Professional Documents
Culture Documents
between different elements have a cause and effect relationship. If A causes B to occur,
we feel at ease knowing that A will always result in B, and that B is an outcome of A.
When it comes to technology and its relationship with the human world, many theories
follow this rationale. Technological determinism is one theory which argues that the
technology drives the social behaviour associated with it. While Social Construction of
Technology claims that the human action shapes the technology. I feel neither theory is
completely accurate because the relationship between humans and the technology they
use have a much more complex relationship. When humans and technology intersect each
other, the technology consumes some of the human values, while the human values
incorporate the some of the technology as an extension of itself. Therefore, the concept of
a moral technology can only be defined by the principles it takes in from its user and the
The concept may sound complicated but it can be observed all around us. Over
time technologies have come to represent abstract values which are socially constructed.
Winner (1992) declares the relationship between technology and citizen’s as being very
political. He relates the use of technology as associated with working or lower class
citizens according to the views of Ancient Rome. In addition, he associates the modern
view to link technology with progress and change. I find Winner’s analysis of this
utilizing the technology to make their work easier. In today’s society, technology is
associated with the advanced citizen who is up-to-date with the latest gadgets. The
comparison between the Ancient world and the modern world is very significant in my
view. Even though technology is still a physical object that is used as a tool in the past
and the present, the value it represents in society has changed as society evolved. But we
still refuse to fully accept technology as a socially constructed idea. Winner (1992) adds
to this idea by claiming citizens are not really concerned with the many associations
technology has with the current citizens. No one, in his view, is really seeing the type of
political world technology has created. Winner’s article supports my idea that technology
On the other hand, technology feeds into human behaviour as well. Latour (1988)
describes how a simple creation of a door for a logical reason, brings about several
situations involving human’s which never existed before. This phenomenon occurs with
every important new technology. In Latour’s example, the creation of a door, created new
roles in the society it was for and new responsibilities for its members. The technology
created these possibilities and scenarios along with its creation. In our world, one of the
most recent example’s being Smart Phones. Smart Phones opened up the means, and
human’s created several possibilities of use and defined social norms around it.
Therefore, not only do humans infuse technology with values, the technology introduces
inheriting many properties from its user, its creator and its environment. On the other
hand the technology does provide new possibilities to its user that may not be feasible
without its existence. As discussed in class, shooting a non-existing gun is not the same
as shooting a real gun. When our group was assigned to create a “Moral” technology, the
morality that was instilled into our potential technology came from our beliefs, our norms
and the values that were considered ethical in our society. We defined a moral technology
To create the technology, we were limited based on the existing tool that was
given to us, the Arduino. We may have many morals that reside within us and can be
expressed verbally, but the moral scenario we can create is mainly driven by the
Arduino’s capability. Critical thinking can let the imagination run wild, but Critical
When creating, our logical selves debated the possible input and output channels
the Arduino possesses. We are able to do more than what we can do with our bare hands
but we are also restricted by the Arduino’s capabilities. We are instantly liberated and
a make-shift heart rate as the input, and used different LED’s to reflect if the heart rate is
too high, too low or normal for an average human. The Serial Port also displays the
results in text, also adding in an additional statement for when the heart-rate is 0,
meaning the heart has stopped beating. For us, the Arduino did drive our motivation to
create this particular technology. What this technology can be used for is where the
Our assignment was not to create just a technology, but a moral technology. The
addition of the word moral injected human values into our technology. The word moral
brings forth both concepts of the political and sociological definition of morality based on
our cultural norms and values. To my whole group, the notion of saving lives was a very
moral objective for a technology to have. We made our technology into a heart monitor
which keeps track of a patient’s heart to help doctor’s keep the patient alive. The
incriminating criminals and gaining a sense of justice, we could easily use this
technology for criminal investigations. Many may argue that this is an immoral
technology, because it has not been proven to be always accurate. This technology can
part of. Other may argue that it’s better than nothing against criminals. The same
technology, with different users, values and settings converts the heart-rate monitor into a
Conclusion
Creating a technology based on values that are abstract was a unique experience
for me. Often the abstract values given to a piece of technology is so entwined that it is
hard to define whether the technology was created because of a need or the technology
created the need. By working on this assignment, my belief became concrete that it is not
one effecting the other but almost an iterative process where both come together as one.
We created a technology, yes. Did we create a moral technology? Sure, based on who
Latour, B. (1988). "Mixing humans and nonhumans together: The sociology of a door-
Nazia Shahrin
991429156
INF2241
Critical Making