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Introduction

THE SCOPE OF TECHNOLOGY

When one ordinarily thinks of technology, what most likely comes to mind are technological
artifacts, the machines and devices that are the useful end products of technological innova­
tion. Then, perhaps, one thinks of the less familiar, but potentially more impressive machines
and industrial processes tucked away in the factories that manufacture the various gadgets
and widgets that we use. Finally, one might visualize the scientists, engineers, and techni­
cians in white laboratory coats, hard at work in the laboratories of the Research and Devel­
opment Division, designing and developing the next generation of technological devices and
processes.
While it is true that technology is implicated in each of these contexts—end-use, manu-
facturing, and design—in this reader we take the even broader view that technology consists
not only of technological artifacts and the tools and processes needed to produce them, but
also of the entire sodai organization of people and materials that permits the acquisition of
the knowledge and skills needed to design, manufacture, distribute, use, repair, and eventu­
ally dispose of these technological artifacts. But even this is not entirely accurate: technology
is not a collection of things, but a systematic and rational way of doing things; it is, in gen­
eral, the organization of knowledge, people, and things to accomplish specific practical goals.
Technologies indude not only the obvious candidates, the traditional mechanical, struc­
tural, and electronic technologies that direct the purposeful organization of materials, but
also less obvious technologies that control the purposeful organization of people. Few would
doubt that the mechanical, chemical, and electrical know-how that goes into the design of
the motors, transmissions, wheels, and bearings of an automobile qualify as a technology,
but so also does the assembly line, a technology for organizing the manufacturing environ­
ment, and the classroom, a technology for education. Looking further afield, the monetary
system, the banks, the stock, and the commodity markets are technologies for the distribu­
tion of value that, whatever their faults, have long since displaced the competing technolo­
gies of barter and stuffing gold coins in a mattress. Free market capitalism and centralized
planned economies are competing technologies for organizing sodai production. Even gov­
ernmental systems, ranging from varieties of representative democracy to theocracy and

xi
INTRODUCTION
dictatorship, are competing political technologies for managing concerted societal action and
resolving political conflicts. People find themselves asking, “Is there a better way to run a
government?” no less frequently than “Is there a better way to build a mouse trap!” Both
questions are requests to find a better technology.
The word “technology” is itself of fairly recent coinage; it was first used by Harvard pro­
fessor Jacob Bigelow in the 1820s. Its root, “rechne” is the ancient Greek word for “art”
“craft” or “skill,” which itself is derived from an earlier Indo-European root, “teks” which
means to weave or fabricate. (“Teks” is also the root of the word “textile”). Recent archeo­
logical evidence suggests that the weaving of cloth predates the birth of agriculture and the
dawn of civilization, going back to about 35,000 years before the present (YBP), making it
one of the first technologies. As the etymology suggests, a “rechne” is a method or craft or
skill used in making things, not the things themselves, which are rather called “artifacts.” For
instance, a woven object made from animal hairs which have been twisted together into long
strands, dyed with vegetable colors, and interlaced by a weaver is a technological artifact. Let
us say that this object functions primarily as does a blanket; a person wraps her- or himself in
it in order to retain body heat and stay warm. A typical use or function of an artifact is called
an “end,” and the knowledge of how to gather the fibers, twist them, dye them, and weave
them, are the individual “techniques” of which this particular technology is comprised. Thus,
the core meaning of the word “technology” refers to the ensembles of techniques by which
humans make artifacts that serve certain useful ends. However, this original meaning is too
restrictive for the contemporary context in which we think about the relationship between
technology and society.
Contemporary writers about technology invariably speak of modem technology as a sys­
tem. This suggests that modern technologies are complex things consisting of several distin­
guishable but interacting elements or aspects. We employ an analysis that distinguishes
six aspects or elements of any technological system: r) techniques, activity-forms or practices,
2) resources or basic materials, 3) technological products, or artifacts, 4) ends, functions, or
purposes, 5) background knowledge, and 6) the social context or organization in which the
technology is developed and used. These six elements are present in every technological
system.
The first element of modem technological systems are the human activity-forms that
manifest certain techniques, methods, practices, or ways of doing things. Nowadays there are
complex ensembles of techniques for doing just about everything from planting and harvest­
ing crops to figuring out the orbit of a moon around Jupiter, from designing a house to con­
ducting a leveraged hostile take-over in the business world, from cooking lasagna to
programming a computer to sorting sales data. Such complex techniques represent what is
called procedural knowledge or more commonly “know-how,” a kind of knowledge which is
sometimes contrasted with factual or theoretical "know-that." While both types of knowledge
are necessary elements of technological systems, techniques or “know-hows” are its essence.
In these examples one can see that a main consequence of technology is to increase our
capacity to do things. Technologies, techniques, and tools extend, enhance, and sometimes
Introduction xili
even replace our natural ability and powers such as sight, hearing, muscle, and even memory.
By using tools, we are thus able to accomplish things that we could not otherwise accom­
plish, and to do things that we could not otherwise do, thus increasing our repertoire of
human activity forms. Tools are artifacts at our disposal which can be used to make other arti­
facts, but tools are usually themselves technological artifacts which have been transformed
from their natural states in some way by means of human action. The Earth itself has for
many centuries been viewed as a “resource well” into which we can dip at will in order to sat­
isfy our heeds and desires, thus the second element of technological systems, resources. Tech­
nologies require resources of various kinds as inputs to technological processes, and these
processes, the techniques or human activity-forms, act upon and transform these resources
from their original or natural states. Once a “built” environment has been created, however,
everything in it can serve as a resource to further technological development. The term
“infrastructure” is used to describe elements of the built environment which are available to
be used to create or apply new technologies.
By acting upon eitheł natural or infrastructural resources, through techniques, we alter
them in various ways and thus create “artifacts” which is the third element of technological
systems. A clay pot is an example of a material artifact, which, although transformed by.
human activity, is not all that far removed from its natural state. A plastic cup, a contact lens,
or a computer chip, on the other hand, are examples of what are sometimes called “techno-
facts” because the very stuff from which they are made is itself a fabricated or artificial
resource. The distinction is a matter of how far removed from a “natural” state the object in
question is. Artifacts and technofacts can serve as resources in other technological processes.
This is one of the important interaction effects within the technological system: each new
technology increases the stock of available tools which can be employed by other technolo­
gies to produce new artifacts.
The fourth clement concerns the typical use or function of an artifact or technique. While
most artifacts have typical or intended uses, there are, in fact, no artifacts that cannot be
embedded in multiple contexts of use or which cannot serve multiple ends. A toaster, for
instance, which is intended to lightly burn slices of bread, can also be used as hand warmer or
as a murder weapon. There is a double ambiguity in the relations between artifacts and prac­
tices and between ends and practices, since the same artifacts can be used to achieve different
ends, and different practices and their associated artifacts can be used to accomplish the same
ends. For instance, this sentence could have been written with a quill pen, a pencil, a ball­
point pen, a typewriter, or a personal computer running word processing software (although,
in fact, the last artifact was used), and a personal computer could have been used to play
an adventure game or to compute income taxes instead of writing this sentence. The end
for which a particular tool or artifact was designed is sometimes called its “valence.” Because
artifacts are designed and created in order to serve certain intended functions, it is possible to
talk about the valences of these objects, i.e., their intrinsic or intended purpose, even though
the objects themselves may often also be used in ways which were not intended by their
designers.
xiv INTRODUCTION
Introduttim XV

Without its power to satisfy our needs and desires, no one would be that interested in The social aspect of technology is perhaps the least obvious one, but it is also the most
technology. Technology develops in response to what we take to be our needs and desires.
