A Political (Re-)Turn in the Philosophy of Engineering and Technology - Political philosophy of technology: between tragedy and utopia
Chair(s): Giovanni Frigo (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
Technological and engineering choices increasingly determine our world. Presently, this affects not only our individual well-being and autonomy but also our political and collective self-constitution. Think of digital technologies like social media and their combination with AI, the corresponding echo chambers and filter bubbles, deep fakes and the current state of liberal democracy and the rise of authoritarian governments. Despite nation states having to reframe sovereignty in a globalised world (Miller, 2022), there is the potential for impactful collective action with regard to technological choices and practices of engineering, so that a simple form of technological determinism is to be discarded. In this light, the current focus of ethically normative philosophy of technology on individual action and character is alarmingly narrow (Mitcham, 2024). We urgently need a political (re-)turn in the philosophy of engineering and technology and, correspondingly, a turn towards engineering and technology in disciplines that reflect on the political sphere (Coeckelbergh, 2022).
To foster such a political (re-)turn in the philosophy of engineering and technology, we propose a panel at the SPT 2025 conference that brings together different theoretical perspectives and approaches that reflect the necessary diversity of such a political (re-)turn. We aim to both examine the contribution of applied political philosophy (e.g. political liberalism; Straussian political philosophy) to the question of technological disruption, as well as offer a roadmap for an explicitly political philosophy of technology that engages, for example, with the ways that AI will change the nature of political concepts (e.g. democracy, rights) (Coeckelbergh, 2022; Lazar, 2024). With global AI frameworks already shaping the global political horizon, it is pertinent to acknowledge and assess the current relationship between engineering, technology and politics. The panel might also be the first meeting of a newly forming SPT SIG on the Political Philosophy of engineering and technology, which will be proposed to the SPT steering committee.
References
Coeckelbergh, M. (2022). The Political Philosophy of AI: An Introduction (1. Aufl.). Polity.
Lazar, S. (2024). Power and AI: Nature and Justification. In J. B. Bullock, Y.-C. Chen, J. Himmelreich, V. M. Hudson, A. Korinek, M. M. Young, & B. Zhang (Hrsg.), The Oxford Handbook of AI Governance (S. 0). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197579329.013.12
Miller, G. (2022). Toward a More Expansive Political Philosophy of Technology. NanoEthics, 16(3), 347–349. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-022-00433-y
Mitcham, C. (2024). Brief for Political Philosophy of Engineering and Technology. NanoEthics, 18(3), 14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-024-00463-8
Presentations of the Symposium
Where to political philosophy of technology?
Martin Sand
Delft University of Technology
The submitted symposium commences on the assumption that a philosophy of technology focused on the individual – on her virtues, moral sentiments and behavior – is ill-suited for the emerging technologies that exceed national boundaries and have consequences way beyond the lifetime of biological beings. It seems obvious that one must ponder how collective decision-making should take this into account to diminish the negative consequences of technology on health, the environment and society. Still, the dichotomy between individual ethics and politics insinuated in this exposition is contentious: From the literature on utopianism – the images and fancies of the ideal society, as one might put it – we learn that one cannot clearly distinguish those outlooks that commence on creating such ideal society by mere political means, incentives and institutions, and those that focus primarily on the individual, her ethos and behavior. Douglas Mao suggests, correctly I think, that “most utopias mix the two styles.” (Mao 2020, p. 88) Perhaps, therefore, a political philosophy of technology needs to complement rather than supplement philosophy of technology, and must clarify how it aspires to do so.
It is oftentimes – in particular in discussions about technological utopianism, as my recent research suggests (Sand 2024) – argued that technological utopians place unjustifiable faith into the power of technology to save us and the planet from problems that have been caused by the development and use of said technologies (Winner 1986, Saage 2016). Politics, social interventions and ethics are all better equipped to respond to those challenges. Here, interestingly, politics is contraposed to technology, not to individual ethics. Though, on the one hand, one wonders where this faith in politics stems from given the 50 years of human-made climate inaction, 20th century genocides and the many atrocities currently committed around the world. Why would one continue believing in the might of political forms of organization, given that those need after all be initiated and supported by individual humans (Sand 2018). On the other hand, and this will be the main argument of my contribution, technological utopias’ suggestive power, and creative import stems precisely from their promise to dissolve the problems that many political theories accept (e.g. immutability of human nature, limited altruism etc.). Whether possible or not, the utopian outlook itself induces reflection, conceptual novelty and hope that, thereby, advances how we pursue and conceive the ideal society.
Mao, D. (2020). Inventions of Nemesis: Utopia, Indignation, and Justice. Princeton University Press.
Saage, R. (2016). Is the classic concept of utopia ready for the future? In S. D. Chrostowska & J. D. Ingram (Eds.), Political Uses of Utopia: New Marxist, Anarchist, and Radical Democratic Perspectives (pp. 57-79). New York.
