To what degree is technology in the form of products and processes capable of contributing human enhancement and wellbeing?
In cases where the impact of a technology on society is not only very negligible but overall negative and harmful, what is technology good for?
To answer these questions, Spence develops and applies a normative model based on rationalist and virtue ethics as well as stoic philosophy. Its primary purpose is to determine the essential conditions that any normative theory that seeks to assess the impact of technology on wellbeing must adequately address in order to be able to account for, explain and evaluate what contribution, if any, technology is capable of making to the attainment and enhancement of human wellbeing. Through developing this model, Spence offers a novel and important examination of the benefit of technology to our society as a whole.
Autorentext
Dr. Edward H. Spence is a philosopher specializing in moral philosophy and epistemology, as well as in applied and practical ethics in the areas of computer ethics, ethics of technology and ethics of information. He holds research positions in the School of Humanities, Discipline of Philosophy, University of Sydney Australia, the Faculty of Humanities, Discipline of Philosophy, Charles Sturt University, Australia, and the 4TU. Centre for Ethics and Technology in the Netherlands.