This second edition of Readings in the Philosophy of Technology examines the nature of technology as well as the effects of technologies upon human knowledge, activities, societies, and environments. The aim of philosophy of technology is to understand, evaluate, and criticize the ways in which technologies reflect as well as change human life and the natural world. Compiled specifically with students and newcomers in mind, this book explores the various ways in which societies, technologies, and environments shape one another. Readers will learn to appreciate the ways that philosophy informs our understanding of technology, and to see how technology relates to ethics, politics, nature, human nature, computers, science, food, and animals.

Contents: PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES: The question concerning technology / Martin Heidegger -- Heidegger on gaining a free relation to technology / Hubert Dreyfus -- One-dimensional man / Herbert Marcuse -- John Dewey's philosophy of technology / Larry Hickman -- Focal things and practices / Albert Borgmann -- A phenomenology of technics / Don Ihde -- Philosophy of technology meets social constructivism / Philip Brey -- Women and the assessment of technology / Corlann Gee Bush -- Design methodology and the nature of technical artefacts / Peter Kroes -- Democratic rationalization / Andrew Feenberg -- A collective of humans and nonhumans / Bruno Latour; TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS: Technology and Responsibility / Hans Jonas -- Technology and the anachronism of traditional rights / Robert McGuin -- Technological ethics in a different voice / Diane Michelfelder -- NEST-ethics: patterns of moral argumentation about new and emerging science and technology / Tsjalling Swierstra and Arie Rip -- Moralizing technology / Peter-Paul Verbeek; TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS: Do artifacts have politics? / Langdon Winner -- The panopticon / Michel Foucault -- Strong democracy and technology / Richard Sclove -- Bigger monster: weaker chains / Jay Stanley and Barry Steinhard -- The Constitution in cyberspace / Laurence Tribe -- Technology transfer and globalization / Evan Selinger; TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN NATURE: Transhumanist FAQ / Nick Bostrom -- Twenty-first century bodies / Ray Kurzweil -- Why computers may never think like people / Hubert Dreyfus and Stuart Dreyfus -- Interactional expertise and embodiment / Evan Selinger, Harry Collins, and Hubert Dreyfus -- Genetic interventions and the ethics of human enhancement / Julian Savulescu -- What's wrong with enhancement technology / Carl Elliot; TECHNOLOGY AND NATURE: The big lie: human restoration of nature / Erik Katz -- Ecological restoration and the culture of nature / Andrew Light -- The brave new world of animal biotechnology / Strachan Donnelly -- Ethics and genetically modified food / Gary Comstock -- What's wrong with functional foods? / David M. Kaplan; TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE: When is an image not an image? / Joe Pitt -- Scientific visualism / Don Ihde -- Laboratories / Bruno Latour / Scientific policy and moral purity / Paul Thompson -- Technologies of humility / Sheila Jasanoff.