## 1. Views on the Nature of Information Technology



It seems obvious that a world with information technology is somehow
different from a world without information technology. But what is the
difference? Is it a difference of degree (faster, closer, clearer,
etc.) or is it a difference of kind? Does technology shape society or
society shape technology, or both shape each other? What is the nature
of this shaping? Is it in practices, in ways of thinking, or is it
more fundamental? The answers to these questions will obviously
influence the judgements we make about the social and ethical
implications of information technology when we consider the policy and
practical concerns of using information technology in a particular
domain (such as commerce, education or government).



The answers to these questions are also grounded to a large extent in
one's particular, implicit or explicit, ontology of information
technology itself; what is the nature--way of being--of
information technology as such? Obviously many different ontological
positions are possible and have emerged. Nevertheless, it may be
useful for the purposes of this entry to discern at least two
contrasting and prevailing views against which the contribution of
phenomenology can be rendered visible. The purpose of this section is
solely to make the distinctive contribution of phenomenology visible
rather than being a complete presentation of all possible approaches.
For example, obvious omissions from the approaches suggested here are
the Marxist or Critical Theory perspective as reflected in the work of
Andrew Feenberg (1991, 1999), and a poststructuralist perspective as
reflected in the work of Jean Baudrillard (1983) and Paul Virilio
(1994). This said, the approaches that are included here are
reasonably widely held and would as such function as a helpful
contrast to the contribution of phenomenology.


### 1.1 Information Technology as an Artifact or Tool



The most common view of information technology is that it is an
artifact or tool simply available, to use of not to use, in order for
humans to achieve their objectives and outcomes. Some of these tools
might be very useful and others not. When users (and the term
'user' here is important) take up a tool or artifact (word
processor, mobile phone, etc) it will tend to have an impact on the
way they do things. For example if I write with a word processor I
would tend to have different writing practices than I would with pen
and paper--for example, with the 'cutting and
pasting'function of a word processor I can simply type out my
ideas and then reorder them later without being preoccupied with the
composition of the whole from the start. Thus, tools function as
extensions of human capabilities, allowing us to achieve what we can
not achieve with the body alone--and one might add that some
tools are more 'extensive' than others as our pen vs. word
processor suggest. According to this view, we need to understand the
impact that the use of the tools (information technology in this case)
has on human society as they are taken up and used in everyday
practices. For example, how will communication with mobile phones
change our social interaction and social relationships? In asking such
a question this view does not primarily concern itself with the
development of the technology--why and how did it come about in
the first instance. It mostly assumes that the design of a particular
technology is rational and objective; one might call it an engineering
or scientific solution to a particular problem. It also mostly assumes
that the particular technology--mobile phones in this
case--operates in a more or less uniform manner in different
social practices and settings. In other words, it assumes that a
particular technology has certain determinate effects on, or in, the
context of its use. This way of conceptualizing information technology
leads to questions such as "what is the impact of the mobile
phone on communication patterns" or "what is the impact of
mobile phones on privacy/privacy expectations". This view of
technology is often criticized for a greater or lesser degree of
technological determinism. Technological determinism is the view that
technology more or less causes certain ways of doing or ways of
organizing to come about. For example, a technological determinist may
argue that the Internet's open and non-hierarchical architecture
can more or less *cause* a society that uses it to become more
open and less hierarchical. The work of Postman (1993) is an example
of this type of critical evaluation of the impact of technology on
society.


### 1.2 Information Technology as Socially Constructed Artifacts and Actors



Many scholars argue that the tool and impact view above of information
technology does not give an adequate account of the relationship
between information technology and society (Bijker, Pinch, and Hughes
1987, Bijker 1995, Law 1991, Latour 1991). Firstly, it does not take
into account that the technology does not simply appear but is the
outcome of complex and socially situated development and design
practices. In this development and design process many alternative
options become excluded in favour of the technology that is now
available--obviously with important social and normative
implications. In other words there are many cultural, political and
economic forces that shape the particular options suggested as well as
the way the selected options become designed and implemented (Bijker,
Pinch, and Hughes 1987). It is not only technology that
'impacts' on society; technology itself is already the
outcome of complex and subtle social processes and practices--in
other words it is socially constructed in a very direct and
significant manner. In short: our current technologies were not
inevitable, things could have been substantially otherwise. Moreover,
they argue that when we look at the actual uses of particular
technologies we discover that users use them in many diverse and often
unexpected ways--leading to many and diverse unintended
consequences. Both in its design and in its actual use there is an
ongoing reciprocal relationship in which society and technology
co-construct each other; they act through and upon each other.
Technology is not simply passive tools, waiting for us to use them.
They circumscribe our possibilities and enact significant
'scripts' (Latour, 1991) that shape us as much as we shape
them. As Latour (2005, 107) suggests, technologies (as actors) make us
do things but "not by transporting a force that would remain the
same throughout as some sort of faithful intermediary, but by
generating transformations manifested in many unexpected events
triggered in the other mediators that follow them along the
line." The degree to which the technology/society distinction is
useful at all (ontologically or analytically) varies between the
different constructivist authors--for example, Brey (1997)
identifies three different strands of constructivist approaches. Those
who support this view claim that it is very difficult to make general
statements about the 'impact' of a technology in some
general terms. One can, at most, speak of some general trends for
which many exceptions will invariably exist. For the proponents of the
this constructivist view it is important to understand, through
detailed descriptive accounts, the particular ways in which
technologies emerge and become embedded in particular social
practices. Examples of such studies can be found in the work of Bijker
(1995), Law (1991) and Latour (1991). 


