A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

1. Introduction

Our use of technology has changed and continues to change the natural environment. While technology – medicine, transportation technologies and information technology and so on – can help us to prosper, there is also no doubt that the production and use of technology can have a negative impact on the environment and therefore on us. The pollution of rivers, oceans and the air poses an immediate threat to the health of humans; and the build-up of greenhouse gases, depletion of the ozone layer, and deforestation may each pose a threat, not only to the health of humans, but also to the survival of the human species. On the other hand, innovation within technology can also be used to remove or mitigate some of these man-made threats, and to minimize the impact of some non-man-made threats such as huge meteors, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and diseases.

Our impact on the natural environment, and the way in which this affects humans, other animals and plants, raises important ethical questions. These questions, which are often dealt with under the heading of environmental ethics, include: Is human welfare all that matters morally when we evaluate, say, deforestation or the elimination of a species? Should we aim to decrease the number of humans on our planet in order to make other species flourish? Should a company be allowed to open a mine in a national park? What ought we to do about global warming?

The relevance of environmental ethics is obvious. Since the 1960s ...