actors increasingly investing considerable resources into the technology.

In this contribution, I set out an argument for an approach to quantum ethics that takes into account the importance of the attribution of ‘meaning’ to a new technology (cf. Grunwald, 2017). Ethical debates and debates about responsibility emerge from the intertwining of scientific expectations or projections and their possible social meanings. Meanings can be considered a form of intervention; while they do not necessarily fix the meaning of the technology under discussion, they can still have real impact on how debates are carried out.

In this contribution I argue that non-physicist expert citizens play an active role in giving meaning to quantum technologies. 

Moral progress and technological progress do not necessarily go hand in hand. The twentieth century is a prime example in this regard. According to various commentators (Mitcham 1994; Ihde 1990; Verbeek 2011), the atrocious two world wars and the growing environmental impact of technological societies spread among many postwar philosophers a critical view of modern technology. Certainly, material progress (mainly produced thanks to economic and scientific-technological advancement) does not equate to progress towards a more humane world.

Nudges, tweaks in choice environments that predictably steer behavior without restricting options, can be either self-regarding (benefiting the nudgee) or other-regarding (other aims such as organ donation, charity, tax compliance). Other-regarding nudges, on which we focus here, have been claimed to preserve moral worth and participate in cultivating moral virtues.

Philosophers have been interested in how technological change can drive changes in values and many have also proposed that particular causal histories can vindicate or debunk our confidence in certain values. For either inquiry we need robust evidence of technologically induced value change and of the causal mechanisms behind it. In my paper I offer such evidence of technology-driven value change and propose a vindicating argument for this value.

“Technosocial disruption” affects “deeply held beliefs, values, social norms, and basic human capacities”, “basic human practices, fundamental concepts, [and] ontological distinctions” (Hopster 2021: 6). For this reason, it is also referred to as “deep disruption” (ibid.). It brings about different kinds of uncertainty, including “conceptual ambiguity and contestation, moral confusion, and moral disagreement” (ibid.: 7). Among such deep disruptions are disruptions of fundamental concepts.

Modern life is characterised by a shared belief that we are moving forward, that ‘we’ – that is, humanity – are progressing to a better life. Even those people who demonstrate to point at the serious global problems we are currently facing – and there are still many of these, such as climate change, war, pandemics, racism, and social injustice – appear to entertain the belief that we can divert potential catastrophes if we are willing to act.

Naturalistic moral epistemologists have recently argued that there are distinct social factors and forces under which moral progress – or regress – are likely to occur. According to Smyth (in prep.) current technological trends in many societies are conducive to moral regress: whereas once technology freed humans and encouraged the formation of new ends and experiences, much of it now forces humans down conditioning pathways where we end up pursuing remarkably simple and uniform goals. In this presentation I criticize Smyth’s assessment on three philosophical grounds.

This contribution will explore the methodological significance of value experiences for the ethics of human interactions with nature. I begin by detailing how environmentally disruptive technologies often pose “techno-environmental dilemmas.” For example, offshore windfarms enable us to mitigate global environmental harm. Simultaneously, they disrupt the environments in which they are built, negatively impacting human and nonhuman lives. How should we decide what to do in the face of these environmental dilemmas?

This contribution will provide a novel method for value deliberation on technologies, grounded in art and emotions. Philosophy tends to see itself as a rational discipline, emphasizing logical argumentation and seeing emotions as belonging to the realm of irrationality and subjectivity. This view of emotions has been challenged by philosophers and psychologists who emphasize the cognitive dimension of emotions. Emotions can then play an important epistemological role, providing us with insights into the evaluative dimension of our lived experience.

In this contribution, I explore why and how value experiences are relevant to Design for Values. In a value experience, something seems to the experiencer to be valuable (or disvaluable). Design for Values is a design approach that aims at systematically integrating value of moral importance in (technological) design.

