Analysis Of Verbeek’s Thought Of "Materializing Morality"

The Dutch technological philosopher Peter-Paul Verbeek’s thought of "Materializing Morality" is a new trend in the field of contemporary ethics of technology. It requires designers to "materialize" the certain ethics norms into the technological artifacts through technological design, enabling the technological artifacts to morally influence or regulate the user’s decisions and behaviors in the use context. Under the background of the inevitable and transformative modern technology, the thought of "Materializing Morality" is a positive attempt of the philosophers of technology drilling down into the technological design process.The thought of "Materializing Morality" has profound ideological origins. Learning from Don Ihde’s analysis approach of postpheonomenology of technology of philosophy, Verbeek goes further to develop the theory of "Technology mediation" as theoretical foundation of his thought of "Materializing Morality"; on this basis, Verbeek redefines the status of subject and object in ethics according to Bruno Latour’s "Actor Network Theory" and Michel Foucault’s thought of "Self Construction", making the technological artifacts as moral mediator and the mediated subject possible as well.On the basis of the theoretical possibility of "Materializing Morality", Verbeek goes on to explore the practical feasibility of it. He points out that the key to realize the technological artifacts moralized lies in the communication of design and use context. Given this, Verbeek develops a variety of methods of mediation anticipation and integrates them into a complete operation procedure of mediation design, which providing a new mechanism for the technology design.In spite of much debate, the theoretical and practical significance of Verbeek’s thought of "Materializing Morality" is no doubt. In terms of theory, it opens the intrinsic ethical dimension of the technological artifacts, providing an integration of the division of "empirical turn" and "ethical turn" and making up the shortcomings of both of them. In terms of practice, it enlarges the space of human ethics, leading to a new way to an "ethics of the Good Life" to accompanying technology in modern society.