### 1.3 Information Technology as an Ongoing Horizon of Meaning and Action



For the phenomenologist the tool and impact view of technology as well
as the constructivist view of the technology/society relationships are
entirely valid in their own terms but not adequate (Heidegger 1977,
Borgmann 1985, Winograd and Flores 1987, Ihde 1990, Dreyfus 1992,
2001, Verbeek 2005). They argue that these accounts of technology, and
the technology/society relationship, posit technology and society as
if speaking about the one does not immediately and already draw upon
the other for its ongoing sense or meaning. For the phenomenologist
society and technology co-constitute each other from the very start;
they are each other's ongoing condition or possibility for being
what they are. For them technology is not just the artifact,
'out there' as it were. Rather, for them the artifact
already emerges from a prior 'technological' attitude
towards the world (Heidegger 1977), or is indeed already the
constitutive possibility for the human to be human as such (Stiegler,
1998, 2009). For example, as the already technologically oriented
human beings that we are, we will tend to conceive communication as a
problem requiring a technological solution. Thus, technology is
already the outcome of a technological way of looking and relating
ourselves to the world. Once in place technology allows the world to
'show up' in particular ways (Introna and Ilharco 2003).
For example you are a different person to me with a mobile phone than
without one. With a mobile phone you become disclosed, or show up, as
'contactable', 'within reach' as it were. It
is this way of thinking about information technology, as co-original
with the human, and as a horizon of meaning and action, that we want
to elaborate further before we can elaborate how these various ways of
conceptualizing technology shape our views on the social and ethical
implications of such technologies. Before proceeding it should be
noted that the most recent work of Bruno Latour (2002, 2005) suggests
that he has taken up many of the insights of phenomenology in his
ongoing work. Thus, the later Latour (2002, 2005) can be seen as a
bridging figure between the constructivist tradition and the
phenomenological tradition (for more detailed arguments in this regard
refer to Graham Harman's (2009) book on Latour's
metaphysical ground). 


## 2. Phenomenological Approaches to Technology



We started this discussion by suggesting that phenomenology
investigates the conditions of what makes things appear as such, or,
that phenomenology suggests that there is a co-constitutive
relationship between us and the phenomena we encounter in our
engagement with the world. Before we move on it might be helpful to
clarify this point with a simple everyday example. Let us take the
human experience of listening to music and consider it
phenomenologically. From the perspective of physics and physiology,
music is constituted by a flux of waves of particular frequencies to
which the inner ear may be sensitive. Indeed, once so analyzed, it is
possible to create a technological device such as a tape recorder that
is sensitive to these same sounds, and can even replay them on
command. Human beings, however, when they hear sounds in everyday life
never take them simply as a stream of sounds, rather they find
themselves already listening to something particular--a cry for
help, an automobile breaking, construction noise, or a piece of music.
Indeed it would take a very strange sort of attitude to hear sounds
and take them as a flux of waves of particular frequencies. Listening
is different than registering or recording. To listen is to already
take sounds as this or that. In listening, the taking of sound as
music implies an already existing sense of what music is, something
that makes it possible for us to take these sounds as music rather
than noise. Furthermore, in listening to music, this listening is
informed by an ongoing sense (or unity) of movement, rhythm, tone,
scale, style, and so forth. This ongoing active unity provides an
active and ongoing framework (or necessary background) that enables
me, in the experience of listening (right now), to simultaneously
'retain' the sounds I no longer hear (the past), and in
anticipation to 'fill in' the sounds I am not yet hearing,
yet already anticipate (the future). As a phenomenological being I
find myself listening to music, not merely recording sounds after the
manner of a technological device. For phenomenologists the relevant
question is: What are the transcendental conditions that make it
possible for humans to listen to music, as music, rather than merely
record sounds?



What is it that enables us to encounter music in its fullness even
though we are always given, at any particular point in time, only some
limited aspect of such a phenomenon (the current note I am hearing)?
The answer of phenomenology is that it is the *transcendental
horizon or conditions* that make our encounter with the world
possible. One could say that the transcendental is the background, or
horizon, that makes the meaningful experience of the foreground
possible. Yet insofar as such a formulation suggests a background that
is somehow separate and 'behind' that which appears in the
foreground, it would be incorrect. The transcendental horizon is
always and immediately already present in the very appearing as
such--this is exactly what makes a horizon
'disappear' or withdraw from our focal awareness. It is so
evident that it simply does not come up as an issue. It is this
seemingly 'forgotten' constitutive horizon that is the
focus of phenomenology. All phenomenological approaches have as their
focus a 'return' to this vital co-constitutive interplay
between the 'foreground' and the 'background'.
Thus, all phenomenological studies share at least the underlying view
that technology and society co-constitute each other by being each
other's reciprocal and ongoing condition or possibility for
being what they are. As such they continually draw on each other for
their ongoing sense or meaning. For the purposes of this entry it
might be best to indicate some of the existing phenomenological
studies of technology in four different but intimately connected
strands (this is not a comprehensive list, it is rather indicative of
common themes or approaches):


* Phenomenology as a fundamental critique of the technological
attitude as such (Martin Heidegger 1977)
* Original technicity and the human being (Stiegler 1998,
2009);
* The technological attitude as manifested in our contemporary
relationship with particular technologies (Hubert Dreyfus 1992 and
Albert Borgmann 1984);
* A phenomenology of the human/technology relationship (Don Ihde
1990).


### 2.1 A Fundamental Critique of the Technological Attitude



Probably the most famous phenomenological analysis of
technology--or rather the technological attitude that gives rise
to artifacts--is Martin Heidegger's (1977) essay *The
Question Concerning Technology*. This essay is important as a
reference point because it illustrates forcefully the most important
and distinctive claim of phenomenology vis-a-vis technology.
Technology is not merely an artifact or our relationship with this or
that artifact; rather, the artifact--and our relationship with
it--is already an outcome of a particular
'technological' way of seeing and conducting ourselves in
and towards the world. Heidegger (1977) famously claimed that
"the essence of technology is nothing technological"
(p.4).



For Heidegger the essence of technology is the way of being of modern
humans--a way of conducting themselves towards the
world--that sees the world as something to be ordered and shaped
in line with projects, intentions and desires--a 'will to
power' that manifest itself as a 'will to
technology.' It is in this technological *mood* that
problems show up as already requiring technical solutions. The term
'mood' here is used to refer to a collectively held
'sense' (or way of grasping) of an event or a situation;
we often use it when we refer to the 'mood of the meeting'
or the 'mood of our times.' He calls this technological
mood *enframing* (*Gestell* in German). With this term
he wants to denote that the modern mood takes or approaches the world
as always and already framed, i.e., enframed. Heidegger claims that
for us, living in the technological age, the world is already framed
as a resource available for us, to be made, to be shaped for our
ongoing possibilities to express our particular projects, to be
whatever we are, as business people, engineers, consultants,
academics, teenagers, etc. In short: technology makes sense because we
already live in the technological age or mood where the world (and we
as beings that are never 'out' of the world) are already
framed in this way--as available resources for the ongoing
challenging and ordering of the world by us. For him the essence of
technology is not the particular artifacts but the technological mood
that make this or that particular artifacts show up as meaningful and
necessary.



