Stoic Ethics and the Normative Impact of Technology on Wellbeing

Edward Spence

To what degree is technology in the form of products and processes capable of contributing human enhancement and wellbeing?

In cases where the impact of a technology on society is not only very negligible but overall negative and harmful, what is technology good for?

To answer these questions, Spence develops and applies a normative model based on rationalist and virtue ethics as well as stoic philosophy. Its primary purpose is to determine the essential conditions that any normative theory that seeks to assess the impact of technology on wellbeing must adequately address in order to be able to account for, explain and evaluate what contribution, if any, technology is capable of making to the attainment and enhancement of human wellbeing. Through developing this model, Spence offers a novel and important examination of the benefit of technology to our society as a whole.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 193 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-78661-591-6 • Hardback • November 2021 • $120.00 • (£92.00)

978-1-78661-592-3 • eBook • November 2021 • $33.94 • (£26.00) (coming soon)

Series: Values and Identities: Crossing Philosophical Borders

Subjects: Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Philosophy / Ethics / Applied Ethics, Philosophy / Philosophy of Technology

Stoic Ethics and the Normative Impact of Technology on Wellbeing

Hardback

Summary

To what degree is technology in the form of products and processes capable of contributing human enhancement and wellbeing?

In cases where the impact of a technology on society is not only very negligible but overall negative and harmful, what is technology good for?

To answer these questions, Spence develops and applies a normative model based on rationalist and virtue ethics as well as stoic philosophy. Its primary purpose is to determine the essential conditions that any normative theory that seeks to assess the impact of technology on wellbeing must adequately address in order to be able to account for, explain and evaluate what contribution, if any, technology is capable of making to the attainment and enhancement of human wellbeing. Through developing this model, Spence offers a novel and important examination of the benefit of technology to our society as a whole.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

Pages: 193 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-78661-591-6 • Hardback • November 2021 • $120.00 • (£92.00)

978-1-78661-592-3 • eBook • November 2021 • $33.94 • (£26.00) (coming soon)

Series: Values and Identities: Crossing Philosophical Borders

Subjects: Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Philosophy / Ethics / Applied Ethics, Philosophy / Philosophy of Technology

Author

Edward Spence PhD is Senior Lecturer in the School of Communication and Creative Industries, Charles Sturt University, Australia. He is a Research Fellow at the 4TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology, Netherlands and the Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney, Australia. He is the author of several books including Ethics in a Digital Era (2018), Media Markets and Morals (2011), and Ethics Within Reason: A Neo-Gewirthian Approach

(2005).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction / 2. What is Technology Good For? / 3. Wisdom and Wellbeing: The Dual Obligation Information Theory (DOIT)-Wisdom Model / 4. Stoic Philosophy and Technology / 5: The Good and Bad of Information Technologies / 6. Media and Information Corruption / 7. The Good and Bad of AI Technologies / 8. Smart Machines and Wise Guys: Who is in Control?

Stoic Ethics and the Normative Impact of Technology on Wellbeing

Edward Spence

Stoic Ethics and the Normative Impact of Technology on Wellbeing

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