Description:

Many technological developments raise ethical questions. These often have the character of a dilemma: whether or not it is acceptable to apply this technology. As a result, a framework is lacking to address ethical questions and concerns constructively. Moreover, to give technological developments a desirable direction, rather than merely embracing or condemning them. The interpretation of technology-ethics as accepting or rejecting technology places technology and society in opposition to each other. In this approach, technology poses a potential threat to society, and it is the responsibility of ethics to determine whether or not a new technology can be accepted. However, this picture is wrong. On the contrary, technology and society are fundamentally interconnected. This interconnection of technology and society entails a different role for ethics. Instead of seeing ethics as 'judging,' it could also be seen as the normative 'guiding' of technology in society. At the same time, ethics can also guide society in its dealings with technology. Such an approach does not place ethics outside technology but in the middle of it. The question is then 'how' and under what conditions a technology can get a responsible place in society. In the Netherlands, a methodology has been developed for this purpose. In the session, a case will be used to demonstrate how an ethical approach can be applied in practice. Afterward, we discuss this with various experts.