Technology: A View from Personalism
Part 2
by James Beauregard
In the previous
blog I brought up the issue of the philosophy of technology, something to which
personal lists have not dedicated as much attention as they have to other
topics. Philosophy of technology,
though, has continued to develop and today there are numerous views of how
technology should be conceived approached, developed etc. I mentioned the personalist philosopher
Romano Guardini, whose Letters from Lake
Como is one of the few sustained reflections on technology from the
perspective of personalism. He follows that work in the 1920s, and from the mid
to late 20th century, and now into the 21st, reflections on philosophy of
technology have continued to develop.
Contemporary writing on technology has continued this discussion,
and added to it a focus on technological artifacts in and of themselves, and
their impact on us. In reviewing contemporary philosophies of technology,
Thomas A. C. Reydon characterised such philosophies as containing three
components:
(1) the systematic clarification of the nature of technology as an
element and product of human culture;
(2) the systematic reflection on the consequences of technology for
human life;
(3) the systematic investigation of the practices of engineering,
invention, designing and making of things.[1]
Recently, a
philosopher Mark S. Latkovic wrote an article called "Thinking about
Technology from a Catholic Moral Perspective."[2] In this article, he
delineates 10 distinct ways that philosophers and theologians have considered
technology, several of which are, I think, useful to personalist thought,
whether moving from philosophical or theological personalism:
Technology as Ambiguous
Instrument. Referencing Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI,
this model sees technology as having both positive and negative aspects linked
to our freedom and autonomy. Technology embodies and ever-present risk of
encouraging in its users an arrogant, Promethean attitude. In Benedict’s words,
“Technology is never merely technology. It reveals man and his aspirations
toward development, it expresses the inner tension that impels him gradually to
overcome material limitations,”[3] and of equal importance, “human freedom is authentic only when it
responds to the fascination of technology with decisions that are the fruit of
moral responsibility.”[4]
Technology as Subordinated
to Ethics. Drawing on the work of Karol Wojtyla,
both as philosopher and in his writings as Pope John Paul II, this model looks
to the way we think about technology, its artefacts and its consequences, in
the interests of respecting human dignity, maintaining throughout “the priority
of ethics over technology,” and “the primacy of person over things.”[5] Latkovic captures the position in this
statement: “We should always treat persons as ends and treat technology as
means.”[6]
Technology as Liberating
Force. This model takes a generally positive view
of technology, with the economist George Gilder as one of its proponents. Drawing on
information theory, Gilder views technology as
liberating us from many of the drudgeries of daily living. He emphasises the
role of human creativity vis à vis technology as liberating force.
Technology as Gift of the
Holy Spirit. Drawing on Dominican theologian
Benedict Ashley, this model is grounded in an explicitly Christian vision in which
science and technology are viewed as “God’s gift to humanity as well as products
of human creativity.”[7] A key notion in Ashely’s position is that of stewardship, seeing
technological development and use as sources of service to God and the human
community.[8]
There is substantial content here for looking at technology from a personalist
perspective. Such reflection might begin
with asking what distinct or original contribution personalist philosophy might
make to the philosophy of technology. In
reflecting on the literature of technology and of personalism, I want to
suggest that I think that, in order to develop a philosophy of technology from
a personalist point of view, it is necessary to consider three interrelated
aspects:
(1) A robust understanding of persons;
(2) A nuanced understanding of technology as relational, as artefacts created by, influenced by, and
influencing persons;
(3) A balanced understanding of individual good and common good as
they impact on persons and technology.
With these
components in mind I would like to present an initial attempt at considering
philosophy of technology from a distinctly personalist perspective:
A Personalist Philosophy of Technology is a manner of considering
technology that is grounded in and flows from an anthropology of acting persons
adequately understood, which examines the artefacts/instruments created and
used by persons in relation, and the bi-directional influence between persons
and technology in multiple domains, from the individual to the social, and in a
manner that is ordered to the individual good and the common good. Given that
the use of technology is a human/personal activity, and as such can be good or
evil in its inception, creation, intentions, actions, ends and consequences
(both foreseen and unforeseen), ethics ought to have primacy over technology in
each of these aspects.
Consider that a first attempt at thinking through the issue of
technology from a personalist perspective that is simultaneously a call to
personalist philosophers to bring their own philosophical knowledge to bear on
an increasingly important issue facing the human race.
[1] T.A.C. Reydon, “Philosophy of Technology,” in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I have explored some
of these ideas though with an explicit focus on the field of neuroethics in the
public square, in “Personalismo Ontológico Moderno en la Plaza Pública: Hacia
una personalista neuroética”, paper presented at the Asociación Española de Personalismo
conference, X Jornadas de la AEP Spanish Personalist Association conference,
May 5, 2016 “¿Qué es filosofía? ¿Y para qué sirve?”, Universidad
Francisco de Vitoria, Madrid, Spain
[2] M. S. Latkovic, “Thinking about Technology from a Catholic Moral Perspective” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly
15:4 (Winter) 2015: 687-699.
[3] Benedict XVI, Encyclical Caritasin veritate, n. 69.
[4] Benedict XVI, Encyclical Caritas
in veritate, nn. 74-75.
[5] John Paul II, Redemptor
Hominis, no 16.
[6] Latkovic, 697. Wojtyla formulated his personalistic norm in 1960, stating
“This norm, in its negative aspect, states that the person is the kind of good
which does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as
such the means to an end. In its positive form the Personalistic norm confirms
this: the person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude
is love.” Karol Wojtyla, Love and
Responsibility, Trans. H.T. Willets. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993.
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