THE ETHICAL ASSESSMENT OF TECHNOLOGY: THEORETICAL ISSUES AND METHODOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES

Abstract

The main thesis of our research is that the increasingly rapid advance of technology in the contemporary world has led to the emergence of unprecedented theoretical and methodological problems regarding the moral evaluation of new technologies, given that technological progress has increasingly overtaken the ability of society, governments and corporations to anticipate the possible ethical consequences generated by the introduction of new technologies. New technologies generate extremely many challenges to society, organizations, the business world and individuals taken separately in conditions where the rate of change is increasingly rapid and the complexity of the technological environment is increasing in recent decades during which a transition has taken place from a world characterized by industrial technology to one dominated by information technology and biotechnology. The objective of the research is to highlight a number of potential theoretical and methodological problems that make it extremely difficult to assess from an ethical perspective new emerging technology with the intention of helping to find answers to a number of fundamental questions, such as: How can we morally assess the development of technologies when they have an open horizon and involve uncertainty and lack of control? How and who should control the new emerging technologies? How will new technologies materialize and what will be their impact and influence?