Emerging Technologies and Ethical Issues in Engineering Papers from a Workshop (2004) / Chapter Skim
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Emerging TechnologiesEngineering and Ethics for an Anthropogenic Planet
Emerging TechnologiesEngineering and Ethics for an Anthropogenic Planet
Pages 7-28
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Emerging Technologies
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cautioned: 1Braden R Allenby is Environment, Health and Safety Vice President for AT&T, an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Batten Fellow at the University of Virginia Darden Graduate Business School.
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THE ANTHROPOGENIC EARTH For thousands of years, humans have altered the evolutionary paths of natural systems. Humans probably played a crucial role in the elimination of megafauna in Australia and North America, as well as in the disappearance of prey species, such as the moas of New Zealand (Jablonski, 1991; Perkins, 2003)
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Other critical cycles, such as the hydrologic cycle and nitrogen cycle, are similarly affected, although so far the response to these effects has been less organized. With genetic engineering and proteomics, the biosphere at all scales is increasingly becoming a subject of human design (Science, 1999a,b)
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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND CULTURAL CONSTRUCTS Let us begin with a simple question. What is "sustainable development," or, more broadly, what is "sustainability"?
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Sustainable development is thus a classic example of a cultural construct, a concept contingent on a particular time, place, and culture reflecting a particular set of values. Cultural constructs usually have a number of purposes (Hacking, 1999)
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. Cultural constructs, then, become powerful ideological and ethical screens that identify those who are "good" (i.e., those who accept the culture embedded in the construct)
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is well within the time cycle of change of cultural constructs -- that is, the period during which a construct remains stable. But Earth systems engineering and management (e.g., designing and supporting the continued evolution of the Florida Everglades or engineering the carbon cycle to stabilize climate variation within desired limits)
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. Indeed, in our current world situation, opening oneself or one's group to a larger `database' reveals the terrifying prospect that the world is now so com plex that no one really understands its dynamics and that even rational efforts tend to be washed out or misdirected by processes not understood and conse quences not anticipated.
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When we negotiate about climate, we are simultaneously negotiating about the structure we desire for the carbon cycle and about the future paths of human economic and cultural development that we will allow, and not allow. And when the deep greens insist that the United States curb its carbon emissions directly, rather than through reductions in other countries' emissions, they are trying to socially engineer U.S.
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18 in " olutionve real" Earth and systems Systems and monitoring " x and Systems "virtual comple Internet, constructs ersityv of ysical anthropogenic of ormation Ph vior/discontinuities; Inf time olving cultural ·Ev Beha· coupling Cyberspace, of · Cyberbiodi· real Intersection · ernmentalv ;" and physical sacred) ganization as Nongo or grating " e inte models, nancerev opogenic biological, State olving Earth Ev Cultur nature/human"( Nature";" Community Go mental, constructs Anthr Firm human Ideology· cultural technological, and "wilderness es Structur systems y)
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Their complexity defies traditional philosophic explanation.8 Unfortunately, the response to this realization by many postmodernists is to abdicate responsibility and retreat into absolute relativism ("there are no privileged discourses")
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Thus, ethical structures need not claim to be foundationally valid for all time and space, even though they are absolute within a particular local order, as long 9Actually, few postmodernists go to the extreme of absolute relativism, at least in their own ethical stances. It is surprising how often individual postmodernists find enough structure in the world to validate their own particular positions, even as they deride those of others.
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When we say that designing a toaster is relatively simple, we mean that artifact design occurs within a pattern of local order that has established ethical norms. When we talk about designing the Florida Everglades or the climate cycle, however, we are talking about time frames that extend well beyond the boundaries of the locally stable system.
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state of the art Earth systems Yes, personal Yes, probably Explicit and part of engineering exercised education, design and management mainly through process, and client/ institutions stakeholder dialogue (private, public, and professional) , and bounded by uncertainty, sys tem dynamics, and state of the art For example, the biological structure of the world as it now exists profoundly reflects the Christian, Eurocentric culture that has migrated and colonized the world in the centuries since the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
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23 to cultural in gree ied wo High De which constructs become reif fundamental natural systems L of gree gration w High De human/ natural systems inte Lo human ev of ethical, and Responsi olutionve state Human, economic, technological, cultural, demographic responses world. olutionve ev natural state global global systems of Responsi of systems anthropogenic State natural the of dynamics More global Geographic systems scale Generally local Schematic 2 Future Present astP ime T FIGURE
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human and natural systems have become increasingly integrated, to the point that, in many cases, there is no meaningful difference between them; (2) as the human capability to manipulate the external environment has increased, cultural constructs have become increasingly reified in fundamental natural systems; and (3)
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Our se mantic baggage from past experiences is not matched to a reality of systemic interactions, circular feedback processes, nonlinearity, or multiple causation and outcomes. Implicitly, our conventional language relates us to a world of linear relationships, simple cause and effect, and separate circumstances, be they events, causes, or effects.
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We will need teamwork and institutions that approach ethical issues in a multicultural and multidimensional way. The need to rise above individually valid ontologies carries with it an implication that militates against an individual being charged with professional and personal ethical responsibility, but also with direct ethical responsibility for (uncertain and unpredictable)
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1996. History of ancient copper smelting pollution during Roman and medieval times recorded in Greenland ice.
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1994. Pre-industrial atmospheric lead contamination in Swedish lake sediments.
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