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Playing God: Symbolic Arguments Against Technology

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Abstract

In ethical reflections on new technologies, a specific type of argument often pops up, which criticizes scientists for “playing God” with these new technological possibilities. The first part of this article is an examination of how these arguments have been interpreted in the literature. Subsequently, this article aims to reinterpret these arguments as symbolic arguments: they are grounded not so much in a set of ontological or empirical claims, but concern symbolic classificatory schemes that ground our value judgments in the first place. Invoking symbolic arguments thus refers to how certain new technologies risk undermining our fundamental symbolic distinctions by which we organize and evaluate our interactions with the world and in society. Such symbolic distinctions, moreover, tend to be resilient against logical argumentation, mainly because they themselves form the basis on which we argue in the cultural and ethical sphere in the first place. Therefore, effective strategies to evaluate and counter these arguments require another approach, showing that these technologies either do not challenge these classifications or, if they do, how they can be accompanied by the proper actions to integrate these technologies into our society.

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Notes

  1. In fact, the relation between these symbolic distinctions and the reality to which they refer is often more complicated. Though symbolic distinctions are not founded on ontological distinctions, they do typically graft themselves onto certain elements of reality, e.g., characteristics that have (historically) significant, but not absolute, correlations with certain sides of the distinctions. Take the (controversial) example of gender. Whereas in reality distinctions between genders are gradual, our symbolic distinctions graft themselves on empirical elements typically linked to certain genders (e.g., genitals, secondary sex characteristics, clothes, role patterns, and so on). These symbolic distinctions often also absolutize these empirical correlations, thus creating an absolute symbolic distinction between genders, whereas in reality, there are only (often historically contingent) gradual distinctions. In other words, ontological insignificant or contingent differences are transformed into symbolic distinctions that are seen as fundamental and are often morally loaded. This argument is found in more detail in [42].

  2. This focus here is on the nature of moral phenomena, which brings us in the sphere of meta-ethics, i.e., an investigation into the nature of ethical concepts and judgments. The claims defended in the following pages are therefore compatible with most, if not all, ethical theories (ranging from deontology to virtue ethics). Which of these ethical theories should be defended, is therefore left open. Nonetheless, there are some connections, as we will see. For instance, the following meta-ethical reflections suggest that universalist ethical theories are hard to defend, due to the intrinsic link between ethical concepts and history and culture.

  3. In reality, most scientific studies similarly embody cultural values, of which the authors might be ignorant. Nonetheless, even in those cases, the ideal is still that, once discovered, these cultural biases can be recognized as biases and be eradicated from the picture and be replaced by a more neutral terminology. It is unclear what the equivalent neutral point of view would be in poetry (and thus ethics).

  4. Burms even goes so far as to reverse the picture, arguing that narrow principles of morality (such as to avoid inflicting pain) must be understood in light of the broader conception (focusing on dignity): “A person in intense pain, who cries and screams with his face distorted by agony, is in a humiliating or degrading situation. He is outside the normal, meaningful interactions; his own pain has turned him into an object, as it were. It is especially against this sort of degradation that we want to protect the people we care about.” [51, p. 101].

  5. I am thinking here of the case of the distinction of culture vs. nature, which even Cortois [42] labels as a necessary issue. In contrast, contemporary anthropologists such as Descola [52] have argued that there are other societies in which the (Western) distinction of nature-culture is seen as completely irrelevant.

  6. The current literature on the philosophy of conversion is rather limited [55]. It mainly focuses on religious conversions [56, 57], suggesting a whole typology of conversion, centered around a set of questions: is a conversion something personal or an intersubjective process of changing one’s social role? Must it occur suddenly or can it also be a gradual process? Is the subject always passively undergoing the conversion or can it also play an active role? Does a conversion have to occur consciously or can it also happen unconsciously?

  7. The phenomenologist Marion [58], for instance, suggests the following triggers: a historical event, an idol, the flesh, an icon, and the phenomenon of revelation. These are all cases of “saturated phenomena” that transcend the subject, e.g., the limitless demand to be observed (the idol), the dissolution of the self (the flesh), or the experience of being seen (the icon).

  8. The claim is not that it is impossible that arguments can convert, only that it is not necessary. It is possible that for some it is an argument that converts them to another point of view. But these cases can be interpreted as conversions as well, with the argument as the experience or text that initiates the conversion.

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Acknowledgements

The research of this article was made possible by the Research Foundations Flanders (FWO). This article is the product of numerous discussions and debates with a set of philosophy professors at the KU Leuven, as well as with some biologists. In particular, I would like to thank Arnold Burms, Herman De Dijn, Paul Cortois, and Paul Moyaert. This article is dedicated to the memory of Krak, who, as a companion species, accompanied me on the many walks that shaped this article.

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This work was supported by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO).

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  1. Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Massimiliano Simons

  2. Department of Philosophy, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands

    Massimiliano Simons

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Correspondence to Massimiliano Simons.

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Simons, M. Playing God: Symbolic Arguments Against Technology. Nanoethics 16, 151–165 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-022-00422-1

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