Technology as a
.Subject for Ethics
T HAT ethics most generally speaking has a say in matters of technology,or that technology is subject to ethical consid-erations,follows from the simple fact that technology is an exerci of human power,that is,a form of action,and all human action is answerable to moral scrutiny.It is also a truism that one and the same'power can be for good and for evil,and that in wielding it one can abide by ethical norms or violate them.Technology,as vastly enhanced human power, clearly falls under this general truth.But does it constitute a special ca,requiring an effort of ethical thought different from that which befits every human action and has been sufficient for all its kinds in the past?My thesis is that it does indeed constitute a novel and special ca,for reasons of which I will indicate five that impress me in particular.
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1.In general,any capacity is good"as such"or"in itlf' and becomes bad only through abu.For example,it is un-deniably good to have the power of speech,but bad to u it for deceiving or for ducing others to their ruin.Hence it is entirely meaningful to command:u that power,enhance it, but do not misu it-the premi being that ethics can clearly distinguish between the two,between right an
d wrorig u of one and the same capacity.But what if we move in an action context where every major u of the capacity,be it ever so well-intentioned,carries with it a growth vector of eventually bad effects,inparably bound up with the intended and
proximate"good"effects and in the end perhaps outdistancing them?If this is the ca of modern technology,as we have good reason to believe,then the question of moral or immoral u of its powers is no longer a matter of lf-evident,qualita-tive divisions,and not even of intentions,but becomes mired in,and put at the mercy of,quantitative guesswork about ultimate conquences.The quandary is this:not only when malevolently misud,namely,for evil ends,but even when benevolently ud for its proper and most justifiable ends, does technology have a threatening side to it which may have the last word in the long run of things.And the"long run"is somehow implanted in technological practices.By its inherent dynamism which makes it thus"run,"technology is denied the sanctuary of ethical neutrality,the consoling adiaphoron(indif-ference)of the Stoics.The risk of the"too much"is ever prent,as the congenital germ of the"bad,"that is,injurious, is nurtured and brought to term precily by the successful promotion of the"good,"that is,beneficial.The danger lies more in success than in failure;and yet the success is needed in the press of human affairs.A pertinent ethics of technology must immer itlf in this inherent ambivalence of technologi-cal action.
2.In general,faculties or powers can be possd-by in-dividuals or groups-without being exercid except on ap-propriate occasions and at the posssor's discretion.They can exist in the state of"potentiality"much of the time,in readi-ness for u,to be actualized on demand.The person en-dowed with speech need not talk incessantly and may well be on the whole taciturn.Not so with technological capacities. Once developed by doing in the small,they have a way of enforcing their employment in the large and ever larger and making that employment an incessant need of life.Thus not only the sanctuary of ethical neutrality but also the merciful hiatus between posssion and exerci of a power is denied to technology,which is enhanced human power always in actu. Development of new capacities is here continuous with their injection and spreading in the bloodstream of collective action.
Hence,already the acquisition of new capacities,any addition to the inventory of means,bears here an ethical burden which normally rests only on the single instances of their employ-ment.比翼双飞
3.Moreover,there is an aspect of sheer magnitude of action and effect which acquires moral significance.The scale and causal range of technological practice,as a whole and in its single undertakings,are such that they inrt a whole new dimension into the frame of ethical reckoning-a dimension unknown to all former kinds of action.We have spoken before of a situation where"every
major u of a capacity"may carry with it a growth vector of eventually bad effects.We must now add that every putting-to-u of a technological capacity tends to become"major."Modern technology is inherently"big," and perhaps too big for the size of the stage on which its play is enacted-earth-.and for the good of its enactor himlf-man.That much is certain:it,or its works and their impact, spreads over the globe,and its cumulative effects reach poten-tially into countless generations to come.With what we are doing here and now,we massively affect the lives of millions, elwhere and later,who have no say in the matter.We mort-gage future life for prent short-term advantages and needs-and mostly lf-created needs at that.Perhaps we can-not avoid doing so in some way or other.But if so,then we must pay utter heed to doing so in fairness to posterity-namely in such a way that their chance of coping with that mortgage has not been compromid in advance.The point here is that the intrusion of distant future and global scales into our everyday,mundane decisions,-is an ethical novum which technology has thrust on us;and the ethical category preeminently summoned by this novel fact is:responsibility.Its now moving to the center of the ethical stage(where it was not before)opens a new chapter in the history of ethics, reflecting the new magnitudes of power with which ethics has henceforth to cope:the claims on responsibility grow propor-tionately with the deeds of power.
