Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

IV. Ethics
and when those who stand to be
naturalized
affected are often the least aware
negatively
able to influence it. How do technology,
and/or
and capitalism intersect to affect
democracy
modes of being and knowing? What
human
of ethics, inclusivity and accountability
processes
this section we focus on ethical questions
In
in the different processes of knowledge.
arising
technology has a wide role in these
As
many of the questions come up
processes,
in the book. Much of this chapter
elsewhere
on digital technologies, but technology
focuses
refer to many systems and material
can
of order, including seeds and
arrangements
methods and how we organize public
farming
and libraries.
spaces
in 1980, Langdon Winner proposed the
Writing
idea, at the time, that technologies
unpopular
embody sociopolitical norms as well as
both
them. Technology, he argued, is not
reinforce
neutral tool; it is fundamentally political,
a
not just to electronic gadgets, but also
referring
the arrangement and distribution of power. We
to
of people as having political motivations
think
aspirations, but what does it mean to say
and
technological artefacts have politics?
that
in the 1920s, Robert Moses built
Beginning
200 overpasses in Long Island, New York,
about
The overpasses were high enough to allow
USA.
to go under them, but not public buses.
cars
biographer, Robert A Caro suggests that
Moses’
was done intentionally to limit the access
this
certain areas of the city for racial minorities
to
low-income groups who relied on public
and
These artefacts continue to shape the
transport.
today. city
do technological artefacts acquire their
How
Is politics “given” by their users or
politics?
It is not uncommon for physical objects
creators?
reflect the implicit or explicit biases of their
to
just as algorithms reflect the biases of
makers,
programmers. When discussing the political
their
of technological objects, we tend to
dimensions
on their use and their user. The Long Island
focus
though, had political consequences
overpasses,
to their use and users, in limiting what
unrelated
go underneath them. They exemplify a
could
that distributes power a certain way,
technology
certain things to happen and not others,
allowing
certain actions and not others.
facilitating
the extent that objects continue to perform a
To
political purpose, do they take on that
certain
We see that technologies build order
politics?
the world that affects everyday life (such
in
movement, communication, consumption
as
reproduction), that can have effects for
and
This order is built through the
generations.
intentional or otherwise, of individual
decisions,
collective agents in society. Some people
and
more influence in those decisions than
have
what factors affect the relative power of
others;
and communities to influence the
individuals
of technologies? Winner argues that the
politics
opportunity to influence technological
greatest
exists the first time a technology or
politics
is introduced, and that it subsequently
system
fixed through habit, economic
becomes
or material infrastructure. He
considerations
3
should we implement?
IV.1 Do artefacts have politics?
It is no surprise to learn that technical systems of
various kinds are deeply interwoven in the conditions
of modern politics. The physical arrangements of
industrial production, warfare, communications, and
the like have fundamentally changed the exercise
of power and the experience of citizenship. But to go
beyond this obvious fact and to argue that certain
technologies in themselves have political properties
seems, at rst glance, completely mistaken. We all
know that people have politics, not things. To discover
either virtues or evils in aggregates of steel, plastic,
transistors, integrated circuits, and chemicals seems
just plain wrong, a way of mystifying human artice
and of avoiding the true sources, the human sources
of freedom and oppression, justice and injustice.
Blaming the hardware appears even more foolish
than blaming the victims when it comes to judging
conditions of public life.
(Winner 1980)
compares technological innovations to acts of
railways and seeds. By politics he was referring
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