Human Capabilities and Technology

The present chapter introduces and defends the Capability-Technology Affinity Thesis, i.e. the claim that there are close, but hitherto unexplored, relations between technology and the capability approach. After a general characterization of technology it provides three arguments in support of this thesis. Firstly, we show that research in the philosophy of technology in the last decades has demonstrated that views on human values and assumptions about human capabilities have been inscribed into technology. We describe how a value turn in thinking about design and a design turn in thinking about ethics come together in the beginning of the twenty-first century in what has been referred to as “value sensitive design”. Secondly, we argue that there is an internal relation between the good life and technology. Thirdly, we defend an analysis of technology as an agentive amplifier of human capabilities. We conclude by drawing attention to the fact that research in the capability approach and technological design have been disparate and that this needs to be remedied in order for the capability approach to realize its full potential as a practically relevant ethical approach concerned with improving the fate of the global poor and the quality of life in the century of high technology.