Ethics of technology: On the morality of technical artifacts

Abstract

This article raises two key points that are inescapable in developing an ethics of technology. Firstly, the need to go beyond the purely instrumental and neutral view of technologies or technical artefacts, toward a view that takes into account their active and constitutive role in the shaping of forms of life. To this end, the notions “technologies as forms of life” and “technologies as mediation” of the philosophers Langdon Winner and Peter-Paul Verbeek, respectively, are used. Secondly, the need to evaluate technologies not only in terms of the consequences of their use, but above all insofar as they promote or impede getting to a good life, or forms of life considered as good. The main objective of the article is to establish these points as relevant in developing an ethics of technology that capable of coping with the actual challenges, leaving open the solution or definitive answer of the problems posed.