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Moral Technology – As Socially Constructed as Society

The world around us is always easier to understand when the relationships

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

values it provides back to its user.

Understanding the Value of Technology (The Readings)

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

association to be very accurate. If one looks at images of ancient civilizations, the


individuals holding the technology (tools in that era) are often working-class citizens

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

consumes many of the social values such as class politics.

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

humans with opportunities to evolve their existing values.


The Creation of a Moral Technology

To define a piece of technology as moral or not, would be incorrect as it is simply

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

as one that saves human lives.

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

Making somehow restricts one to the bounds of reality.

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

imprisoned by the technology at hand. We used the analog readings of a potentiometer as

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

definition of a moral technology becomes blurry.

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

technology was moral for our purpose and use.

What if we defined morality differently? One of the components of lie-detector

testing technology is a heart-rate monitor. If our initial definition of morality related to

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

incriminate innocent people, making it immoral by definition in the society that I am a

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

different definition of moral.

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

uses it and what it represents in that society.


References

Latour, B. (1988). "Mixing humans and nonhumans together: The sociology of a door-

closer." Social Problems 35(3): 298-310.

Winner, Langdon. (1992) Citizen Virtues in a Technological Order. Inquiry,35:3,341-


361.
“Moral Technology: As Socially Constructed as Society”

Nazia Shahrin

991429156

INF2241

Critical Making

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