Design for values and conceptual engineering

Design for values and conceptual engineering

Veluwenkamp, H.M. (TU Delft Ethics & Philosophy of Technology; Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
van den Hoven, M.J. (TU Delft Ethics & Philosophy of Technology)

2023

Politicians and engineers are increasingly realizing that values are important in the development of technological artefacts. What is often overlooked is that different conceptualizations of these abstract values lead to different design-requirements. For example, designing social media platforms for deliberative democracy sets us up for technical work on completely different types of architectures and mechanisms than designing for so-called liquid or direct forms of democracy. Thinking about Democracy is not enough, we need to design for the proper conceptualization of these values. As we see it, we cannot responsibly engineer and innovate and shape technology in accordance with our moral values without engaging in systematic and continuous conceptual engineering: This is not only an academic, or theoretical issue, it is also not simply an issue for public policy or politics, or regulators, it has become a central problem for engineering and the world of technology. In this paper, we present a framework for doing the necessary conceptual work in the context of requirement engineering. We draw on the literature on conceptual engineering to lay out a methodology to (1) assess different conceptions and (2) to develop new conceptions. Moreover, we integrate this methodology with extant approaches in the philosophy of technology which aim at designing technological artefacts ethically. In the final section we apply this integrated framework to freedom in the context of social media networks.

Conceptual engineering
Control
Design and values
Freedom
Innovation
Value sensitive design

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:7ec6801c-68c5-4766-b701-37a952e48524

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-022-09675-6

2023-07-01

1388-1957

Ethics and Information Technology, 25 (1)

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2023 H.M. Veluwenkamp, M.J. van den Hoven