Responsible choice for appropriate technology  (Page 5/11)

Capabilities lists vary. Nussbaum allows that others have different lists and that hers will certainly be modified as time passes and conditions change. Insofar as a technology plays the role of a conversion factor that transforms a capability into a functioning, then it is—-in the humanistic sense of the term—-appropriate. On the other hand, insofar as it thwarts capabilities and suppresses their expression it fails the test of appropriateness. When business and engineering professionals take a Human Development approach to their work, they broaden the design process and the development of new products and services to include a close examination of how the proposed novelty can either encourage or diminish the conversion of capabilities into functionings.

An advantage of the Capabilities or Human Development Approach over other approaches such as social contract theories of justice lies in its ability to extend the umbrella of justice to cover three challenges that have traditionally been ignored:

1. The capabilities and ranges of action of humans operating under physical and cognitive disabilities
2. Human individuals who have been born and live in nations of poverty, economic inequality, political oppression, and demeaning work and social roles and stations. In her book, Creating Capabilities , Nussbaum profiles a woman who is abused by her alcoholic husband, works longs hours in a demeaning job and returns home to the domestic responsibilities of being the primary care-giver to a family of four.
3. Natural ecosystems as well as natural species including domesticated animals, wild animals, and the entities that populate the natural environment.

Social construction of technology

The paper “Manufacturing Gender in Commercial and Military Cockpit Design,” argues that it was necessary to reopen the black box of airplane cockpit design to reveal its instantiation of gender bias. Women were unable to fly airplanes because airplanes were not designed to accommodate their arm and leg reach, physical strength, height, and weight. This gender bias could only be removed through the restoration of interpretive flexibility. The gender biased design of airplane cockpits had to be revealed as a contingency rather than as a necessity.