In this talk I discuss how a capabilities approach (CA) can inform the deployment of carbon removal techniques (CDR) within climate mitigation projects as well as the broader sustainable development context. Specifically, CDR raises ethical concerns, especially issues of justice. I argue that the CA can offer a more accurate account of people’s quality of life in CDR implementation, expanding the discussion beyond the traditional distributive justice paradigm. Moreover, the CA can integrate a focus on recognition of human as well as non-human entities affected by CDR deployment.

When discussing transformations to sustainability, one is brought to employ a variety of foresight methods to create different versions of the future worth striving for. In part, these are anchored in data, trends, and realities of today. However, these also require going beyond trends, in other words, beyond the descriptive, towards the normative. This, however, is fraught with uncertainty, in particular, normative ambiguity, i.e. the lack of certainty on norms and values in the future. Issues of techno-moral change, or value change are easier to describe when looking back at history.

Socially disruptive technologies impact people differently. One’s social position, for example, may play a significant role in the way a disruptive technology has either positive or negative impact on one’s abilities. In this talk, I propose thinking in terms of capabilities as a metric for the moral assessment of equality of impact of socially disruptive technology on people’s capabilities.

This presentation is part of the panel Capabilities and transdisciplinarity in the ethics of technology

This workshop aimed to collect shared dilemmas, struggles and questions while operationalizing the CA in individual research. By discovering common experiences within different disciplines and sketching the outlines for generalised operational approaches, we aim to arrive at a shared methodology that can be useful across various disciplines aiming to develop technologies and related policies just and inclusively. Cases used for input include urban planning, global value chains and health technologies.

Recent debates in the philosophy of technology center on the notion that technology can disrupt concepts and values. Among these, Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerges as a prominent example, demonstrating its potential to disrupt fundamental notions such as personhood, agency, and responsibility. However, existing debates have thus far failed to adequately explore how such disruption manifests across diverse cultural and ethical frameworks.

Some people relate to, and treat, humanoid robots as if they are human, although they know that they are not. Such reactions have sparked discussion about whether humanoid robots should be granted the same, or similar, moral status as human beings. A relational approach to robot moral status is unconcerned with whether the robot has the necessary properties for moral status, and argues that if we relate to the robot as if it is human, it should indeed have the same (or similar) moral status as human beings.

I use Bernard Matolino’s lenses on modernity and development to reflect on and discuss the challenges that Africa will face in adapting to Responsible AI. Matolino looks at the relationship between values and technological developments in an African context. He defines technological development as an ongoing human episode that signifies development and innovation. Matolino proposes two perspectives on modernity to define it. The first definition is that modernity is an actual transition that happens when people’s lives and systems shift from one mode to another.

How does technology transfer affect sub-Saharan Africa, especially her sociocultural and economic circumstances? I argue that technology transfer creates a disruption to the cultural worldviews and socio-economic conditions of sub-Saharan Africa. As it bears mentioning, in our contemporary social milieu, digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robots have become pervasive, reshaping our perceptions of the world, as well as our societal norms and cultural values.

I examine the increase of Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) in Africa through the lens of Michel Foucault's theory of knowledge and power. Foucault argued that knowledge is not objective, but rather it can be used as a tool of domination by those in power. This paper explores how China's involvement in African AI development shapes knowledge production and governance on the continent. China has become one of the players in the African AI landscape, investing in AI technologies across various sectors, including healthcare, agriculture, education, and governance.

One of the often-cited reasons against the use of technologies with artificial intelligence is that such a use would undermine human dignity. The use of these robots, it is argued, undermines the dignity of the patients who use them because the use of these robots deceives, manipulates, humiliates, invades privacy, infantilises and causes loss of human contact. Such actions disrespect their autonomy and treat them as mere means to an end and not ends in themselves. Western conceptions of dignity, such as Kant’s and Nussbaum’s, are salient conceptions used to conduct such evaluations.

In recent years, there has been an increasing number of calls for more inclusive local participation in decision-making on local energy infrastructures and projects. This also goes for energy technologies in the Netherlands, as the Dutch Climate policy includes a mandate for municipalities to organise participation in local energy projects. Including stakeholders (instead of shareholders) and their values is important for instrumental and intrinsic reasons. Still, there are important worries concerning local participation in decision-making in energy infrastructures.