important. Technology is a social construction. This is true in an obvious and straightforward
But as technology develops it tends to change our needs and desires. Several years, ago one
sense when we speak of large technological infrastructures, such as bridges, buildings, or
had no need for floppy or hard disks in order to save written work, but now, with word pro­
dams, which obviously came into existence only by the coordination of the activities of
cessing, such an artifact is required. Needs or ends come in two main varieties: instrumental
numerous individuals. However, it is equally true in the case of the lonely amateur inventor
and intrinsic. An instrumental end is one that is used to obtain or achieve something else that
toiling in the attic. Inventions today are rarely the result of such solitary creativity, but even
is perceived as valuable, that is, it is a means to another end or goal. An intrinsic end is some­
when they are, the resources and techniques employed and the knowledge by which they are
thing that is valued in and for itself. One may have no intrinsic need for floppy or hard disks,
put to use by the inventor arc themselves the products of prior social processes. Even the
but these artifacts are needed so that writing on the screen will not disappear when a PC is
inventor’s own knowledge and abilities have been shaped by his education in his society, by
turned off. I need to write in order to do my job as a teacher and scholar, and I need to do my
the repertoire of cognitive techniques she has acquired through her prior education, so that
job in order to earn money, which is needed to buy food and shelter for myself and my fam­
there is really very little, perhaps only the raw materials and the laws of nature, which has not
ily, so that wc can survive. The only thing that functions in this example as an intrinsic end or
in some way resulted from a process of social production. Even when an inventor succeeds in
interest is the survival of myself and my family; everything else is an instrumental end which
inventing something new, it is still unlikely to be brought into production and placed on the
is only valuable to the degree that it helps me to achieve a final or intrinsic end. Technologies
market, unless it has some social value or use to other people. So, all technologies must be
are instrumentally valuable because they enable us to obtain the things in life which are ulti­
seen as embedded in social contexts of development, deployment, and use.
mately or intrinsically valuable.
To summarize this definition of technology, when we speak of a technology, we shall
The fifth element of technologies is knowledge-that. In order to employ our technologies
mean the complex of techniques, knowledge, and resources that are employed by human
we need background knowledge of various kinds: knowledge about what resources to use
beings in the creation of material and social artifacts which typically serve certain functions
and where to find them, knowledge about what techniques to employ to fabricate various
perceived as usefill or desirable in relation to human interests in various social contexts.
artifacts, knowledge about the ends and purposes that are typically served by various tech­
niques and objects, and knowledge about how all of these elements fit together in a systematic
Note i: Wc know that animals other than humans are able to make and use tools. For
way. Knowledge-how or “techniques” have always been an important aspect of technologies,
instance, chimpanzees strip the branches off tree limbs to make sticks that can be used for
but since the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, scientific knowledge, that is,
gathering insects, and crows have recently been observed forming hooks on leaves to extract
both factual and theoretical knowledge about the world and the way it works, has come to
insects from holes. But for the purposes of our characterization of the technological system,
play an increasingly important role in technological development.
we are restricting activity-forms or techniques to those employed by human beings.
■ The sixth aspect of technology is the social context or organization in which technologies
are developed, diffused, and employed. Technological societies arc characterized by a division
of labor in which different individuals perform different tasks in different roles to accomplish TECHNOLOGY AND HISTORY
common or coordinated ends. The organization and division of human labor is itself a kind
The use of technologies to satisfy our needs is a fundamental feature of human nature. All
of technique which can be applied to the most important resource of all, ourselves, in order to
human societies we know of, both those presently existing and those which existed before the
produce what are sometimes called “social artifacts.” Examples of sodai artifacts include mar­
dawn of civilization, were technological to some degree. According to scientists, for almost
kets, battalions or divisions in an army, baseball teams, classes in school, and office bureau­
all of our species’ evolution, we lived in small, nomadic bands whose main means of liveli­
cracies. In each case, human resources are organized in a particular way, according to a plan or
hood were gathering and scavenging. But we were also tool-makers and tool-users during
technique which involves a division of labor and role, in order to be able to accomplish spe­
this long period of human evolution, and tools were the principal means by which we satis­
cific sorts of ends or goals. It is important to see that “technology” encompasses not only
fied our physiological needs for food, warmth, and shelter. Our hominid ancestors first began
material artifacts, but also the sodai and organizational forms that produce the material infra­
chipping stones to make simple hand tools about 2.5 million years before the present (YBP).
structure of human civilization. These “invisible” technologies frequently consist of cognitive
Fire was used as early as 1.5 million YBP. If homo sapien (literally, the wise man who knows
techniques, for instance, the scientific method, statistical analysis, or procedures for creating
he is wise) really is wise, it is in large part because he is also homo faber (man the tool-maker).
a balance sheet, which are the content of higher education. Becoming a scientifically or tech-
It is believed that early human societies were organized as scavanger/hunter-gatherer
nologically educated person consists mainly in the acquisition of such cognitive techniques. groups, gathering edible plants in season and supplementing their diet with the meat or
xvi INTRODUCTION
marrow of hunted animals. Quite likely, these bands of hunter-gatherers were nomadic, fol­
lowing animal migrations and seasonal food plant distributions. As with the present day
hunter-gatherers, ancient nomadic societies were severely limited to only those objects they
could take with them and thus tended to develop simple portable technologies for hunting,
gathering, cooking, transportation, and defense. Perhaps surprisingly, life docs not seem to
have been especially hard for hunter-gatherers. The secrets of their success seem to have been
populations that did not exceed the food supply, simple and limited material needs, and the
ability to move to another area when the local food supply ran out. Nomadic hunter-gatherer
societies have persisted into the twentieth century in such diverse environments as the
African desert, the tropical rain forest, and the Arctic tundra. Remoteness might be the key to
avoiding conversion to more technologically intensive ways of life. For the rest of us, our
lives are deeply dependent on far-flung and complex technological systems about which most
of us know very little beyond how to use them.
About 10,000 YBP, the first great technological revolution occurred in several fertile river
valleys of Asia Minor and North Africa. During the Agricultural Revolution, humans learned
how to domesticate animals and how to plant, grow, harvest and store crops to sustain their
existence. This enabled humans to give up the nomadic lifestyle and to build permanent cities.
Civilization, which means literally, the building of cities, originates at this time, as does moral­
ity, law, religion, record-keeping, mathematics, astronomy, class structures, patriarchy, and
other social institutions that have since come to characterize the human condition. It is with
the adoption of settled agriculture in the fertile river valleys that the history of humankind
begins. Permanent houses could be built and tools and objects could be accumulated from
year to year, trends marking the beginning of humanity’s slow upward climb toward the col­
lections of miscellany and junk that now clutter people’s closets, attics, and garages.
Settled agriculture had many advantages and a few disadvantages. The quantity of food
that could be produced per acre was much higher, so population densities could also be
much greater. With permanent dwellings, creature comforts could be made that did not have
to be portable. With larger numbers of people together, specialization of activities could take
place, and specialists were more likely to find better ways to do things. Larger concentrations
of people could better share and perpetuate information and band together to cooperate on
projects that smaller groups could not attempt. Thus we see that even at this early stage of
technological development, the organization of people, of information, and of accumulated
resources are essential components for the emergence of technological societies.
The disadvantages of settled agriculture sprang from the fact that the society had put all
its eggs in one basket, that it had committed itself to living in one place. A settled society is
prey to flood, drought, and insects. Persistent weeds must be removed from fields before
they displace crops. Houses and farm implements must be maintained. Crop seeds must be
gathered and sown. In addition, having large numbers of people living in close proximity
also meant that rules of behavior had to be developed and enforced in order to prevent chaos
and anarchy.