方成语灵芝孢子粉服用4.That widened scope of human power,as it breaches the
horizon of spatiotemporal neighborhood,also breaks down the anthropocentric monopoly of most former ethical systems, religious and cular.It was always the human good that was to be fostered,the interests and rights of fellowmen that were to be respected,wrongs done to them to be righted,their suf-ferings to be alleviated.Man was en beholden to mankind,at the very most,and to nothing el on this earth.(Usually,the ethical horizon was much more narrowly drawn than that,as in"Love thy neighbor.")But now the whole biosphere of the planet with all its plenitude of species,newly revealed in its vulnerability to man's excessive intervention,claims its share of the respect owed to all that is an end in itlf-that is:to all that is alive.The monopoly of man on ethical regard is breached precily with his acquiring a near-monopolistic power over the rest of life.As a major planetary force,he cannot think of himlf alone anymore.To be sure,the com-mand not to leave to our descendants a depleted patrimony express this broadening of ethical scope still in terms of a human duty toward humans,as the injunction of an intrahu-man solidarity of survival and utility,of curiosity,enjoyment, and wonder.Impoverished extrahuman life means also an impoverished human life.But properly understood,the inclu-sion of the existence of the plenitude as such in the human good,thus the inclusion of its prervation in man's duty,goes beyond the utilitarian and any anthropocentric concern.It allies the human good with the cau of life in general,instead of pitting the one against the other,and grants the latter its own right.Its recognition means that any wanton an
d needless extinction of species becomes a crime in itlf,quite apart from the concurring counls of intelligent lf-interest;and to protect the most nonrenewable and most irreplaceable"re-source"of all,the incredibly rich gene pool deposited by aeons of evolution,becomes a transcendent duty of man.It is his excess of power that confers this duty on him,and it is against this very power-that is to say,against himlf-that his pro-tection is asked.Thus it comes about that technology,this
农村好项目coldly pragmatic work of human cunning,installs man in a role which only religion has sometimes assigned to him:that of steward or guardian of creation.By enhancing his might to the point where it becomes palpably dangerous to the total scheme of things,technology extends man's responsibility to the future of life on earth,now expod to,and defenless against,the abu of that might.Environmental ethics,really unprecedented,is the expression of this unprecedented wid-ening of our responsibility,which in turn answers to the un-precedented widening of the reach of our deeds.It needed the visible threat to the whole,the actual beginnings of its destruction,to make us discover(or rediscover)our solidarity with it:a sobering thought.
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K.-FInally,the apocalyptic potential o(--technology-its ability to endanger the very existence of the human species,or to spoil its genetic integrity,or arbitrarily to alter it,even to destroy the conditions of higher life on earth-rais the metaphysical question never pod to ethics before:whether and why t
here ought to be a mankind?Why,therefore,Man as evolution has produced him ought to be prerved,his genetic heritage respected?Even why there ought to be life at all?The question is not so redundant as it ems(in the abnce of a denier of all the"oughts"),since the answer to it has a bearing on how much we are allowed to risk in our grand technological bets,and what risks are entirely imper-missible.If it is a categorical imperative for mankind to exist, then any suicidal gambling with that existence is categorically forbidden,and technological bets with even remotely this at stake are ruled out in their first beginnings.
The,then,are some of the reasons that make technology a special and novel ca for ethical consideration,indeed for a descent into the very foundations of ethics.Let us follow some
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of the pointers furnished by the reasons.Most prOmISIng perhaps is a combination of reasons1and3,of the arguments of"ambivalence"and"bigness."At first glance it ems easy to distinguish between beneficial and injurious technology by just looking at what the instruments are for.Plowshares are good, swords are bad:in the messianic age,swords will be beaten into plowshares.Translated into modern technology:atom bombs are bad,chemical fertilizers,which help to feed man-kind,are good.But here,the vexing dilemma of modern technology leaps to the eye:its"plowshares"can be as dis-astrous in the long run as its"swords"!(And'the"long run," remembe
素描花r,is endemic with technological tools.)But in that ca they,the beneficent"plowshares"and their likes,are the true problem.For we can leave the sword in its scabbard but not the plowshare in its shed.An all-out atomic war would indeed be apocalyp at a stroke,but although it can happen at any time and the nightmare of this"can"may darken all our future days,it need not happen,for here the saving hiatus between potentiality and actuality,between posssing the tool and using it,still holds and gives us hope that the u will be avoided(which indeed is the paradoxical purpo of having it).But there are innumerable other,entirely nonviolent things that po their own apocalyptic threat and which we just must do and must keep doing in order to keep afloat. While bad brother Cain-the bomb-lies leashed in his lair, good brother Abel,the peaceful reactor,undramatically goes on depositing his poison for millennia to come.Even there,if luck is with our earnest effort,we may find in time less harm-ful alternatives to quench the growing energy thirst of a global civilization faced with the dwindling of conventional sources. We may even manage to lower the level of voracity itlf and revert to doing with less,before a catastrophic exhaustion or pollution of the planet forces us into wor than austerity.But it is morally unthinkable,for example,to stop biomedical technology from holding down infant mortality in"underde-veloped"countries with high birthrates,even though the mis-
