PHIL235L - Philosophy and Technology

3 Credit(s)

Liberal Arts
The connection between philosophy and technology is intimate. Technology is the application of scientific knowledge to create products or services that serve human needs or values (such as a wagon and a bow and arrow), but the values it can serve may be good or evil (a wagon may serve to transport goods more quickly and a bow and arrow to kill innocent people more efficiently). This course will study these two connections between technology and philosophy. On what does scientific knowledge depend? Why does scientific knowledge-and with it technology - advance in certain cultures and decline in others? Should knowledge and technology be allowed to advance unrestrained because of the good they can do (people being the ultimate cause of the evils they can cause) or should they be restricted because of the evils they can inflict upon us? Do advances in technologies - their workings not understood by most of us - sever and alienate us from the world and others? The course will focus on some of the more troublesome contemporary technologies, such as stem cell research, atomic energy, genetically engineered foods, psychotropic drug therapies, and prenatal testing and selection.

Offered When: According to faculty and student interest.
Prerequisite(s): PHIL 101L