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Technology Assessment and Design for Values

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Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design

Abstract

Technology assessment (TA) constitutes a scientific and societal response to problems at the interface between technology and society. It is a field that has arisen against the background of various experiences concerning the unintended and often undesirable side effects of science, technology, and societal technicization. This chapter provides an overview of the history, motivations, objectives, and present status of TA. Elements of the governance of technology are discussed in order to identify appropriate constellations where knowledge and orientation provided by TA could be used to improve decision making. There are three major branches of TA: TA as policy advice (e.g., to parliaments), TA in public debate (e.g., by participatory measures), and TA for shaping technology directly (e.g., by constructive technology assessment or by Leitbild assessment). In all of these branches, TA is considering relations between technology and values. In particular, insofar as TA is involved in processes of shaping technology directly, there is a close neighborhood with Design for Values.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There is a lively and growing community of parliamentary TA in Europe which has organized itself in the European Parliamentary Technology Assessment (EPTA) Network.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany

    Armin Grunwald

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  1. Armin Grunwald
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Correspondence to Armin Grunwald .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ethics and Philosophy of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Jeroen van den Hoven

  2. Department of Ethics and Philosophy of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Pieter E. Vermaas

  3. Department of Ethics and Philosophy of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Ibo van de Poel

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Grunwald, A. (2015). Technology Assessment and Design for Values. In: van den Hoven, J., Vermaas, P., van de Poel, I. (eds) Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6970-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6970-0_4

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