INTRODUCTION TO PART V

Ibo van de Poel, associate editor

At first sight the notion that technology and engineering are value-laden hardly
seems controversial. After all, engineering pertains to the creation of useful tech-
nological artifacts. Technological artifacts have certain, intentionally designed,
functions and are therefore good for serving certain ends. This basic insight lends,
so it seems, a normative dimension to technology.1
Given this basic normativity of technology, one might wonder why certain au-
thors (e.g. [Florman, 1987; Pitt, 2000]) have contended that technology is value-
neutral (the so-called neutrality thesis). Upon closer inspection, however, the
neutrality thesis does not deny that technologies are useful nor does it maintain
that technology is without value. It asserts instead that technology is a mere
means to an end. Technologies may be valuable as means to ends — and thus
have what may be called instrumental value or utility value — but their ultimate
value depends on their particular uses and such choice of ends depends more on
the actual users than on the technology itself or its designers. As the American
National Rifle Association once put it: “Guns do not kill people, people kill peo-
ple”. The thesis that technology is value-neutral then rests on the assumption
that instrumental value — i.e. the value of being a means to an end — is ulti-
mately no value at all. This assumption has indeed been defended by some moral
philosophers (e.g. [Dancy, 2000]).
If one wants to maintain, against the neutrality thesis, that norms and values
are in some respects inherent to technology and engineering, one could adhere to a
variety of argumentative strategies, which are not mutually exclusive. Firstly, one
could argue that the neutrality thesis is wrong and that technology is inherently
normative. This strategy is employed in the chapter by Radder, which critically
discusses four different existing approaches to the normativity of technology. On
the basis of a detailed account of the notions of technology and normativity, Rad-
der concludes that norms are inherent to technology. Similarly, the chapter by
Van de Poel (in particular Section 3) argues that some types of values are inherent
to technology. Secondly, one could argue that the instrumentality of technolog-
ical artifacts does at least support some normative statements. Thus, Franssen
discusses the normativity that is involved in statements like “This is a good ham-
mer”, “This coffee-vending machine malfunctions” and “This car ought to start”.
Thirdly, one could argue that as a practice engineering is not value-neutral (even
if as an instrument technology perhaps is). Engineering is not value-neutral as a
1 I use the notion “normative” to refer both to the evaluative domain (in which values prevail)

and to the prescriptive or deontic domain (in which norms prevail).

Handbook of the Philosophy of Science. Volume 9: Philosophy of Technology and Engineering

Sciences.
Volume editor: Anthonie Meijers. General editors: Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard and John
Woods.
c 2009 Elsevier BV. All rights reserved.
884 Ibo van de Poel, associate editor

practice because it is guided — like any practice (cf. [MacIntyre, 1984]) — by a

range of normative standards. One might think, for instance, of the normative
standards that are implied in technical codes and standards but also of the fun-
damental canon of many American engineering codes of ethics: “Engineers shall
hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public”. Pritchard discusses
the professional normative standards that are typical of engineering.
As the above points already illustrate, the normative dimensions of technology
and engineering can be analyzed from at least two perspectives. One perspective is
that of the normative standards inherent in engineering as a practice. The other
relates to the normativity inherent in technological artifacts and systems. The
second perspective differs from the first from the point of view that the norma-
tivity inherent in technological artifacts and systems is not only shaped by, and
affects, engineers, and other technology developers, but also by users and various
stakeholders.
The two perspectives are not of course unrelated. This is underscored by the
canon in engineering codes of ethics that requires engineers to hold paramount
the safety, health, and welfare of the public. One of the places where the two
perspectives meet is in the design phase. Design is obviously steered by profes-
sional engineering standards, but it is also the terrain where the expected value
of to-be-designed technical artifacts is contemplated and created. The chapter by
Van de Poel focuses on how the expectation of value plays a role in the design
process. It focuses in particular on the plurality of values that affect design and
on how engineers can, and according to some people, should deal with conflicts
between those values in the design process.
Given the normativity of technology and engineering, a range of more specific
values can be distinguished that play a part in engineering and technology. One
such value is efficiency. In broad outline, efficiency can be described as the achiev-
ing of an end with as few as possible resources. This matches the instrumental
notion of technical artifacts as means to ends. In striving for efficiency engineers
likewise see the ends as given and try to devise efficient means to achieve such
ends. This fits the self-image that at least some engineers have of themselves as
neutral problem solvers and it helps to explain the primacy of efficiency in engi-
neering, at least rhetorically; its role in actual design practice is sometimes less
obvious [see the chapter by Alexander, Section 5]. Efficiency is, however, only
seemingly neutral, because the notion crucially depends on what is adopted as
an end and what is defined as the input that needs to be minimized; issues that
regularly lead to considerable controversy. Moreover, as is analyzed in detail by
Alexander, the history and application of the notion of efficiency is much broader
than engineering, even if engineering is a main area where the value is applied.
A second category of values that has a role to play in engineering and technology
is aesthetic value. Apart from areas such as product design and architecture, little
attention has so far been paid to aesthetic values in engineering. The chapter by
Schummer, MacLennan and Taylor embarks on a more general analysis of the role
of aesthetic values in technology and engineering design by looking at three dif-
 Introduction to Part V 885

