The Technological Mediation of Morality - A Post-Phenomenological Approach to Moral Subjectivity and Moral Objectivity

This paper analyzes the moral relevance of technological artifacts and its possible role in ethical theory, by taking the postphenomenological approach that has developed around the work of Don Ihde into the domain of ethics. By elaborating a postphenomenological analysis of the mediating role of ultrasound in moral decisions about abortion, the article argues that technologies embody morality, and help to constitute moral subjectivity. This technological mediation of the moral subject is subsequently addressed in terms of Michel Foucault’s ethical position, in which ethics is about actively co–shaping one’s moral subjectivity. Integrating Foucauldian ethics and postphenomenology, the article argues that the technologicalmediation ofmoral subjectivity should be at the heart of an ethical approach that takes the moral dimensions of technology seriously

The Struggle for Technology: Towards a Realistic Political Theory of Technology

Pieter Lemmens’ neo-Marxist approach to technology urges us to rethink how to do political philosophy of technology. First, Lemmens’ high level of abstraction raises the question of how empirically informed a political theory of technology needs to be. Second, his dialectical focus on a “struggle” between humans and technologies reveals the limits of neo-Marxism. Political philosophy of technology needs to return “to the things themselves”. The political significance of technologies cannot be reduced to its origins in systems of production or social organization, but requires study at the micro-level, where technologies help to shape engagement, interaction, power, and social awareness

Designing the public sphere: information technologies and the politics of mediation

After a few decades of living with Information and Communication Technologies, we have got so much used to their presence in our daily lives, that we hardly realize that the societal and cultural revolution they are causing has only just begun. While most discussions still focus on privacy issues and on the impact of social media on interpersonal relations, a whole new generation of ICTs is currently entering the world, with potentially revolutionary impacts that require careful analysis and evaluation. Many everyday objects are currently being equipped with forms of ‘ubiquitous computing’ or ‘ambient intelligence’. At the same time, ‘augmented reality’ technologies are rapidly gaining influence. ICTs will result in smart environments, and new social relations. Rather than merely assessing and criticizing these developments ‘from the outside’, we must to learn to accompany them critically ‘from within’. The public sphere requires ‘technologies of the self’: the capability to understand technological mediations, to take them into account in technological design, and to shape our existence in interaction with them. The real choice is not between accepting of rejecting new ICTs, but between critical engagement and powerless oppositio