Discussion Forum: Hans Jonas's "Technology and Responsibility: Reflections on the New Task of Ethics."
By engaging well in this week's discussion, you will continue to learn how to identify crucial philosophical claims contained within sophisticated philosophical texts and you will continue to learn how to evaluate those claims in order to understand their intellectual context and to evaluate their rational strengths and weaknesses.
To prepare for this discussion, please read carefully all of the assigned readings. You may find it useful to take reading notes, especially about Hans Jonas's "Technology and Responsibility: Reflections on the New Task of Ethics."
Your assignment is to discuss Jonas's article the same way you discussed Winner's article during the last lesson:
First, identify what you consider the most important or interesting (or controversial, or wrong-headed) concept, assertion, argument, or conclusion in Jonas's text.
Next, for the item you selected, please post a well-organized message that addresses all the following questions about the item's context within Jonas's text, your evaluation of Jonas's discussion of the item, and your reflective conclusions about the item's significance.
IDENTIFICATION OF CONTEXT:
* What is the item that you selected?
* What is the context of Jonas's discussion of this item -- what purposes was Jonas's discussion of it supposed to achieve?
* What are the crucial passages in the text where Jonas discusses your item with the most clarity or depth? Please quote short passages and crucial parts of longer passages.
* What are the most important claims that Jonas makes about your item?
EVALUATION:
* How clear is Jonas's discussions of your item?
* Are there important questions that Jonas fails to address or addresses poorly? What else would Jonas have to explain to make his discussion of your item crystal-clear?
* Does Jonas's discussion of your item allow him to reach the goal or purpose you have identified? If so, what are the most effective things he does to achieve his purpose? If not, what are the most significant weaknesses in Jonas's discussion?
REFLECTIVE CONCLUSIONS:
* Does Jonas's discussion of your item lead to important conclusions, questions, or calls to action?
* Are there any interesting or important connections between Jonas's discussion of your item relate to ideas in Barbour, Dyson, or Johnson and Powers or in texts we have studied earlier in the term?
* Does Jonas's discussion of your item have any practical significance for your life or for your relationship to or use of technology?
In addition to posting your own message, please engage in extended academic discussions of classmates' posts and classmates' discussions of your post. Please respond to at least two other students' posts. The class's collective goal is to work with together to discuss in as much depth as is possible several key claims from Jonas's text.
Completing these tasks should remain challenging, but should also become easier with repetition. If you are finding them too challenging, please ask your professor for additional support.