Design for Human Autonomy
This course is a collaboration between the OZSW, 4TU Ethics and the Delft Design for Values Institute. This years (2024-2025) theme is ‘Design for Human Autonomy‘
Technology has the potential to enhance human autonomy and freedom, yet it can also pose risks by manipulating users or undermining autonomy in subtle ways. To address this issue, methods such as Value Sensitive Design and ethics-by-design have gained popularity over the past decade. These approaches are crucial for embedding core values, like human autonomy, into the early stages of technology design and development.
In this PhD course, we explore the relationship between design and human autonomy. We will ask fundamental questions about how technology impacts human autonomy. What does human autonomy entail?, How does technology undermine and enhance it?, Who gets to design technology?, and what values are embedded and reproduced in our technology? We also delve into the key philosophical foundations and issues of designing for values, investigating what values are, accounts of how values can be embedded in new technologies, and how value conflicts and value change affects designing for human autonomy. Throughout the course, we examine various cases of designing for human autonomy, including artificial intelligence.
After the course you will have the skills and knowledge to:
- Understand the relation between technology, values, and human autonomy.
- Argue why technology can or cannot embody values (and if so how).
- Explain basic notions of values and human autonomy within philosophy and other relevant disciplines.
- Differentiate main approaches to designing for human autonomy.
- Characterise and discuss ‘value conflict’ and ‘value change’ and understand the implications of these phenomena for designing for values and designing for human autonomy.
- Evaluate technology in terms of human autonomy.
| Primary target group | PhD Candidates |
| If places available also open to | ReMA students |
| Type of activity | Course |
| Certificate credit points | 5 ECTS |
| Organizer | TU Delft (Dr. Ibo van de Poel) |
| Location | |
| Date | February 13, 2025 @ 09:00 |
| Venue | TU Delft Campus |
The program will consist of meetings discussing the following topics:
- Technology and values
- Brief historical overview about thinking about values and technology in philosophy of technology
- Technology: value- neutral or value-laden?
- Embedding values in technology
- How to think about the connection between value and technology?
- Key theories and philosophical accounts of how values can be embedded in technology
- Design for values
- Design for Values and Value Sensitive Design, and other approaches of embedding values in technology (e.g., participatory design)
- Value conceptualisation and value specification
- Value conflict and changing values
- Understanding human autonomy
- The term autonomy is used in many ways. In session, we focus on the way in which autonomy is both an acquired set of capacities related to self-governing agency and also a status that entitles one to not be treated in certain ways.
- Autonomy, AI and manipulation
- Exploration of how AI can enhance or undermine human autonomy
- Manipulation and human autonomy. How to design for non-manipulation
- Diverse perspectives on human autonomy
- Examination of feminist, care ethical, and non-western perspectives on autonomy
- Designing for human autonomy in a (medical) care context
- How can socials robots or digital twins be used in a (medical) care context to enhance the autonomy and well-being of patients and their families.
- Design for human autonomy and car navigation apps
- Example of a design for values investigation into how to design car navigation apps that promote social values (such as safety, sustainability and nature) while respecting the human autonomy of car drivers
- Human autonomy and neurotechnology
- Exploration of how neurotechnology, like brain-computer interfaces, enhance or infringe on autonomy
- Can neuroenhancement enhance human autonomy?
Active participation is required. Each session has several required readings, that participants should have read beforehand.
As a final assignment, participants will be asked to write a blog post (or a similar assignment) to complete the course.
Costs:
- Free for PhD candidates who are a member of the OZSW and/or 4TU Center for Ethics and Technology and/or another research school in Humanites (LOGOS);
- Free for Research Master students who are a member of the OZSW and/or 4TU Center for Ethics and Technology and/or another research school in Humanities (LOGOS);
- All others pay a tuition fee of 300 euros.
How to register:
Registration will open in November.
The registration deadline is January 27, 2025. If registration has been closed because the maximum amount of participants has been reached, you can submit your name to the waiting list by sending an email to . Please also indicate whether you are a ReMA student or PhD candidate and whether you are a member of the OZSW or not.
The OZSW registration and cancellation policy applies to this activity (to be found here).
| Name | TU Delft (Dr. Ibo van de Poel) |