Heidegger claims that there were other times in human history, a
pre-modern time, where humans did not orient themselves towards the
world in a technological way--simply as resources for our
purposes. He suggests that in ancient Greek culture humans'
relationship with the world was one of 'letting be'; a
world approached in an attitude or mood of reciprocal
'care.' This must not be taken as some sort of romantic
vision of the past in which everybody in ancient Greece
'cared' for the world in contrast to the modern
technological mood where everybody takes the world as something to be
challenged and ordered. It is rather saying that the mood, the
horizon, in which we conduct ourselves tends to dispose us in
particular ways. Obviously there were also artifacts in ancient times.
However, according to Heidegger this 'pre-technological'
age (or mood) is one where humans' relation with the world and
artifacts, their way of being disposed, was poetic and aesthetic
rather than technological (enframing). The act of making and shaping
the artifact was directed by a different attitude or mood. Since the
world was not taken as 'available for ordering' a certain
reciprocal care and intimacy was possible (and cultivated) in which
the world was 'let to be'--to let the world show
itself in its own terms. He claims that the pre-modern craftsman makes
"the old wooden bridge" that "lets the river run its
course." However, in the horizon of the technological mood this
same river is disclosed as a possibility for a "hydroelectric
plant" that turns the river into a reservoir, a resource on
standby for our projects, challenged and framed as available.



There are many who disagree with Heidegger's account of the
modern technological attitude as the 'enframing' of the
world (Feenberg 1999, Pitt 2000). For example Andrew Feenberg (1999)
argues that Heidegger's account of modern technology is not
borne out in contemporary everyday encounters with technology. When we
look more carefully we see many individual situations in which the
technological attitude does not hold sway, where people have intimate
relationships with artifacts that cannot merely be dismissed as
instances of enframing. Others, such as Hubert Dreyfus and Albert
Borgmann, have extended Heidegger's work into more specific
critiques of particular technologies and particular contemporary ways
of being.


### 2.2 Original Technicity and the Human Being



Bernard Stiegler is mostly known for his multi-volume work
*Technics and Time (La technique et le temps*). In this
multi-volume work he argues that the human and the technical are
co-original--in other words that the technical did not emerge out
of the (already constituted) human or the human out of the (already
constituted) technical but that these two ontological domains
co-constituted each other from the very start. To make his argument he
draws on the work of Heidegger and Derrida but also very significantly
on the work of the paleoanthropologist Andre Leroi-Gourhan--in
particular his widely recognized *Gesture and Speech*
(originally published in French in 1964). In this work Leroi-Gourhan
argues that there is a fundamental continuity from the biological to
the sociological and that this continuity is realized through the
mediation of technology. He sees the use of tools (made possible by
the freeing of the hands when in the upright position) as a process of
'exteriorization' in which the process of evolution is
transferred from the zoological domain to the technical
domain--or as Stiegler suggests "the continuation of life
by means other than life" (1998, 50). Thus, unlike other
mammals, humans remain generalists who specialize--as and when
required--by exteriorizing these specialized capabilities in the
technical domain outside of the human body. This exteriorization is
also simultaneously reflected (or mirrored) back as a process of
interiorization where the technologies become embodied by the humans
who use them. Stiegler uses the notion of
'epiphylogenesis' to describe this extra-genetic
co-evolution of the human and the technical. Through epiphylogenesis
culture becomes possible as the 'the inorganic organization of
*memory*' (1998, 174, my emphasis). Thus, for him
"[t]he human invents himself in the technical by inventing the
tool--by becoming exteriorized technologically" (1998,
141). Moreover, Stiegler suggests that without these technically
inscribed memory systems we would not be able to exist *in*
time. Without the material technicity we humans would be unable to
experience the past and would have nothing to 'select'
from in order to invent the future. Thus, without technicity (what he
calls "organized inorganic matter") we will exist in a
perpetual present without any hope of transcending it. This point is
indeed also made by Latour (2005) in his discussion of technology as
mediators. As such culture and society will not be possible. Thus, for
Stiegler the constitutive transcendental horizon of the human is
technicity, from which emerges the conditions of possibility of time,
society and culture.



If the claims made by Stiegler are correct then this fundamental unity
between the human and the technical (as expressed through the idea of
epiphylogenesis) have important implications for how we think about
our relationship with technology. It is not just something 'out
there' it is also immediately something 'in here',
at the very source of our humanity. This means that when we design new
technological systems we are also designing the sort of humans that we
are (or will become). We are adding to the archive that will afford
future generations their possibilities for being and also
simultaneously framing the way our human past will be recalled and
remembered. This co-evolution of the human and the technical also
means that we cannot escape the technical--our being is always already
technical. It is not something alien that we can get rid of, or choose
to be without. Within this perspective technology becomes the central
question in which many of the most fundamental questions of what it
means to be human becomes opened up in new and unexpected ways (this
is why Stiegler argues that technicity is the central philosophical
question which has been forgotten ever since the Greeks). 



The radical nature of Stiegler's project means that there are
many who disagree with him. For example Vaccari (2009) argues that the
fundamental genetic concepts of 'inscription' and
'transmission' at the centre of Stiegler's argument
have been severely criticized (especially in the biological sciences
where it originates). He also suggests that there is a certain
determinism at the heart of Stiegler's programme, which has been
severely criticized by many constructivists such as Latour. 


### 2.3 The Technological Attitude in Contemporary Society and Technologies



Phenomenology has not only been used to address questions of
philosophical anthropology, as one might suggest is the case with
Heidegger and Stiegler. Hubert Dreyfus (1992) has used it very
effectively to provided a devastating critique of the classical
program in artificial intelligence (AI) research. In his critique
Dreyfus (1992) argues that the way skill development has become
understood in the past has been wrong. He argues--using the
earlier work of Heidegger in *Being and Time*--that the
classical conception of skill development, going back as far as Plato,
assumes that we start with the particular cases and then abstract from
these to discover and internalize more and more sophisticated and
general rules. Indeed, he argues, this is the model that the early
artificial intelligence community uncritically adopted. In opposition
to this view he argues, with Heidegger, that what we observe when we
learn a new skill in everyday practice is in fact the opposite. We
most often start with explicit rules or preformulated approaches and
then move to a multiplicity of particular cases, as we become an
expert. His argument draws directly on Heidegger's account in
*Being and Time* of humans as beings that are always already
situated in-the-world. As humans 'in-the-world' we are
already experts at going about everyday life, at dealing with the
subtleties of every particular situation--that is why everyday
life seems so obvious. Thus, the intricate expertise of everyday
activity is forgotten and taken for granted by AI as an assumed
starting point.



