Article ID: CBB234510402

Is Technology Value-Neutral? (January 2021)

unapi

Miller, Boaz (Author)


Science, Technology, and Human Values
Volume: 46
Issue: 1
Pages: 53-80
Publication date: January 2021
Language: English


According to the Value-Neutrality Thesis (VNT), technology is morally and politically neutral, neither good nor bad. A knife may be put to bad use to murder an innocent person or to good use to peel an apple for a starving person, but the knife itself is a mere instrument, not a proper subject for moral or political evaluation. While contemporary philosophers of technology widely reject the VNT, it remains unclear whether claims about values in technology are just a figure of speech or nontrivial empirical claims with genuine factual content and real-world implications. This paper provides the missing argument. I argue that by virtue of their material properties, technological artifacts are part of the normative order rather than external to it. I illustrate how values can be empirically identified in technology. The reason why value-talk is not trivial or metaphorical is that due to the endurance and longevity of technological artifacts, values embedded in them have long-term implications that surpass their designers and builders. I further argue that taking sides in this debate has real-world implications in the form of moral constraints on the development of technology.

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Authors & Contributors
Mitcham, Carl
Coeckelbergh, Mark
Baird, Davis
Friedrich, Michael
Hanks, Craig
Jasanoff, Sheila
Journals
Science, Technology, and Human Values
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine
Acta Baltica historiae et philosophiae scientiarum
History of Psychiatry
Hyle
TG Technikgeschichte
Publishers
JAI
JAI Press/Elsevier
John Wiley & Sons
MIT Press
Rice University
Springer
Concepts
Technology and ethics
Philosophy of technology
Values (philosophy)
Science and technology studies (STS)
Computers and computing
Technology
People
Bakhtin, Mikhail Ivanovich
Heidegger, Martin
Jonas, Hans
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice
Plato
Rawls, John
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
Places
Germany
Norway
Netherlands
United States
Weimar Republic (1919-1933)
Institutions
Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
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