Students
PHIL2020 – Philosophy, Technology, and the Future of Humanity
2020 – Session 2, Special circumstance
Notice
As part of Phase 3 of our return to campus plan, most units will now run tutorials, seminars and other small group learning activities on campus for the second half-year, while keeping an online version available for those students unable to return or those who choose to continue their studies online.
To check the availability of face to face activities for your unit, please go to timetable viewer. To check detailed information on unit assessments visit your unit's iLearn space or consult your unit convenor.
General Information
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| Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit convenor and Lecturer
A/Prof Paul Formosa
Lecturer
Dr Alexander Gillett
|
|---|---|
| Credit points |
Credit points
10
|
| Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
40cp at 1000 level or above
|
| Corequisites |
Corequisites
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| Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
|
| Unit description |
Unit description
We live an increasing part of our lives online, playing videogames, and engaging with various technologies and virtual realities. Our workplaces are more automated, cars drive themselves, and robots take care of us. Is this a good thing? What is it doing to us? Where will it take us in the future? In this unit we draw on philosophical and ethical theories to explore the impacts of information and related technologies on humanity. Topics we will explore include issues around human-technology relations, such as: technological neutrality and technological determinism; embodiment, gender, and technology; and the co-evolution of mind and technology. We will examine ethical aspects of technology, such as: the impacts that online sharing has on our philosophical understandings of friendship; the right to internet privacy; how theories in moral psychology explain the ethical impacts of playing videogames; the ethics of self-driving cars and robotic care-workers; and the justice implications of the automatisation of work. Finally, we also look at topics surrounding the intertwining of humanity and technology and the future impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as: whether AI and the singularity is an existential risk to humanity; how technology will be used as a tool of human enhancement; and whether we will (and should) become cyborgs and stop being human. |
Important Academic Dates
Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- ULO1: explain the major theories about the philosophical and ethical issues raised by new forms of technology
- ULO2: analyse arguments in the relevant literatures.
- ULO3: evaluate relevant theories and arguments critically
- ULO4: communicate clearly your own perspective on the views and arguments presented in the unit
General Assessment Information
Late Submission Policy “Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, (a) a penalty for lateness will apply – two (2) marks out of 100 will be deducted per day for assignments submitted after the due date – and (b) no assignment will be accepted more than seven (7) days (incl. weekends) after the original submission deadline. No late submissions will be accepted for timed assessments – e.g. quizzes, online tests.”
Assessment Tasks
| Name | Weighting | Hurdle | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly quiz | 15% | No | ongoing; closes 4/11/2020 |
| Participation | 15% | No | ongoing; closes 4/11/2020 |
| Weekly reflective blog | 30% | No | 11/09/2020 |
| Research essay | 40% | No | 5/11/2020 |
Weekly quiz
Assessment Type 1: Quiz/Test
Indicative Time on Task 2: 10 hours
Due: ongoing; closes 4/11/2020
Weighting: 15%
Weekly quiz covering key ideas examined in the unit
On successful completion you will be able to:
- explain the major theories about the philosophical and ethical issues raised by new forms of technology
Participation
Assessment Type 1: Participatory task
Indicative Time on Task 2: 12 hours
Due: ongoing; closes 4/11/2020
Weighting: 15%
Participation in in-person or online seminars and/or online forums
On successful completion you will be able to:
- explain the major theories about the philosophical and ethical issues raised by new forms of technology
- analyse arguments in the relevant literatures.
- evaluate relevant theories and arguments critically
- communicate clearly your own perspective on the views and arguments presented in the unit
Weekly reflective blog
Assessment Type 1: Reflective Writing
Indicative Time on Task 2: 20 hours
Due: 11/09/2020
Weighting: 30%
Weekly reflective blog on class content
On successful completion you will be able to:
- analyse arguments in the relevant literatures.
- evaluate relevant theories and arguments critically
- communicate clearly your own perspective on the views and arguments presented in the unit
Research essay
Assessment Type 1: Essay
Indicative Time on Task 2: 30 hours
Due: 5/11/2020
Weighting: 40%
Research essay exploring one relevant topic in depth
On successful completion you will be able to:
- explain the major theories about the philosophical and ethical issues raised by new forms of technology
- analyse arguments in the relevant literatures.
- evaluate relevant theories and arguments critically
- communicate clearly your own perspective on the views and arguments presented in the unit
1 If you need help with your assignment, please contact:
- the academic teaching staff in your unit for guidance in understanding or completing this type of assessment
- the Writing Centre for academic skills support.
2 Indicative time-on-task is an estimate of the time required for completion of the assessment task and is subject to individual variation
Delivery and Resources
- Resources
Required Readings.
All required readings can be downloaded from Leganto and the unit's iLearn site.
You must read the required readings BEFORE class.
- Delivery
Recorded content
Synchronous online seminars
Asynchronous forums
Unit Schedule
W1 – Introduction: Philosophy and Technology (PF)
No Reading
MIND, BODIES AND TECHNOLOGY
W2 – What is technology? Optimist and pessimist views of technology (AG)
Reading 1: Mary Tiles and Hans Oberdiek, “Conflicting Visions of Technology,” in Living in a Technological Culture (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 12–31.