Dreyfus proceeds to give an account of five stages of becoming an
expert as a way to critique the programme of AI. In his account a
novice acts according to conscious and context-free rules and
generally lacks a sense of the overall task and situational elements.
The advanced beginner adds, through experience, situational aspects to
the context-free rules to gain access to a more sophisticated
understanding of the situation. The relationship between the
situational aspects and rules are learned through carefully chosen
examples, as it is difficult to formalize them. The competent person
will have learnt to recognize a multiplicity of context-free rules and
situational aspects. However, this may lead to being overwhelmed as it
becomes difficult to know what to include or exclude. The competent
individual learns to take a particular perspective on the situation,
thereby reducing the complexity. However, such 'taking of a
stand' means a certain level of risk taking is involved that
requires commitment and personal involvement. For the proficient most
tasks are performed intuitively. As an involved and situated actor the
relevant situational aspects show up as part of the ongoing activity
and need not be formalized. Nevertheless, a pause may still be
required to think analytically about a relevant response. For the
expert relevant situational aspects as well as appropriate actions
emerge as an implicit part of the ongoing activity within which the
expert is totally absorbed, involved, and committed. The task is
performed intuitively, almost all the time. In the ongoing activity of
the expert thousands of special cases are discriminated and dealt with
appropriately.



With this phenomenological account of skill development in hand it is
easy to see the problem for the development of AI programmes.
Computing machines need some form of formal rules (a program) to
operate. Any attempt to move from the formal to the particular, as
described by Dreyfus above, will be limited by the ability of the
programmer to formulate rules for such a shift. Thus, what the
computer lacks (and we as human beings have) is an already there
familiarity with the world that it can draw upon as the transcendental
horizon of meaning to discern the relevant from the irrelevant in
ongoing activity--i.e., the computer is not *already* a
skilled actor (a being-in-the-world in Heidegger's terms). The
critique of Dreyfus was one of the major factors that pushed AI
researchers into new ways of thinking about AI--in particular the
development of the embodied cognition programme of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) AI Lab.



What Dreyfus highlighted in his critique of AI was the fact that
technology (AI algorithms) does not make sense by itself. It is the
assumed, and forgotten, horizon of everyday practice that make
technological devices and solutions show up as meaningful. If we are
to understand technology we need to 'return' to the
horizon of meaning that made it show up as the artifacts we need, want
and desire. We also need to consider how these technologies reveal (or
disclose) us. For example the microscope can reveal us as
'inquisitive', the gun as 'aggressive', or the
mobile phone as 'communicative', and so forth. The ongoing
co-constitution of society and technology, phenomenology's
insight, can help us to understand and make sense of complex
information technology, such as AI, but also more mundane technologies
such as word processors (Heim 1999).



In thinking about our relationship with technology in modern
contemporary life Albert Borgmann (1984) takes up the question of the
possibility of a 'free' relation with modern technology in
which everything is not already 'framed' (in
Heidegger's sense) as resources for our projects. He agrees with
Heidegger's analysis that modern technology is a phenomenon that
tends to 'frame' our relation with things, and ultimately
ourselves and others, in a one-dimensional manner--the world as
simply available resources for our projects. He argues that modern
technology frames the world for us as 'devices'. By this
he means that modern technology as devices hides the full
referentiality (or contextuality) of the world--the worldhood of
the world--upon which the devices depend for their ongoing
functioning. Differently stated, they do not disclose the multiplicity
of necessary conditions for them to be what they are. In fact, just
the opposite, they try to hide the necessary effort for them to be
available for use. A thermostat on the wall that we simply set at a
comfortable temperature now replaces the process of chopping wood,
building the fire and maintaining it. Our relationship with the
environment is now reduced to, and disclosed to us as a control that
we simply set to our liking. In this way devices
'de-world' our relationship with things by disconnecting
us from the full actuality (or contextuality) of everyday life. By
relieving us of the burden--of making and maintaining fires in
our example--our relationship with the world becomes disclosed in
a new way, as simply there, already available for us. Obviously, this
is sometimes necessary otherwise the burden of everyday life might
just be too much. Nevertheless, if the 'device mood'
becomes the way in which we conduct ourselves towards the world then
this will obviously have important moral and ethical implications for
others who may then become disclosed as devices.



Against such a disengaging relationship with things in the world
Borgmann argues for the importance of focal practices based on focal
things. Focal things solicit our full and engaging presence. We can
think of the focal practice of preparing and enjoying a meal with
friends or family as opposed to a solitary consumption of a fast food
meal. If we take Borgmann's analysis seriously we might conclude
that we, as contemporary humans surrounded by devices, are doomed
increasingly to relate to the world in a disengaged manner. Such a
totalizing conclusion would be inappropriate since the prevailing mood
does not *determine* our relationship with those we encounter.
Nevertheless, Borgmann's analysis does point to the possibility
of the emergence of a device mood--as we increasingly depend on
devices--and our moral obligation not to settle mindlessly into
the convenience that devices may offer us. Otherwise we might, as
Heidegger (1977) argued, become the devices of our devices.


### 2.4 A (Post) Phenomenology of the Human/Technology Relationship



Phenomenology does not only function as an approach to reveal and
critique our relationship with technology, as suggested by Heidegger,
Dreyfus and Borgmann. Don Ihde (1990, 1995, 2002, 2010) has used the
resources of phenomenology to give a rich and subtle account of the
variety and complexity of our relationship with technology--what
he refers to as a postphenomenology of technology (Ihde 2009, 2010;
Selinger 2006). With postphenomenology Ihde wants to move away from
'transcendental' (and often dystopian) grand narratives of
the technological to a more grounded empirical analysis of the
human/technology relationship. This move to the empirical is often
described as the 'empirical turn' in the philosophy of
technology (Achterhuis 2001). Postphenomenology is a relational
ontology, which proposes that the subject/object (or human/technology)
relation is not just interactional but also co-constitutive
(Rosenberger and Verbeek 2015). Moreover, this co-constitutive
relation is fundamentally mediated. There are no direct relations
between subject and object--only 'indirect' ones in
which technologies often function as mediators, not to connect but to
co-constitute. As such, the human-world relation is typically a
human-technology-world relation. In this relation, there are no
pre-given subjects or pre-given objects (which then connect through
some form of mediators). Rather mediation is the original source from
which a specific subjectivity and objectivity emerges, or become
enacted, as part of specific situated doings. Ihde defines this
originally mediated nature of existence as embodiment (Ihde 2011).
Postphenomenology aims to describe the varieties of
subjectivities/objectivities that emerge through different
embodiments. What sort of subjects do we become (and what does the
world become) through the embodiments of the microscope, the
telescope, self-driving cars, the computer screen, and so forth?



