Technology Ethics in Action: Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

TL;DR

This paper explores the complex role of ethics in digital technology, critically examining whose values are prioritized and how ethical principles are practically integrated into technology development and governance.

Contribution

It offers an interdisciplinary analysis of the real-world application and implications of tech ethics, questioning dominant narratives and proposing more just approaches.

Findings

Critical discourses challenge whose ethics are prioritized.

Analysis of ethics integration across technology domains.

Discussion of pathways for more equitable tech development.

Abstract

This special issue interrogates the meaning and impacts of "tech ethics": the embedding of ethics into digital technology research, development, use, and governance. In response to concerns about the social harms associated with digital technologies, many individuals and institutions have articulated the need for a greater emphasis on ethics in digital technology. Yet as more groups embrace the concept of ethics, critical discourses have emerged questioning whose ethics are being centered, whether "ethics" is the appropriate frame for improving technology, and what it means to develop "ethical" technology in practice. This interdisciplinary issue takes up these questions, interrogating the relationships among ethics, technology, and society in action. This special issue engages with the normative and contested notions of ethics itself, how ethics has been integrated with technology across domains, and potential paths forward to support more just and egalitarian technology. Rather than starting from philosophical theories, the authors in this issue orient their articles around the real-world discourses and impacts of tech ethics--i.e., tech ethics in action.