The development of “smart stadia”, i.e. the use of “smart technologies” in the way sports stadia are designed and managed, promises to enhance the experience of attending a live match through innovative and improved services for the audience, as well as for the players, vendors and other stadium stakeholders. These developments offer us a timely opportunity to reflect on the ethical implications of the use of smart technologies and the emerging Internet of Things. The IoT has the potential to radically (...) transform society and is representative of the ways that novel technologies will alter human life. We use Dublin’s Croke Park stadium smart project as a case study for examining the development of smart stadia. (shrink)

This paper has two distinct but related goals: (1) to identify some of the potential consequences of the Internet for our cognitive abilities and (2) to suggest an approach to evaluate these consequences. I begin by outlining the Google effect, which (allegedly) shows that when we know information is available online, we put less effort into storing that information in the brain. Some argue that this strategy is adaptive because it frees up internal resources which can then be used for (...) other cognitive tasks, whereas others argue that this is maladaptive because it makes us less knowledgeable. I argue that the currently available empirical evidence in cognitive psychology does not support strong conclusions about the negative effects of the Internet on memory. Before we can make value-judgements about the cognitive effects of the Internet, we need more robust and ecologically-valid evidence. Having sketched a more nuanced picture of the Google effect, I then argue that the value of our cognitive abilities is in part intrinsic and in part instrumental, that is, they are both valuable in themselves and determined by the socio-cultural context in which these cognitive abilities are utilised. Focussing on instrumental value, I argue that, in an information society such as ours, having the skills to efficiently navigate, evaluate, compare, and synthesize online information are (under most circumstances) more valuable than having a lot of facts stored in biological memory. This is so, partly because using the Internet as an external memory system has overall benefits for education, navigation, journalism, and academic scholarship. (shrink)

Alongside existing research into the social, political and economic impacts of the Web, there is a need to study the Web from a cognitive and epistemic perspective. This is particularly so as new and emerging technologies alter the nature of our interactive engagements with the Web, transforming the extent to which our thoughts and actions are shaped by the online environment. Situated and ecological approaches to cognition are relevant to understanding the cognitive significance of the Web because of the emphasis (...) they place on forces and factors that reside at the level of agent–world interactions. In particular, by adopting a situated or ecological approach to cognition, we are able to assess the significance of the Web from the perspective of research into embodied, extended, embedded, social and collective cognition. The results of this analysis help to reshape the interdisciplinary configuration of Web Science, expanding its theoretical and empirical remit to include the disciplines of both cognitive science and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The study considers the implementation of one of the top trends in modern society development – defending the role of morality in society and the value paradigm, the centre of which is increased attention to the formation of the value-semantic sphere of personality, which influences their worldview formation. Scientific research focuses on the moral values formation of the growing individual from the perspective of their worldview development, revealed by interaction with the world, specifically in interpersonal relationships and directly with themselves. (...) The essence and features of the moral values formation, in the context of interconnections and interdependence of components in the structure of an individual, are substantiated using the methods of analysis and synthesis, abstraction and concretization through the study of the scientific heritage of foreign and Ukrainian scientists. The article specifies moral values as a mechanism of human social behaviour that performs several functions in their life and affects the worldview and the formation of a personal worldview. Based on the generalization of the presented scientific array findings, the author’s concept of moral values formation in the worldview of the individual is modelled, it is presented as a diagram of the interdependence of three chain lines: 1) social morality – self-awareness – worldview; 2) values – world perception; 3) moral values – individual’s worldview. The algorithm for the studied phenomenon of an individual is seen in the moral education providing, which ensures the moral values formation in the structure of moral self-awareness and the development of the worldview of a growing personality. The individual’s worldview is determined by several factors: the system of moral knowledge and beliefs formed resulting from the acceptance of the acknowledged in society moral values that become personal; accumulated moral experience and striving for moral self-improvement. The findings outlined the issues of further scientific research, which will involve clarifying the state of students’ moral development in the educational process and the levels of their moral values formation as well. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse how GPS-based navigation systems are transforming some of our intellectual virtues and then suggest two strategies to improve our practices regarding the use of such epistemic tools. We start by outlining the two main approaches in virtue epistemology, namely virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. We then discuss how navigation systems can undermine five epistemic virtues, namely memory, perception, attention, intellectual autonomy, and intellectual carefulness. We end by considering two possible interlinked ways of trying to remedy (...) this situation: [i] redesigning the epistemic tool to improve the epistemic virtues of memory, perception, and attention; and [ii] the cultivation of cognitive diligence for wayfinding tasks scaffolding intellectual autonomy and carefulness. (shrink)

The authors formulated and answered the question, “Can emerging technologies in education be evaluated from the point of view of morality?” The authors used the methods and tools of normative ethics and cognitive psychology, i.e., the comparative-analytical method, axiological method, as well as tests, questionnaires, correlation research, observation method, and bibliographic method. The essence of the concepts “moral worth” and “disclosedness of arete” as the supreme moral value, were investigated. A universal and defining criterion for moral evaluation was established, i.e., (...) the actions disclosing arete are of the supreme value from the point of view of morality. The authors found that the influence of emerging technologies on the disclosure of arete creates moral paradoxes. Moral paradoxes exclude the possibility of developing objective and sustainable criteria for evaluating emerging technologies and, accordingly, their acceptance/prohibition in the education sector. Uncertainty is asserted as a criterion for evaluating emerging technologies. (shrink)