In short, the settled farmer has more, but must work harder to maintain his or her
improved standard of living. Irrigated agriculture is even more technologically intensive and
1 requires more complex social organization. Large irrigation projects demand larger groups
to support them and must be maintained throughout the year, not just during the growing
season. Irrigated farms produce more food per acre and are more reliable than “dry forms”
that rely on uncertain rainfall, but they also require more work per person fed. At the extreme
are rice paddies in the river deltas of southeast China where three crops are grown per year.
They are the most productive form lands, but also the most labor intensive. The only excep­
tions to this unfortunate trend occur on large farms in industrialized countries where energy
intensive farm machinery substitutes for human labor and chemical fertilizers maintain soil
fertility. Overproduction and sustained use of the land can lead to depletion of natural
resources and ultimately desertification of an area.
The second great technological revolution occurred many centuries later, during the
eighteenth century in Europe about 250 YPB. The Industrial Revolution replaced the muscle
power of animals with coal-fired steam energy, and then later, about IOO YBP, with gasoline
driven internal combustion engines. This Machine Age caused profound changes in eco­
nomic and social relations: advancing technology reduced the need for large numbers of peo­
ple to produce required food as the number of people engaged in factory work increased.
People migrated from rural areas to cities in search of factory work, and new inventions such
as the cotton gin, the locomotive, and the telegraph laid the groundwork for the emergence
of the technological society that we live in today.
The methods a society uses to produce goods have a profound effect on what life is like
in that society, both for the producers of goods and for the consumers. Prior to the indus­
trial age, production was organized by crafts. Individual craftsmen both designed and pro­
duced each individual product, often guided by traditional patterns. The relative value of the
product was largely determined by the skill of the craftsman. As a result, craftsmen were rel­
atively autonomous, and production units often consisted of a single craftsman and several
apprentices.
When the invention of the steam engine made power available on a scale never previously
possible, it became feasible to concentrate larger numbers of workers in one place, and to
have each worker perform only a small part of the production process, resulting in a much
more specialized division of labor. Even more striking than the increased concentration of
people was the increased concentration and specialization of knowledge. In the early twenti­
eth century, technological experts, working under the banner of “scientific management”
studied the production process, learned what each worker knew about making the product,
and then decided once and for all how the product would be produced, what each worker x
would do, and at what pace. Each worker needed fewer skills, and could be paid less per
item. Cheaper workers making larger numbers of products using specialized machinery
resulted in products which cost less that in the past. Lower prices meant that consumers had
more discretionary income, which resulted in an increased standard of living. Work may have
xviü INTRODUCTION
become more boring, but a salary could buy more. Crafts did not vanish entirely. They sur­
vived in niches where no one could think of a way of applying a mass production technique
to these distinctive goods of high quality and usually high price.
The Industrial Revolution was characterized by the development of a new kind of tech­
nological system, the factory system. Factory production required far greater concentrations
of financial resources, power, labor, and raw materials than either agriculture or “cottage
industries.” It also required the development of infrastructure for transportation of raw mate­
rials to the factory site and finished products from the site. Canals first and then railroads
were as essential a part of the Industrial Revolution as the factories themselves. The industrial
system also required a large labor force near the factory, so society’s living patterns were reor­
ganized to include "factory towns” and to supply them with food and other necessities. Fac­
tories were often located near sources of power such as running water or raw materials
including coal and iron, resulting in net population shifts away from agricultural lands.
The technologies of power production were driving forces of the industrial system, and
each new source of power required industrialized society to provide an accompanying infra­
structure to make the system work. Water power, an ancient technology, was limited in avail­
ability and location, and required relatively little additional infrastructure beyond that already
available in an agricultural and craft society. Coal could be more widely distributed, but coal-
powered factories were large because efficient steam engines were large. Canals and railroads
began to crisscross the countryside both in Europe and the United States from mine to fac­
tory to market. Monetary supply and financial services had to expand to serve a system with
increasing separation between producer and consumer. Electricity was found to be a more
flexible source of power than water or steam, capable of efficiently operating both large and
small machines. Once the distribution network was established, electricity permitted greater
decentralization of industry, supported by a network of power grids that eventually reached
nearly every house and factory in the United States. Oil and gasoline revolutionized trans­
portation and distribution of goods. Internal combustion engines powered by gasoline and
diesel oil made it possible to have smaller vehicles, and smaller vehicles continued the trend
toward decentralization. However, gasoline powered vehicles required more and better
roads. The U.S. Interstate Highway System, built mainly during the 1960S-1980s, (and simi­
lar systems in other industrialized countries), arc society’s most recent contributions to an
industrial technology system based on oil. Those three elements, petroleum, vehicles, and
paved roads were and are interdependent. They had a profound impact on how our way of
life evolved in this country.
Many people believe that the late Twentieth Century is going through a third great tech­
nological transformation—from the Machine Age to the Computer and Information Age.
Called by various names such as “The Third Wave,” or the “Knowledge Revolution,” it is clear
that computers, communications Satellites, and ubiquitous, global, high-capacity communi­
cations technologies such as the internet are already profoundly changing the ways in which
we live, play, and work. Over the last two decades, the Computer and Information Revolu­
tion has made itself felt in the workplace, faster than some would like, but slower than its
visionaries had hoped for. The earliest successes of computers in industry were in payroll,
inventory, and similar routine and repetitive kinds of record keeping. The processes auto­
mated were well understood, straightforward, and implemented exactly as they had been
done before the advent of computers. In some cases, they didn’t even save time or workforce,
but they were the wave of the future.
Early computer storage systems such as punch cards were adapted from a punch card sys­
tem developed in the early 1800s by a French inventor, Jacques Jacquard, to control a weav­
ing loom. While early applications of computers during World War II were for military
application such as aiming guns at fast-moving aircraft, the concepts were applied to other
purposes after the war ended.
The next stage of development was the hope that giving decision makers more and better
information would enhance efficiency, competitiveness, and other factors that are reflected in
the bottom line. Computers made it possible to gather, organize, and distribute data on an
unprecedented scale. Also successful were the attempts to use computers to improve sched­
uling and reduce inventory in the production process. Goods stored in inventory cost money
to store and contribute nothing to profit until they are used or sold. Being able to predict
exactly how much of which raw materials and parts will be needed at which steps of the man­
ufacturing process, and being able to schedule their arrival at precisely the right place at pre­
cisely the right time led to real gains in productivity. The Japanese J.I.T. (Just-In-Time)
production process utilizes these principles.
As computers and computer programmers got better, computers became capable of doing
jobs that were formerly thought to require human intelligence. Although the conceptually
most impressive achievements were in areas like expert systems for medical diagnosis, the
biggest successes of artificial intelligence were in the simpler applications, now so common
that we take them for granted: automatic pilot, anti-locking brakes, electronic fuel injection,
and most important, general purpose tools and machines for making other products. With
flexible, modifiable, reprogrammable tools, it was no longer necessary to have long produc­
tion runs to amortize the set-up time of the machinery. Computer controlled machinery could
switch very quickly from one task to another, and production runs as short as one became in
some cases economically viable. Supply could now more accurately follow demand, and both
idle machinery and unproductive inventory were virtually eliminated in those industries
adopting the new technology. More models and options could be made available to the con­
sumer at substantially the same or lower price, unlike the early days of the assembly line when
you could get a Model T Ford in any color you liked, as long as it was black.