In thinking about these embodied human/technology relationships Ihde
characterizes four different I-technology-world relationships. The
first type of relationship he calls *embodiment* relations. In
this case technology is taken as the very medium of subjective
perceptual experience of the world, thus transforming the
subject's perceptual and bodily sense. In wearing my eyeglasses
I do not only see through them; they also become 'seen
through.' In functioning as that which they are, they already
withdraw into my own bodily sense as being a part of the ordinary way
I experience my surrounding. He denotes this relationship as having
the form [I-glasses]-world. He further argues that this relationship
has a necessary 'magnification/reduction structure'
associated with it. Embodiment relations simultaneously magnify and
amplify or reduce and place aside (screen out) what is (and is not)
experienced through them. The moon through the telescope is different
from the moon in the night sky perceived by the naked eye. The person
at the other end of the online chat is made present to me across a
great distance at the expense of being reduced to text on the
screen.



The second type of human/technology relation is what he calls
*hermeneutic*. In this type of relation the technology
functions as an immediate referent to something beyond itself.
Although I might fix my focus on the text or the map, what I actually
see (encounter) is not the map itself but rather immediately and
simultaneously the world it already refers to, the landscape already
suggested in the symbols. In this case the transparency of the
technology is hermeneutic rather than perceptual. As I become skilled
at reading maps they withdraw to become for me immediately and already
the world itself. He denotes this relationship as having the form
I-[map-world].



The third type of human/technology relations Ihde calls
'*alterity*' relations. In these relations
technology is experienced as a being that is otherwise, different from
me, technology-as-other. Examples include things such as religious
icons and intelligent robots (the
 Sony Dog AIBO
 for example). In my interaction with these technologies they seem to
exhibit a 'world of their own.' As I engage them they tend
to disengage me from the world of everyday life and point to the
possibility of other worlds, hence their pervasiveness in activities
such as play, art and sport. He denotes these as having the form
I-technology-[world], indicating that the world withdraws into the
background and technology emerges as a focal entity with which I
momentarily engage--as I play with my robot dog for example.



Ihde also recognizes a fourth type of human/technology relation in
which technology is not directly implicated in a conscious process of
engagement on the part of the human actor. Ihde refers to these as
*background* relations. Examples include automatic central
heating systems, traffic control systems, and so forth. These systems
are 'black-boxed' in such a way that we do not attend to
them yet we draw on them for our ongoing everyday existence. They
withdraw as ongoing background conditions. Although he does not
designate it as such one might formalize these relations in the form:
I-[technology]-world. These invisible background technologies can be
powerful in configuring our world in particular ways yet escape our
scrutiny.



Ihde's phenomenological description of the human/technology
relation provides a meaningful taxonomy or framework to give an
account of many everyday technology relations in a manner that can
facilitate our considerations of the social and ethical implications
of information technology. For example, the withdrawal of technology,
into my body, into my perception and into the background has important
political and ethical implications for its design and implementation.
Especially if one considers that every disclosure of the world
'through' technology is also immediately a concealment of
other possible disclosive relations. The car discloses
possibilities--for getting to places quickly--but also
conceals, in its withdrawal, the resources (roads, fuel, clean air,
etc.) necessary for it to be what it is--they act as devices in
Borgmann's terminology. Indeed we often lose sight of the
reduction/magnification structure as we simply use these technologies.
As these technologies become more and more pervasive--almost a
necessary condition of everyday life--it becomes more and more
difficult to see that which has become concealed in their withdrawal.
With Ihde's typology of I-technology-world relations we might be
able to bring what has become concealed back to the foreground for our
critical attention and ethical reflection. Let us now consider how
these different ways of approaching the information technology/society
relationship might circumscribe our thinking about the social and
ethical implications of information technology.


## 3. Ethics and Information Technology


### 3.1 The Impact of Information Technology and the Application of Ethical Theory



Much of the ethical debate about computers and information technology
more generally has been informed by the tool and impact view of
information technology (discussed in
 section 1.1
 above). Within this tradition a number of issues have emerged as
important. For example, whether computers (or information and
communication technology more generally) generate new types of ethical
problems that require new or different ethical theories or whether it
is just more of the same (Gorniak 1996). These debates are often
expressed in the language of the *impact* of information
technology on particular values and rights (Johnson 1985, 1994). Thus,
within this approach we have discussions about the impact of CCTV or
web cookies on the right to privacy, the impact of the digital divide
on the right to access information, the impact of the piracy of
software on property rights, and so forth. In these debates Jim Moor
(1985) has argued that computers show up policy vacuums that require
new thinking and the establishment of new policies. Others have argued
that the resources provided by classical ethical theory such as
utilitarianism, consequentialism and deontological ethics is more than
enough to deal with all the ethical issues emerging from our design
and use of information technology (Gert 1999). 



Irrespective of whether information technology creates new types of
ethical problems that require new ethical theory or whether
established ethical theory is sufficient, one tends to find the debate
centered on questions of policy that is intended to regulate or
justify conduct vis-a-vis the negative impact produced by
certain uses or implementations of IT. These policies are seen, and
presented as ways to regulate or balance competing rights or competing
values in the context of the impact of IT. For example, what sort of
policies do we need to protect our children when they go on the
Internet? How would these policies affect the right to free speech?
Or, what sort of policies do we need to secure the rights of producers
of digital products? How would these policies affect the right of
society to a reasonable access to these products? (Lipinski &
Britz 200). Furthermore, these debates are most often directed at an
institutional level of discourse--i.e., with the intention to
justify the policies or conduct for governments, organizations and
individuals. In these debates on the impact of technology, ethicists
are primarily conceived as presenting arguments for justifying a
particular balance, of values or rights, over and against other
possibilities within the context of specific uses or implementations
of IT. In presenting these arguments ethicists normally apply ethical
theories (such as consequentialism, utilitarianism, deontological
ethics, etc.) to new cases or problems presented by the use, or
perceived impact, of the particular technology.


