Technoscientific Angst: Ethics + Responsibility

158 Pages·1997·7.5 MB·English

by  Raphael Sassower

TECHNOSCIENTIFIC ANGST
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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
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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
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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
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