Select a technology of interest (invented anywhere, but not nuclear weapons, timekeeping, or social media). You will consider the political implications of this technology within a non-U.S. country (that may or may not have invented the technology). See brief notes after the prompt on “governance,” “political qualities” and “inherently political.”
1) Describe the relevant factual details of the case you will be discussing: the technology, where it was first developed, the country you will examine, and how people are using it in that country.
2) State your conclusion about whether or not the technology possesses inherently political qualities.
Give an argument that establishes your conclusion based on the relation of the technology to specific social factors related to governance in the non-U.S. country. That is, describe an aspect of governance, such as processes related to societal leadership and social choice, and show how it is influenced by the technology.
For a technology that has not been deployed yet (e.g., quantum computing) or that exists but has not reached mainstream use at scale (e.g., genetic engineering, blockchain), you need to project how the technology would be deployed into the selected society, and how that would influence governance (e.g., I assume it will have these properties and will be deployed in this way, and that this set of governance structures or practices would be undermined, need to change, or need to be invented … for these reasons).
3) State your conclusion about whether or not it was (or would be) ethical to introduce the technology into the selected country.
Then give an argument for your conclusion that relates the deployment/uptake and then use of the technology (perhaps only by a distinct population) to social factors that resulted, and that can be judged as ethical, or not.
Treat “ethical” as the technology supports general flourishing (many lives are improved, and this is achieved without requiring substantial harm to some). Treat “unethical” as the technology with high likelihood results in a society with less justice, more entrenched inequality, new or stronger barriers to freedom to determine one’s course — or in general is such that whatever benefits accrue to some are achieved in a way that necessarily and substantively harms others. Note that a technology that biases governance in favor of some (a governing or decision-making ‘elite’) would almost certainly be unethical.
If you’ve chosen a technology that is not yet used at scale, then the forecast for its characteristics, deployment/uptake, and use are used to guide your ethical analysis.
Notes on Technology and Political Qualities
You have the slides from lecture, and the Winner readings, to guide your understanding of governance, technology with political qualities, and inherently political technology. Here are brief summaries.
By “governance” we mean processes by which some actors (perhaps all!) in a society participate in the formation of choices and the taking of decisions with very substantive impact on the lives, livelihoods, roles, agency, opportunities etc., of a population of people. Decisions about who participates in future governance matters, and how, are particularly important.
In brief, technology with political qualities is technology that, when entered into practice, settles a matter of governance in a community. It may do so by dissolving an issue, by introducing new mechanisms for people to influence societal relationships in the future, or by in some manner barring or limiting the participation of some in those processes aimed at shaping our collective future (e.g., after the manner of McCormick or R. Moses).
Inherently political technology, in Winner’s definition, is technology that is only compatible with one or a narrow range of forms of governance — e.g., in the way that nuclear power/weapons require the absolute centralization and hierarchical control over decision-making pertaining to these systems. However, many modern technologies are clearly disruptive of governance, yet may be compatible with a variety of societal arrangements. We therefore generalize Winner and allow that “inherently political” can also be taken to mean that governance in the present society is essentially certain to change in substantive ways, but that we do not yet apprehend what the follow-on form of governance might be.
Grading
Your essay must have an introduction (summarizes the paper, or, makes a claim that will be argued), a conclusion (summing up), and your thoughts/answers on the questions above. When you respond to these questions, you should be specific and cite specific details from the readings, class lectures, and your own research. You should have at least two references; these may include documents or lectures from the class. Also, you MUST make sure to cite your sources in your response and include a reference list at the end of your essay. Citations must be from reputable sources. Sites like Wikipedia, about.com, etc. are NOT considered acceptable sources.
You may use AI as a thought partner. You may not use AI to write any part of your paper, even if you were to cite it as a source. If you use AI then you are required to include an appendix to your paper that describes a substantive use . You are to use the following template: your work; your prompt to the AI (what you want it to do for you), its exact response, and then what you made of that response (leading you to improve your thinking). E.g., you might ask it to summarize each of your body paragraphs in 2 or 3 sentences, and get the summaries. This leads you to discover that the summary is substantially different from what you intended — so that you learned something about how to rewrite to better explicate your thought. See the syllabus for more details.
Higher credit will be given for responses that show evidence of a systematic and comprehensive understanding of the topics involved.
You are encouraged to review the rubric for this assignment and make sure that you answer each question in detail and with specifics.
Correct use of English is a fundamental requirement for your papers to be graded. If errors in English make it difficult for a grader to understand your sentences, or excessively slow down the grader to mark your technical errors, your paper will be returned to you for further work on its English, and your grade for the paper will be deferred until it is resubmitted with corrected English. If your assignment is returned for an excessive number of grammatical errors, you will be allowed to rewrite and resubmit it within two weeks of the original return date. If not resubmitted by the date set by your instructor, you will receive a zero (0) for the writing assignment.
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