Ethics and the Design of Technology

Catalog description

Humans have always created artifacts and artificial environments to aid us in our survival and to help fulfill our needs and desires. Moreover, today technology is all pervasive, transforming and conditioning our social and political relations, our cultural understanding of ourselves, and our relationship with other animals and the natural environment. Designers make important choices concerning the creation, development, and deployment of many if not most technological innovations. Consequently, the task of the designer is an ethical one. It is therefore important to give future designers the opportunity to reflect upon the meaning of technology, particularly in its moral dimensions. Two means will be used to achieve our course goals. Much of the time will be spent thinking about and discussing the various impacts that particular technologies have upon the social, cultural, and political lives of human beings and upon the natural environment. To facilitate thoughtful discussion, we will read a number of authors, writing short papers in preparation for critical discussion in class. The second means is aimed at putting our ideas into practice by working in teams on several design projects. These design projects will require the integration of readings, discussion, and research and their synthesis to resolve the moral aspect of a design problem. Student teams will work cooperatively on these projects and make oral progress reports as well as final written and oral reports.