Thursday 19 September 2013
A Very Impressive Little Comic
Today I found a very interesting webcomic on questions thanks to a friend. I think you will really enjoy it. http://comicsthatsaysomething.quora.com/A-Day-at-the-Park?ref=fb
Monday 9 September 2013
Technology, Ethics, and Clumsy Gods
I had a professor who loved to recite the phrase 'ought implies can' in our ethics class. I've been reading The Troubled Dream of Life: Living with Mortality by Daniel Callahan and it's got me thinking about the other side of that phrase--what happens when 'can' influences 'ought'? What I mean by that is, 'how does technology change our moral responsibilities?'
Callahan explains that before the development of effective medicine death was seen as an inescapable evil, but not the kind of evil humans are responsible for, more like a natural and unpreventable evil like a hurricane. as technology improved, however, and various causes of death could be eliminated, it became a moral imperative for doctors to eliminate the causes of death, because of course if an evil can be prevented it should.
Today, we still understand that death in general must happen, but no one dies of 'death in general'. Everyone dies of something, a specific, often treatable something, and in the first world they often die under the treatment of a medical professional. As a result, even though we know death must come for all of us, medical professionals often end up feeling personally responsible for a failure to treat the patient. So, with the rise of modern medicine also came the moral onus of death, whether justly or not.
This reminded me of a passage I read by Hans Jonas where he explained that the scope of modern technology has changed the way we do ethics forever. not only do our actions effect such a large mass of people that we could never consider all of them as individuals, but also our actions have completely unanticipated effects. furthermore, we now have ethical subjects who are non-human and we have the power to redefine qualities that used to be fundamental to the definition of humanity. What Jonas was trying to say was that we are simply no longer equipped to deal with the kind o ethical problem that arise from our incredible technological power.
What I find interesting about all this, I suppose, is that there is a kind of paradox taking place. As we become more capable through technology, our power also reminds us of how limited we are in terms of being able to live up to our ethical expectations. It's as if technology has made us see ourselves clumsy, incompetent Gods. Perhaps if there really were a superhero with superpowers, he or she would feel immense guilt for all the evil that actually took place in the world, that they were in theory capable of preventing and yet couldn't for one reason or another. To have that kind of power would mean taking on the whole of human suffering as a burden. We are capable of wreaking incredible destruction on each other and the planet, but doing the right thing is still incredibly difficult with so much power. We think that gaining more power, improving technology, will somehow make us more capable of acting, and then we open up an entire new realm of ethical problems. Maybe we are like some Greek tragedy or a heroin addict. Maybe our fixation will lead us into a black hole from which we cannot return.
Callahan explains that before the development of effective medicine death was seen as an inescapable evil, but not the kind of evil humans are responsible for, more like a natural and unpreventable evil like a hurricane. as technology improved, however, and various causes of death could be eliminated, it became a moral imperative for doctors to eliminate the causes of death, because of course if an evil can be prevented it should.
Today, we still understand that death in general must happen, but no one dies of 'death in general'. Everyone dies of something, a specific, often treatable something, and in the first world they often die under the treatment of a medical professional. As a result, even though we know death must come for all of us, medical professionals often end up feeling personally responsible for a failure to treat the patient. So, with the rise of modern medicine also came the moral onus of death, whether justly or not.
This reminded me of a passage I read by Hans Jonas where he explained that the scope of modern technology has changed the way we do ethics forever. not only do our actions effect such a large mass of people that we could never consider all of them as individuals, but also our actions have completely unanticipated effects. furthermore, we now have ethical subjects who are non-human and we have the power to redefine qualities that used to be fundamental to the definition of humanity. What Jonas was trying to say was that we are simply no longer equipped to deal with the kind o ethical problem that arise from our incredible technological power.
What I find interesting about all this, I suppose, is that there is a kind of paradox taking place. As we become more capable through technology, our power also reminds us of how limited we are in terms of being able to live up to our ethical expectations. It's as if technology has made us see ourselves clumsy, incompetent Gods. Perhaps if there really were a superhero with superpowers, he or she would feel immense guilt for all the evil that actually took place in the world, that they were in theory capable of preventing and yet couldn't for one reason or another. To have that kind of power would mean taking on the whole of human suffering as a burden. We are capable of wreaking incredible destruction on each other and the planet, but doing the right thing is still incredibly difficult with so much power. We think that gaining more power, improving technology, will somehow make us more capable of acting, and then we open up an entire new realm of ethical problems. Maybe we are like some Greek tragedy or a heroin addict. Maybe our fixation will lead us into a black hole from which we cannot return.
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