Ethics of Technology – A Jewish-based Alternative?

In his book Moralizing Technology (2011), Peter-Paul Verbeek asserts that the predominant ethical positions of deontology and consequentialism fail to provide adequate ethical tools for 21st century`s technologies. He offers an alternative ethics of technology that is based on Foucault`s analysis of modern subjectivity rooted in the Christian ascetic self-practices. Thus Verbeek suggests another ethics of technology based on self-questioning "what kind of subject do I want to be."

My guiding question is how to develop an alternative ethics of technology based on Judaism instead of Christianity and how different it can be from Verbeek`s solution. My case study will be the philosophy of Hans Jonas who emphasizes the importance of the world thereby replacing the individualistic perspective. Jonas` theory enables us to establish a new ethics of technology that refers not only to the new dynamic technologies but also to the climate crisis. The challenge would be to refer to the technology as an active actor that influences the moral decisions of the human actors.