Abstract
An initial reflection questions whether rationality is self-justifying. Insofar as it is not self-justifying, humans may conceptualize it as either an instrumental or a substantial good. This implies a need to subordinate technology (and technological rationality) to some vision of the good. Ethical arguments also exist, however, for making ethics itself more technological (or effective). This initial reflection is followed by two case studies: on the search for ethical rationality in professional engineering and on efforts to rationally transform politics into policy.
The first takes engineering as the design, construction, and operation of technology and considers how engineering has attempted to incorporate ethics into professional self-understandings. Engineering ethics thus constitutes a specific effort to build a bridge between technological and ethical rationality. In the modern engineering profession as it has developed in the United States, the classic engineering goal of pursuing use and convenience has gone through a trajectory of interpretation from company loyalty to a commitment to public safety, health, and welfare. The second case considers relationships between ethics and policy, with policy understood as an effort to incorporate technological thinking into ethics and politics. The ethics-policy relationship is another instance of bridge building between two rationalities. Although both studies are focused on the American context, it is hypothesized that they have broader implications. Although the present argument is limited in scope, it suggests that ethical rationality ultimately trumps technological rationality, both in practice and in theory.
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Acknowledgments
This paper draws heavily on and adapts extensively from collaborative work with Adam Briggle and Erik Fisher. See especially Adam Briggle and Carl Mitcham 2012. Ethics and Science: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, particularly chapter 12; and Carl Mitcham and Erik Fisher. 2012. “Ethics and Policy.” In Ruth Chadwick (ed.), Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, 2nd edition, vol. 2. San Diego: Academic Press, pp. 165–172.
Thanks also to Wenceslao J. Gonzalez for encouragement in developing this effort in critical reflection and for his insightful comments on earlier versions of the argument. His own work, especially on issues related to rationality and values, deserves to be more fully considered than has been the case here; it will undoubtedly be important to future discussion and analysis.
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Mitcham, C. (2015). Rationality in Technology and in Ethics. In: Gonzalez, W. (eds) New Perspectives on Technology, Values, and Ethics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 315. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21870-0_4
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