### 3.2 The Politics of Information Technology and a Disclosive Ethics



The constructivist view of the information technology/society
relationship (discussed in
 section 1.2
 above) tends to lead to a different kind of reflection on the ethical
significance of information technology. They suggest that the problem
with the tool and impact view of society/technology relations is that
it assumes that the domain of society is where the ends (values,
assumptions and politics) are located and that the domain of the
technical is merely neutral means towards these ends. This view is
often expressed in the slogan 'guns do not kill people, people
do', meaning guns are merely a means to an end (which could be
peaceful or violent depending on the user of the gun). In contrast
social constructivists tend to argue that technology, as socially
constructed, is already political as such and therefore already
suggests an ethical concern. By this they mean that technology, by its
very design, includes certain interests and excludes others. This does
not mean that designers are always aware that they are making
political and ethical decisions. In fact they are mostly not. They are
mostly trying to solve very mundane everyday 'technical'
problems when they build technologies. Nevertheless, they always make
assumptions or take for granted certain values and beliefs (mostly
their own) when they construct artifacts. For example the ATM bank
machine assumes a particular person in front of it. It assumes a
person that is able to see the screen, read it, remember and enter a
personal identification (PIN) code, etc. It is not difficult to
imagine a whole section of society that does not conform to this
assumption. If you are blind, in a wheelchair, have problems
remembering, or are unable to enter a PIN, because of a disability,
then your interest in getting access to your account will be excluded
by the actual design of the ATM. In this way the ATM embodies a
particular understanding of the world (humans) in front of it. This is
why Langdon Winner (1980) argued that artifacts (and technological
systems) always already embody interests, values, etc.--that is
to say, they are always political from the start. This does not mean
that users cannot intentionally or unintentionally reinterpret the way
technology suggests or 'affords' possibilities to suit
their own needs. Users often 'read' and use technology in
ways unintended by the designers/implementers. However, as these
technological affordances become embedded in larger infrastructures
(practices, systems, spaces, organizations, etc.) it becomes
increasingly difficult to use the technology in ways other than in the
way it was set up to afford possibilities (or not).



If information technology is political--i.e., it already
includes/excludes certain interests--then it is also immediately
ethical. For the constructivist it is the particular way in which
interests become built into the technology and practices within which
it is embedded that is ethically significant (Brey 2000, 2004, 2006).
Moreover, they often argue that ethical reflection should be an
inherent part of the design process--referred to as value
sensitive design (Friedman 1997). Of particular concern is the way
information technology 'hides' these values and interests
in the logic of software algorithms and hardware circuits (Introna
& Nissenbaum, 2000). Everyday technologies such as utensils are
mostly open to scrutiny by the reflexive user. Information technology,
on the other hand, is mostly not open to such scrutiny (Brey 2000).
Important assumptions and biases in information technology are mostly
obscured and subsumed in 'black-boxes' in ways that make
it difficult even for the experts to scrutinize them. It is not
possible for the ordinary computer user to scrutinize the assumptions
and biases embedded in the code of the Microsoft Windows operating
system. Imbedded in the software and hardware code of information
technology applications are complex rules of logic and categorization
that may have material consequences for those using them, and for the
production of social order more generally (Introna & Wood 2004,
Introna & Nissenbaum 2000). In this view of information technology
ethics, the task of ethics is to open up the 'black box'
of information technology and reveal or *disclose* the values
and interests it embodies for scrutiny and reflection--not only
in its final design but also in the process of development (Introna
2007). Such an approach to the ethics of information technology is
most often informed by technology studies within the science,
technology and society (STS) tradition as proposed by Bijker
(2003)


### 3.3 Information Technology, Ethics and our Human way of Being



From the preceding discussion, it should be clear that
phenomenologists would tend not only to concern themselves with this
or that artifact or technology as such. They would rather be concerned
with the world (or mood as already suggested) that made these
artifacts or technologies seem necessary or obvious in the first
place. They would also be concerned with the ways in which particular
technologies 'frame' and reveal us, or our world, as we
draw on them. They would claim that it is this ongoing co-constitution
that we should focus on if we are to understand the social and ethical
implications of ICT and new media (Verbeek 2008). This does not
preclude the possibility that we could also consider the impact of
particular technologies as well as unpack particular technologies to
understand the values and interests they imply. However, the
phenomenologists would argue that the impact analysis
 (section 3.1)
 and the disclosive analysis
 (section 3.2)
 could be enhanced if these were situated in a broader
phenomenological analysis. Such an additional analysis might add
another level of critical reflection that could be important in
understanding and justifying different possible futures. One might
describe the phenomenological approach as an iterative process of
*ontological disclosure* in which a world (relevant social
practices or involvement whole) and technology (nexus of relevant
technologies) are taken as mutually constitutive interpretive contexts
in which the one renders the other intelligible--i.e., grounds it
as a 'seemingly' meaningful way to be. In this iterative
process there is a progressive uncovering of the constitutive
conditions that are necessary for particular ways of seeing or doing
in the world--or in particular social practices--to make
sense and be meaningful in the way they are taken to be. For example,
in Heidegger's analysis of modern technology, as outlined above
in
 section 2.2,
 he identifies the emergence of calculative thinking as a necessary
condition to see the world as resources available for our purposes.
However, this calculative orientation is itself conditioned by a
particular way of approaching the world, which he traces back to Greek
thought. Let us consider this approach in more detail through an
example of virtuality. 


## 4. Phenomenology, Ethics and Information Technology: The Case of Virtuality



As indicated above, it would be misleading to suggest that there is a
vast literature on the phenomenological approach to the social and
ethical implications of information technology. Clearly, the work of
Stiegler, Heidegger, Dreyfus, Borgmann and Ihde discussed above could
be described as critical work that aims to open up a horizon for
social and ethical reflection. Nevertheless, there seems to be at
least one information technology theme that has attracted some
sustained attention from phenomenologists (especially with regard to
its ethical implications)--the phenomenon of virtualization or
virtuality. The term 'virtuality' is used here to refer to
the mediation of interaction through an electronic medium between
humans as well as between humans and machines. The Internet (or
Cyberspace as it is known in cultural discourse) is the most evident
example of the virtualization of interaction.



The development of the Internet and the subsequent extension of
computer networks into all domains of everyday life have prompted much
speculation about the way in which this information technology will
change human existence, especially our notion of sociality and
community. Much of this speculation suggests that the virtualization
of human interaction has led to a multitude of new possibilities for
humans--such as cyber communities, virtual education, virtual
friendships, virtual organizations, virtual politics, and so forth.
Clearly, such claims about the transformation of the social domain
have important implications for our understanding of ethics. One might
suggest that most of our current thinking about ethics implies a
certain sense of community based on reciprocal moral obligations that
are largely secured through situated, embodied practices and
institutions that are often overlapping and mutually inclusive. If
these practices and institutions become virtualized then it would seem
that we need to reconsider some of our most fundamental human
categories.



