Introduction to Ethics of Blockchain Technology
This module provides an overview of approaches in normative ethics that can be used to evaluate blockchain technologies. Participants will be made familiar with consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics and care ethics. Furthermore, a simple method for constructing an ethical case study is presented and explained. After completing this module, participants will have: A basic understanding of the main approaches in normative ethics, A basic understanding of ways to apply these approaches to evaluate blockchain technologies, The basic skills for constructing an ethical "case study" involving a blockchain technology.
Instructors
Quinn DuPont
Quinn DuPont studies human and social dimensions of cybersecurity, cryptography, and code. He is currently a postdoctoral Research Associate at the School of Information, University of Washington. He has a PhD in Information Science (Toronto), and is an ALA-accredited librarian (Western), with a decade of industry experience as a Senior Information Specialist at IBM, an IT consultant, and a usability and experience designer. His current research focuses on Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain technologies. He is a member of the Standards Council of Canada, ISO, and IEEE Blockchain committees. His book, Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains (Polity), is a scholarly survey of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies in society.
Wessel Reijers
Wessel Reijers studies philosophy and ethics of technology and has a strong interest in the study of financial and governance technologies. He is currently a PhD researcher at the ADAPT Centre, School of Computing, Dublin City University in Ireland. His current research focuses on the integration of ethics in research and innovation activities. One outcome of this research is the Ethics Canvas, which can be used by researchers to discuss ethical impacts of their work. He has published in several academic journals on the topics of hermeneutic philosophy of technology, blockchain technologies, social contract theory, the digital commons and ethics in research and innovation.
Publication Year: 2018