Respect Intellectual Property Right of Author

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Respect Intellectual Property Right of Author

• Please respect the authors intellectual property
  right. Do not use this material without the
  permission of the author.
• Po-Keung Ip, Graduate Institute of philosophy,
  National Central University
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The Nature and Purposes of Technology

• An Overview

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What is Technology?

• As tools, gadgets and machines
• As process
• As problem-solving system
• As extended/empowered human capacity

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Kinds of Technology

• Survival Technology
• Hard Survival immediate, critical
• Soft Survival recurrent, sustaining
• Enhancement Technology
• Development
• Flourishing
• Freedom

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Values and Technology

• Happiness
• Freedom

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What is Happiness?

• Meeting basic and non-basic needs
• Survival needs basic necessities of life air,
  water, food, shelter, safety, health
• Social needs
• Personal needs
• Personal desires
• Social and personal choices

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Freedoms

• Two senses of Freedom
• negative freedom v. positive freedom
• free from v. free to
• Freedom from serfdom, interference or coercion,
  control, suppression
• Freedom as development of human potential,
  freedom as choice
• Freedom as capability to function and flourish

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Kinds of Technology

• Mundane vs Spectacular
• Low-Tech vs Hi-Tech
• High knowledge content vs low knowledge content
• Capital-intensive vs labor-intensive
• Simple vs complex
• Rice Cooker vs Superconductivity wrist watch
  supercomputer

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Kinds of Technology

• There are so many different kinds of
  technologies, each display different purposes and
  characteristics. It is difficult to generalize.
• Avoid essentialism, to identify the essential
  characteristics of technologies.
• They demonstrate some family resemblances with
  each other.

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Two Senses of Technology

• Narrow sense tools, gadget, appliances,
  machines, process, techniques
• Broader sense include the above in a system of
  cultural, intellectual and social and ethical
  factors, each of which has different degrees of
  relatedness to one and other.

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Two Senses of Technology

• The former is only one facet of technology, the
  end-product of the complex process of
  interactions and interdependences.
• It is proper to view technology in a broader
  context, which is a system of problem-solving
  with its intellectual, cultural, technical,
  financial, political, social and ethical
  dimension.

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Two Senses of Technology

• Take the cell phone (mobile phone) as an example,
  and give a deep thought about how a cell phone is
  conceived, designed, produced, marketed, sold,
  used, and disposed. Then imagine what processes
  are involved in this life cycle of a cell phone,
  who are involved, what values or purposes are
  served, what are the costs and benefits, as well
  as risks in using the cell phone, what rules (
  including laws, conventions, rules ) are involved
  in the production, marketing and usage of the
  phone.

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Ecology of Technology

• Pervasiveness
• Entrenchment
• Empowering
• Liberating
• Efficiency
• Rapid Evolution very short shelf life eg
  computer chips, microprocessor speed
• Great Transforming Force nature, human, society
• Co-evolution of Technology and Society

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Contexts of Technology

• Technology and Nature The environment
• Technology and Economy
• Technology and Human Society
• Technology, Norms, Values and Ethics
• Technology and Culture

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Purposes of Technology

• Technology and Its Use/Abuse
• Is Technology value-neutral? (eg. Guns dont
  kill! People kill !)
• Weapons of mass destruction ? biological weapons?
  Nuclear bomb?
• Should there be a purpose of Technology?
• What should be the proper purposes of Technology?

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Purposes of Technology

• Technology and Human Development (alleviation of
  poverty, promote education, facilitate business,
  eradicate diseases and enhance health)
• Technology and Social Justice Who get what
  benefits, costs, risks of technology, and why?

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Technology Costs

• All the costs (direct/indirect) involved in
  conceiving, developing, producing, marketing,
  delivering, using, and decommissioning the
  technology
• Financial cost
• Material cost
• Human cost
• Social cost
• Environmental cost

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Technology Benefits

• All the benefits, good and advantages
  accompanying the production, consumption/use of
  the technology
• Individual benefits or good
• Community benefits or good
• Social benefits and good
• Cross generational benefits and good
• Environmental benefits and good

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Risks of Technology

• All the direct or indirect risks, harms, hazards
  of various probability incurred in the
  conception, production, delivery, use and
  decommission of the technology
• Physical risks and harm
• Biological risks and harm
• Ecological risks and harm
• Financial/economic risks and harm
• Social risks and harm