ferent areas: urban landscape planning and architecture, chemistry and software
engineering.
A third category of relevant values are moral values. One moral value that is rec-
ognized as crucial by almost all engineers is safety. Hansson thus discusses risk and
safety in technology and, among other matters, the ethical issues of technological
risk. Safety is obviously not the only relevant moral value in engineering. Other
relevant moral values include sustainability, health, privacy, justice and democ-
racy. Some of these moral values are discussed in general terms in the chapters by
Van de Poel and by Mitcham and Briggle. The chapters in Part VI, which deal
with the philosophical issues of specific engineering disciplines, discuss the more
specific moral concerns raised by specific technologies or engineering domains such
as biotechnology and computing and information technology.
A fourth category of values that is relevant to engineering is epistemic value. If
one assumes that science and engineering have different aims (knowledge versus
useful products), then the thesis that science and engineering are characterized by
different epistemic values has at least some prima facie plausibility. Engineering
science does not, however, fit neatly into this framework because it usually aims
at obtaining knowledge to design useful artifacts. A way of putting engineering
science into the picture might be by looking at the suggestion that the research
system is currently going through a transformation from what is sometimes called
Mode 1 knowledge production to Mode 2 knowledge production [Gibbons et al.,
1994]. Mode 2 is typically assumed to be more application-driven, more interdisci-
plinary, more undertaken by actors other than universities and research institutes
and more heterogeneous. Ziman has suggested that the Mertonian norms of com-
munalism, universalism, disinterestedness, originality, and organized scepticism
(CUDOS) that characterize Mode 1 are replaced by what he calls the PLACE
(proprietary, local, authoritarian, commissioned, and expert) norms in Mode 2
[Ziman, 2000].2 Much engineering research seems to fit the description provided
for Mode 2 better than the Mode 1 description, and Ziman’s thesis could be seen
to express the expectation that engineering science is characterized by different
epistemic norms than those of traditional science. The Mode 1 – Mode 2 thesis
is, however, usually viewed as a transformation of the research system rather than
a description of the two modes of research that exist side by side. Ultimately it
is hard to find in the literature a systematic exploration of the relevant epistemic
differences between science and engineering science which explains why there is no
separate chapter on epistemic values in engineering in this part. Obviously, there
is still a lot of interesting work to be done on the subject of epistemic values in
engineering.
The final two contributions discuss two subdisciplines that have made major
contributions to the analysis of normative issues in technology and engineering.
Grunwald gives an overview of the area of technology assessment (TA). Technology
assessment began as an attempt to predict and assess the impacts that technology
2 Ziman uses the terms academic science and post-academic science instead of Mode 1 and

Mode 2.
886 Ibo van de Poel, associate editor

has on society. It therefore initially focused on the normativity inherent in tech-

nologies rather than in engineering practice; some even believed that TA was value
neutral because it only predicted technological consequences while the evaluations
had to be done by politicians. In the course of its history, TA become more and
more aware that it was itself a value-laden enterprise. Moreover, attempts were
made to feed back TA insights into the development phase, for example through
Constructive Technology Assessment [Schot and Rip, 1997], so also integrating the
normativity inherent in engineering practice.
The chapter by Mitcham and Briggle discusses ethics of technology. Ethics of
technology and engineering ethics are relatively recent subdisciplines of philosophy.
The interaction between ethics and technology is, however, much older and, as they
demonstrate, dates back to antiquity. Not only have moral concerns and ethical
theorizing influenced engineering practices and the development of technology over
the course of time but technology has also influenced ethics, according to some to
the extent that we even need new ethical theories if we are to fully grasp technology
(e.g. [Jonas, 1984]).

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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[Ziman, 2000] J. Ziman. Real science. What It Is, and What It Means. Cambridge University
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