Papers by Diane Michelfelder
Selected Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Dec 31, 1988
Philosophy & Technology, Dec 30, 2010
Singer and others sounded a warning in the pages of the journal Nanotechnology that research into... more Singer and others sounded a warning in the pages of the journal Nanotechnology that research into the ethical, social, and legal implications (ELSI) of nanotechnology was increasingly lagging behind research into nanotechnology itself. More recently, Alfred Nordmann and Arie Rip have argued that while the pace of ELSI inquiry has now picked up, the inquiry itself is focused far too much on hypothetical and futuristic scenarios. But might there be advantages for ethicists and philosophers of technology interested in the ELSI of emerging technologies to continue to think in a speculative vein? Drawing upon some lessons learned from the development of environmental ethics, and looking primarily at information and computing technologies, I suggest three reasons as to how speculative thinking can add value to ELSI reflection. I argue that it can allow for critical values to emerge that might otherwise go unheeded, open up avenues to reframe issues that might otherwise go unnoticed, and, perhaps most importantly, permit questions to be raised that might otherwise go unvoiced.
Philosophy & Technology, May 30, 2018
Boston studies in the philosophy of science, 2018
Who benefits when philosophers and engineers get involved in academic conversations with one anot... more Who benefits when philosophers and engineers get involved in academic conversations with one another? Such conversations are often one-way streets, with philosophers offering conceptual tools, insights, and modes of inquiry that serve as contributions toward developing the philosophy of engineering and influencing practices of reflective engineering and engineering education. However, philosophers also stand to benefit from closer conversational contact with engineers, as it can bring helpful challenges not only with regard to some of philosophy’s basic assumptions, but also with regard to its common classroom practices. In this paper I take a hard look at one of these practices: the teaching of critical thinking. Long a staple within the philosophy curriculum in the US, critical thinking has in recent years been taken by those in professional engineering communities to play an important role in the formation of future engineers. I suggest that the approach to critical thinking which would be most useful to engineers would be one that underscores the value of heuristics. Such an approach to teaching critical thinking within the context of philosophy, however, is not the norm; in fact, teaching materials associated with critical thinking tend to be deeply suspicious of heuristical reasoning. Philosophy can learn from engineering about the value of heuristical reasoning as a form of critical thinking; here is a case in point, I propose, where engineering knowledge can improve philosophical knowledge.
Environmental Ethics, 2018
Technology in Society, 2017
Technology and the Good Life?
AI & SOCIETY, 2009
Philosophers and others concerned with the moral good of personal privacy most often see threats ... more Philosophers and others concerned with the moral good of personal privacy most often see threats to privacy raised by the development of pervasive computing as primarily being threats to the loss of control over personal information. Two reasons in particular lend this approach plausibility. One reason is that the parallels between pervasive computing and ordinary networked computing, where everyday transactions
Journal of Cleaner Production, 2017
Despite multiple efforts, achieving sustainable societies remains an elusive target that will req... more Despite multiple efforts, achieving sustainable societies remains an elusive target that will require transformative change at all levels. While such change has to start at the top of an organization, its success depends on effective implementation. For technical organizations, sustainability implementation rests in a large part with the many engineering teams responsible for meeting client needs and organizational targets. Project and line managers have to influence those team members to adopt the moral characteristics necessary to engineer sustainable projects as part of everyday practice. To support their leadership efforts, we draw on care ethics and sustainability ethics in the form of an engineering ethic to propose a framework to orient and ground the reflective practices of those engineering managers. We discuss the challenges involved with internalizing this framework and suggest future empirical work needed before the framework can be operationalized. Embedding sustainability in daily engineering practice has to evolve at the professional level by formulating and propagating the relevant engineering codes, and evolve at the educational level by making sustainability part of the formal engineering curriculum.
Abstract. Some kinds of technological change not only trigger new ethical problems, but also give... more Abstract. Some kinds of technological change not only trigger new ethical problems, but also give rise to questions about those very approaches to addressing ethical problems that have been relied upon in the past. Writing in the aftermath of World War II, Hans Jonas called for a new “ethics of responsibility, ” based on the reasoning that modern technology dramatically divorces our moral condition from the assumptions under which standard ethical theories were first conceived. Can a similar claim be made about the technologies of cyberspace? Do online information technologies so alter our moral condition that standard ethical theories become ineffective in helping us address the moral problems they create? I approach this question from two angles. First, I look at the impact of online information technologies on our powers of causal efficacy. I then go on to consider their impact on self-identity. We have good reasons, I suggest, to be skeptical of any claim that there is a need fo...
Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 2014
Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 2010
Some kinds of technological change not only trigger new ethical problems, but also give rise to q... more Some kinds of technological change not only trigger new ethical problems, but also give rise to questions about those very approaches to addressing ethical problems that have been relied upon in the past. Writing in the aftermath of World War II, Hans Jonas called for a new "ethics of responsibility," based on the reasoning that modern technology dramatically divorces our moral condition from the assumptions under which standard ethical theories were first conceived. Can a similar claim be made about the technologies of cyberspace? Do online information technologies so alter our moral condition that standard ethical theories become ineffective in helping us address the moral problems they create? I approach this question from two angles. First, I look at the impact of online information technologies on our powers of causal efficacy. I then go on to consider their impact on self-identity. We have good reasons, I suggest, to be skeptical of any claim that there is a need for a new, cyberspace ethics to address the moral dilemmas arising from these technologies. I conclude by giving a brief sketch of why this suggestion does not imply there is nothing philosophically interesting about the ethical challenges associated with cyberspace.
Solutions to the problem of protecting informational privacy in cyberspace tend to fall into one ... more Solutions to the problem of protecting informational privacy in cyberspace tend to fall into one of three categories: technological solutions, self-regulatory solutions, and legislative solutions. In this paper, I suggest that the legal protection of the right to online privacy within the US should be strengthened. Traditionally, in identifying where support can be found in the US Constitution for a right to informational privacy, the point of focus has been on the Fourth Amendment; protection in this context finds its moral basis in personal liberty, personal dignity, self-esteem, and other values. On the other hand, the constitutional right to privacy first established by Griswold v. Connecticut finds its moral basis largely in a single value, the value of autonomy of decision-making. I propose that an expanded constitutional right to informational privacy, responsive to the escalating threats posed to online privacy by developments in informational technology, would be more likely to find a solid moral basis in the value of autonomy associated with the constitutional right to privacy found in Griswold than in the variety of values forming the moral basis for the right to privacy backed by the Fourth Amendment.
In this contribution to the philosophical debate over distracted driving, I defend the idea that ... more In this contribution to the philosophical debate over distracted driving, I defend the idea that talking on the cell phone while driving is an activity that ought neither to be regulated by public policy means nor addressed by means of automotive safety design features, such as the augmented-reality windshield. I arrive at this conclusion through taking a phenomenologically-influenced look at what an average driver pays attention to during the act of driving an automobile. More specifically, I suggest that if driving while “celling” is taken to involve a single act of attention within a single experience, or taken to involve a “weak” form of multi-attention, a way opens up to see driving while “celling” as being “good” driving.
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Papers by Diane Michelfelder