MIT 271b:  Technology and Human Values
3 hours lecture, non-essay half-course
Instructor:                Dr. C. Hundleby

Relationship to the Goals and Objectives of the MIT Program:

The purpose of this course is to:

1. Provide basic skills from the discipline of philosophy for the analysis of technologies for communication, information, knowledge, learning and entertainment (from the Goal of MIT).
2. Develop critical theoretical understandings of technology (from Objective 1).
3. Learn how the media of information, communication, news and entertainment are among technologies related to culture, ideology, and identity formation (Objective 3).
4. Explore cultural responses to technology in a philosophical framework (from Objective 4).
5. Examine patterns of thought, cognition, interaction, culture and power embodied in the design and use of technologies, especially information technologies (from Objective 5).
6. Explore how the control of technologies, including information technologies, connects to democratic and the environmental values (from Objective 7).

Course Description:

This course examines the different ways in which technology, but especially information technology, may be valuable.  Using some basic philosophical distinctions among different types of valuation — such as freedom, beauty, knowledge, and morality — how is technology in its various forms to be assessed?  The value of freedom seems most central to technology, and an examination of the effects of technology on freedom is central to this course.  We will look at the different ways in which technology encourages and discourages the fulfillment of this value, and a range of other human values distinguished by philosophers.  Along the way we will address the affect of technologies on racial, gender, and sexual inequities, the environment, and the value of human life itself.

Calendar Description:

This course examines how technologies can be evaluated in terms of morality, justice, beauty and truth. For instance, computers and television bring people information and beautiful images, and biotechnology limits our aches and pains. Yet technology can also work against things we value, such as the environment and some forms of freedom.

Course Objectives:

Students who take this course will:

1. Learn a range of contrasting ways to evaluate different forms of technology.
2. Learn to view information technology as part of a larger network of human technologies.
3. Develop their own perspectives on technology.

Sample Content:

1.  ONTOLOGY: Technology, Nature & Freedom (4 weeks)

(a)     Technology & Nature

(b)     Technology & Freedom

2. BEAUTY: Technological Aesthetics (2 weeks)

3. KNOWLEDGE (2 weeks)

(a)     Can Computers Think?

(b)     Learning With Technology

4.  ETHICS & JUSTICE (5 weeks)

(a)     Technological Responsibility

(b)     Biotechnology, Human Reproduction & Sexuality

Textbooks:

Morton E. Winston and Ralph D. Edelbach, eds. Society, Ethics and Technology.  Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 2000.

David Gelernter.  Machine Beauty: Elegance and the Heart of Technology.  New York: Basic Books, 1998.

Supplementary readings on reserve at the D.B. Weldon Library.

Assignments:

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