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Technology, Design, and Human Values in Healthcare

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Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design

Abstract

Communities struggle with finding ways for collaboratively exploring the value of healthcare technologies. Currently, a strong emphasis is being placed on the assessment of the costs associated with the health gains (expressed in quality-adjusted life years) that are achieved with these technologies. Following Hannah Arendt, we shall try to argue that such instrumental rationality is misplaced in discovering how technology can help to express human values. It typically reflects a society where processes of design and development, evaluation, and decision making involve separate trajectories and operate distinct from the realm of the lives of humans. We will present an alternative which is deliberative and transformative in nature. Its strengths and limitations will be explored, using the cochlear implant for deaf children as an example.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a comparable argument, see Richardson (2000).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department for Health Evidence (133), Radboud University Medical Center, PO Box 9101, 6500 HB, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Gert Jan van der Wilt & Rob Reuzel

  2. Department of Political Sciences, University of Amsterdam, OZ Achterburgwal 237, 1012 DL, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    John Grin

Authors
  1. Gert Jan van der Wilt
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  2. Rob Reuzel
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  3. John Grin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gert Jan van der Wilt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy Section, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Jeroen van den Hoven

  2. Delft University of Technology Dept. Philosophy, Delft, The Netherlands

    Pieter E. Vermaas

  3. Department of Philosophy Sch. of Techn. Policy & Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Ibo van de Poel

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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van der Wilt, G.J., Reuzel, R., Grin, J. (2014). Technology, Design, and Human Values in Healthcare. In: van den Hoven, J., Vermaas, P., van de Poel, I. (eds) Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6994-6_36-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6994-6_36-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6994-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

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