"Does technology make us do it?".

Schmidt, Lawrence E. ; Marratto, Scott ; Cayley, David 等

RE: "DOES TECHNOLOGY MAKE US DO IT?" BY ARTHUR SCHAFER (DECEMBER 2008)

It is hard to know how to respond to Arthur Schafer's "review" of The End of Ethics in a Technological Society. The review, which combines Schafer's own reflections on technology with a serious mischaracterization of our view of ethics and religion, will make it difficult for a reader of the LRC to gain any idea concerning the contents of our book.

The book is about the role of technological innovation in creating the ethical challenges raised by economic growth, environmental degradation, nuclear power, modern weapons of war, the transformation of reproduction and genetic manipulation. We devote a chapter to each of these in turn. As to our ethical approach, contrary to what Schafer asserts, it is not based in any type of "religious traditionalism" or biblical fundamentalism. We repeatedly deny that these challenges can be met by some sort of "return to former values" achieved by engaging in "nostalgia for the distant past."

We fully share Schafer's worry about the implications of a world view that places human beings "at the centre of the universe:' However, we do not share his confidence that techno-science has relieved us of such pretensions. On the contrary, we think that blind faith in technology has intensified this dangerous illusion. Apparently, for Schafer, that is enough to accuse us of religious obscurantism: "The supernatural, they insist, will provide all the answers we need:' This is not our view. Our analysis draws on the insight, articulated by many contemporary philosophers and theorists of science, that the ideology of modern techno-science conceals a fundamental prejudice: the belief that nature is best understood when it is viewed "objectively," as an ensemble of value-neutral "facts." We say, on the contrary, that techno-science can never be value-free and the belief that it can be is one of the fatal delusions of our age. Ethical reflection must inform science; it is not enough for ethics to come on the scene only after the scientists have reinterpreted our life-world as so much raw material.

We are critical of the consequentialist, cost-benefit analysis that Schafer propounds. How are we to balance the likely benefits and harms in the absence of any ethical principles beyond the utilitarian calculus? Who is to decide what the balance is? In our calculations concerning the consequences of the expansion of nuclear energy or the refusal to severely limit our carbon emissions, we are not only undertaking risks to the health of our own lives but to that of future generations who will have no say in whether they wish to accept them. The world in which we and our grandchildren must actually live may well turn out to be something quite different from the projected world of scientific and consequentialist calculation.

Schafer asserts that we endorse "technological determinism" On the contrary, we conclude our book with the statement that "our fate is not determined, and reflection on the nihilism of modern ethics can open up the possibility of meditation on the true end of ethics"

LAWRENCE E. SCHMIDT

TORONTO, ONTARIO

SCOTT MARRATTO

WEST PENNANT, NOVA SCOTIA

When I noticed that your review of The End of Ethics in a Technological Society had the subhead "Two very different views on ethics in the modern age" I looked--in vain--for the title of the second book under review. However, I soon realized that the second "very different view" referred to the position of your reviewer, Arthur Schafer. Then I read his scornful and derisory review, and wondered whether your subhead might have been put there defensively. Perhaps you were so embarrassed by Professor Schafer's unfairness to the book you had asked him to review that you wanted to make it appear that what was going on was a debate and not a hatchet job. In any event, no debate ever occurs, since your readers must depend on Schafer for a digest of Schmidt's and Marratto's views, and Schafer is so utterly unsympathetic to their premises that he can barely recognize that they have a position, let alone give a fair account of what it is.

Schmidt and Marratto's meditations on technology belong to a lineage that includes, among others, Martin Heidegger, George Grant, Jacques Ellul and Ivan Illich, all of whom are cited in their book. All these thinkers in one way or another came to the conclusion that one can no longer think about technology by reasoning about the costs and benefits of this or that technique--windmills good, nuclear reactors had; yes to in vitro fertilization, no to cloning; etc. They have argued that technology now amounts to a comprehensive world view--a fate, George Grant said--that prevents people from thinking in non-instrumental ways. Technology, in other words, is something more than just the ensemble of techniques currently in use. Two consequences follow: first, it has to be recognized that, if technology is a stance toward the world and not just a set of tools, then the essence of technology is, as Heidegger says, "nothing technological" hut must arise from some deeper disposition of our now worldwide civilization; and, second, it is scarcely possible for those within this comprehensive fate/stance/paradigm to get outside of it, though those who listen may discern what George Grant called "intimations of deprival."

The End of Ethics in a Technological Society broods on this difficulty: how is ethical reflection on technology possible when technology is also the horizon within which the reflection is supposed to occur? Arthur Schafer takes the view, if I understand him rightly, that technologies have costs and benefits, and we can sort out which is which in a realm called "politics" that stands outside technology. This would be all right if he recognized that another view is possible, and that politics, on Schmidt and Marratto's account, is itself no more than a branch of technological science, but he does not seem able or willing to give his opponents even this much credit. Instead he simply calls them impertinent and inappropriate names. He diagnoses technophobia. He calls them religious traditionalists. He implies, by his account of how "science makes it difficult to hang onto the comforting notion that humankind is at the centre of the universe" that Schmidt and Marratto may still believe in Ptolemaic astronomy. He claims that they appeal "to 'miracle, mystery and authority' in the spirit of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor"

Schmidt and Marratto, in Arthur Schafer's eyes, are mystagogues and obscurantists in the grip of a phobia. On my reading of their book, this is untrue and grotesquely unfair. I'm sure The End of Ethics could have been constructively criticized, but this would have required your reviewer to engage with the book instead of patronizing it.

DAVID CAYLEY

TORONTO, ONTARIO