The proponents of the virtualization of society (and its institutions)
argue that virtuality extends the social in unprecedented ways
(Fernback 1997, Rheingold 1993a, 1993b, Turkle 1995, 1996, Benedikt
1991, Horn 1998). They argue that it opens up an entirely new domain
of social being. For example Rheingold (1993a) argues that it offers
"tools for facilitating all the various ways people have
discovered to divide and communicate, group and subgroup and regroup,
include and exclude, select and elect. When a group of people remain
in communication with one another for extended periods of time, the
question of whether it is a community arises. Virtual communities
might be real communities, they might be pseudocommunities, or they
might be something entirely new in the realm of social
contracts." (p. 62). According to the proponents this new social
space is novel in that it offers completely new ways to be and relate.
They argue that through the plasticity of the medium it is possible to
conceive, construct and present our identities in almost boundless
ways. Turkle (1996) suggests that cyberspace "make possible the
construction of an identity that is so fluid and multiple that it
strains the very limits of the notion [of authenticity]. People become
masters of self-presentation and self-creation. There is an
unparalleled opportunity to play with one's identity and to
'try out' new ones. The very notion of an inner,
'true self' is called into question... the obese can
be slender, the beautiful can be plain. The 'nerdy' can be
elegant. The anonymity of Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs), such as Second
life, (you are known only by the name you gave your characters)
provides ample room for individuals to express unexplored
'aspects of the self'" (p. 158). The claims by
Rheingold, Turkle and others are certainly bold. If they are right
then virtuality may indeed represent entirely new possibilities for
humans to relate, extend, and express themselves, which should be
encouraged, especially for those that have become excluded from the
traditional domains of social relations, due to disability for
example.



Those who treat the internet as an artifact may suggest that we look
at the impact of mediation (or virtualization) on communication and
relations of power; for example, the fact that certain social
prejudices are circumvented because the individual responding to my
online application for a particular service is not confronted with my
physical appearance. They may also suggest, as Turkle (1995, 1996) has
done, that we look at the way virtualization makes the presentation of
self and identity more plastic and encourage us to think through the
consequences of this for ongoing social interaction. The social
constructivists may suggest that we need to look at the assumptions as
values embedded in the artifacts as such (as was suggested above).
They may, for example, suggest that we consider the implicit
assumptions about the nature of communication when considering e-mail
applications-- for instance, the fact that most e-mail
applications assume and emulate the structure of a physical letter.
They would argue that we need to trace through how people interpret
this 'letter' structure to communicate and share objects
(such as files and pictures) with others, as well as the sorts of
communication such a structure excludes.



Phenomenologists would suggest that these responses are all important
but they assume something more primary--i.e., the conditions that
render such acts as the presentation of the self, ongoing
communication and sharing meaningful and significant in the first
instance. They might suggest that these social acts are all grounded
in an already presumed sense of community. They might further argue
that social interaction, community and identity (as we know it) are
phenomena that are local, situated and embodied, which is
characterized by mutual involvement, concern and commitment (Dreyfus
2001; Borgmann 1999, Ihde 2002, Introna 1997, Coyne 1995, Heim 1993).
In other words these phenomena draw on an implied sense of
involvement, place, situation, and body for its ongoing meaning. For
example, Borgmann (1999) argues that the "unparalleled
opportunity" of virtuality suggested by Turkle comes at a
'cost.' To secure "the charm of virtual reality at
its most glamorous, the veil of virtual ambiguity must be dense and
thick. Inevitably, however, such an enclosure excludes the commanding
presence of reality. Hence the price of sustaining virtual ambiguity
is triviality" (p. 189). Indeed such 'fluid and
multiple' identity is only feasible as long as it is "kept
barren of real consequences". Dreyfus (1999, 2001) argues, in a
similar vein that without a situated and embodied engagement there can
be no commitment and no risk. They argue that in such an environment
moral engagement is limited and human relations become trivialized.
Ihde (2002) does not go as far as Borgmann and Dreyfus in discounting
the virtual as 'trivial.' Nevertheless, he does claim that
"VR bodies are thin and never attain the thickness of flesh. The
fantasy that says we can simultaneously have the powers and
capabilities of the technologizing medium without its ambiguous
limitations is a fantasy of desire" (p.15).



Coyne (1995), drawing on the work of Heidegger, argues that the
proximity of community has nothing to do with physical distance. He
argues that proximity is rather a matter of shared
concerns--i.e., my family is 'close' to me even if
they are a thousand miles away and my neighbors may be
'distant' to me even if they are next door. Levinas (1991,
1996) takes this claim even further. He suggests that proximity has
nothing to do with either social or geographic distance. For him
proximity is an ethical urgency that unsettles our egocentric
existence. Proximity is the face--or our always already
facing--of the Other (all other human beings) that unsettles the
ongoing attempts by the ego to 'domesticate' the
infinitely singular Other (a proper name) into familiar categories
(race, ethnicity, gender, etc). For the phenomenologist any electronic
communication (or any other communication) will find its meaning in a
prior horizon of proximity. If we do not already share certain
concerns then electronic mediation will not create *proximity*
even if it does seem to break down the geographic distances between
us--even if it is 'shrinking' the world as it were.
These authors suggest that our sense of community and the moral
reciprocity it implies comes from a sustained and situated engagement
where mutual commitments and obligations are secured in the proximity
of an already shared horizon of ongoing meaning. In a similar vain
Silverstone (2002, 2003) argues, drawing on the work of Levinas, for
the importance of maintaining a 'proper distance' in which
proximity and responsibility are maintained. He argues that in the
modern world of the Internet and increased mobility the stranger
becomes 'my neighbour': 'and we are all neighbours
to one another now'. In the mediated world we become inundated
with the solicitations of the multitude of others that increasingly
appear on our screens. How ought we to respond? We cannot allow the
world, reconstituted through the new media, to turn into mere images,
pixels on the screen. We must recognize: 'that I have as much
responsibility for the stranger, that other who is either, physically
or metaphysically, far from me, as I do for my neighbour'
(Silverstone 2003: 480). Thus, according to Silverstone the ambiguity
of a world of 'closeness' and simultaneous
'distance' of the other that the new media constitute is
an altogether different way of being with others that requires a new
ethic of 'proper distance' where the possibility of facing
the other, as Other, is not lost in the ethereality of our clicks. It
is clear from these examples that the ethical question for
phenomenology is mostly also an ontological question--that is,
what sort of world or way of being are we becoming, as opposed to the
sort of world we value and want? The phenomenologists would argue that
these fundamental choices may only become visible if we approach new
media and ICT (and the ethics they imply) from a phenomenological
point of view.



