Technical Functions
One common way to describe artifacts is in terms of how they technically function. In a telephone sound is transformed into electronic signals that are then transmitted over some distance and transformed back into sound by another telephone. Such technical functions are strongly related to human uses. Telephones are designed and built so that they can be used for transmitting the human voice over distances well beyond its normal range. Because references to technical functions are often the basis for assessing human uses of artifacts, and insofar as such assessments express certain values, the relation between technical functions and uses is an issue for any ethics of technology.
Judging Actions and Artifacts
All intentional human behaviors or actions are subject to normative judgments. These judgments are of two sorts: deontic and evaluative. Deontic judgments express what one ought and ought not to do or what one has reasons for doing. Evaluative judgments describe something as good or bad. Using an artifact is subject to these types of judgments, in the first place because it is a form of action. It is generally wrong, for example, to hurt another person with a knife, which is merely a specification of the judgment that one ought, generally, not to hurt someone.