Even more pervasive and far reaching in its effects on society were the computer applica­
tions where the computer itself was the medium of interaction and communication. Com­
puter word processing began in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a curious and amusing waste
of computing resources that could only be tolerated in environments where the computers
were severely underutilized; generally only the development programmers at a computer
XX INTRODUCTION
manufacturer could afford to write word processing programs to help edit their computer
programs. However, in about 1980, when the Apple II computer hit the streets at a retail
price of under $2000, and its imitator the IBM PC followed soon after, everyone could
afford to do word processing on a computer, and they soon did. Typewriters and typesetters
hit the trash heap in record numbers, and the writing was on the wall that the secretarial pool
would someday exit by the same route.
The now ubiquitous internet also arose partially by accident. During the “Cold War”
with the U.S.S.R., the threat of a nuclear attack on the U.S. seemed plausible, and the
Department of Defense thought it prudent to establish electronic communications links
between the computers of their leading scientific laboratories in such a way that those labo­
ratories surviving a nuclear attack could still communicate with bach other. The nuclear attack
fortunately never happened, but no one who ever had access to the internet (then called
ARPA-net or DARPA-net) ever went back to using “snail-mail” (i.e., the US Postal Service),
for now one could email almost instantaneously anything from computer programs and data
files to personal notes, messages, recipes, jokes, trivia, animated cartoons, and whatever other
new uses the future may bring. During the 1980s the internet links expanded to most univer­
sities, and professors other than just those in computer science and engineering began using
email for both professional and personal communications. Then in the mid-1990s, the inter­
net went commercial and everybody logged on to America Online.
The key technologies for an information society are those that support record keeping
and communication. Paper and conventional printing are being supplanted by tapes, disks,
computers, and digital imaging. Telephones, modems, faxes, and communications satellites
carry the data that is the life blood of a technological system based on information. Aware
that continued growth of information technology in the United States depends on adequate
infrastructure, national leaders have proposed a national, federally funded, fiber optic com­
munications network, the information society’s equivalent of the interstate highway system.
Industrial societies, in general, require better education of their workers than do agricultural
societies; however, more than ever before, an information society requires an adequate infra­
structure of education and educated individuals. The whole system seems in danger of col­
lapsing if there are not enough sufficiently educated “techies” to maintain computers.
TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE
In the modern world, technology and science often go together, with science feeding tech­
nology and technology feeding science. Although they share a great deal of common vocab­
ulary, their goals have been historically quite/different. Technology is a good deal older than
modem science. It was not until the beginning of the Modern period in the seventeenth cen­
tury that there was a decisive shift to the view that scientific knowledge was valuable due to
its usefulness in gaining mastery over nature. This shift was largely due to the writings of sev­
eral influential philosophers, such as René Descartes and Francis Bacon, who were prophets
Introduction xxi
of the scientific revolutions that were to follow. Bacon’s writings, particularly Novum
Organon (1620) and New Atlantis (1624), are notable for their contempt of traditional spec­
ulative philosophy and their emphasis on the importance of empirical methods of investiga­
tion through which the secrets of nature could be revealed by means of judicious
experiments. In 1637 Descartes wrote the Discourse on Method, in which he proclaimed
that, “... it is possible to reach knowledge that will be of much utility in this life; and instead
of the speculative philosophy now taught in schools we can find a practical one, by which,
knowing the nature and behavior of fire, water, air, stars, the heavens, and all other bodies
which surround us, as well as we now understand the different skills of our workers, we can
employ these entities for all the purposes for which they are suited, and so make ourselves
masters and possessors of nature.”
Technology, considered as the process of designing and producing material creations and
organizational structures that extend human functions and serve human needs or interests,
primarily seeks to answer the question, “How?” “How can we keep warm in the winter?”
“How can we see distant objects that are invisible to the naked eye?” The telescope extends
vision, the car improves locomotion, and the lever (crowbar) increases human strength. The
building, the alarm dock, and the printing press all provide the means to serve human needs.
Technology seeks to design and produce useful material objects and systems that will func­
tion as planned under all expected circumstances for the planned lifetime of the product.
Science, on the other hand, may be considered as a form of systematic inquiry which
seeks to understand the underlying laws which govern the behavior of nature. Scientists pri­
marily tty to answer the questions “What?” and “Why?” as in “What kind of thing is this?”
and “Why does it behave the way it does?” In the early stages of a science, when little was
known, the immediate goal of the science was to describe and classify what exists in the nat­
ural world. As more things became known, the sciences began asking, “How do these things
change over time and interact with each other?” Scientists sought “laws” and “principles”
that would enable them to predict and explain why things in nature behave as they do.
Ideally, science and technology have a symbiotic relationship, each one helping the other.
Technology needs science to predict how its objects and systems will function so that it can
tell if they will work. Science supplies predictive laws that apply to these objects and systems,
a perfect match. However, although the laws of science are simple, applying them to the
complex objects of technology is often anything but simple. Sometimes the technologist
experiments with the complex objects that are the building blocks of a technology to find out
what will happen. Perhaps the most important contribution that science makes to technology
is in the education of the technologist, supplying the conceptual frame upon whichthe tech­
nologist builds a body of more specific and more applicable knowledge.
Technology makes far more direct and obvious contributions to science. All of the labo­
ratory equipment that the scientist uses are the products of technology. The biologist would
discover little without a microscope, and the particle physicist even less without an accelera­
tor. This direction of contribution is maintained throughout most of science. At the frontiers
INTRODUCTION
Introduction 4 xxiii

of science, however, the scientist may need equipment that has never been built before based
been engineered to contain a cancer-predisposing gene sequence (activated oncogene
on principles that have never been used before in technology. The design of the Tokamak
sequence). Technically referred to as a “transgenic nonhuman eukaryotic animal,” each mouse
(magnetic confinement torus) to study controlled nuclear fusion in hydrogen plasmas is
of this type can be used to test low doses of cancer-causing substances and to test the effec­
without a doubt the product of technology, but it is technology that can only be done by the
tiveness of drugs considered as possibly offering protection against the development of can­
scientists who understand and can predict the behavior of high temperature plasmas. Still,
cer, and therefore also representing a potentially lucrative commercial possibility.
they do not do it alone; much of the design uses established technologies, and these are the
In the field of agriculture, a number of plants with genetically engineered traits have been
province of the engineer.
patented, including maize (corn) plants rich in the amino acid tryptophan, cotton plants
In recent years, the lines between the roles of the scientist and that of the engineer
resistant to weed-killing herbicides, tobacco plants resistant to various insects, and potato
or technologist have become increasingly blurred. Much of the current research agenda is
plants resistant to various viruses. In medicine, patents have been granted for the production
dictated by the possible practical applications of new scientific knowledge. This merging of
of erythropoietin, a hormone that stimulates blood-cell formation; tissue-plasminogen acti­
science and technology has led some writers, such as Bruno Latour, to speak of “techno­
vator, an anticlotting agent used to treat heart attacks; and alpha-interferon, which has been
science.” This merging science and technology is exemplified in the contemporary field of
found effective in treating hepatitis C.
biotechnology.
