Peter-Paul Verbeek (1970) is Rector Magnificus and professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Science and Technology in a Changing World at the University of Amsterdam. His research and teaching focus on the philosophy of human-technology relations, and aims to contribute to philosophical theory, ethical reflection, and practices of design and innovation. He is past chairperson of the UNESCO World Commission for the Ethics of Science and Technology (COMEST) and past honorary professor of Techno-Anthropology at Aalborg University, Denmark. He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the Royal Holland Society of Sciences (KHMW). His work has received several awards, including an NWO-VENI award (2003), VIDI award (2007), VICI Award (2014), the Borghgraef Prize in Biomedical Ethics 2012 (Leuven University), the World Technology Award in Ethics 2016 (World Technology Network, New York).
Verbeeks research is part of a 10-year research program on the Ethics Between 2013 and 2015 he was President of the Society for Philosophy and Technology; between 2011 and 2013 he was chairperson of ‘The Young Academy’, an independent division of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 2010 until 2012 he held the Socrates chair of philosophy at Delft University of Technology; in 2006 he was guest professor of philosophy of technology at Aarhus University, Denmark.
Peter-Paul Verbeek is author of Moralizing Technology: Understanding and Designing the Morality of Things (University of Chicago Press, 2011) , in which he analyzes the moral significance of technologies, and its implications for ethical theory and for design practices. He also published What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design (Penn State University Press, 2005), which investigates how technologies mediate human actions and experiences, with applications to industrial design. He is co-editor of the volumes Postphenomenological Investigations: Essays on Human-Technology Relations (Lexington 2015, with Robert Rosenberger), The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts (Springer 2014, with Peter Kroes), and User Behavior and Technology Design – Shaping Sustainable Relations between Consumers and Technologies (Springer 2006, with Adriaan Slob).
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Peter-Paul Verbeek 