Not all agree with this phenomenological analysis that seems to
privilege the face-to-face. Feenberg (1999, and 2004 in Other Internet
Resources), although he is not a phenomenologist as such, nevertheless
uses phenomenological insights to argue that the messages exchanged
are not 'thin' but can also be 'thick.' The
messages exchanged through e-mail for example are also situated and
already imply a certain minimal level of reciprocity and
commitment--the mere fact of their exchange implies such a
minimal horizon of meaning for the act of exchange itself to make
sense. He argues: "the interpreted message stands in for the
world, is in effect a world. In the case of mediated communication, a
person and the social context of their presence are delivered in the
message" (emphasis added). He argues that community is an
intersubjectively constructed phenomenon that emerges from a mutual
connection that may imply a physical co-presence but is not restricted
to it. He acknowledges that a mediated community may be different and
have its own particular problems. Nevertheless, he insists that
"community needs to be interpreted from the inside out, not as a
geographical fact." In a similar manner Powers (2004) argues,
with reference to the well known LambdaMOO 'virtual rape'
case, that virtuality can lead to real moral wrongs, even if these
virtual worlds seem trivial and 'shallow'. Introna and
Brigham (2007) also argue that virtuality affords an opportunity to
reconsider the meaning of the traditionally assumed community in a
rather fundamental way. They suggest that the idea of virtual
communities as being 'thin' and
'shallow'--lacking the depth that local proximity in
face-to-face communities brings--privileges a certain view of
community premised upon shared values, or shared concerns, embedded in
local situated face-to-face interaction and practices. They argue that
in such communities ethics is often rooted in a notion of reciprocity
(which my not be altruistic at all, may even be economic). In
contrast, they suggest, the virtual stranger (popping up on my screen
as if out of nowhere) radically disturbs such an idea of reciprocity
(and community). In responding to the virtual stranger the often
presumed source of our ethics becomes visible. In the anonymity of the
interface I have to really *decide* (become truly responsible)
because the stranger can be easily ignored. 



The phenomenological analysis and critique of virtuality is important
because it forces us to reconsider some of our most fundamental human
categories--especially our moral categories. From these debates,
indicated above, it is apparent that a simple dichotomy that poses the
virtual as 'thin and trivial' and situated embodied
co-presence (often referred to as the 'real') as
'thick and significant' is too simple to be helpful. From
the phenomenological analysis presented it follows that one of the
most important aspects of community is the presumed density of its
mutually referring concerns and involvements (irrespective of
mediation). Traditional communities often develop this dense
referentiality, quite implicitly, by sharing involvement (and
therefore concern) in many overlapping practices and institutions. It
is conceivable that there are individuals that already share certain
involvements and concerns (such as individuals that share a
debilitating disease) that could become an online virtual community
because they are in a very real sense already a community. It seems
also evident that individuals who share limited involvements and
concerns (such as playing games in MUDs) are unlikely to become a
community simply because they share a virtual space. Without a dense
horizon of mutual involvement and concern upon which we can base
ourselves all choices and actions become equally significant or
insignificant--i.e., trivial. Taylor (1991) in discussing the
ethics of authenticity provides a good summary of the importance of
this communal horizon of significance for the construction of a
'thick' self and therefore a 'thick'
community: "The agent seeking significance in life, trying to
define him- or herself meaningfully, has to exist in a horizon of
important questions [shared concerns]. That is what is self-defeating
in modes of contemporary culture that concentrate on self-fulfillment
in opposition to the demands of society, or nature, which shut out
history and the bonds of solidarity. These self-centred
'narcissistic' forms are indeed shallow and
trivialised" (p. 40). 


## 5. Conclusion



The purpose of this entry is to provide the reader with a sense of the
phenomenological approach to information technology and its social and
ethical implications by contrasting it with two other approaches. It
might be useful to summarize our discussion in the Table below.
Obviously such a summary must be seen within the context of the whole
entry and will be subject to the normal problems of such summative
statements, namely that they do not always do justice to the ideas so
summarized. Nevertheless, as a general guide it might help to further
clarify some of the contrasts that the entry tried to suggest as
useful in understanding the distinctiveness of the phenomenological
approach.




|  |  |
| --- | --- |
|  | **Artifact / tool Approach** |
| *View of technology / society relationship* | Technologies are tools that society
draws upon to do certain things it would not otherwise be able to do.
When tools become incorporated in practices it tends to have a more or
less determinable impact on those practices. |
| *Approach to ethical implications of technology* | The task of ethics is to analyze the
impact of technology on practices by applying existing or new moral
theories to construct guidelines or policies that will
'correct' the injustices or infringements of rights caused
by the implementation and use of the particular technology. |




|  |  |
| --- | --- |
|  | **Social Constructivist Approach** |
| *View of technology / society relationship* | Technology and society co-construct
each other from the start. There is an ongoing interplay between the
social practices and the technological artifacts (both in its design
and in its use). This ongoing interplay means that technological
artifacts and human practices become embedded in a multiplicity of
ways that are mostly not determinable in any significant way. |
| *Approach to ethical implications of technology* | The task of ethics if to be actively
involved in disclosing the assumptions, values and interests being
'built into' the design, implementation and use of the
technology. The task of ethics is not to prescribe policies or
corrective action as such but to continue to open the 'black
box' for scrutiny and ethical consideration and
deliberation. |




|  |  |
| --- | --- |
|  | **Phenomenological Approach** |
| *View of technology / society relationship* | Technology and society co-constitute
each other from the start. They are each other's condition of
possibility to be. Technology is not the artifact alone it is also the
technological attitude or disposition that made the artifact appear as
meaningful and necessary in the first instance. However, once in
existence artifacts and the disposition that made them meaningful also
discloses the world beyond the mere presence of the artifacts. |
| *Approach to ethical implications of technology* | The task of ethics is ontological
disclosure. To open up and reveal the conditions of possibility that
make particular technologies show up as meaningful and necessary (and
others not). It seeks to interrogate these constitutive conditions
(beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, moods, practices, discourses, etc.)
so as to problematize and question the fundamental constitutive
sources of our ongoing being-with technology. |