Ethics, technology development and uncertainty: an outline for any future ethics of technology

Purpose – This conceptual paper aims to examine theoretical issues in the proactive ethical assessment of technology development, with a focus on uncertainty. Although uncertainty is a fundamental feature of complex technologies, its importance has not yet been fully recognized within the field of ethics. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to study uncertainty in technology development and its consequences for ethics.Design/methodology/approach – Going on the insight of various scientific disciplines, the concept of uncertainty will be scrutinised and a typology of uncertainty is proposed and introduced to ethical theory. The method used is theoretical and conceptual analysis.Findings – The analysis results in questions with regard to the collection of information about the object of assessment (i.e. complex technologies and their development) and the framework of assessment (i.e. ethical theory and its practical aim of guiding the assessment of technology development). Moreover, based on the insights of...

[1]  J. Habermas.  Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action , 1990 .

[2]  Steve Clarke,et al.  Future Technologies, Dystopic Futures and the Precautionary Principle , 2005, Ethics and Information Technology.

[3]  Adriaan Slob,et al.  User behavior and technology development : shaping sustainable relations between consumers and technologies , 2006 .

[4]  J. Moor.  What Is Computer Ethics?* , 1985, The Ethics of Information Technologies.

[5]  Warren E. Walker,et al.  Defining Uncertainty: A Conceptual Basis for Uncertainty Management in Model-Based Decision Support , 2003 .

[6]  Paul Cilliers,et al.  Complexity, Deconstruction and Relativism , 2005 .

[7]  Deborah G. Johnson.  Ethics online , 1997 .

[8]  Marko P. Hekkert,et al.  Perceived uncertainties regarding socio-technological transformations: towards a framework , 2006 .

[9]  Ulrich Beck,et al.  World Risk Society , 1999 .

[10]  Mark Timmons,et al.  Moral Theory: An Introduction , 2001 .

[11]  D. Collingridge.  The social control of technology , 1980 .

[12]  Adina Schwartz,et al.  Reason and Morality , 1979 .

[13]  F. Knight.  The economic nature of the firm: From Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit , 2009 .

[14]  E. Tenner.  Why things bite back : technology and the revenge of unintended consequences , 1996 .

[15]  Peter P.C.C. Verbeek,et al.  Technology and user behavior: an introduction. , 2006 .

[16]  John Weckert,et al.  The Precautionary Principle in Nanotechnology , 2006 .

[17]  R. Brownsword,et al.  Principle, Proceduralism, and Precaution in a Community of Rights , 2006 .

[18]  Deryck Beyleveld,et al.  The Dialectical Necessity of Morality: An Analysis and Defense of Alan Gewirth's Argument to the Principle of Generic Consistency , 1991 .

[19]  René von Schomberg,et al.  From the Ethics of Technology Towards an Ethics of Knowledge Policy & Knowledge Assessment , 2007 .

[20]  Philip Brey,et al.  Disclosive computer ethics , 2000, CSOC.

[21]  Marko P. Hekkert,et al.  Perceived uncertainties regarding socio-technological transformations : towards a typology , 2005 .