Is Technology Moral or Immoral?
Tagged with: morality • religion • Science • technology
There is a discussion going on at ***Dave’s blog about morality and technology. Originally the topic was about a study asking respondents about their opinions on nanotechnology; the study was written in Science Daily. From the article:
In a sample of 1,015 adult Americans, only 29.5 percent of respondents agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable.
To me this seems like a completely silly response. But even more so, it seems like an udder nonsensical question. Now I don’t know what question was asked for sure, I can’t find the original study, but I am assuming the question was along the lines of, “Do you find nanotechnology to be morally acceptable?” Which to me, and ***Dave, seems akin to asking, “Do you find metallurgy morally acceptable?” How can you get a true result from such a question?
I also found this odd from the article:
The moral qualms people of faith express about nanotechnology is not a question of ignorance of the technology, says Scheufele, explaining that survey respondents are well-informed about nanotechnology and its potential benefits.
“They still oppose it,” he says. “They are rejecting it based on religious beliefs. The issue isn’t about informing these people. They are informed.”
I’m not sure I buy that conclusion at all. People in general do not seem to have a full grasp of technology, what it is, where it’s going, etc. If they did, stem cells wouldn’t be an issue of morality and neither would nanotechnology. Below is a clip of a comment I left on ***Dave’s blog about this very subject:
If we stick to dictionary definitions of morality we are dealing with ethical decisions of right or wrong essentially, goodness based on a code of conduct, and/or human ethical decisions. Basically to be moral or immoral you or something has to make a conscious decision based on some kind of code.
So in the extreme case of cannibalism, for example, most people in the industrialized world would come to the conclusion that eating another person is immoral. Our codes of conduct or (un)written rules condone such action. In more remote places of the world it is acceptable and likely considered moral by their code or (un)written rules.
In the case of technology that goes into building a PMFRD machine, each piece of technology is an inanimate object. It cannot make a decision based on (un)written rules. Now maybe the machine on a whole could make such decisions with the right amount of AI. But the machine on a whole is not considered technology, rather a machine or AI robot. And different pieces of technology went into creating this machine. And furthermore, the machine was still programmed to make such decisions based on some kind of code. It still had a creator that decided how to give the robot the ability to make decisions.
You may need to go to the link above for the discussion on ***Dave’s blog for context, but basically technology can’t really be good or evil, people are based on pre-defined standards.
So what do you think? Is technology moral or immoral? Are people good or evil? Do people kill people or do PMFRD machines kill people?
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February 20th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
By transitive properties technology can be viewed as immoral.
Any question of immorality is going to depend on factors rooted in society, culture and world view, not in terms of scientific arcanum. Science and technology are tools and techniques that we make use of in the domain of social interactions.
So, for many of us, we come to the question of technology and/or science with suspicion. Who will profit? What problem will be solved? Is it a real problem, or one that advances a specific worldview, etc.
With regards to nanotechnology (like most technologies), it’s a matter of trust. Scientists have proven that their judgment is flawed and that they are human — greedy, jealous, grasping. They bring you chemical warfare, technology to create destruction, atomic bombs, etc and enrich themselves with patents at the expense of others, all the while standing on the shoulders of previous giants.
Just because they sit at the big table, I assign them no superfluous rank, and I’m convinced that they’ll overestimate themselves, and create a disaster that will impact me. So certainly, regulations and control are in order so they don’t create a plague, or a mini black hole, or pollute.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Right. With the key word being USE. Questions of morality are about use. So inanimate objects can be used for evil things. Or created with evil intent/purposes. Objects themselves cannot be inherently evil.
February 21st, 2008 at 7:12 am
I’m not getting it. Is this a tree falls in the forest kind of thing?
Of course use is crucial — and people making moral judgments don’t have the ability to control or regulate use because of profit interference.
Like I said above, it’s about transference; the association of technology with its use and with lack of individual control over its use.
Is meat cloning immoral? Is medical care (and devices) — the kind that extends life needlessly?
February 21st, 2008 at 7:48 am
Oh, BTW — the government doesn’t care for our prejudices either, so it’s ensuring that technology gets treated fairly.
Technology deserves tort reform, because as you know legal reform keeps the cost of medicine low.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:37 pm
This is a debatable issue, because cloning is an action. The above question:
is not really a valid question. There is no action. An inanimate object or abstract concept can’t really be moral or not. Like I said above, it’s comparable to asking if metallurgy is immoral. Maybe certain acts within metallurgy are immoral. But metallurgy itself cannot really be immoral.
That link is pretty much bullshit. If the FDA fucks up and allows a mistake to go through it will be pretty much impossible to sue them for damages. Even if you could it would be like suing yourself. Companies should be held accountable for their mistakes just as people are.