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Seen a couple of threads talk about the need of non-Western perspective in Phil Tech and Tech Ethics, and since I have done this for a couple years. So I thought I would say a few words about my works, how I get there. Here goes the shameless reflection: /1
When I started my doc research with a project on evaluating evaluation of digital media and thought it might be good to include some thought on Confucian philosophy, but I have no idea if it is a good idea or not. /2
Then I met @charles_ess, @Sonamsangbo, Rafael Capurro, and other colleagues who worked on intercultural information ethics. Having many conversations with them, the idea of including Confucian ethics in Phil Tech and Tech Ethics is not too crazy after all. /3
I published my first paper Dao, Harmony and Personhood https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-011-0021-z, trying to spell out what conceptual resource Confucian ethics can offer. Around this time, I met @qzhu0723 who was visiting NL and we shared some thoughts abt the relevance of Chinese Phil /4
Later, I apply the ideas in DHP to look at the ethics of social media https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11712-013-9329-y. This is also around the time I met @ShannonVallor and learned that she is also looking at Confucian philosophy too! /5
Shortly after I got my doc, I moved on to a diff topic: climate change and climate eng; but I figure again very few people refer to Confucian ethics. So, I take my chance and say sth abt the ‘playing god’ argument with Confucianism in https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/zygo.12151 /6
Since I got my doc from NL (hah!). I am also interested in Responsible Innovation (esp. in relation to climate eng), but I thought RI as it stands may not be compatible with non-Western (well, non-liberal) worldview https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23299460.2016.1216709 /7
However, I also think Confucian Phil can nonetheless justify many things required by Responsible Innovation albeit only instrumentally https://www.pdcnet.org/techne/content/techne_2013_0017_0003_0350_0367 /8
So that's some of my research in the last 10(!) years, and certainly there aren't too many ppl doing 'non-Westen' Phil Tech/Tech Ethics because neither 'non-Western' Phil nor Phil Tech/Tech Ethics is the mainstream /9
But I then have met many who are willing to talk (or let me talk) Confucian Phil to them, e.g. @metus, @MCoeckelbergh, @aimeevanrobot, @jud1ths1mon, @lauraphilosophy, @aktant, and many more. Indeed, I am very much encouraged by them /10
That's probably why I am still trying and working on Confucian Phil Tech/Tech Ethics. /end
Time to update this thread as a few more papers were published/are on their way! Over the past years, I have been reflecting on whether Confucianism has something unique to contribute to phil and ethics of tech /1
In Rituals and Machines https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/4/4/59, I started to explore the Confucian idea of rituals and its applicability to the problem of moral deskilling as identified by @ShannonVallor. /2
The idea of rituals, I believe, do offer an interesting way to engage with phil and ethics of tech. I elaborate on this in a forthcoming chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology https://philpapers.org/rec/WONWCM /3
Another notion that may contribute to phil and ethics of tech is the idea of oneness, which foregrounds our interconnectedness with others and with things in the world. I discuss this in my chapter in the vol Harmonious Technology https://www.routledge.com/Harmonious-Technology-A-Confucian-Ethics-of-Technology/Wong-Wang/p/book/9780367263522 /4
In the vol. my co-editor Tom Wang and I also discuss why Confucianism is indeed important for phil and ethics of tech, and put forward an acc of Confucian ethics of technology around the idea of 'harmonious technology' /end
