Jeroen van den Hoven

ICT and Value Sensitive Design

It is argued that information systems are intentionally or unintentionally informed by moral values of their makers. Since information technology has become a constitutive technology which shapes human life it is important to be aware of the value ladenness of IT design. Examples of values incorporated in design are discussed. The approach to software engineering and systems development, which is referred to as “value sensitive design”, studies the ways in which our accepted moral values can be operationalized and incorporated in IT design. The historical background and future program of value sensitive design in IT are sketched.

Responsible Innovation 1

This book discusses issues regarding conceptualization, governance and implementation of responsible innovation. It treats different approaches to making responsible innovation a reality and it contains new case studies that illustrate challenges and solutions. Research on Responsible Innovation is by its nature highly multidisciplinary, and also pro-active, design-oriented and policy-relevant. Until a few years back, the concept of Responsible Innovation was hardly used - nowadays it is increasingly receiving attention from both researchers and policy makers. This is indispensable reading for anyone interested in or working on innovation.

Engineering and the problem of moral overload.

When thinking about ethics, technology is often only mentioned as the source of our problems, not as a potential solution to our moral dilemmas. When thinking about technology, ethics is often only mentioned as a constraint on developments, not as a source and spring of innovation. In this paper, we argue that ethics can be the source of technological development rather than just a constraint and technological progress can create moral progress rather than just moral problems. We show this by an analysis of how technology can contribute to the solution of so-called moral overload or moral dilemmas. Such dilemmas typically create a moral residue that is the basis of a second-order principle that tells us to reshape the world so that we can meet all our moral obligations. We can do so, among other things, through guided technological innovation.

Big and Open Linked Data (BOLD) in government: A challenge to transparency and privacy?

Abstract Big and Open Linked Data (BOLD) results in new opportunities and have the potential to transform government and its interactions with the public. BOLD provides the opportunity to analyze the behavior of individuals, increase control, and reduce privacy. At the same time BOLD can be used to create an open and transparent government. Transparency and privacy are considered as important societal and democratic values that are needed to inform citizens and let them participate in democratic processes. Practices in these areas are changing with the rise of BOLD. Although intuitively appealing, the concepts of transparency and privacy have many interpretations and are difficult to conceptualize, which makes it often hard to implement them. Transparency and privacy should be conceptualized as complex, non-dichotomous constructs interrelated with other factors. Only by conceptualizing these values in this way, the nature and impact of BOLD on privacy and transparency can be understood, and their levels can be balanced with security, safety, openness and other socially-desirable values.

Bibliometric mapping of computer and information ethics

This paper presents the first bibliometric mapping analysis of the field of computer and information ethics (C&IE). It provides a map of the relations between 400 key terms in the field. This term map can be used to get an overview of concepts and topics in the field and to identify relations between information and communication technology concepts on the one hand and ethical concepts on the other hand. To produce the term map, a data set of over thousand articles published in leading journals and conference proceedings in the C&IE field was constructed. With the help of various computer algorithms, key terms were identified in the titles and abstracts of the articles and co-occurrence frequencies of these key terms were calculated. Based on the co-occurrence frequencies, the term map was constructed. This was done using a computer program called VOSviewer. The term map provides a visual representation of the C&IE field and, more specifically, of the organization of the field around three main concepts, namely privacy, ethics, and the Internet.

Nano-Technology and Privacy: On Continuous Surveillance Outside the Panopticon

We argue that nano-technology in the form of invisible tags, sensors, and Radio Frequency Identity Chips (RFIDs) will give rise to privacy issues that are in two ways different from the traditional privacy issues of the last decades. One, they will not exclusively revolve around the idea of centralization of surveillance and concentration of power, as the metaphor of the Panopticon suggests, but will be about constant observation at decentralized levels. Two, privacy concerns may not exclusively be about constraining information flows but also about designing of materials and nano-artifacts such as chips and tags. We begin by presenting a framework for structuring the current debates on privacy, and then present our arguments.

