The Dutch Research School of Philosophy (OZSW), the 4TU Center for Ethics and Technology and TU Delft invite PhD candidates in philosophy to register for the course Design for Justice to take place on September 4-8 and 13, 2023.
Organizing university
Date(s)
Location
TU Delft
Type of activity
Primary target group
If places available, also open to
Application/registration deadline
The deadline for registration is August 20, 2023.
About the topic
Technology has the potential to contribute to a just society, but unfortunately, some technologies only reinforce existing inequalities. To address this issue, methods such as Value Sensitive Design and ethics-by-design have gained popularity over the past decade. These methods aim to integrate values, like justice, into the early stages of technology design and development.
In this course, we explore the relationship between design and justice, asking fundamental questions about design for justice. For example, we consider what justice means, who gets to design, whom we design for, and what values we embed and reproduce 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 justice. Throughout the course, we examine various cases of designing for justice, including architecture and artificial intelligence.
Aim / objective
After the course participants will be able to:
· Understand the relation between technology, values, and justice
· Argue why technology can or cannot embody values (and if so how)
· Explain basic notions of values and justice within philosophy and other relevant disciplines
· Differentiate main approaches to designing for values
· Characterize and discuss ‘value conflict’ and ‘value change’, and understand the implications of these phenomena for designing for values and designing for justice
· Evaluate technology in terms of justice
Program
Topics
1. Technology and values
– Brief historical overview about thinking about values and technology in philosophy of technology
– What are values?
– Technology: value- neutral or value-laden?
2. Embedding values in technology
– Accounts of value embedding in philosophy
3. Design for values 1
– Design for Values and Value Sensitive Design, and other approaches of embedding values in technology
– Value conceptualization and value specification
4. Design for values 2
– Value conflict
– Changing values
5. The value of justice
– What is justice? Procedural, distributive and recognition justice
– Rawls and developments after Rawls
6. Design justice
– justice in the design literature
– Who gets to design?
– Who do we design for and with?
7. Domains of design for justice:
– Fairness and justice in the design of algorithms
– Spatial justice and urban design
– Design for justice in water management
Lecturers
– Steffen Steinert, TU Delft
– Ibo van de Poel, TU Delft
– We will have guest lecturers on specific aspects of design justice and from different domains
Abstract submission
Abstract submission is not required.
Required preparations
Active participation is required. Each session has a number of required readings, that participants should have read beforehand.
Last updated on 13 June, 2023
Certificate / credit points
For this activity PhD candidates and ReMa students can – after successful completion – earn a certificate. However, the OZSW is not accredited to reward students with credits/ECTS directly. The study load is mentioned on the certificate, which can usually be exchanged for ‘real’ credits (ECTS) at your home university.
The study load for this activity is as follows: 5 ECTS.
Costs
The course is free for:
- PhD candidates who are a member of the OZSW;
- PhD candidates who are a member of the 4TU.Ethics graduate school;
- Research Master students who are a member of the OZSW.
- MSc students enrolled in the PSTS master of the University of Twente;
- Members of another research school in Humanities (LOGOS)
Other participants pay a tuition fee of 300 euro for the course.
How to apply / register
Please click here to register for the course.
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 Fenanda Jacobs at assistant.director@ozsw.nl. Please also indicate whether you are a ReMa student or PhD candidate and whether you are a member of the OZSW or not.
Important: Research Master students can register for the course as well, but PhD candidates are the primary target group. If you are interested in participating, please send an email to assistant.director@ozsw.nl to be put on a waiting list. You will be notified after August 26 if there are places available and if you can register and join the course.
Cancellation and registration policy
Organizers
– Steffen Steinert, section Ethics and Philosophy of Technology, Department of Values, Technology and Innovation, School of Technology, Policy & Management, TU Delft o S.steinert@tudelft.nl
– Ibo van de Poel, section Ethics and Philosophy of Technology, Department of Values, Technology and Innovation, School of Technology, Policy & Management, TU Delft