The trial of O. J. Simpson has brought to light another application of DNA technology,
Genetics is the science that studies inherited characteristics. Genetic engineering, by con­
its use in identifying the assailants in violent crimes when the victims are no longer able to
trast, is the application of the knowledge obtained from genetic investigations to the solution
do so themselves. Each person, with the exception of identical twins, has a unique DNA
of such problems as infertility, diseases, food production, waste disposal, or the improvement
“fingerprint” which can be detected by matching patterns of restriction enzyme DNA frag­
of crop species. Included among genetic-engineering techniques are a wide range of proce­
ments. Using this technique it is possible to extract samples of DNA from dried blood, hairs,
dures that alter the reproductive and hereditary processes of organisms. Depending on the
or semen and produce a near certain match with the DNA pattern obtained from cells of
problem, the procedures used in genetic engineering may involve artificial insemination,
the accused.
cloning, in vitro fertilization, species hybridization, or molecular genetics. Recent discoveries
Each novel application of the new genetic knowledge has raised profound and troubling
in molecular genetics have permitted the direct manipulation of the genetic material itself by
ethical questions. A number of scientists and lay people have questioned the advisability of
the recombinant-DNA technique. Is this a scientific discovery or a technological one? Does it
recombinant-DNA research, fearing that a man-made organism carrying a disease strain
really matter? Both “know-that” and “know-how” are essential elements of modem techno­
could be accidentally released into the environment. These fears have proved groundless.
logical systems and both are a part of the training of every working scientists and engineer.
However, other fears raised by these technologies may not be so easily allayed. Already it is
The genome of an organism is the totality of genes making up its hereditary constitution.
possible for children to be produced “artificially” by the use of in vitro fertilization (IVF), or
The Human Genome Project was proposed to map the human genome, and in 1990 the U.S.
gamete interfallopian transfer (GIFT). It is now possible for a child to have different genetic,
National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy created the National Center fór
gestational, and social parents, greatly complicating questions of custody. While it is still nec­
Human Genome Research. The goal is to determine the exact location of all the genes,
essary to employ women’s wombs in the gestational process, it may not be long between we
50,000 to 100,000 plus regulatory elements, on their respective chromosomes, as well as
develop artificial wombs or incubators that will enable us to gestare mammals, such as our­
establishing the sequence of nucleotides, estimated to be about 3 billion pairs, of all the
selves, in an extra-uterine environment.
genes. The 15-year project will be completed by 2005, at an estimated cost of $3 billion. It is
We already have the ability to create “man-made” plants and animals in the laboratory by
highly doubtful that such a “Big Science” project would have been funded were it not for the
splicing together strands of DNA taken from different organisms; how long will it be before
expectation that it would result in new medical technologies for the treatment of genetic dis­
we start applying these same techniques to ourselves? Germ line genetic therapies offer the
eases that afflict human beings.
promise of eliminating many dreaded genetic diseases from the human gene pool, but they
Biotechnology also has commercial applications. Nucleotide sequencing is still in the
also raise the question of how far should we go in changing nature. Sometimes the “we
development stage. In 1980, a ruling by the U. S. Supreme Court permitted the U. S. Patent
should not play god” argument is raised to suggest that a particular technology, while avail­
and Trademark Office to grant a patent on a genetically engineered “oil-eating” bacterium.
able, might be inappropriate. The question of the extent to which humans should modify
The bacterium was categorized as a “nonnatural manmade microorganism.” Over the follow­
natural processes and whether a line exists between what is proper for humans to do and
ing eight years, some 200 patents were granted for bacteria, viruses, and plants that had been
what is not, is an old one but, with our increasing technological capabilities, is more prob­
genetically modified. In 1988, a patent was granted on a mouse strain in which the cells had
lematic today than in the past.

$--259311
xxiv
INTRODUCTION
Do wc really want to live in a world where prospective parents can choose whether they
will have a boy or a girl, and choose other characteristics such as height, body type, hair and
eye color, or perhaps even intelligence and beauty? Do we really want to know what genetic
diseases we are harboring? And what will become of the notion of human dignity if we come
to think of ourselves as just another manmade “artifact” which has been built according to
specifications? Biotechnology is one of the new fields of contemporary technology in which
the ethical implications of scientific discovery and technological innovation are most appar­
ent and most troubling.
TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS
In considering the social impacts of technology, it is important to distinguish clearly between
the specific products of technological development, such as clocks, internal combustion
engines, digital computers, respirators, and nuclear bombs, from the typical use to which
these things are put by people, or what might be termed the associated technology practices.
The fact that a particular device or technology is available for human use does not, by itself,
imply that we ought to adopt and use that technology nor does it tell us how the technology
should or should not be used. A gun, for instance, can be used in many ways: as a paper
weight, fot recreational target practice, for hunting, for personal protection, or for the com­
mission of a crime. While the gun itself has a particular intrinsic valence, i.e., the purposes or
ends for which it was designed, its practical value lies in the practices of use associated with it,
which may or may not match its intended purpose. We can and do make moral judgments
concerning the various uses or practices associated with products of technology. We accept
some uses as morally legitimate, find others to be morally questionable or problematic, and
we take steps to restrict or outlaw certain other uses to which these devices may be put. In
some cases, such as chemical or biological weapons, whose only valence is to produce mass
death and destruction, we attempt to outlaw them entirely rather than to regulate their use.
Other technologies are more benign, at least apparently so, and their introduction into soci­
ety generates little concern or controversy.
Technological innovations enlarge the scope of possible human action by allowing us to
do some things we could not do before, (e.g., perform liver transplants) and to do things we
could do before in different ways, (e.g., reheat food in microwave ovens). Each new technol­
ogy thus raises an implicit ethical question: “Should we employ this new technique/technol-
ogy or not?” In many cases, such questions are answered easily in the affirmative. However,
in many other cases, decisions about how and when to use particular technologies can raise
difficult and troubling ethicahíssues.
The ethical burden of technological change is particularly evident in the field of medical
technology where, for instance, the development and use of the respirator has made it pos­
sible to maintain heart beat and respiration in patients who would certainly have died if this
device were not available. Now that there is the option of placing a patient on such a device
Introduction xxV
to prolong life, medical practitioners and family members are faced with the moral choice
about whether, and under what circumstances, they should do so, and whether, and under
what conditions, they may ethically remove a patient from this device. Should patients with
terminal illnesses be placed on respirators! What criterion should be used in determining
when a person has died when that person’s heart can be made to beat with the aid of a
machine? Should physicians honor a patient’s competent request to be removed from a res­
pirator, even if that will bring death? Who makes such decisions for patients who are: not able
to decide for themselves? These are only a few of the difficult questions that present them­
selves when a life-prolonging technology such as artificial respiration comes into being.
When we consider questions about how the products of technology ought to be used,
we are asking questions about how people ought to behave or act. In other words, we enter
the normative realms of morality, ethics, and law. In general, questions about whether to use
products of technology or how such products should be used are ethical questions; that is,
they are questions concerning what we ought to do rather than about what we can do. Ethi­
cal questions related to technology arc basically no different from other ethical questions
which we ask about human conduct. In each case we must attempt to determine which
action or policy, from among a range of alternative possible actions or policies we might fol­
low, is the one we morally or ethically ought to choose. As in ah normative inquiries, the fact
that we can do something does not imply that we ought to do it.
Viewed from the standpoint of technology, broadly defined, morality, ethics, and their
cousin, law, are social techniques for regulating human behavior in society. They arose in
human history at about the same time at which most humans gave up the nomadic lifestyle
and began building the permanent settlements that we call cities. Cities require the mainte­
nance of high levels of social cooperation based on reliable expectations that others will act as
they are required to do. For instance, a simple commercial transaction in which one person
buys something from someone else at a mutually agreed upon price presupposes that the
buyer and seller cooperate in settling on a price, and once a price has been agreed upon, in
actually exchanging the goods and money which the transaction requires. Such economic
exchanges are regulated by social custom, and in modern societies, by a complex system of
laws which permit the drawing up of contracts which legally bind individuals to the perfor­
mance of the terms of the agreement. Other laws, such as those which prohibit theft of pri­
vate property, or forbid others from assault, rape, and murder, are part of a “social contract”
which we make with one another that allows us to live together in mass societies with a rea­
sonable degree of freedom and security.
