Imaginative Value Sensitive Design: How Moral Imagination Exceeds Moral Law Theories in Informing Responsible Innovation

Safe-by-Design (SBD) frameworks for the development of emerging technologies have become an ever more popular means by which scholars argue that transformative emerging technologies can safely incorporate human values. One such popular SBD methodology is called Value Sensitive Design (VSD). A central tenet of this design methodology is to investigate stakeholder values and design those values into technologies during early stage research and development (R&D). To accomplish this, the VSD framework mandates that designers consult the philosophical and ethical literature to best determine how to weigh moral trade-offs. However, the VSD framework also concedes the universalism of moral values, particularly the values of freedom, autonomy, equality trust and privacy justice. This paper argues that the VSD methodology, particularly applied to nano-bio-info-cogno (NBIC) technologies, has an insufficient grounding for the determination of moral values. As such, an exploration of the value-investigations of VSD are deconstructed to illustrate both its strengths and weaknesses. This paper also provides possible modalities for the strengthening of the VSD methodology, particularly through the application of moral imagination and how moral imagination exceed the boundaries of moral intuitions in the development of novel technologies

The "Cognitive Turn": A Short Guide for Nervous Drivers.

In this brief primer on the emergent field of cognitive literary criticism, I aim to offer a tentative outline of its more representative lines of research after roughly twenty to twenty five years of activity. One of my main concerns will be to attend to some of the main objections that the field has been charged with in its short life, and to highlight the ways in which cognitive critics have addressed such objections. After a brief sketch of the main fields of activity, I will consider some of the possible future directions, with a focus on the different ways in which cognitive critics have embraced enactive approach-es to embodied and embedded cognition

Acumen: An interactive multimedia simulation based on situated learning theory

This paper describes the development and evaluation of a multimedia simulation for teaching research skills to business students. Graphics, sound and video are used to create semi- realistic ' microworlds' which students explore in order to solve a relatively unstructured problem, a process quite different to learning from textbooks, lectures or videos. One advantage of microworlds is that students construct meaning by actively and selectively working through a variety of information sources, a process which mimics real-world learning and enhances higher- order learning outcomes. We describe the theoretical principles used in designing the simulation, particularly situated learning theory which claims a number of advantages for teaching that is 'situated' in the context of real world problems. There is also evidence that the 'immersive' quality of microworlds may be more motivating than other teaching/ learning modes, at least to some students. As the technology for creating media- rich simulations is still new, we discuss the issue of how realistic simulations should be. Our multimedia package can be related to a long tradition of teaching methods in business that attempt to put theoretical principles into life-like contexts, via case studies, experiential learning, internships, or real-world projects. The advantages and disadvantages of computer microworlds over such methods are explored

Review Essay: Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence.

Review Essay: Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence

Learning relationships from theory to design

This paper attempts to bridge the psychological and anthropological views of situated learning by focusing on the concept of a learning relationship, and by exploiting this concept in our framework for the design of learning technology. We employ Wenger's (1998) concept of communities of practice to give emphasis to social identification as a central aspect of learning, which should crucially influence our thinking about the design of learning environments. We describe learning relationships in terms of form (one‐to‐one, one‐to‐many etc.), nature (explorative, formative and comparative), distance (first‐, second‐order), and context, and we describe a first attempt at an empirical approach to their identification and measurement

Ontological imagination: transcending methodological solipsism and the promise of interdisciplinary studies

This text is a presentation of the notion of ontological imagination. It constitutes an attempt to merge two traditions: critical sociology and science and technology studies - STS. By contrasting these two intellectual traditions, I attempt to bring together: a humanist ethical-political sensitivity and a posthumanist ontological insight. My starting point is the premise that contemporary world needs new social ontology and new critical theory based on it in order to overcome the unconsciously adapted, “slice-based” modernist vision of social ontology. I am convinced that we need new ontological frameworks of the social combined with a research disposition which I refer to as ontological imagination

Spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in dance performance

In this paper we present a study of spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in live dance performance. A multidisciplinary team comprising a choreographer, neuroscientists and qualitative researchers investigated the effects of different sound scores on dance spectators. What would be the impact of auditory stimulation on kinesthetic experience and/or aesthetic appreciation of the dance? What would be the effect of removing music altogether, so that spectators watched dance while hearing only the performers’ breathing and footfalls? We investigated audience experience through qualitative research, using post-performance focus groups, while a separately conducted functional brain imaging (fMRI) study measured the synchrony in brain activity across spectators when they watched dance with sound or breathing only. When audiences watched dance accompanied by music the fMRI data revealed evidence of greater intersubject synchronisation in a brain region consistent with complex auditory processing. The audience research found that some spectators derived pleasure from finding convergences between two complex stimuli (dance and music). The removal of music and the resulting audibility of the performers’ breathing had a significant impact on spectators’ aesthetic experience. The fMRI analysis showed increased synchronisation among observers, suggesting greater influence of the body when interpreting the dance stimuli. The audience research found evidence of similar corporeally focused experience. The paper discusses possible connections between the findings of our different approaches, and considers the implications of this study for interdisciplinary research collaborations between arts and sciences

Imagining Modernity: Kant's Wager on Possibility

In the introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason (2nd edition), Kant claims that a transcendental cognition is a one ‘that is occupied not so much with objects but rather with our mode of cognition of objects insofar as is this ought to be possible a priori (a priori möglich sein soll)’. In this paper, I argue that Kant scholarship should take into account the specific signification of the term ‘sollen’, which might require us to reconsider the usual distinction between the system of freedom and the system of nature. Following a Fichtean perspective, I will try to show that, even if ‘sollen’ in this context does not refer to a duty in the strict sense, it does refer to the demand that transcendental philosophy itself be possible. I will argue that this demand is contingent at its very origin and, accordingly, expresses a particular kind of ‘freedom’. On this basis I will consider the tribunal of reason enacted in the Critique of Pure Reason as a tribunal that emerges from a free decision, in which the transcendental philosopher imagines its own possibility. Because it is a ‘free’ and ‘contingent’ tribunal, it cannot exceed the status of a problematic philosophical strategy

Born to be Wild: Using Communities of Practice as a Tool for Knowledge Management

This paper looks at what happens when Communities of Practice are used as a tool for Knowledge Management. The original concept of a Community of Practice appears to have very little in common with the knowledge sharing communities found in Knowledge Management, which are based on a revised view of 'cultivated' communities. We examine the risks and benefits of cultivating Communities of Practice rather than leaving them 'in the wild'. The paper presents the findings from two years of research in a small microelectronics firm to provide some insights into the wild vs domesticated dichotomy and discusses the implications of attempting to tame Communities of Practice in this way.Comment: Paper presented at the Ethicomp 2010: The 'Backwards, Forwards and Sideways' changes of ICT, Tarragona, Spain, April, 2010, pp. 71 - 80