Over the past two decades, citizen participation has emerged as a central component in governing energy transitions. The conceptualization of the roles citizens can and should play in these transitions has been defined through the concept of energy citizenship. However, since its first explication in 2007, the concept developed into a very narrow set of roles for citizen in energy transitions.

There is an increasing awareness that normative issues pervade the energy transition, testified by the popularity of concepts like ‘energy justice’ and the ‘just transition’. In spite of this awareness, experts and practitioners have difficulty relating to the moral implications of their work that are relatively new to them, for three reasons. First, there is a widely held conviction that moral issues are subjective expressions of preference and, as such, do not fit the objective outlook associated with professional expertise.

"Destination Earth", or in short "DestinE" is a project of the European Commission that aims to develop of a Digital Twin of planet Earth: a highly accurate data-driven digital representation that is expected to monitor and predict the interaction between natural phenomena and human activity. This Digital Twin is expected to inform and support Europe's environmental governance. However, every representation reflects a certain approach to reality, thereby giving certain actors power over claims to reality, materialising world-views, and opening up certain futures, while closing off others.

In our quest for human happiness and well-being we have taken the needs and wants of one biological species as the only frame of reference for a place that is inhabited by millions of species. Our super ability to collaborate, the strict or absolute separation between us and nature (Lent, 2022) and the dominance of the reductionist way of thinking have already closed off a pathway where we would focus on abundance and equality.

Scientists are adopting genetics and genomics technologies for wide-ranging conservation objectives, ranging from biodiversity monitoring, translocations, assisted evolution, gene drives and de-extinction. These data-driven technologies rely on the mass digitization of biodiversity data across the world and constitute the Fourth Paradigm of biodiversity science. While enhancing human understanding of biodiversity loss and capacities to deal with it, technologies have large ethical implications (Daño & Prato, 2019). 

Global warming and the consequent ecological crisis driving soil degradation and biodiversity loss are making painfully clear our lack of understanding and appreciation of the environmental costs of technological modernization. The current ecological predicament has encouraged the promotion of sustainable development and the rise of nature-based technologies and ecological design practices.

‘Proper function’ theories commit to the notion that artefacts possess functions that are ontologically ‘proper’ to them, and that these functions are assigned at artefact creation. According to these theories, proper functions play a crucial role in shaping our collective understanding of technological artefacts. Proper functions not only help us to determine what a given artefact is, but also offer normative benchmarks for whether artefacts are working ‘properly’.

The growing focus on repair and maintenance in philosophy of technology, urges, among other things, an attention to technologies through time, that is, how they persist, are worked on, are re-designed and reimagined over the duration of their use (Young, 2020; Steinert, forthcoming). It is the relevance that this perspective has for the built environment in times of climate change and environmental disruption that I develop in this presentation.

Since the publication of Winner’s influential article in 1980, the idea that artifacts have politics has remained a dominant theme in STS and the philosophy of technology. Yet despite exploring the political nature of artifacts from a variety of different perspectives, little of this work has paid attention to the activity of maintenance.

I will assess Radder’s reconstruction of the bridges between (Philosophy of) Science and (Philosophy of) Technology, and especially his terminological choice to refer to ‘application-oriented’ science. In doing so, I explore divergence and convergence with my terminological choice to rehabilitate ‘techno-science’. In this exercise, I explain the relevance for conceptual, practical, and axiological considerations, also beyond the case of the natural sciences that occupies a large part of Radder’s book.

In my talk, I want to discuss Radder´s description of commodification as it relates to technology. By using the examples drawn from the practice of patenting research, he is able to empirically trace the multiple ways that commodification concretely shapes sociotechnical decisions and actions. Commodification is also a critical concept against which one can articulate alternatives to measure, compare, and judge sociotechnical intentions; in Radder´s case the common good and public interest are these concepts.

