# The Contestation of Tech Ethics: A Sociotechnical Approach to Technology Ethics in Practice

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.01784 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01784/

## Key facts

- Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 162 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Jun 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Datasheets for Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.09010/) (2018)
- [Model Cards for Model Reporting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.03993/) (2018)
- [Principles alone cannot guarantee ethical AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.06668/) (2019)
- [Embedded EthiCS: Integrating Ethics Broadly Across Computer Science Education](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.05686/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Fairlearn: Assessing and Improving Fairness of AI Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16626/) (2023)
- [Stop! In the Name of Flaws: Disentangling Personal Names and Sociodemographic Attributes in NLP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17159/) (2024)
- [`It is currently hodgepodge'': Examining AI/ML Practitioners' Challenges during Co-production of Responsible AI Values](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.10221/) (2023)
- [Investigating Practices and Opportunities for Cross-functional Collaboration around AI Fairness in Industry Practice](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.06542/) (2023)
- [Explainability in AI Policies: A Critical Review of Communications, Reports, Regulations, and Standards in the EU, US, and UK](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.11218/) (2023)
- [Scaling Laws Do Not Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.03201/) (2023)
- [Characterizing and modeling harms from interactions with design patterns in AI interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.11370/) (2024)
- [HCC Is All You Need: Alignment-The Sensible Kind Anyway-Is Just Human-Centered Computing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.03699/) (2024)
- [Mapping Trustworthiness in Large Language Models: A Bibliometric Analysis Bridging Theory to Practice](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.04785/) (2025)
- [Fairness in Federated Learning: Fairness for Whom?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.21584/) (2025)
- [Strategic Polysemy in AI Discourse: A Philosophical Analysis of Language, Hype, and Power](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.21043/) (2026)
- [Abstracted Away: Resisting Alienation and Ungrounded Abstraction in AI Research Communities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.08408/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This article introduces the special issue "Technology Ethics in Action: Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives". In response to recent controversies about the harms of digital technology, discourses and practices of "tech ethics" have proliferated across the tech industry, academia, civil society, and government. Yet despite the seeming promise of ethics, tech ethics in practice suffers from several significant limitations: tech ethics is vague and toothless, has a myopic focus on individual engineers and technology design, and is subsumed into corporate logics and incentives. These limitations suggest that tech ethics enables corporate "ethics-washing": embracing the language of ethics to defuse criticism and resist government regulation, without committing to ethical behavior. Given these dynamics, I describe tech ethics as a terrain of contestation where the central debate is not whether ethics is desirable, but what "ethics" entails and who gets to define it. Current approaches to tech ethics are poised to enable technologists and technology companies to label themselves as "ethical" without substantively altering their practices. Thus, those striving for structural improvements in digital technologies must be mindful of the gap between ethics as a mode of normative inquiry and ethics as a practical endeavor. In order to better evaluate the opportunities and limits of tech ethics, I propose a sociotechnical approach that analyzes tech ethics in light of who defines it and what impacts it generates in practice.