Values Embodied in Information & Communication
Technologies
Spring 2004
Instructor: Helen Nissenbaum
Virtually all parts of our
lives are touched by computing and information technology. It mediates much
private and public communication, interaction, and transaction, and forms the
infrastructure for critical social and institutional functions such as
commerce, banking and finance, utilities, national defense, education,
entertainment, and more. Given the ubiquity of these systems and the confidence
we have invested in them, it is important to step back and consider what
wholesale commitment to this technology means for moral, social, and political
values. Our course undertakes this mission. We investigate how computers and
information systems promote and obscure the values to which we, individually
and as societies are committed, values such as freedom, privacy, justice and
autonomy. We call this investigation the study of values “embodied in” computer
and information system.
The
course welcomes students with a variety of backgrounds, including technical
computer science or engineering students interested in learning about social,
political, and ethical implications of their field, as well as students with
humanistic, social science, and communications backgrounds interested in
learning about digital technologies touching virtually all parts of our lives.
The
course has two parts. In the first, we cover a selection of works in the
philosophy and social study of technology that seeks to understand the rich and
sometimes troubling relationship between social and political factors, on the
one hand, and development and deployment of technology, on the other. We
address questions such as: Is technology neutral? Who should make decisions
about technical developments? What is the role of scientists and engineers?
Does technology make the world better, or worse? The second part of the course
is devoted to application of themes, theories, and principles, drawn from the
first part, to controversial cases in information technology and new media,
such as search engines, web-cookies, anonymity online, data mining, online
dating, and the Internet and World Wide Web, themselves.
Although
the course has been taught before in Culture and Communication, this is the
first time it is cross-listed in Computer Science. Ideally, students with
diverse backgrounds will collaborate on final projects, bringing different
skills to the analysis of selected case studies.
Readings
Weekly Readings assigned from
course readers and textbooks must be completed before each class meeting.
Course Reader: A course reader is available for purchase at the
MacDougal Copy Center, 127 MacDougal Street (between W 3rd and 4th),
Ph. 212-460-8591.
Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon
(1996) Where Wizards Stay up Late: The Origins of the Internet. New
York: Touchstone Books
Lawrence Lessig (1999) Code
and Other Laws of Cybersapce. New York: Basic Books
Course Requirements and Grading
60% Research paper
40% Classroom
participation (Includes attendance, demonstrated familiarity with Readings,
informal and formal contributions to classroom discussion, preparation of study
questions, postings to Class online discussion board.)
In order to earn a passing
grade for the course, students must earn passing grades in each of the two
elements.
Course Homepage
The homepage serves as the hub
of the class and should be checked regularly. It contains the following
elements: the most up-to-date schedule; a discussion board for posting
questions, ideas, and observations; links to relevant websites and Readings.
Schedule (Check course homepage regularly for updates.)
Part One: Theories,
Themes, and Concepts
1/20 Introduction
1/27 Technological
Utopia/Dystopia
Reactions to the increasing
prominence of large technological systems have been varied. Some, wildly
optimistic, perceive technology as key to reducing human misery and resolving
intractable social problems. Others predict dark scenarios of dehumanization
and tyrannical domination by privileged technocrats.
Readings:
·
Florman, Samuel. "In Praise of
Technology." Controlling Technology: Contemporary Issues. Ed. W. B.
Thompson. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991, 148-156.
·
Weinberg, Alvin M. "Can
Technology Replace Social Engineering." Controlling Technology: Contemporary
Issues. Ed. W. B. Thompson. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991, 41-48.
·
Kramer, Mark. “The Ruination of the
Tomato” In Controlling Technology: Contemporary Issues, W.B. Thompson
(eds.) Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991, 131-141
·
Kwitny, J. "The Great
Transportation Conspiracy." Controlling Technology: Contemporary Issues.
Ed. W. B. Thompson. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991, 265-274.
·
Feenberg, Andrew. Alternative
Modernity: The Technical turn in Philosophy and Social Theory, Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1995. Chapters 2,3
·
Feenberg, Andrew “From
Essentialism to Constructivism: Philosophy of Technology at the Crossroads” Technology
and the Good Life? Ed, Higgs, Eric, Light, Andrew and Strong, David
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, 294-315
2/3 Technological
Determinism
Technological determinists are
believed to hold the course of technological advancement to be inevitable,
driven forward only by the internal forces of science and engineering
themselves. According to this oversimplified rendering, technology affects
people and societies in drastic ways but is immune, itself, to social forces.
