🚀 go-pugleaf

This article is from rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw%mcnc.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA
 and was received on Wed Aug  6 16:50:03 1986
 
> hplabs!taylor (Dave Taylor)

I'm not sure I understand Dave's position.  I can't seem to make
reasonable sense of it.  For example, the bit about photographs:

> but, just as we cannot consider photographs independent of the
> subjects (more in a 'sec) we cannot consider technology independent of
> it's use.  [...] the subject matter that was photographed must be taken 
> into account.

Are you saying that a photograph of something evil is, in itself, evil?
This makes no sense.  After all, your posting <518@hplabsc.UUCP>
discussed evil.  Was your posting therefore evil?  If not, what
separates this case from that of the photograph?  In each case, a
representation of evil is present.

(   If you are saying that one cannot even think about a photograph
    independantly of its subject matter, I disagree.  I take your
    point to be that a photograph cannot be evauated for its virtue
    without considering its subject matter.  )

Let's look at it in general terms.  You say that "one cannot evaluate
technology without looking at its use".  I agree wholeheartedly.  How
then can one possibly conclude that technology is either good or evil?
Surely either conclusion implies an evaluation of technology.  And
surely we have just agreed that this is impossible without considering
more than simply the technology.  How can one possibly avoid the
conclusion then that technology cannot be either good or evil?

Let's take a concrete example.  You say

> [An] object itself has an inherited moral and societal value
> by virtue of [its designer's intent].

Ok.  A Mad Scientist designs and builds a nuclear weapon and intends to
use it to obliterate, oh, say, New York City.  Millions of dead
urbanites.  Untold suffering.  Really eeee-vil.  Is the bomb itself, or
nuclear technology itself, eeee-vil?  "Yes", you say!  "EEEE-VIL" you
say.  "Hogwash", I say.

Further hypothesize that a joint FBI/NASA team stops the MS, and
captures the bomb.  And then uses it to divert an asteroid that would
(if left alone) have obliterated Chicago.  Is the bomb now good?  The
same bomb that was eeee-vil before?  Is nuclear technology now good?
You mean they WERE eeee-vil, and NOW they are good?  If this is really
your position, I can't make heads nor tails of it.  It makes no sense at
all to me.

On the other hand, if you mean that the bomb in the context of the MS's
intent is evil, and in the context of the joint FBI/NASA
asteroid-bashing project is good, then I disagree on other grounds.
Consider, would the MS's intent be evil without the bomb?  Would the
FBI/NASA team's intent be good without the bomb?  I think so, in both
cases.  Thus surely the intent is the evil thing, and the bomb has
little or nothing to do with the morality of the situation.

--
"Is that how you get your kicks... by planning the deaths of innocent people?"
"No... by *causing* the deaths of innocent people!"
                        --- Superman and Lex Luthor

                            (question: Is Luthor eeee-vil because he so
                                       plans, or because he so causes?)