Many people are skeptical about whether there is a single and universally “correct” moral
viewpoint, and they adopt some version of moral relativism. However, almost everyone
believes that there is a difference between “right” and “wrong” and can effectively use that
understanding to guide their behavior. Ethical decision-making, like most other things in the
modem age, is something that can be “rationalized” and practiced in accordance with a tech­
nique. The technique of ethical decision-making consists in a conscious attempt to get a clear
xxvi INTRODUCTION
view of the issues, options, and arguments that present themselves in any situation which
calls for ethical judgment or decision. One should identify all of the “stakeholders,” that is, all
of the individuals whose interests might be affected by a decision, identify all of the possible
courses of action that one might follow; review all of the arguments for each of the options
developing “pros” and “cons,” and then, only after having carefully worked through such
deliberations, make a rational choice as to which of the available options has the strongest set
of moral reasons behind it.
Moral reasons are those that involve ethical principles governing notions such as “fair­
ness,” “justice” “equality,” “duty,” “obligation,” “responsibility,” and various kinds of “rights.”
In most ethical decisions, such reasons contend with other, non-moral, reasons for actions
based on “prudence” or self-interest, efficiency, and economy. From the moral point of view,
ethical reasons ought always override non-moral reasons for action. Ethical decisions con­
cerning the use of technologies involve judgments of value and obligation, responsibility and
liability, and assessments of risk and benefit and can arise at various levels: the individual or
personal level, the level of institutional or organizational policy, and at the social level of pub­
lic policy. As individuals, as consumers and users of the products of technology in everyday
life, we must deride which technologies to use and how to use them. As workers or students,
we belong to and participate in institutions or organizations whose policies and practices can
affect our health and future well-being. And as citizens, we all have a stake in various public
policy questions whose resolution will affect our lives. An example of this public policy
dimension concerns the risks we face because of environmental degradation and pollution.
Every day the air, water, and soil of the developed countries is being poisoned by a Pan­
dora’s Box of chemical ills—radioactive waste from nuclear reactors, toxic chemicals, acid
rain, and lethal gases. In the United States alone, it is estimated that there are 1,250 hazardous
waste dumps, most of which show signs of polluting nearby groundwater. We continue to
produce toxic chemical and nuclear waste at enormous annual rates and yet have no satisfac­
tory means of disposing of them, nor insuring that they do not poison the water, air, and soil
which we all depend upon. There is no guarantee that any of the 60,000 chemicals which the
EPA has classified as hazardous to human health lose their toxicity during the decades it takes
for them to seep into the rock and affect deep water tables. These pollutants spread insidi­
ously through the natural ecosystem and distribute increased risks to public health not only
to ourselves but to our posterity. Similar concerns have been raised about a variety of other
environmental problems, for instance, global warming, ozone layer depletion, desertifica­
tion, soil erosion, and otheys.
At times the prognosis for the future looks grim indeed. In order to begin to deal with
environmental threats of these kinds, we should first ask whether they possess any special
characteristics which make them particularly intractable to deal with, or which might suggest
a common solution. What, we should ask, have these kinds of threats in common? The
threats which we presently face all seem to share certain characteristics which distinguish
them from standard threats which humans faced throughout most of our previous history.
Introiluction XXVu
First, these threats arise not mainly from the consequences of individual acts or omissions, or
from forces beyond mankind’s control, but from our own collective action. Second, they do
not involve direct harms, for the most part, but rather increased risks of harm which are dis­
tributed very broadly across individuals, often without their active participation or knowl­
edge. Third, the threats do not affect only the present, but also the future, often the distant,
incalculable future. Fourth, they do not threaten only humans, but other animals, the natural
environment, and life itself. Fifth, they are also to one degree or another the result of tech­
nology—they are problems which have arisen in part because of new powers given to us by
technological progress, powers which we have not yet learned to use wisely and responsibly.
Sixth, they do not affect single communities or even single nations, but in some cases
threaten the whole of mankind. Seventh, the damage, at some point, may not be reversible.
Our previous ethical traditions have not prepared us to cope with threats of these kinds.
Traditional ethics has focused primarily on moral requirements concerning individual action,
on the direct dealings between persons, rather than on collective action. This problem is par­
ticularly important with respect to widely distributed technologies such as the internal com­
bustion engine, where the cumulative effects of individual derisions can have a major impact
on the environmental air quality, even though no single individual is “responsible” for the
smog. Traditional moral norms deal by and large with the present and near future effects of
actions of individual human being, and do not prepare us to deal with cumulative effects and
statistical deaths. Traditional ethics, above all, has been anthropocentric—the entire non­
human world has been viewed as a thing devoid of moral standing or significance except
insofar as it could be bent to satisfy human purposes. We have assumed that the natural
world was our enemy and that it did not require our care (for what could we possibly do to
harm it really?). Nature has not been regarded as an object of human responsibility.
In the past we have attempted to fashion our ethical theories in terms of these assump­
tions. The traditional maxims of ethics, e.g. “Love thy neighbor as thyself,' “Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you,” and “Never treat your fellow man as a means only but
always also as an end in himself” are in keeping with the individualistic, present-oriented,
and anthropocentric assumptions of our ethical traditions. Even the Christian ethic of uni­
versal love which instructs us to be our “brother’s keeper” does not transcend the barriers of
time, community, and species. It does not tell us much about how we must behave in rela­
tion to these new threats.
Collective action is made up not only of many individual choices, such as the choice to
have a child, or to eat a hamburger, or to invest in a mining stock, but it is also made up of
corporate actions and governmental policies. In most cases, the individuals, or business exec­
utives, or politicians who are making the choices which add up to our collective insecurity,
do not intend these harms or threats to result, and consequently do not feel any sense of
responsibility for them.
The choices we make that produce these threats derive from deeply seated habits which
make up a supra-human “form of life,” which can be called the Technological Leviathan. Our
problem derives in part from the character of this artificial life-form. Considered as a life­
form, the Technological Leviathan is a short-sighted egoist. It consumes enormous amounts
of energy and resources from the environment, and its metabolism returns this energy in the
form of heat, waste, and “structures” (i.e. manufactured goods) designed to satisfy human
■cravings. It seeks its own immediate gratification through the growth and application of its
technological power. But it does not consider the long-range consequences which this prac­
tice will have on its future health and well-being. In fact, the Technological Leviathan is a
fundamentally amoral agent since it recognizes no right other than the demand of its own
immediate gratification. To call this life form “human” is partly a misnomer, since individual
human beings have no necessary role in its constitution. We humans are merely spare parts
that are put into temporary service of the Great Machine until we are used up or no longer
needed.
While individuals view themselves as moral agents, and consider themselves bearers of
responsibility in all of the roles in which they participate, the Leviathan to which they belong,
docs not. We all must feed off the Leviathan, but, increasingly, we are all at its mercy. The
threats we face are all in part the result of this marriage to technology—in each case, part of
the problem is that technological growth has been allowed to assume control of human
affairs, and has produced unexpected and unpleasant consequences.
Can we control this Technological Leviathan? Many thoughtful people have a sense of
helplessness in dealing with the Technological Leviathan. In large measure this reaction is
due not only to the enormity of the problems which we face, but to the nature of these prob­
lems. There are basically two ways in which people react to these threats. One group sees in
this a portent of doom about which they can do nothing, and so they decide to retreat into
individualist ego satisfactions, a comfortable life for themselves and their dear ones, but not
much involvement in the problems of society since, they rationalize, such activity is a waste
of time.