I will present a brief overview of the background and general approach taken in the book, in line with the description of the topic sketched above. It aims to provide more information about the content of the book to the audience, and so offers the commentators more time to develop their views on the claims and issues they have chosen to discuss.

Part of the panel A Book Symposium on Hans Radder’s "From Commodification to the Common Good: Reconstructing Science, Technology, and Society

In his re-interpretation of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Axel Honneth (2014) builds a theory of justice which places the political public sphere as a central component for establishing what he calls ‘social freedom’ (individual autonomy realized in institutions and practices of mutual recognition).

Currently, there is significant concern about how AI-driven media platforms feature a logic of reactive and affective interaction, emotional mobilization, and moral outrage rather than lucid, political argumentation. Further, there is rising debate about whether platform companies take advantage of the unrelenting human hunger for bonding, reward, and the bestowal of esteem, exploiting vital needs for recognition as a monetizable vulnerability.

This talk examines the limitations of recognition theory by arguing that it takes relations between adults as paradigmatic. It challenges how Honneth’s three modes of recognition apply to children and use the example of educational AI to question how technologies should recognize children’s needs, rights and social contributions. First, children may not have yet fully acquired the capacity to recognize their needs. They often require guidance and care to do so and express their experiences of neglect.

This discussion addresses the question of how being subjected to pattern recognition by AI affects the possibilities of identity formation. Recognition theory explores how a subject (individually and collectively) shapes the self, its sense of dignity and esteem in its relationships with others (Honneth, Taylor). If we replace the ‘Other’ in the recognition relationship with artificial intelligence, questions arise about what we lose and what we gain in terms of social recognition. Is pattern recognition equivalent to patterned identity?

Hegel’s analysis of the “struggle for recognition” can be used to understand human-technology relations from a political perspective. This political perspective can consequently help us to appreciate how technologies like robots can come to have a role in political life through our ability to experience solidarity with such technologies, due to the recognition that technologies serve roles in society functionally equivalent to the social roles of humans.

Our research reevaluates postphenomenological theory by focusing on the often-neglected aspects of technological malfunctions and failures. We introduce concepts to scrutinize these critical facets, suggesting that postphenomenology inadequately addresses the significance of malfunctioning devices. Understanding these failures, we argue, is essential to fully appreciate the societal impact of disruptive technologies. This analysis aims to enrich postphenomenology and encourage further exploration into human-technology interactions.

In this talk I will provide an answer to the following question: how do sex robots confirm Lacanian psychoanalytic conceptions of (sexual) objectification and subjectivity that condition sexual relations with human others as well as with robots? 
A Lacanian understanding of sexual relations is predicated on the aphorism that the sexual relation does not exist: objectification is conditional for any (sexual) relation to take place since it is only possible to encounter human and robotic others as partial objects and never as whole entities or full subjects. 

Much of our world is imperceptible to us – “us” being humans. “Umwelt,” originally proposed by Jakob Johann von Uexküll, describes the world as experienced by an individual organism. Our worlds are both composed and limited by what we are capable of sensing. Our limitations have been exploited to generate invisible conveniences such as sonar and wireless technologies. However, we are not the only occupants of the planet and what is invisible to us has proven time after time to be harmfully present to our fellow species.

Several researchers have argued that the online environment makes people (especially women) more vulnerable to objectification. In this talk I argue that this is a special case of what I call technological objectification: the way in which technologies enable to treat oneself or someone else as an object. The aim of this talk is twofold. On the one hand, I suggest that technological objectification comes in degrees, and that arguably not every form of objectification is (equally) problematic.

Postphenomenology’s recognition that technological artifacts play an active role in our lives by mediating our experiences and actions in the world has proved a powerful perspective for the analysis of what things do. Part of this consists of bringing to light theretofore un(der)recognized ethical impacts of specific technologies. However, when it comes to then informing us on what to do in light of those developments, postphenomenological theorizing has been relatively silent, i.e., steps towards developing an ‘ethics of technological mediation’ have been limited.