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In The Scent of Time (Polity, 2017), the philosopher Byung-Chul Han observes that today things “linked to time become obsolete much faster than they used to” (p.5). A similar point could be made about ethical paradigms as well, as the time period in between announced needs for new ethical approaches to the technological intensification of the world in which we dwell continues to shrink. Hans Jonas argued in 1984 for a new ethic of responsibility for a new technological age, and others have claimed that the cyberspace technologies spawned in the 1990s has changed our moral condition in such a way that past ethical theories cannot sufficiently deal with. In her Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (Oxford, 2016), Shannon Vallor argues that the current and emerging technological landscape not only invites but requires a new ethical paradigm. “The ethical dilemmas we face as 21st century humans are not business as usual, but require a novel approach” (p.9).

DOI: 10.1007/s13347-018-0318-2

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