The Ethics of Invention

Technology and the Human Future

Sheila Jasanoff (Harvard University)

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English

Norton
30 September 2016

Philosophy; Ethics & moral philosophy; Impact of science & technology on society

Technology rules us as much as laws do. It shapes our legal, social and ethical environment. Every time we cross a street, drive a car, or go to the doctor, we submit to the silent power of technology. Yet, much of the time, the influence of technology on our lives goes unchallenged by citizens and our elected representatives.

In The Ethics of Invention, renowned scholar Sheila Jasanoff dissects the ways in which we delegate power to technological systems and asks how we might regain control.

Our embrace of novel technological pathways, Jasanoff shows, leads to a complex interplay among technology, ethics and human rights. Inventions such as pesticides and GMOs can reduce hunger, but can also cause unexpected harm to people and the environment.

Often, as in the case of CFCs creating a hole in the ozone layer, it takes decades before we even realise that any damage has been done.

Advances in biotechnology, from GMOs to gene editing, have given us the tools to tinker with life itself, leading some to worry that human dignity and even human nature are under threat. But despite many reasons for caution, we continue to march heedlessly into ethically troubled waters.

As Jasanoff ranges across these and other themes, she challenges the common assumption that technology is an apolitical and amoral force. Technology, she masterfully demonstrates, can warp the meaning of democracy and citizenship unless we carefully consider how to direct its power, rather than let ourselves be shaped by it. The Ethics of Invention makes a bold argument for a future in which societies work together - in open, democratic dialogue - to debate the promises and the perils of technology.

By: Sheila Jasanoff (Harvard University)
Imprint: Norton
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 218mm, Width: 147mm, Spine: 30mm
Weight: 386g
ISBN: 9780393078992
ISBN 10: 039307899X
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 30 September 2016
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Sheila Jasanoff is professor of science and technology studies at Harvard Kennedy School. She is the author of many books on technology, most recently Science and Public Reason and Designs on Nature. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reviews for The Ethics of Invention: Technology and the Human Future

A remarkable book which brings government and technology into much-needed dialogue. Across disasters and designer babies, GMO crops and information technologies, Sheila Jasanoff expertly tracks the social and technological forces that shape our worlds. Drawing on the full range of her previous scholarship, she elegantly raises a number of profound questions concerning the possibilities for democratic control over technological forces which seem too fast, too complex and too unpredictable for our institutions to handle. Along the way, our very notion of democracy is extended, challenged and transformed. -- Professor Alan Irwin, Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School Not bewitched by technological promises, The Ethics of Innovation reclaims the future for human creativity. Sheila Jasanoff opens our eyes to the fact that societies are governed by technical systems as much as by the rule of law. And if we want to govern ourselves well, we need collective imaginations of the world we want to live in. -- Professor Alfred Nordmann, Darmstadt Technical University