Breaking the filter bubble: democracy and design

It has been argued that the Internet and social media increase the number of available viewpoints, perspectives, ideas and opinions available, leading to a very diverse pool of information. However, critics have argued that algorithms used by search engines, social networking platforms and other large online intermediaries actually decrease information diversity by forming so-called “filter bubbles”. This may form a serious threat to our democracies. In response to this threat others have developed algorithms and digital tools to combat filter bubbles. This paper first provides examples of different software designs that try to break filter bubbles. Secondly, we show how norms required by two democracy models dominate the tools that are developed to fight the filter bubbles, while norms of other models are completely missing in the tools. The paper in conclusion argues that democracy itself is a contested concept and points to a variety of norms. Designers of diversity enhancing tools must thus be exposed to diverse conceptions of democracy.

E-democracy, E-Contestation and the Monitorial Citizen

It is argued that Pettit’s conception of “contestatory democracy” is superior to deliberative, direct and epistemic democracy. The strong and weak points of these conceptions are discussed drawing upon the work of a.o Bruce Bimber. It is further argued that ‘contestation’ and ‘information’ are highly relevant notions in thinking about, just, viable and sustainable design for E-democracy.

Editorial: ICT and the capability approach

founded by econ-omist Amartya Sen and philosopher Martha Nussbaumattaches central importance to individual human capabili-ties. These are the effective freedoms or real opportunitiesof people to achieve valuable ‘beings and doings’ (alsocalled ‘functionings’ by capability theorists). Resources—including technical artifacts—may contribute to theexpansion of one’s capabilities, but there may also be allsorts of ‘conversion factors’ in place that prevent this. Theapproach highlights the ‘multidimensionality’ of well-being and sees people as active agents shaping their ownlives. In 1998 Sen won the Nobel Prize in economics forhis work, which has deeply influenced the United NationsDevelopment Program (UNDP). In the field of develop-ment studies the CA has indeed gained popularity, but thisis not the only area of application.One of the first articles to apply the CA to ICT was—asfar as we know—that of Garnham (1997). ‘‘Thinking ofentitlements in terms of functionings and capabilities’’, hearguedconvincingly,‘‘allows ustogetbehindthe superficialindices of access and usage that we so often use’’ for ICTpolicy purposes. In the last couple of years an increasingnumber of scholars seem to discover the potential of the CAfor deliberations about ICT. For example, Van den HovenandRooksby(2008)acknowledgetheprofoundnessofSen’scritique on the Rawlsian concept of primary goods in theirargument concerning information and distributive justice.And Sen himself has recently (2010) also taken up the topicof ICT, discussing the positive contribution of the mobilephone to the worldwide expansion of human capabilities.Ethics and Information Technology had so far published twoarticles as part of this growing body of literature: a broad,agenda-setting article (Johnstone 2007) and an applicationto the digital divide, more in particular websites ‘missing’ inthe South (Wresch 2009).This special issue now brings together seven new arti-cles on the topic. It contains a mix of theoretical reflectionsand some applications, and the articles are broadly orderedfrom the more abstract to the more concrete. The threearticles that present the most concrete, detailed cases andthat are thus introduced towards the end of this editorial,happen to all focus on ‘ICT for Development’ (ICT4D).Although of great ethical significance, the topics of povertyand development have so far not been covered in muchdetail in this journal, and articles on ICT4D tend to bepublished in specialized journals.

Ethics and Nanopharmacy: Value Sensitive Design of New Drugs

Although applications are being developed and have reached the market, nanopharmacy to date is generally still conceived as an emerging technology. Its concept is ill-defined. Nanopharmacy can also be construed as a converging technology, which combines features of multiple technologies, ranging from nanotechnology to medicine and ICT. It is still debated whether its features give rise to new ethical issues or that issues associated with nanopharma are merely an extension of existing issues in the underlying fields. We argue here that, regardless of the alleged newness of the ethical issues involved, developments occasioned by technological advances affect the roles played by stakeholders in the field of nanopharmacy to such an extent that this calls for a different approach to responsible innovation in this field. Specific features associated with nanopharmacy itself and features introduced to the associated converging technologies- bring about a shift in the roles of stakeholders that call for a different approach to responsibility. We suggest that Value Sensitive Design is a suitable framework to involve stakeholders in addressing moral issues responsibly at an early stage of development of new nanopharmaceuticals.