Moralized Visions and Technological Design

This dissertation investigated how sociotechnical visions—defined as discursively articulated images of desirable futures—shape the development, design, and evaluation of sociotechnical systems through the moral objectives they contain. It focuses in particular on the roles of values and ideals in these visions, and on how such moralized visions interact with technological design, feasibility constraints, and processes of value change over time.

This dissertation sets out with the claim that contemporary societies face systemic crises—such as climate change, energy insecurity, and urban sustainability issues—that call for long-term direction rather than incremental problem-solving. Governments, engineers, and designers can use visions of desirable futures to guide sociotechnical change. These visions typically combine normative claims about what constitutes a good society with assumptions about which technologies and systems are necessary to realize that future. Despite their prominence, however, it remains insufficiently understood how the moral content of visions—especially abstract values and seemingly infeasible ideals—actually influences technological design and system development.....