Langdon Winner's article "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" (1986) has become a classic piece within Science and Technology Studies. While Winner was certainly not the first to consider the inherently political qualities of technology, his article has assumed the role of a touchstone for both supporters and critics of the idea that artifacts embody political and social relationships. In the chapters that follow, I shall try to answer Winner and his critics, by studying a particular technology that I believe to be capable of shedding some much-needed light on the issue. My aim is provide a restatement of Winner's question in the pages that follow, with the hope of getting past such problematic terms as "embodiment" and "encapsulation." My hope is to make the issue itself clearer, so that we can get to the heart of how technology, values, and human beings systematically interact. I shall utilize in my discussion computer network scanning software. I shall first discuss the background to the question "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" and then describe some of the ethical and political forces alive in the computer security world. Next I shall closely examine two particular pieces of network scanning software and describe their interactions in terms of political and ethical motivations. Finally, I shall use this case study as a basis for a broader discussion of how values may be better conceived in terms of complex interactive systems of human beings and technologies. / Master of Science

Substantiality of the thesis is the question of moral and ethic in the sphere of developing genetic and inheritance research. Thesis is especially focused on ethics consequences which result from the application of this research. Thesis is divided in two parts. First part contains general information about genetics science and it is more likely descriptive. This part outlines fundamental principles of genetic, its evolution and genetics breakthroughs and their today exploitation. Thereinafter are mentioned genetics techniques divided in singles areas of interest with main focus on human genetic manipulation {--} main topic of the thesis. Close of this part is dedicated to the theoretical aspects of the ambition in the field of human changing and the description of achieved goals. There are mentioned controlling and regulating mechanisms as conclusions of the first part of the thesis. Opinion on regulation of clerical representatives, civil law, laic public and scientists themselves are referred-to. Second part of the thesis is focused directly on the ethics risks of the practical use of genetic technologies and their impact on human being. The principles of catholic ethic are foreshadowed. The expectations of human genetic improvement are confronted gradually by those principles. [90] Statement, that the human improvement by the genetic manipulation is non tenable by means of the Christian ethics is a conclusion of this thesis.