But others reach the conclusion that this retreat frota public issues into the satisfactions
of private life is part of the problem, and that society can no longer afford to ignore the col­
lective, long-term interests of humanity. They suggest that in order to preserve the world we
all share, we must also attempt to build into our political and economic systems a concern for
the common interests of humanity, for the future of humankind, and the preservation of the
Earth. If we do not take responsibility for our future, who will? While the law of the jungle
and the survival of the fittest principle has operated in nature for a long time, many believe
that we must act in a more cooperative, less individualistic way if our future is to be secure.
ATTITUDES TOWARD TECHNOLOGY
As science and technology Kas progressed during the past three hundred years, it has pro­
duced significant changes in the nature of society. Contemporary technologies offer unprece­
dented power, comfort, and convenience. Who could fail to be enticed by these? But because
of their very complexity and inscrutability, they also tend to provoke fear and anxiety. The
fear of technology comes in many forms. First, there is fear of the unknown. Most people do
not understand the technologies they use, and so can never be completely free of the fear that
some unknown and unspecified embodiment of the technology could at any time leap from
the mechanism and cause them harm. When electric lighting first replaced gas lighting, peo­
ple worried that electricity leaking out of electric sockets that did not have bulbs in them
would fill the house. When computers and word processors were first introduced, people
worried that mysterious demons deep within the computer would suddenly materialize and
eat their files, or that electromagnetic radiation leaking from the screen would cause them
unspecified harm! Now people just worry about getting repetitive motion injuries from too
many hours spent tapping at the keyboard.
A second fear is the fear of loss of independence. When a technology is not understood,
one must rely on experts to make, service, and instruct. Quite often these days, the expert is
remote, inaccessible, and quite different in background and education from the user. Some
aspects of this situation are not entirely new. For example, a century ago, the owner of a
horse would rely on a blacksmith to make, repair, and sometimes install horseshoes. The dif­
ference is that while the blacksmith was an expert, a specialist who both had equipment and
knowledge that most horse owners did not have, he was still someone who nevertheless lived
in the neighborhood, and thus someone whose habits and motivations were somewhat
understood.
A third fear is the fear of loss of control. This fear may focus on an assembly line that
grinds on relentlessly, whether or not workers have finished or jumped clear, or a computer
billing that seems impossible to correct. In either case, the individual seems to have no way
of influencing the grand scheme of a technology designed on a massive scale. This is perhaps
the most profound of the fears associated with contemporary forms of technology; it is the
fear that technology has taken on a life of its own—rather like the brooms of the Sorcerer’s
Apprentice—and that we lack the wisdom to control the forces that we have set in motion.
Such technological anxiety is not a new phenomenon; ancient myths such as that of
Prometheus and Pandora’s Box expressed similar fears for earlier generations.
Our contemporary attitudes towards the technological future are complex and often
ambivalent. We cannot but acknowledge ąnd to credit science and technology with deliver­
ing many wonders that have improved and extèndedour lives in the past, and many people
believe that these same agents will solve our problems in the twenty-first century. On the
other hand, many people are disturbed by what they view as technology being “out of con­
trol” and see new technology as a threat to our traditional ways of life, to our environment,
and even to our survival as a species. These two kinds of attitudes towards technology are
often referred to as “techno-optimism” and “techno-pessimism.”
Techno-optimists tend to emphasize technology’s benefits; they believe that science and
technology are not the cause of society’s current ills; they do not believe that technology
needs to be controlled or regulated; and they have faith in “technological fixes” that will solve

XXX INTRODUCTION
outstanding problems. Techno-pessimists, by contrast, tend to emphasize the risks and costs
of technological changes. They believe that many social ills are attributable to technology and
think that technology needs to be controlled or is incapable of being controlled. Techno­
pessimists do not have faith in ‘Technological fixes.” While there are some techno-pessimists
around still, even some extreme “Luddites” and anti-technologists, the dominant view of
contemporary society still seems to be techno-optimism. The modern idea of scientific and
technological progress continues to hold sway not only for people in the developed coun­
tries, but increasingly for those in the less developed nations of the world who .tend to see
“development” largely in terms of access to more sophisticated forms of technology. Some
authors have even suggested that science and technology have attained the status of a con­
temporary religion, displacing traditional faiths with the promise of material progress.
But while technological development can raise the standard of living, rapid technological
and social change also brings with it social dislocation, confusion, and often a sense of social
alienation, and does not address the spiritual and communal needs of most individuals. As a
199s article in Newsweek magazine proclaimed, the present technological revolution is, “out­
stripping our capacity to cope, antiquating our laws, transforming our mores, reshuffling our
economy, reordering our priorities, redefining our workplaces, putting our Constitution to
the fire, shifting our concept of reality? Among the ideas that are being questioned by today’s
technological revolution is the very idea of progress. In the industrialized world, progress
was more than an idea, it was an everyday fact of life, and the cornerstone of progress was
technological innovation.
But in the industrialized world, over a century of uhinterrupted belief in progress was
disturbed by several rude surprises. In the 1960s we saw that technology could put a man on
the moon, but the Cuban missile confrontation reminded the world that we were only a but­
ton’s push away from global nuclear war. The miracle chemical DDT that promised to end
crop damage by insects was found to accumulate in ever larger amounts as it progressed up
the food chain until eagles and peregrine falcons could no longer reproduce. In the 1970s
mountain lakes in the northeastern United States and Europe were found to be too acidic to
support fish any more, and the problem was traced back to acid rain and to automobile emis­
sions and the exhaust of coal burning electric power plants. Asbestos, our modern weapon
against the age-old danger of fire, turned out to increase the likelihood of lung damage in
those who worked with products using asbestos and possibly in people living and working in
buildings containing asbestos. Radioactive byproducts of nuclear power plants piled up, and
even today no one can think of a foolproof way to keep them isolated and sealed for the
thousands of years they will be a hazard. In the 1980s one too many reactors melted down
(Chernobyl) anythe world became even more worried.
In the underdeveloped parts of the world, the picture was even worse. Some improve­
ments in health care and new products trickled down, but they were expensive, and too often
trickled no further down than the privileged elite of the country. When genuine improve­
ments in farm productivity did trickle down to the masses, they fueled population growth
Introduction xxxi
that soon ate up all the surplus. Industrialization proved harder to copy than expected.
Industrialization would not work without infrastructure, and infrastructure could not be
paid for without the surplus productivity of industrialization. Throughout most of the
underdeveloped world, per capita investment is losing the race with population. Now in the
1990S, with globalization proceeding at a rapid pace, new concerns about social justice, the
exploitation of labor, and the widening gap between “haves” and “have-nots” have begun to
surface.
Once the bubble/myth of technology as unmitigated blessing was butst, some people
began looking for hazards posed by technology with as much fervor as had previously
accompanied the search for benefits. They were not disappointed; there were heavy metals in
the rivers and fish, farmland soil erosion and salinization, lead paint and pipes, houses built
on industrial waste dumps, health problems of people processing radioactive materials,
smog, ozone holes, radon, and global climate wanning. Technology helped in the search for
its own defects by supplying satellite photographs and instruments that could detect trace
chemicals in parts per billion.
Many potential threats to human well-being have been identified, and others no doubt
soon will be. Some may be fiilse alarms that are best ignored; some may be early warnings for
which action will someday have to be taken; and some may be urgent last calls for which the
optimum time to respond has already passed. Moreover, understanding these problems
requires a level of scientific and technological literacy that few children are getting in stan­
dard curricula. If technology is partly responsible for many of our present problems, it will
likely also partly be technology that will enable us to overcome them, sometimes in the nar­
row sense of finding a “technological fix,” but more often in the wider sense that the pro­
cesses of democratic decision-making and economic restructuring are technologies that we
use to address and resolve social problems.
