Contents 5
Chapter 1: Responsibility for the Social Role of Technologies 9
1.1 Designing Mediating Technologies 9
Ad 1. How can the social role of technologies be best understood? 12
Ad 2. If technologies fulfill a social role, can practitioners still be responsible? 13
Ad 3. How can practitioners work to take on this responsibility for new technologies or new employments of technologies in practice? 14
1.2 The Main Argument of This Study 15
Chapter 2 15
Chapter 3 15
Chapter 4 16
Chapter 5 17
Chapter 6 18
Chapter 7 18
Chapter 8 18
Chapter 2: Mastering Technologies 19
2.1 Traditional Debates on the Social Role of Technologies 19
2.1.1 Technological Autonomism Versus Voluntarism 21
2.1.2 Instrumentalism Versus Technological Determinism 24
2.2 The Empirical Turn in Philosophy of Technology 27
2.2.1 Human and Technological Agents 30
2.2.2 Human-Technology Associations 32
2.2.3 Changing Associations 34
2.3 ANT and Responsibility 35
Chapter 3: Actor-Networks and Taking Responsibility 38
3.1 ANT and Responsibility 38
3.2 Acting Willingly 41
The Capacity to Have Desires and Feel Emotions 42
The Capacity to Have Intentions 43
3.2.1 Debating Intentions and Responsibility 44
3.3 Causation and Mediation 47
3.3.1 The Implications of Dislocalizing Action 47
3.3.2 Distinguishing Between Different Forms of Technological Causation 50
3.4 Foreseeability and Black-Boxing 51
3.5 Responsibility: Three Problems, Three Solutions 53
Chapter 4: Becoming Responsible for Techno-Social Practices 57
4.1 Different Styles of Doing Ethics 57
4.1.1 Why Objectifying Ethics Failed 60
4.2 Intrinsic Motives and Practices in Actor-Networks 63
4.2.1 Practices Versus Networks 64
4.3 Embedded Agency 68
4.4 Explaining Forward-Looking Responsibility 70
4.4.1 Doing Good 70
4.4.2 Taking Responsibility and Practical Reasoning 74
4.5 An Ethics for Taking Responsibility for the Social Role of Technologies 76
Chapter 5: Human Practices in Technological Contexts 78
5.1 Reinterpreting Technological Mediation 78
5.2 What Do We Perceive? Technological Mediation of Factual Beliefs 82
5.3 What Can We Do? Technological Mediation of Options for Action 86
5.4 What Do We Want? Technological Mediation of Moral Beliefs 87
5.4.1 Values 90
5.4.2 Norms 91
5.4.3 Virtues 92
5.5 Again: The Question of Responsibility 93
Chapter 6: Tools for a Forward-Looking Responsibility 96
6.1 Part 1 of the Toolbox: Questions to Address 97
6.2 Part 2 of the Toolbox: Means to Answer the Questions 100
Reflective Tools: Philosophy of Imagination 101
Intersubjective Tools: Technology Assessment (TA) as an Example 102
Research Tools: Behavioral Studies 104
6.3 Part 3 of the Toolbox: Evaluating the Social Role of Technologies 106
Bodily Needs 108
Skills and Techniques 108
Social Roles 109
Morality 109
Chapter 7: Case Study: Taking Responsibility for Future Driving 111
7.1 Studying the Social Role of Intelligent Cars 111
Autonomous Driver Assistance Systems 111
Studying the Social Role of ADAS Technologies 114
7.2 Step 1: The Aims of the Technologies 117
7.3 Step 2: The Involved Practices 118
7.4 Step 3: Common Reasons of Actions of the Involved Practices 119
7.4.1 Participating in Traffic 119
7.4.2 Training for Traffic Participation 121
7.4.3 Regulating Traffic 121
7.5 Step 4: Future Use of the Technology 122
7.5.1 Participating in Traffic 122
7.5.2 Training for Traffic Participation 124
7.5.3 Regulating Traffic 124
7.6 Step 5: Mediation of Reasons for Action 125
7.6.1 Participating in Traffic 126
7.6.2 Training for Traffic Participation 128
7.6.3 Regulating Traffic 129
7.7 Evaluation 131
7.7.1 Pragmatic Criteria 131
The New Problems Should Not Be Bigger Than the Problems That the Technology Tried to Solve 131
A Scenario Is More Desirable If It Leaves More Choices Open in the Future 132
7.7.2 Substantive Criteria 133
Biological Vulnerabilities 133
Skills 133
Social Roles 135
Morality 135
Chapter 8: Will We Accept Responsibility? 137
8.1 Responsible Beings 137
8.2 Technological Mediation 138
8.3 Taking Responsibility in Practice 140
8.4 Accepting Responsibility 141
Literature 143
Index 150