Technoscientific Angst: Ethics + Responsibility PDF
Preview Technoscientific Angst: Ethics + Responsibility
TECHNOSCIENTIFIC ANGST This page intentionally left blank TECHNOSCIENTIFIC A N G ST ethics + responsibility Raphael Sassower University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London Copyright 1997 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo- copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sassower, Raphael. Technoscientific angst: ethics and responsibility / Raphael Sassower. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8166-2956-0 (he : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-8166-2957-9 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Technology—Philosophy. 2. Technology—Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Science—Philosophy. 4. Science—Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title. T14.S268 1997 174'.96—dc21 97-20529 CIP The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer. Dedicated to the memory of Donald Campbell and Ernest Gellner This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix 1 Responsible Technoscience: The Haunting Reality of Auschwitz and Hiroshima 1 2 Public Expectations of Technoscience: From Truth to Immortality 18 3 Ambiguity and Anxiety: The Making of Human Anguish 40 4 The Postmodern Option: A Dialectical Critique 62 5 Responsible Technoscience: A Reconstruction 81 6 The Price of Responsibility: From Personal to Financial 100 7 Cultural Changes: Agenda Setting 119 References 131 Index 137 This page intentionally left blank Preface The anguish of artists and poets is celebrated by societies that expect justice and happiness in the future regardless of their current condi- tions. Anguish is accepted and endorsed not so much as a judgment about the present but as a means to envision and usher in a different future. Oddly enough, those who are members of the technoscientific community are discouraged from playing the same social role as do artists and poets; their anguish is neither acknowledged nor displayed. On the rare occasions when they express professional anxiety, per- sonal anguish, or cultural angst, they are invited to leave the techno- scientific community. 1 find this situation unfortunate, disturbing, and socially harmful. It is reasonable to believe that if members of the technoscientific community were encouraged to display their concerns publicly and thereby enhance the critical involvement of society as a whole (as did, for example, Joseph Rotblat, the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize laureate), we might be spared in the future the horrors of the past, like those of Auschwitz and Hiroshima. How can we expect to avert future horrors from taking place? In Cultural Collisions: Postmodern Technoscience (1995), I used the metaphor of the European cafe to explain the multitudes of language games and cultural rules of etiquette that govern our behavior in dif- ferent geographic locations. I argued for the need for philosophers or philosophically minded intellectuals to translate from one language to another so as to minimize, if not completely eliminate, the potential ix
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