Technology and Human Development

This book introduces the capability approach - in which wellbeing, agency and justice are the core values - as a powerful normative lens to examine technology and its role in development. This approach attaches central moral importance to human capabilities understood as effective opportunities people have to lead the kind of lives they have reason to value. The book examines both the strengths and limitations of the capability approach when applied to technology, and shows the need to supplement it with other approaches in order to deal with the challenges that technology raises.

Ilse Oosterlaken is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy at the VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Introduction 1. The Appropriate Technology Movement and the Capability Approach 2. The Details of Technological Design 3. Embedding Technology in Socio-Technical Networks 4. A Capability Approach of ICT for Development (ICT4D) 5. Conclusion