Morrow David R
Department of Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 900 13th Street South, Birmingham, AL, 35294, USA,
Sci Eng Ethics. 2014 Jun;20(2):329-43. doi: 10.1007/s11948-013-9464-1. Epub 2013 Aug 23.
Although many scientists and engineers insist that technologies are value-neutral, philosophers of technology have long argued that they are wrong. In this paper, I introduce a new argument against the claim that technologies are value-neutral. This argument complements and extends, rather than replaces, existing arguments against value-neutrality. I formulate the Value-Neutrality Thesis, roughly, as the claim that a technological innovation can have bad effects, on balance, only if its users have "vicious" or condemnable preferences. After sketching a microeconomic model for explaining or predicting a technology's impact on individuals' behavior, I argue that a particular technological innovation can create or exacerbate collective action problems, even in the absence of vicious preferences. Technologies do this by increasing the net utility of refusing to cooperate. I also argue that a particular technological innovation can induce short-sighted behavior because of humans' tendency to discount future benefits too steeply. I suggest some possible extensions of my microeconomic model of technological impacts. These extensions would enable philosophers of technology to consider agents with mixed motives-i.e., agents who harbor some vicious preferences but also some aversion to acting on them-and to apply the model to questions about the professional responsibilities of engineers, scientists, and other inventors.
尽管许多科学家和工程师坚称技术是价值中立的，但技术哲学家长期以来一直认为他们错了。在本文中，我提出了一个新的论据来反对技术是价值中立的这一观点。这个论据是对现有反对价值中立的论据的补充和扩展，而非替代。我大致将价值中立论点表述为：只有当技术创新的使用者有“恶性”或应受谴责的偏好时，该技术创新总体上才会产生不良影响。在勾勒出一个用于解释或预测技术对个人行为影响的微观经济模型后，我认为即使没有恶性偏好，一项特定的技术创新也可能造成或加剧集体行动问题。技术通过增加拒绝合作的净效用做到这一点。我还认为，由于人类有过度大幅贴现未来收益的倾向，一项特定的技术创新可能引发短视行为。我提出了一些对我的技术影响微观经济模型可能的扩展。这些扩展将使技术哲学家能够考虑具有混合动机的主体——即那些怀有一些恶性偏好但也有一些不愿依此行事的厌恶情绪的主体——并将该模型应用于有关工程师、科学家和其他发明家的职业责任的问题。
