Abstract
A crucial step in Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is the translation of values into design requirements. However, few research has been done on how this translation can be made. In this contribution, I first consider an example of this translation. I then introduce the notion of values hierarchy, a hierarchy structure of values, norms and design requirements. I discuss the relation of specification, by which values can be translated into design requirements, and the for the sake of relation which connects design requirements to underlying norms and values. I discuss conditions under which a certain specification of values into design requirements is adequate or at least tenable.
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Notes
- 1.
In the literature such hierarchies have been called objectives hierarchies, objectives networks or objectives trees (e.g. Keeney 1992: chapter 3; Keeney and Raiffa 1993: chapter 2; Cross 2008: chapter 6). What I call a values hierarchy below resembles what Keeney and Raiffa (1993) call an objectives hierarchy and what Cross (2008) calls an objectives tree. Keeney (1992) distinguishes between fundamental objectives hierarchies and (means-end) objectives networks. My values hierarchies come closest to the latter but allow a larger heterogeneity of relations between the elements.
- 2.
Cf. Richardson (1997). In the engineering literature, specification is also used in a number of different meanings which I do not intend to imply here.
- 3.
Note that it does make sense, however, to say that animal welfare is a value (partly) because chickens should have enough living space. This suggests two things. First, the relation for the sake of is not exhausted by its justificatory part that may be expressed by because and, second, the justificatory relation that is expressed by because may be bidirectional.
- 4.
It is worth noting that the general conceptualization of animal welfare by ethologists in terms of the fulfillment of certain ethological needs that animals like chickens have in ‘natural’ circumstances does require very limited domain-specific knowledge. The conceptualization does not require any detailed knowledge of what these needs or what natural circumstances would be, only that these can be somehow identified. Philosophers might indeed criticize this conceptualization of animal welfare on a number of grounds. They may, for example, doubt whether there exists such a thing as ‘natural’ circumstances and, even if such circumstances would have existed, they may question why these circumstances would provide a normative yardstick (How convincing would it be to argue that killing or rape is part of human welfare or wellbeing because in ‘natural’ circumstances humans felt a need for them? Of course, animals are not humans). In fact, other conceptualizations of animal welfare are possible, for example, in terms of how animals ‘feel’, which might be measured for example in terms of stress.
- 5.
In practice, the translation may be made in one step, but even then it may be analyzed as involving these two steps.
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Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Forum on Philosophy, Engineering, and Technology (fPET-2010), Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA, May 9–10, 2010. I am grateful to NIAS, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, for providing me with the opportunity, as a Fellow-in-Residence, to work on this paper during my stay in the academic year 2009–2010.
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van de Poel, I. (2013). Translating Values into Design Requirements. In: Michelfelder, D., McCarthy, N., Goldberg, D. (eds) Philosophy and Engineering: Reflections on Practice, Principles and Process. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7762-0_20
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