PHIL-320 Ethics and Technology
Descartes prophesied that the scientific method, and the technology it made possible, would allow us to conquer poverty, disease and death. These advances, he thought, would eventually make us "masters and possessors of nature." Later thinkers - from Rousseau to Heidegger- lamented the ways in which technology made us weaker, dumber, less independent, disconnected from each other and from nature. What does technology do to us? Are inventions such as gun powder, iPhones, and quantum computers just "tools" that we use for our purposes, or do our tools actually determine those purposes and change us - the tools makers? Once we’ve invented something, can we ever go back to how things were before? Uninvent it? Decide not to use it? We’ll try to answer these questions by looking at a variety of sources from early modern philosophy to episodes of Black Mirror. 1 term - 4 credits