Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

A Trilogy of Futurological Brickbats on the Subject of "Techno-Ethics"

The prefix "bio," when appended to the word "ethics," tends to have the curious effect of draining all the life out of ethics.

The breathlessly ramifying "techno-ethical" disciplines -- bio-ethics, neuro-ethics, net-ethics, nano-ethics, robo-ethics, and so on -- should all be regarded as essentially public relations and marketing subdisciplines, very much in the spirit of the "business ethics" out of which all these latest not-ethics by way of hyphenated-ethics have sprung.

Institutional "ethicians" are not educators so much as they are salesmen. And they should be treated as such: that is to say, with extreme caution.

For more Futurological Brickbats, by all means browse the archive.

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