Table 3 A summary of patterns of ethical argumentation (adapted from[39]) f
Consequences (hoped for) | |
|---|---|
Enthusiasts | Sceptics |
Promises (e.g., increased control over the world and increased well-being) | Plausibility (uncertainty) |
Adverse side effects (cost/benefit) | |
Can the good not be produced otherwise (e.g., search for alternative) | |
Is the envisioned good really a good | |
Unforeseen problems will be solved by future solutions | |
Rights and principles (tensions between the individual and the collective) | |
Positive right to the technology (e.g., people should have access to the technology) | Principle is wrong |
Principle is null in another culture/setting | |
Principle is right in the abstract, but does not apply to the issue Principle is right, but it supports the opposite conclusion, or it conflicts with another one that is more pressing | |
Negative right to the technology (e.g., free to acquire it as long as it does not harm others) | |
Justice (distributing the costs and benefits) | |
Different bases: Equality; Merit; Need; Chance | |
Through trickle down effects, technology will benefit the whole society | Without political intervention, those in need or who are economically disenfranchised will never benefit |
Good life | |
Humankind should move forward/upward | Knowing when/where to stop (‘not to play God’) |
Respecting natural limits (not create ‘monsters’) | |
Preserving humanness and pushing it to flourish ‘as-it-is’ | |
Social problems cannot be solved by technical fixes | |
Technology cannot be controlled | |
Frontiers/limits can be transgressed | |
Promethean vision | |
Relationship between technology and morality | |
Deterministic (technology’s internal logic) | Voluntarists (technology is socially malleable) |
External forces too strong (markets, economies, scientific competition) | Technology is steerable in a morally desirable direction |
Pessimists (technology as a moral problem) | |
Technology is already immoral as it is | |
Technology will manoeuvre us (‘slippery slope’) | |
Optimists (technology as a moral solution) | |
Precedent (not novel moral issues) | |
Society will habituate itself | |