Reading 2: Andrew Feenberg, “What is the Philosophy of Technology?”, in Defining Technological Literacy. Towards An Epistemological Framework, J. Dakers (ed.), (Palgrave McMillan, 2006), 5-16.
W3 –Artificial Intelligence (AG)
Reading 1: Margaret Boden (2016) “Chapter 2: General Intelligence as the Holy Grail", AI: Its Nature and Future, Oxford UP: Oxford.
Reading 2: Bringsjord, Selmer and Govindarajulu, Naveen Sundar, "Artificial Intelligence", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/artificial-intelligence/>.
W4 - Mind and technology: co-evolution of mind and technology. (AG)
Reading 1: Sterelny K. (2011) "From hominins to humans: how sapiens became behaviourally modern". Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 366: 809-822. http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0301
W5 – The Singularity and Mind-uploading: Will humanity survive? (PF)
Reading: Chalmers, David J. “The Singularity.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 17, no. 9 (2010): 7–65.
ETHICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF TECHNOLOGY
W6 – Artificial moral agents: Can robots be persons? (PF)
Reading 1: Wynsberghe, Aimee van, and Scott Robbins. “Critiquing the Reasons for Making Artificial Moral Agents.” Science and Engineering Ethics, 2018, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-018-0030-8.
Reading 2: Moor, James H. “Four Kinds of Ethical Robots.” Philosophy Today, no. April (2009).
W7 – Autonomous Vehicles and Carebots: How to live with machines (PF)
Reading 1: Gogoll, Jan, and Julian F. Müller. “Autonomous Cars: In Favor of a Mandatory Ethics Setting.” Science and Engineering Ethics 23, no. 3 (June 2017): 681–700.
Reading 2: Vallor, Shannon. “Moral Deskilling and Upskilling in a New Machine Age: Reflections on the Ambiguous Future of Character.” Philosophy & Technology 28, no. 1 (March 2015): 107–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-014-0156-9.
W8 –Videogames and morality: Do virtual actions matter? (PF)
Reading 1: Luck, M. (2009). The gamer’s dilemma: An analysis of the arguments for the moral distinction between virtual murder and virtual paedophilia. Ethics and Information Technology, 11(1), 31–36.
Reading 2: Ryan, M., Staines, D., & Formosa, P. (2017). Focus, Sensitivity, Judgement, Action: Four Lenses for Designing Morally Engaging Games. Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association, 3(2), 143–173.
W9 – Privacy on the Internet: Do we have any and should we care? (PF)
Reading 1: Reiman, Jeffrey H. “Driving to the Panopticon: A Philosophical Exploration of the Risks to Privacy Posed by the Highway Technology of the Future.” Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal 11 (1995).
Reading 2: Joinson, Adam N., and Carina B. Paine. “Self-Disclosure, Privacy and the Internet.” In Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology, edited by Adam N. Joinson, Katelyn Y. A. McKenna, Tom Postmes, and Ulf-Dietrich Reips, Vol. 1. Oxford University Press, 2012.
TECHNOLOGY AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
W10 – Economy and politics of cognitive capitalism (AG)
Reading 1: Nick Srnicek, extracts from Platform Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017) 36-50, 126-129.
Reading 2: Yves Citton, “Reflexive Attention”, in The Ecology of Attention, trans. B. Norman (Cambridge: Polity, 2017) 139-170.
W11 – Automation: dangers and solutions (AG)
Reading 1: Nicholas Carr, The Glass Cage, chapter 4.
Reading 2: David Zoller, “Skilled Perception, Authenticity and the case against Automation”, in Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, and Ryan Jenkins (eds) Robot Ethics 2.0. From Automated Cars to Artificial Intelligence, (Oxford University Press, 2017), chapter 6.
Reading 3: Andrew Feenberg, “Philosophy of Technology at the Crossroads,” from Technology and the Good Life?, ed. Eric Higgs, Andrew Light, and David Strong (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 294–315.
W12 – Human enhancement: Where to from here? (AG)
Reading 1: Clark A. (2013). Chapter 2. Natural Born Cyborgs, Oxford UP: Oxford.
Reading 2: Kahane, G. and Savulescu, J. (2015), Normal Human Variation: Refocussing the Enhancement Debate. Bioethics, 29: 133-143. doi:10.1111/bioe.12045
W13 – No Lecture
Writing week.
Policies and Procedures
Macquarie University policies and procedures are accessible from Policy Central (https://staff.mq.edu.au/work/strategy-planning-and-governance/university-policies-and-procedures/policy-central). Students should be aware of the following policies in particular with regard to Learning and Teaching:
- Academic Appeals Policy
- Academic Integrity Policy
- Academic Progression Policy
- Assessment Policy
- Fitness to Practice Procedure
- Grade Appeal Policy
- Complaint Management Procedure for Students and Members of the Public
- Special Consideration Policy (Note: The Special Consideration Policy is effective from 4 December 2017 and replaces the Disruption to Studies Policy.)
Students seeking more policy resources can visit the Student Policy Gateway (https://students.mq.edu.au/support/study/student-policy-gateway). It is your one-stop-shop for the key policies you need to know about throughout your undergraduate student journey.
If you would like to see all the policies relevant to Learning and Teaching visit Policy Central (https://staff.mq.edu.au/work/strategy-planning-and-governance/university-policies-and-procedures/policy-central).
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Results
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