“We can no longer extricate our moralities from our technologies. Even to try to do so—as when we refuse to allow genetically modified foods into our diet or to become mobile phone users—is to become morally engaged with moralizing artifacts. Technologies come on the scene not as neutral tools but as elements in a self- and co-constructing network that always emerges from and has implications for our understandings of the good. Peter-Paul Verbeek’s insightful analysis invites us to attend more carefully to the ways we practice our moralities, not only with other people and nature but also among and through the artifacts that have become our children, siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, with all the love-hate relationships typical of family life.”
— Carl Mitcham, Colorado School of Mines
“At the turn of the twenty-first century, readers in the philosophy of technology noted an ‘empirical turn’ on the part of the leading philosophers of technology. Peter-Paul Verbeek goes further and, while examining the active role of technologies in human-world shaping, adds an ethical turn—do artifacts have moralities? His surprising affirmative answer makes this book an intellectually challenging read.”—Don Ihde, Stony Brook University
— Don Ihde
“Verbeek’s commendable book charts a middle ground between technophobia and techno-utopianism, and he makes a strong case for the need to view our technologies as active agents rather than neutral tools in our lives.”
— Christine Rosen, New Republic
“This book is one of the leading works in ethics of technology that combines the empirical turn and the ethical turn in philosophy of technology, and so, it has the potential to generate interesting discussions in the field. . . . I highly recommend this book as a useful addition to the literature on the ethics and philosophy of technology and especially on understanding the intricate relations between morality and technology.”
— Sadjad Soltanzadeh, NanoEthics
“Peter-Paul Verbeek has developed a novel approach to the ethics of technology in Moralizing Technology.”
— Adam Briggle, University of North Texas, Techné