Beyond Good and Evil / The Fallacy of Technology

Beyond Good and Evil / The Fallacy of Technology  (unfinished)

Q: So tell me how you feel about technology.

A: Well, it’s complicated.  On one hand, technology can be useful to me.  It allows me to type this entry, for example.  Yet, I can see the dangers and follies of these inventions. 

Q: What do you mean you see the dangers and follies of technology?

A: To me, technology is a modifier.  It is either good or evil but it can be used for either purposes to strengthen their resolve.  Let me show you a diagram of what I mean:

Diagram of the morality-technology continuum

A: As you can see, good and evil is vertical while technology, and some say faith, is horizontal.  The further out the graph, the influence the entity has.  Thus, my placement of technology as a modifier makes sense.  Technology can be used for good or evil and its usage modifies the influence that entity makes. 

Q: Can you provide an example of how technology and morality interacts?

A: Of course.  An obvious example can be war.  Let’s look at low-tech items such as swords and higher-tech weapons such as guns.  Swords, in the hands of an evil person can be used to do evil and the evil that person does will be greater than say, using their fists.  However, fast-forward to the 20^th and 21^st century and we have guns.  That same evil person who uses guns can have a much greater influence than if that person was in the medieval age.  It can be used for good, too.  If a nation is defending itself from a foreign power, giving that nation guns will help defend that kingdom better.  Thus, in the hands of good people, it will be used for good, in the hands of bad, it will be used for evil.

Q: What about friendly technology such as the health sciences?

A: That too, can be applied to the continuum.  For medical technology, it can be used to heal good or evil people.  If it heals a good person, that person will live to do good.  If it heals an evil person, then  that person will continue to live to do evil.  Thus, the influence of technology in the manifestation of good or evil is critical. 

Modified continuum to include faith

Q: What about the other side of the spectrum, that of faith?

A: First, to clarify, by saying faith, I do not imply religion, but religion can certainly be a part of faith.  Hence, faith is also a modifier, since it can go both ways, and the deeper one goes in his or her faith, the stronger is that person’s resolve, thus, influence. 

Q: I thought faith is mostly a good thing, since most religions teach people to be morally upright.

A: While most religions do seem to teach moral values, not all religions are completely good.  There’s Satanism or wicca, for example.  Many of the things that are taught there could be considered evil by societal standards.  And Islam violent means of punishing and evangelism.  Even Christianity, in the Old Testament, supports slavery and concubines. 

Q: If religion determines good or evil, and you state that not all religion is purely good or evil, then what determines good or evil?

A:  Excellent question, and for eons, philosophers have struggled to answer this question.  The problem with divine command, i.e., god-based religions, are is God good because he is good or is God good because he says so.  There are more to this and once I have more knowledge in this matter (forgot a lot of what I learned in my ethics class), I can answer this question more intelligibly.  My approach to philosophy and good and evil is that of the utilitarian approach.  An action is good if it is more good and evil.  I know that one person’s good can be another’s evil.  And I do believe the end justify the means.  I will elaborate more on this when I have more time.

Q: So nothing is purely good or evil?

A: In the real world, probably yes.  Even what is good to most people will be detrimental to some.  There are only different shades of grey.

Add: I remember that I wrote a blog about some of the topics discussed here.  To recap, I do believe natural law favors evil more than good.  It is easier to destroy than to build or kill than to heal.  Thus, with this in mind, any modifier is a negative thing as it favors evil more than good.