We will evaluate various versions of technological determinism, identifying
themes that distinguish them from one another.
Readings
·
Heilbroner, Robert. “Do Machines
Make History?” In Controlling Technology: Contemporary Issues, 2nd
ed., E. Katz, A. Light, and W. Thompson (eds.) New York: Prometheus Books, 2003
·
Mumford, L. “Authoritzrian and
Democratic Technics.” In Controlling Technology: Contemporary Issues, 2nd
ed., E. Katz, A. Light, and W. Thompson (eds.) New York: Prometheus Books, 2003
·
Bimber, Bruce. "Three Faces of
Technological Determinism." In Does Technology Drive History? The
Dilemma of Technological Determinism, M.R. Smith and L. Marx (eds.)
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998, 79-100.
·
Williams, R. “The Political and
Feminist Dimensions of Technological Determinism.” In Does Technology Drive
History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism, M.R. Smith and L. Marx
(eds.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998.
2/10 Questioning the
Neutrality Thesis
This segment critically
evaluates the claim that technology is value-neutral and that its harms and
benefits are the result not of good or bad technology but good or bad actions,
people, and political systems. “Guns don’t kill; people do” -- or do they?
Readings
·
Winner, Langdon. "Do Artifacts
Have Politics?" In The Social Shaping of Technology, 2nd
ed., MacKenzie D. and Wajcman, J. (editors) Buckingham: Open University Press,
1999.
·
Latour, Bruno. "Where Are the
Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts." Shaping
Technology/Building Society. Ed. W. Bijker and J. Law. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1992. Pg. 225-258.
·
Bentham, Jeremy “Panopticon; or
the Inspection House The Panopticon Writings New York: Verso, 1995,
31-34, 86-95
·
Weber, R. “Manufacturing Gender in
Military Cockpit Design.” In MacKenzie,
D., and J. Wajcman, eds. 1985. The Social Shaping of Technology .
Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
·
Berg, A. and Lie, M. “Feminism and
Constrivism: Do Artifacts Have Gender?” Science, Technology, & Human
Values, Vol. 20, No. 3, (Summer 1995), 332-551
2/17 Social
Construction of Technology
In a direct challenge to
technological determinism, theories of social construction of technology hold
that social, political, and cultural forces are as important as scientific and
technological ones in explaining the shape of technical devices and systems. We
examine a few prominent versions of social shaping or social construction of
technology that have emerged from STS subfields, mainly in sociology,
anthropology, and history.
Readings
·
Pinch, Trevor and W. Bijker.
"The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of
Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other." Shaping
Technology/Building Society. Ed. W. Bijker and J. Law. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1992, 17-50.
·
MacKenzie D., and J. Wajcman. 1985.
“Introduction: The Social Shaping of Technology.” In MacKenzie, D., and J. Wajcman, eds. 1985b. The
Social Shaping of Technology . Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
·
Woolgar, S. “The Turn To Technology
in Social Studies of Science,” Science, Technology, & Human Values,
Vol. 16, No. 1 (Winter 1991) 20-50
·
Pfaffenberger, B. “Technological Dramas,”
Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Summer, 1992),
282-312
·
MacKenzie D. “Theories of
Technology and the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons.” In MacKenzie, D., and J. Wajcman, eds. 1985. The
Social Shaping of Technology . Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
2/24 Social
Construction: Critiques and rebuttals
Various debated have arisen
within and about the development of this important approach to the study of
technology. Detractors have argued that it neglects technology’s impacts; competitors
accuse one another of holding positions either too extreme, or not extreme
enough. Readings offer a small window into these discussions.
Readings
·
Winner, L. 1991. "Upon
Opening the Black Box and Finding it Empty: Social Constructivism and the Philosophy
of Technology." In Pitt, J., and E. Lugo, eds., The Technology of
Discovery and the Discovery of Technology . Blacksburg, Va: Society for
Philosophy and Technology.
·
Grint, K., and Woolgar, S. 1995.
"On Some Failures of Nerve in Constructivist and Feminist Analyses of
Technology." Science, Technology, & Human Values 20:286-310.