TECHNOLOGICAL CITIZENSHIP
Citizenship is a kind of civic moral virtue. Being a good citizen implies an understanding of
mutual rights and responsibilities between oneself and other citizens, and between citizens
and the state or government. Our rights as technological citizens include: a right to knowl­
edge and information about technologies and how they might affect our lives, a right to
express views and opinions about the development add use of technologies, and a right to
participate in decisions concerning the development and deployment of technologies that are
potentially harmful to us. In order to exercise any of these rights, however, citizens must first
accept the responsibility to educate and inform themselves about the nature of the technolo­
gies that are changing their lives, and to understand the ethical and public policy dimensions
of the decisions in which they claim the right to participate.
Technology is not in any way “value-neutral.” In each case, there are human ends and val­
ues which stand behind and direct the technological processes. Technology itself is perceived
xxxii INTRODUCTION
Introiuction xxxiii

by most people as of positive value because they understand that through technology we are
and effects of technological change are often unpredictable, it is difficult to tell in all cases
able to increase our powers and capabilities, and are therefore better able to satisfy our needs
whether any particular individual or group will come out as a winner or a loser.
and desires. But most people also realize that technological innovations are seldom all for the
One thing is sure, however, and that is that technological change produces technological
good, and that there are almost inevitably “trade-offs” that need to be considered. A new
elites on the one hand and social dislocation and insecurity on the other. During the last
drug may help cure a disease, but it may also produce undesirable side-effects in some
major technological revolution, the Industrial Revolution, there arose groups of people, first
patients and may in the long run promote the spread of new and more drug-resistant forms
in England and then in America, called Luddites, who went about smashing the machines in
of the disease. One of the main lessons of the study of the interaction of technology and soci-
factories. The Luddites were distressed about the way factory production was changing soci­
ety is that when we evaluate which new technologies to develop, which to deploy, and how
ety. They felt alienated, dislocated and insecure, while investors, engineers, and captains of
to deploy them, we need to consider carefully both the benefits and costs and the opportuni­
industry who built and ran the factories had pretty much the opposite reaction to the Indus­
ties and risks which the technologies entail. Often doing this sort of “cost/benefit analysis” is
trial Revolution—they loved it because they ran the factories and profited from the industry.
very difficult because of the manifold aspects that need to be considered, the “costs” and
A similar social phenomena is appearing today in the midst of the information and
“benefits” that often have no common measurement scale (if they can be measured at all),
biotechnology revolutions. While, by and large, the wealthier and better educated people in
and the uncertainty in predicting future or long-term consequences of introducing a new
society remain largely favorably disposed towards new technologies such as computers, the
technology into society.
internet, gene-splicing, and robots, others see these developments as threatening to their jobs
Very often inventors and innovators have no idea of how their inventions and innova­
and livelihoods, even in some cases their health. New technological elites are being created in
tions will ultimately be used. Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, was a devout
these fields, while at the same time other people are becoming newly under or unemployed
Catholic who would have been horrified to know that his invention helped to stimulate the
and more disenfranchised.
Protestant Reformation. Edison apparently believed that the phonograph would be mainly
Political issues arc ones in which different individuals and groups within society struggle
used for recording people’s last will and testaments, and would undoubtedly be amazed by
to protect and enhance their interests against other individuals and groups who have differ­
today’s tapes and CDs. On the other hand, who until recently thought that the chloroflouro-
ent and often conflicting interests. Politics inevitably involves conflict and compromise. In
carbons which have been used for decades as refrigerants would be eating away the ozone
democratic societies like ours, interest groups form around particular issues and each such
layer in the upper atmosphere? Given enough experiences of serendipity, one gets the idea
group tries to influence the outcome of derisions which will affect many people. However,
that every new technology has known and expected benefits and costs, as well as unknown
one’s ability to participate politically in such decisions requires that one become informed
and unforeseen benefits and costs.,They sometime even produce consequences exactly the
about the technology involved and its likely or expected consequences, and that one actively
opposite of what they were intended to produce, so-called “revenge effects.” Powerful new
seeks to have a voice in the way in which such decisions are made.
technologies alter the social context in which they arise; they change the structure of our
All too often, decisions that involve complex or unfamiliar technologies are left to the
interests and values, they change the ways in which we think and work, and they may even
discretion of “technical elites” e.g., scientists, engineers, policy “wonks,” and corporate and
change the communities in which we live. And too often these new technologies are not
government officials, even though the consequences of their decisions will usually affect the
closely examined or evaluated before being embraced and incorporated into our culture.
interests of others who are not themselves members of these elites. Not infrequently, the
Another feature of technological change is the way in which technological change pro­
elites make decisions in ways that benefit themselves at the expense of others. It is often rela­
duces “winners” and “losers” in society. If technology is a source of power over Nature, it is
tively easy for elites to "manufacture consent” for policies which they prefer by selectively
also a means by which some people gain advantage over others. Every technological revolu­
sharing information about the possible risks and benefits of a particular technology policy
tion has witnessed the competition among technologies, and the eventual replacement of
with the public whose interests might be affected by it. For instance, in the 1950s U.S. sol­
one technology or technological system by another. Look at what happened to blacksmiths
diers were ordered to witness nuclear explosions and were told that there was no risk of harm
when the automobile came along; what happened to Swiss watch-makers when the quartz­
due to radiation. In fact, there was a risk, and years later many of the soldiers who partici­
electric digital watch came along, or what is happening today to telephone operators with the
pated in these tests began developing lethal cancers.
introduction of computerized voice recognition technologies. In such processes of techno­
In order to protect citizens against such practices, the government has established various
logical change, groups and individuals whose interests and livelihoods are connected to the
special agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental
older technology are usually the losers, while those whose interests are connected to the
Protection Agency (EPA), the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), and the Occupa­
“next wave” of technological innovation are the winners. However, because the directions
tional Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which are mandated to act as “watchdogs”
xxxiv INTRODUCTION

looking out for the interests of the public and preventing people from being exposed to
unnecessary or unreasonable risks without their consent However, the operations of these
very agencies often become “politicized” to some extent because they are funded by Congress
and administered by the executive branch of government.
A second line of defense are the hundreds of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
such as Common Cause, Greenpeace, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Rifle
Association, and many lesser known organizations, who lobby decision-makers to enforce
and protect the interests they represent, and produce public information that may enable cit­
SOCIETY, ETHICS,
izens to more effectively protect their interests. Such “interest groups” play an important role
in American politics, and provide a means, in addition to the ballot, by which ordinary citi­
zens can participate in large-scale decisions that may affect their lives for good or for ill. How­
ever, none of these groups could be effective without the support of an informed citizenry.
AND TECHNOLOGY
Because the adoption of new laws and regulations affect what we are permitted to do,
they often become the subject of intense political conflicts, and an awareness and under­
standing of this political dimension is another theme of the book. Political processes are char­
acterized by the competition of conflicting interests of different groups within society. In
democratic societies, individuals and groups are given the right to inform themselves on the
issues, associate with others having similar or common interests, and participate in the polit­
ical discussions which will determine which laws and policies will be enacted. If we fail as
individuals to exercise these rights, that is, if we shirk our responsibilities as “technological
citizens,” others will end up making these decisions for us, and when they do, they may not
always have our best interests or the best interests of the community at heart or in mind. On
the other hand, if wc accept the responsibility to educate ourselves about the issues and to
participate in the public conversations about them, then wc will have some voice in how
things will be decided, and some control over the future directions which our technological
society will take. This then, provides a good reason for us to study the interactions among
society, ethics, and technology.