Summarize the three attitudes to technology discussed in this chapter: pessimism, optimism, and the critical attitude.
What are the best arguments for and against these three views?
Formulate, by using your own words, Hans Jonas’s imperative of responsibility.
Discuss similarities and differences between Jonas’s imperative of responsibility and Kant’s categorical imperative.
Discuss similarities and differences between Jonas’s imperative of responsibility, the risk–benefit principle, and the precautionary
principle.
Explain how defenders of the critical approach may wish to apply the principles proposed by van de Poel for evaluating social
experiments. What is the role of these principles in the critical approach?
What is geoengineering, and what are the promises and risks of these technologies?
Explain how technological pessimists, optimists, and defenders of the critical approach think about geoengineering.
