Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies

@article{nokey,

title = {Moral certainty, deep disagreement, and disruption},

author = {Julia Hermann},

url = {https://www.esdit.nl/wp-content/uploads/s11229-025-04948-1-1.pdf},

doi = { https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-025-04948-1},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-02-21},

urldate = {2025-02-21},

journal = {Synthese},

volume = {205},

number = {103},

abstract = {Wittgenstein’s On Certainty has been a source of inspiration for philosophers concerned with the notion of deep disagreement (see Fogelin in Informal Logic 25(1):3–11, 2005; Pritchard in Topoi 40:1117–1125, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9612-y). While Wittgenstein’s examples of certainties do not include moral certainties, some philosophers have argued that an analogy can be drawn between certainty regarding the empirical world and moral certainty (Goodman in Metaphilosophy 13:138–148,1982; Hermann in On moral certainty, justification, and practice: A Wittgensteinian perspective, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2015; Pleasants in Inquiry 51(3):241–267, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1080/00201740802120673). Moral certainty manifests itself in our fundamental ways of feeling, thinking, and acting morally. It is closely related to an “agreement in form of life” (Wittgenstein in Philosophical investigations, Translated by G.E.M. Anscombe. Third ed., Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1968, § 241.), which makes moral disagreements possible in the first place. In this paper, I aim to shed light on the phenomenon of moral deep disagreement by relating it not only to the notion of moral certainty but also to the concept of deep disruption as it is currently developed and discussed in the philosophy of technology. I argue that certainty, deep disagreement, and deep disruption are all located at the level of “bedrock practices” (Williams in Wittgenstein, mind and meaning, Routledge, Milton Park, 1999, p. 198), and that the fundamentality of their objects should be understood in terms of relationality and interconnectedness. Deep disagreements can occur through deep technology-induced disruption and can take the form of a disruption of deep conceptual agreement. Conceptual common ground can be re-established by continuous interaction and a collective process of moral articulation. Deep disruption and moral deep disagreement can lead to moral progress, for instance in the form of recognising and correcting an epistemic injustice.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Hopster2025,

title = {Conceptual Mediation in Technomoral Change: Reply to Danaher and Sætra},

author = {Jeroen K.G. Hopster and Jon Rueda and Robin Hillenbrink},

doi = {10.1007/s10677-025-10481-4},

issn = {1572-8447},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-27},

urldate = {2025-01-27},

journal = {Ethic Theory Moral Prac},

publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media LLC},

abstract = {Philosophers of technology have identified various mechanisms through which technology can change moral norms, values, beliefs and practices. Danaher and Sætra (2023) offer a useful systematization of these mechanisms, with no claim to being exhaustive. We contribute to their work by analyzing how the mediating role of moral concepts fits into this scheme. First, we point out that concepts mediate the moral effects of technological changes, a process we call conceptual mediation. We illustrate this with the concepts of ‘brain death’ and ‘reproductive autonomy’, whose moral implications crystallized in the interplay with new medical technologies. Subsequently, we argue that conceptual mediation is best understood as a type of second-order mediation, which channels the moral implications of the first-order technological mediations identified by Danaher and Sætra (decisional, relational, perceptual). We conclude that second-order mediation plays a central and underappreciated role in processes of technomoral change.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}