Midterm exam  (Page 3/3)

Question

• There would seem to be several claims involved in the position of the Japanese engineer who refuses to work with the woman on the Puerto Rican engineering team. Pick one of these--the strongest--and defend it using the rights justification framework.
• There also seem to be multiple claims on the part of the woman engineer. Pick the strongest or the one most likely to survive the rights justification framework and justify it.
• Do the rights claims you have examined conflict with one another? Why or why not?
• What course of action best responds with the rights analysis you have carried out above?

Technology choice question

Amish case

• Choose a technical artifact from the case.
• Identify two capabilities from Nussbaum's list of ten that are especially important to the Amish community. Describe these capabilities and explain why they are important.
• Does the technology you have chosen serve as a " conversion factor" for converting the capabilities ou have chosen into a functioning? Why or why not?Etc.

Waste for life

• Is the hot press an appropriate technology? Why or why not?
• Choose two of Nussbaum's capabilities. Describe each briefly and explain its importance in the context of this case.
• Does the hot press work as a conversion factor to convert the capabilities you cite into functionings? Why or why not?
• What aspects of the socio-technical systems explain the different results stemming from efforts to integrate the hot press in Lesotho versus Buenos Aires, Argentina?

Aprovecho stoves

• What change does this imply for the way those doing research into appropriate technology should approach developing communities? (Along these lines, should we even call them "developing communities?"
• Does the Human Capabilities approach support this idea of an Inverse Peace Corps? Support your answer here in detail by outlining what is involved in the capabilities approach.
• How did adopting this idea help Aprovecho overcome difficulties like the lack of appropriateness of its Lorena stove?.

Other cases

• One Laptop Per Child
• Bio-sand Filters for Duchity, Haiti
• Bamboo (Grown in Puerto Rico) Used for Green Construction.
• Pod-casting in Zimbabwe
• Engineers as Honest Brokers in India
• Gender Bias in Airplane Cockpit Construction

Choose the case you find most interesting and most relevant to your studies. then...

Technology choice framework

1. Read carefully the article that presents your case study in technological choice. Prepare an outline. Prepare a poster that discusses your case in terms of the following framework.
2. Zoom in . Describe and classify the artifact that highlights your case. Give its physical structure, how it functions when it is working properly, and its "user manual."
3. Zoom out . Describe the socio-technical system that surrounds your artifact by constructing a table that outlines hardware, software, physical surroundings, people/groups/roles, procedures, laws, and information systems. Pay special attention to how the surrounding STS constrains and enables the functioning of your technical artifact.
4. Discuss/Evaluate how "appropriate" your technical artifact is to its surrounding environment. Is it "supportive of production by the masses," does it make use of the "best of modern knowledge and experience," does it trend toward "decentralization," does it fit in with the "laws of ecology," is it "gentle in the use of scarece resources," and does it serve human rather than constrain humans to serve it."
5. How does your technical artifact stand in relation to Nussbaum's list of capabilities ? Most importantly, does it serve as a tool to address personal, social, and environmental conversion factors that help convert capabilities into functionings?

Rubrics

A rubric will be used to assess your exam responses. Although it is still under development, it will cover the following skill and content areas:

1. Active knowledge of key ethical concepts demonstrated by the ability to integrate them into your responses to the questions.
2. Communication Skills, specifically the ability to make clear and sound arguments that integrate ethical concepts and empirical evidence.
3. Critical Thinking. The ability to uncover arguments and positions different from your own that challenge your stances. Also the ability to bring presuppositions into question.