Monday, August 25, 2008
Seminar: Anticipating the interaction of technology & morality
The aim of this closed seminar is to discuss the feasibility and desirability of techno-ethical scenarios to anticipate the mutual interaction of technology and morality.
The aim of this closed seminar is to discuss the feasibility and desirability of techno-ethical scenarios to anticipate the mutual interaction of technology and morality. Scenarios of socio-technological futures are by now a common tool to stimulate public and expert imagination and deliberation about plausible consequences of new and emerging technologies. Unfortunately, most scenario studies tend to treat moral beliefs as independent variables, as if these were immune to technological influences. Scenario studies thus fail to systematically explore the mutual and dynamic interaction of technology and morality, even though such an interaction is only to be expected because of the general co-evolution of technoscience and society.
This observation served as a starting point for a research project we have been conducting recently, funded by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The purpose of this project, entitled ‘Developing scenarios of moral controversies concerning new (biomedical) technologies’, was to develop a theoretical framework for the systematic exploration of future moral controversies pertaining to emerging biomedical technologies. This framework should enable users to anticipate potential moral controversies at an early stage of technology development. Moreover, in doing so it should do justice to the interaction of technological and moral development by treating both as mutually dependent variables.
In the course of the project we have developed such a framework, partly on the basis of historical studies of past controversies. This framework has subsequently been used to write several techno-ethical scenarios of emerging technologies.
Program
Location: Drienerburght Hotel, University of Twente
Monday, August 25
| 9.00 | Welcome with coffee |
| 9.15 | Dr. Tsjalling Swierstra |
| Introduction to the research project: anticipating the interaction of technology and morality | |
| 10.15 | Dr. Margo Trappenburg & Drs.Hester van de Bovenkamp |
| Working with the methodology: examples from the project [1] | |
| 11.15 | Coffee and tea break |
| 11.30 | Dr. Marianne Boenink & Dr Dirk Stemerding |
| Working with the methodology: examples from the project [2] | |
| 12.30 | Lunch |
| 13.30 | Prof. dr. Armin Grunwald |
| Comments from the perspective of TA and ethics | |
| 14.30 | Dr. Paul Martin |
| Comments from the perspective of science and technology studies | |
| 15.30 | Coffee and tea break |
| 16.00 | Prof.dr.Rein de Wilde |
| Comments from the perspective of scenario studies | |
| 17.00 | General discussion |
| 17.30 | Drinks |
| 19.00 | Dinner |
Tuesday, August 26
| 9.00 | Dr. Simone van der Burg |
| Practices and Scenarios: a neo-Aristotelian perspective | |
| 10.00 | Dr. Mark Coeckelbergh |
| Comments from moral imagination | |
| 11.00 | Coffee and tea break |
| 11.15 | Prof.dr.Wibren van der Burg |
| Comments from the perspective of ethics, dynamics, and moral change | |
| 12.15 | Lunch |
| 13.15 | Prof.dr. Hub Zwart |
| Comments from the perspective of imagining of socio-technical futures | |
| 14.15 | Dr. Elin Palm |
| Comments from the perspective of ethical TA | |
| 15.15 | Tea/Coffee |
| 15.30 | Dr. Wybo Dondorp |
| Comments from (Ethics and) Health Policy | |
| 16.30 | Conclusions |
| 17.00 | Drinks & farewell |
