Writing Stories to Explore the Ethics of Technology
About a decade and a half ago, I became interested in the field of
computer ethics. The thing that intrigued me was the strength of opinions
held by people on one side of these issues and the lack of any real
diversity of opinion or any serious debate. As I began to study the issues
further, I realized that most people were drawing conclusions based on the
circumstances of the day not the changed circumstances that would be
brought about by computers and networks. But how does one see a future
world in order to evaluate the ethics of a situation in context? The
answer I came upon was to write stories to explore possible futures.
Unfortunately, this merely traded one difficult problem (seeing the
future) with another difficult problem (writing stories). But progress is
progess. So I got busy on the problem of how to write stories.
I began trying to sketch out an approach to writing stories that might be
acceptable to technical people using ideas from top down software design.
Then, just a few years ago, in an unrelated twist of fate, I had an
opportunity to teach a writing class. So, I decided to put my ideas into
practice.
Over the past few years I developed a course entitled Writing Stories
to Explore the Ethics of Technology and began writing the book below
in support of the class. Part 1 and 2 are finish in draft form. Parts 3
and 4 will come along as I find time to write them.
If you are interested in computer ethics, cyberethics, biomedical
ethics, the ethics of technology or even just in how to write stories feel
free to download the chapters below and have a look. Further, feel free to
distribute them as long as you do not modify them or take credit for my
work. If you read something and have a comment, please send an email to
me at jartz@gwu.edu and let me know your thoughts.
- Writing Stories to Explore the Ethics of Technology
Part 1 The Context
(Uploaded January 2012)
- Writing Stories to Explore the Ethics of Technology
Part 2 Story Design
(Uploaded January 2012)
- Writing Stories to Explore the Ethics of Technology
Part 3 Conceptual and Philosophical Justification
- Part 4 Using Jurassic Park to Teach Writing and Ethics.