Many of the choices that designers and engineers make during a design process impact not only the functionality, usability, or aesthetics of a technology, but also impact the values that might be... Show More

Many of the choices that designers and engineers make during a design process impact not only the functionality, usability, or aesthetics of a technology, but also impact the values that might be supported or undermined via the technology design. Designers can actively design for values, and this awareness has led to the development of various ‘ethics by design' approaches. One such approach is capability sensitive design (CSD). Thus far, CSD is only developed from a theoretical-ethical point of view. This article aims to bridge the theory-practice gap by entering into dialogue with various design-experts on ethics by design in general and CSD in particular. An empirical study, consisting of thematic interviews with nine design-experts, was conducted in order to explore design-experts' experiences with designing for values, what they regard as the strengths and weaknesses of CSD, and if CSD could be of practical use to their design (research) practice.

What happens when an engineer attempts to address the value-neutral paradigm and the holistic deficits in engineering science? This paper sets out to account for the interplay between an unmanned... Show More

What happens when an engineer attempts to address the value-neutral paradigm and the holistic deficits in engineering science? This paper sets out to account for the interplay between an unmanned aerial system engineer acting as a “champion” of value sensitive design (VSD) and their more objectivist research organization. Action research methods are used by the authors in an attempt to implement VSD in a real-world research organization and thereby bridge the theory-practice gap. Primary empirical data are collected which indicate the engineer has internalized and often utilizes a VSD approach. Both barriers and catalysts to wider adoption of VSD within the organization are experienced, and recommendations for overcoming paradigmatic, strategic, structural, and cultural barriers are addressed. This work demonstrates how action research can be used to shift engineering away from a value-neutral paradigm towards the value-sensitive approach advocated by the authors.

The scientific community engaged in research practices of high-energy physics in megascience laboratories is constituted by various subcommunities. These subcommittees are involved in engineering... Show More

The scientific community engaged in research practices of high-energy physics in megascience laboratories is constituted by various subcommunities. These subcommittees are involved in engineering activities and preoccupied by phenomenal analyses. In recent decades, interdisciplinary accelerator and detector researchers, whose work is rooted in engineering, have replaced the experimentalists and instrumentalists of the 1970s; however, the role of pure theorists has remained essentially unchanged. In this article, the author clarifies the roles and specializations of these groups and explicate community members' blurred professional identities; the emphasis lies on engineering specialists and experimentalists. This research also attempts to clarify the reasons for the substantial imbalance of prestige among groups and how it is associated with access to highly valued epistemic practices such as articulating statements regarding natural phenomena. This paper applies an ethical theory framework to reveal how the lack of access to phenomenal knowledge expression—despite mediated contribution to knowledge production—creates participatory epistemic injustice. Finally, the author suggests ways to address this problem.

The present paper is an attempt to answer Bernard Williams' classical dilemma of George the chemist, who is asked by a senior colleague to partake in a CBW research program. Both George and the... Show More

The present paper is an attempt to answer Bernard Williams' classical dilemma of George the chemist, who is asked by a senior colleague to partake in a CBW research program. Both George and the colleague oppose the research, and George is advised not to publicize his attitude for George to get the job instead of someone more eager. On the one hand, George does not want to be involved in the research, yet on the other hand, he does not want to allow it to be completed faster. The author views George's potential actions as sabotage and argues that since the existing ethical codes demand putting safety ahead of the pressures of the employers, sabotage should not be out of the question. CBW endangers entire communities, and thus secretly sabotaging its research amounts to disaster prevention and should be considered a professional duty by consequentialists and deontologists alike, even if it may involve deception and furthermore deception about deception.

Up to 70% of all watch time on YouTube is due to the suggested content of its recommender system. This system has been found, by virtue of its design, to be promoting conspiratorial content. In this... Show More

Up to 70% of all watch time on YouTube is due to the suggested content of its recommender system. This system has been found, by virtue of its design, to be promoting conspiratorial content. In this paper, the author firstly critiques the value neutrality thesis regarding technology, showing it to be philosophically untenable. This means that technological artefacts can influence what people come to value (or perhaps even embody values themselves) and change the moral evaluation of an action. Secondly, he introduces the concept of an affordance, borrowed from the literature on ecological psychology. This concept allows him to make salient how technologies come to solicit certain kinds of actions from users, making such actions more or less likely, and in this way influencing the kinds of things one comes to value. Thirdly, he critically assesses the results of a study by Alfano et al. He makes use of the literature on affordances, introduced earlier, to shed light on how these technological systems come to mediate our perception of the world and influence action.

There are many and diverse methods available that can help researchers, designers, developers, and engineers integrate ethics in their research and innovation projects. In practice, however, they... Show More

There are many and diverse methods available that can help researchers, designers, developers, and engineers integrate ethics in their research and innovation projects. In practice, however, they can find this challenging. They may believe that such methods are difficult and time-consuming, or that ethics hinders innovation and creativity. Borrowing from various methods, the authors created a lightweight method that researchers and designers can use to integrate ethics in their projects: rapid ethical deliberation. This research collaborated with four projects to assess this method in practice. The authors found that this method helped project team members in several ways: to envision the innovations they work in very practical terms; to look at these innovation from different normative, ethical perspectives; to look at their projects with fresh eyes and engage in creative and strategic thinking; and to articulate critical questions and associated actions to move their projects forward.

Engineering develops technologies that shape the way of relating to ourselves and others, and the last developments in robotics force us to focus on the effects of their introduction. New robots... Show More

Engineering develops technologies that shape the way of relating to ourselves and others, and the last developments in robotics force us to focus on the effects of their introduction. New robots have been designed to be intimate and even potential sexual partners. Many studies work on the ethical implications of sex robots by providing a normative approach to ethically assess their introduction in the society. However, few works focus on the effects they have on the relations binding people in general, and even fewer works focus on these effects from a phenomenological perspective. This paper aims at analyzing how technologies shape the relationships from a phenomenological perspective by highlighting the process of the constitution of subjects in a love relationship. More specifically, this work shows what happens when a human being is in a love relationship while the partner uses sex robots through the analysis of texts by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. In conclusion, this paper wants to provide a novel application of phenomenological concepts to intimate relationships with robots.