·
Brey, P. “Philosophy of Technology
Meets Social Constructivism,” Techne: Journal for the Society for Philosophy
and Technology, Vol 2, Nos. 3-4, Spring-Summer 1997
3/2 Values in Design:
building better systems
One question to emerge from
debates over social construction approaches is practical relevance, bluntly,
whether these approaches have the capacity to make the world a better place by
defining ways to make better technologies. This challenge is taken up by
proponents of values-in-design, whose goals include establishment of values as
a design criterion and construction of background theory and methodology.
Readings
·
Friedman, Batya and Helen
Nissenbaum. "Bias in Computer Systems." Human Values and the Design
of Computer Technology. Ed. Batya Friedman. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1997, 21-40.
·
Nissenbaum, Helen. “How Computer
Systems Embody Values” Computer, Vol. 34, Number 3, March 2001, 120-118
·
Friedman, B. and Kahn, P. H., Jr.
(2003). "Human values, ethics and design". In J. Jacko and A. Sears
(Eds.), Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 1177 - 1201). Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
·
Donald Norman, The Design of
Everyday Things, New York: Doubleday, 1989 (excerpts)
·
Lessig, Lawrence. Code and Other
Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books, 1999, Chapters 2, 5, 7.
3/9 Values
Here, we take up the
foundational question of what do we mean when we talk of values. What the
values are that technology may promote or suppress and what is the source of
their importance?
Readings
·
T.D.J. Chappell, Understanding
Human Goods: A Theory of Ethics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998.
Chapters 1, 2.
·
Constitution of the United States of
America (esp. Bill of Rights)
·
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/const.html
·
Nagel, Thomas. “The Fragmentation
of Value” Mortal Questions. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press,
1979, 128-141
·
Taylor, Charles. The Diversity of
Goods” Moral Philosophy: Selected Readings 2nd ed. Ed. Sher,
George, forth Worth: Harcourt Brace Publishers, 1996, 581-593
3/16 Spring Break
3/23 More Values
Difficult and recurring
questions about values are whether they are subjective or objective, universal
or relative. We discuss some of the fundamental alternatives, focusing on what
it means for technology and values to commit to one or other of them.
Readings:
·
Michael Philips, Chapter 3 “The
Formal Conception of the Good” In Between Universalism and Skepticm: Ethics
as Social Artifact, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994
·
Harman, Gilbert. “Is There a Single
True Morality?” Explaining Value and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2000, 77-99
·
Gilligan, Carol “In a Different
Voice” Moral Philosophy: Selected Readings 2nd ed. Ed. Sher,
George, forth Worth: Harcourt Brace Publishers, 1996, 581-593
Part Two: Applications
In this part of the course, we
jointly select several cases for special study. Choices include: The Internet,
World Wide Web, socially controversial Web protocols (e.g. PICS, P3P),
Peer-to-Peer systems, online dating services and other social systems,
computing for the disabled, search engines, UrbanSim, Radio Frequency ID Tags,
and others.
3/30 Case Studies
4/6 Case Studies
4/13 Case Studies
4/20 Case Studies
4/27 Case Studies
Sample Readings:
·
Hafner and Lyon, Where Wizards
Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet (1999) New York: Touchstone Books
·
Abbate, Janet. Inventing the
Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999, chapters 3 and 4, pp. 83-145.
·
Lessig, L. Code and Other Laws
of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
·
Berners-Lee, T. and Frischetti, M. Weaving
the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its
Inventor. San Francisco: Harper, 1999, 7-66
·
Agre, P. and Mailloux, C. “Social
Choice About Privacy: Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems in the United
States.” In Human Values and the Design of Computer Technology. Ed.
Batya Friedman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
·
Friedman, B. and Kahn, P. H., Jr.
(2003). "Human values, ethics and design". In J. Jacko and A. Sears
(Eds.), Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 1177 - 1201). Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
·
Hockenberry, John. “This is the
Story of the Most Fearless Entrepreneur Ever, The Human Brain” Wired
Magazine, August 2001, 99-105
·
L. Introna and H. Nissenbaum,
"Defining the Web: The Politics of Search Engines" IEEE Computer,
Vol. 33, No. 1, Jan. 2000: 54-62.
·
Nissenbaum, Helen. “How Computer
Systems Embody Values” Computer, Vol. 34, Number 3, March 2001, 120-118
·
Perry, John, Macken, E., Scott, N.
and J. McKinley. "Disability, Inability, and Cyberspace." Human
Values and the Design of Computer Technology. Ed. Batya Friedman. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1997, 65-90.
