WGPTalks is a series of short podcasts with members of the Working Group on Philosophy of Technology (WGPT), to explore their work and current research.

This eighth episode is with Fabio Tollon, a doctoral candidate at Bielefeld University, who is currently a visiting scholar at the Institute of Philosophy at KU Leuven.  He is interested in questions of agency and responsibility, and how these concepts may be complicated or undermined by technological systems. In this episode, we discuss how virtue ethics might provide a better framework to map the ethical concerns provoked by new, emerging technologies.

Interview done by Massimiliano Simons.

Content
00:41 Start Interview
01:05 What is your PhD about?
02:35 What is virtue ethics?
03:42 What are emerging technologies?
04:27 What is moral panic?
05:29 Issues with deontology
08:15 Why context matters
09:25 Issues with consequentialism
12:48 Why virtue ethics is better
14:37 Does virtue ethics ignore context?
16:43 Virtue ethics and emerging technologies
19:13 Ontological and pragmatic approaches
21:49 Problems with virtue ethics
28:18 Example of self-driving cars
31:52 Multiple relations virtue ethics and technology
34:41 Thanks and goodbye