03.02.

2022

Answer Sheet
Exam “Ethics for Transportations”

February 3rd, 2022

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Name and surname: Carlos Antonio Jiménez Arrieta

Date: 03/02/2022

ANSWER 1
(between 250 and 400 words)
The technology that it is more panoptic is second one, ‘Coaching driver behavior’,
because its characteristic of permanently taking data of the behavior and actions
of the driver (that can be harsh breaking, speed, location); and the technology
intentions of control the behavior itself. As we need to remember, the
Panopticon was a planned building that which aim was to control the behavior of
the prisoners without the necessity of punishment, creating in them the idea of
being permanently seeable; Foucault (1975) then said that this situation of being
visible makes people the agents of its own subjection, assuming the responsibility

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for the constraints of power, and changing their actions. In this way the users of,
or the subjects in which the telematic technology cited in this answer is used, will
have the idea of being watchable every time that they drive the car, and possibly,
because of that they are going to change their actions while driving.

Risk of privacy loss:

Extrinsic loss of freedom: The ‘coaching driver behavior’ is actually seeking
control the behavior of others by vulnerating their privacy. For example, a
teenager using a car with the technology installed by her parents will maintain a
speed lower than the limit (that can be a good output), but also, is the locations is
also tracked, the teenager can avoid go to certain places that are not necessary
bad for her or him, because the parents have the possibility to know where
she/he was and can take certain actions against the teenager, and this can be
debatable in terms of freedom.

Symbolic risk: The technology also has the symbolic risk, where no matter that
the invasion of privacy doesn’t cause any damage or reputation risk to the person
observed it can be assumed like an insult, solely because of the violation. Let’s
think in the example of an experienced driver of a logistic company that has
always respected the transit rules; after years of working the company decide to
implement the technology to control the drivers, this man can assume this like a
violation of its privacy defending that he doesn’t need to be watched to drive
properly, and he can think these like an insult.

[wordcount: 368 ]
ANSWER 2
(between 250 and 450 words)
An ethical argument that defends the implementations of techno-regulations is
the avoidance of harm to others, that is a liberty-limiting principle (Smith, 2008).
This principle is defended by all Justice theories, even libertarianism, because it
guarantees the protection of the value of safety, and the right of Life of the other
members of the society, and it is an ethical justification to limit the liberty of
certain actors of the system, more when this liberty only is needed to fulfill
ulterior and not welfare interests. These technologies can indeed reduce the risk
of harm of others, commonly the more vulnerable ones; for example, the alcohol
interlock can prevent accidents avoiding that people can drive a car while drunk.

In contrast an ethical argument against the use of this technologies can be the
protection of the value of freedom when this value is not causing a damage to
others, for example the use of Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) can be justified
in certain parts of the roads where the traffic is high, but when there is a low
traffic and the risk of accident and damage to others is very low or nonexistent,
the value of liberty needs to be preserved. Also, it can be used the arguments of
ISA erodes the moral agency and responsibility of drivers, because creating a

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parental imposition, makes disobedience to the law impossible; and this can
degrade the moral community.

Regarding to which argument has more weight in the analysis of the ‘Upgrading
and Altering Vehicle Performance’ I will conclude that a combination of them
according of the situation and the restrictions that the technology will carry on.
To be more explicit when the user star to drive in a zone of high traffic or high
population, like the Downtown of a city, or in a highway with a perceived high
traffic, the avoidance to harm to others is more important that the liberty, so I
accept the use of the technology, especially speed limitation, and control of
seatbelt and cell phone use. In the case of a less risky situation, like a highway
without traffic I would say that there is no need of altering the performance of
features like speed. In this case considering also the avoidance of self-harm, it
would be good to accept the control of cell phone and seatbelt use.

[wordcount: 390 ]