Sand, M. (2018). The virtues and vices of innovators. Philosophy of Management, 17(1), 79–95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-017-0055-0
Sand, M. (2024). Technological Utopianism and the Idea of Justice Palgrave / Springer.
Winner, L. (1986). Mythinformation. In The Whale and the Reactor (pp. 98-117). University of Chicago Press.
The tragedy of great power technologies
Carl Mitcham
Colorado School of Mines
As engineering enhacies technological power, extending it to genetic and subatomic depth and amplifying it to global dimensions and across generations, tragedies are ever more conceivable. Unprecedented increases in global health and wealth are shadowed by unintended threats from nuclear proliferation, toxic chemical pollutions, global warming, and runaway AI. To reflect on and illuminate the potential for tragedy, I draw on two focused analyses of the contemporary situation: John Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001) and Stephen Gardiner’s A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change (2011). I use Gardiner to argue that climate change immeasurably intensifies what Mearsheimer sees as the intractable tragedy of great power security competition, and Mearsheimer to challenge Gardiner’s shallow imagining of international political solutions to “global environmental tragedy.” In both cases, this entails arguing for a relationhip between moral theory or ethics and politics that prioritizes political philosophy.
I begin with an account of Gardinier’s moral storm metaphor (based on Sebastian Junger’s “perfect storm” narrative about a fishing boat sunk in 1991 by the convergence of three storms) of the intersection of three “moral storms” (or intractable moral difficulties) associated with engineering technologically driven global climate change: (a) the asymmetry of power between rich and poor nations, (b) the asymmetry of power between present and future generations, and (c) the absence of guidance from robust general theories. Although Gardiner acknowledges a political dimension to the perfect storm, international relations remain in soft focus. I continue with an explication of Mearsheimer’s influential (if controversial) study of great power politics since the 18th century and his analysis of how anarchic relations between great powers produce unrelenting security competition often leading to open conflict. Although Mearsheimer recognizes the contribution of technology to this competition, he does not grant it the driving character it has in Gardiner. Important qualifier: Like both Gardiner and Mearsheimer, I’m concerned less with developing and defending policy responses to climate change or great power competition than to clarifying our techno-political predicament. To this end I will present and defend two theses:
1. The environmental tragedy of climate change is more technological-political philosophical than moral theoretical or ethical. As Mearsheimer argues in a companion study, The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities (2018), when push comes to shove the power of nationalism repeatedly trumps liberalism, undermining prospects for any effective collaborative, global, great technological power response to climate change.
2. The tragedy of great power politics is more a technological-political philosophical issue than one soley of international relations. Engineering and great power technologies have an inherent tendency to weaken both domestic social glue by aggravating factional disagreements about how best to adapt or respond and international alliances or institutions that might be marshalled to address the double-headed tragic potential of security competition under conditions of technological power driven climate change.
As integration of these two theses, I will propose reformulating Spinoza’s theological-political problem and a technological-political one.
Problematising Political Uses of History in the Philosophy of Technology
Christopher Coenen
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
In the modern age, technological superiority has become perhaps the most important yardstick for judging societies, both one’s own and others, and accordingly for implicit or explicit judgements about states and their political order. At the same time, such judgements are often still based on older forms of evaluating states and societies and are deceptively interwoven with competing or complementary standards that are also more recent. Simplifying statements about long historical developments, which at best correspond to the state of the respective national historical narrative taught in high schools, and politically charged myths structure the otherwise very differentiated analyses of technological developments.
The importance of this problem has increased in times of heightened international tensions and intensified global cultural exchange. While philosophy of technology and other science and technology studies often radically question over-generalising notions of technological progress and science and thoroughly analyse their inherent ideological aspects, they usually avoid an equally careful approach to implicit or explicit claims about history. This problem is aggravated by a global tendency in science systems to justify funding programmes with often geopolitically motivated grand political narratives.
This contribution aims to illustrate the problem by using the example of implicit or explicit references in the philosophy of technology to politically charged ideas about the history of Christianity and the pre-Christian Roman Empire, as well as the uncritical use of ideas based on outdated conceptions of world history. Of course, philosophy of technology does not have to become professional historical research, but those who want to analyse the global relevance of such technoscientific developments as the rise of computer technologies are well advised to make their assumptions about relevant long-term historical developments explicit and to be sensitive to the historical-political weight of only seemingly innocent modern concepts.
Key literature
Adas, Michael. 1989. Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance. Cornell University Press
Amir, Samin. 2009, Eurocentrism (2nd ed.)
Li Bocong. 2022. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Engineering: I Create, Therefore I Am. Translated by Wang Nan and Shunfu Zhang. Springer
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