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| Thread: Morals VS Technology... |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Smithey
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Yes im red, choke on it !!!
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posted May 24, 2011 11:58 PM |
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I didn't quite understood what is your stance on the subject Corribus ? I mean I've read the well written chapter but... What is your opinion ?
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted May 25, 2011 12:13 AM |
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You do risk analysis, then decide whether the consequences are positive or negative. The standard by which you decide that is morality (or moral framework).
No it's not. Moral framework is one standard by which you might do a risk analysis - and, for that matter, it's often a bad one, because morals are rather subjective and emotional decisions often ignore facts, particularly when the situation is complicated or foreign. Expert risk analyses explicitly ignore moral frameworks in decision making. Moreover, morals are not just the framework that guides decisions - they are not just incorporated after a risk analysis is done. Your order is all wrong. Morals are part of the risk analysis process itself, as they determine what the perceived consequences are in the first place. Morals determine - in part - perceived risks of technologies. Which is why laypersons' perceived risks of technology are almost always different from those of experts - because experts rely on other heuristics (primarily, facts) to determine risks.
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If you don't have time to do thorough risk analysis, you use your moral framework and your best understanding of what's going on to decide what to do.
I'm not sure what "thorough" means. People are more likely to rely on morals, emotions and affect to make decisions when they don't have time or capacity to research the real risks of an action (such as using technology) - but of course that was one of the primary points of my original post. So I see no disagreement here. This has all been shown in real research, of course.
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moral framework + best understanding =/= moral framework.
I don't even know what this means. A + B =/= A?
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted May 25, 2011 12:15 AM |
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@Smithey
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I didn't quite understood what is your stance on the subject Corribus ? I mean I've read the well written chapter but... What is your opinion ?
Well I'm not sure what I was supposed to render an opinion on, exactly. Why do morals clash with technology? I think I answered that rather pointedly, mvass's cryptic one-sentence jabs notwithstanding. Your opening post was pretty general, so I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to have a stance on.
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Smithey
Promising
Supreme Hero
Yes im red, choke on it !!!
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posted May 25, 2011 12:24 AM |
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Well the question in the OP was "should we do whatever is necessary for the greater good or should we stay restricted within the borders of "morality" ?", Like in most of my threads I'm interested in how people feel and where do they stand on certain topics, it gives me a better look on who you guys are 
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted May 25, 2011 12:29 AM |
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There is no absolute good" or "bad".
You are of course wrong. For instance, it is always wrong to rape a baby no matter what excuse someone comes up with the rape of a baby is never justifiable.
We have a fundamental difference in our view of morality.
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In addition, any deliberative process of risk analysis IGNORES morals.
Wrong again. When I deliberate about if something is right or wrong morals are in the decision process from the first moment on. Morals are not something you can separate from a person. Your morals are involved with every decision you make.
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most people do make decisions based solely on emotional response and quick moral judgement.
You seem to link emotional response and moral judgment. If that is so your claims are false. Judging something to be moral or immoral has nothing to do with emotions.
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Morals are based to large degree on emotions, feelings, cultural or religious factors, and other affective heuristics which bias the way a person perceives risks and benefits.
Your statements seem to portray people who hold absolute morals to be unthinking knee-jerk reaction people which is to say the least an inaccurate an untrue portrayal of them. Most adults have thought through the reasons why they hold certain things to be moral or immoral. They may hold their viewpoints for reasons you reject but that does not make their decisions any less rational.
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Emotional decisions based on morals are often reflexive, almost instantaneous, based more on these perceptions than on actual data or facts.
Making any decision based on pure emotion will often get you into trouble. I would certainly not say that moral decisions of people who believe in moral absolutes are kneed jerk reactions or based only on perceptions. People who hold morals to be absolute may base their viewpoints on things you don't consider to be facts but that does not mean their decisions are not based on facts.
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Analytical decisions take more time, as costs and benefits must be enumerated and weighed against each other.
It does not take a lot of time to make decisions about the morality of most things. The more a person has reflected on morality (which, for example a religious person is apt to do often) the less time will be needed to render a decision. And determining the morality of most actions is not complex at all.
Even recent things like genetic engineering, what is permissible for someone to do in the name of research, ect fall under basic principles of morality. It is not necessary to start at square one and reinvent the wheel for every decision.
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Morals offer people a sort of physiological blue-print so that they can make quick decisions without having to spend a lot of time making cost-benefit analyses for each set of circumstances they encounter.
People, especially religious people, often spend a lot of time contemplating what is moral and immoral. It is not necessary for me to stop and wonder if I should help someone who is lying on the ground unconscious. I don't have to spend hours, days, or weeks deliberating if that would be the moral thing to do or not. That does not mean my decision is a knee-jerk emotionally charged decision rather than a rational decision.
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Morals are sort of a way for people to say to themselves, in advance, "OK, if I encountered this kind of situation, I should do this," and "Ok, if I encountered that kind of situation, I should do that." These are usually tailored to maximize the likelihood that any decision being made will benefit the self or closely-associated individuals, even society at large (because usually what is good for society is good for the self).
Morals have nothing to do with not having to think about decisions. Yes, in a sense, you are pre-thinking a situation if you spend time in contemplation That just means that while my decision may to you look like a spur of the moment decision it is one I had already put lots of though into. It was a very rational response, not a knee-jerk response to the situation.
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Of course, decisions based on morals can be wrong. Maybe the person owns the house and just got locked out. Well, that's sometimes the problems with morals. We DON'T get all the facts before making a decision, so sometimes the decisions are wrong. Morals aren't designed to be flawless. They're designed to maximize the chances of making decisions that benefit us.
Seeing someone breaking in a house and calling the police is not a wrong decision. It is in fact a good decision. It potentially saves lives or preserves property. If when the cops arrive the person is actually found to be the homeowner then no harm was done. The bad decision would have been to walk on by and do nothing. Also, moral decisions often involve things that do not benefit us. It is for instance no direct benefit to me to object to a woman killing her unborn child. But murder is wrong so I do object.
It is often impossible for you to know if you have all the facts about something. And every decision you make really involves your morals whether it is a long drawn out decision that takes hours or days or weeks or a decision made in a situation that requires immediate reaction.
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Back to the original post - why do morals often clash with technology?
They don't. Technology is a tool that can be used morally or immorally. A laser can be used to do cataract surgery on a willing patient or it could be used by someone as a weapon to kill an innocent person. The technology is not in conflict with morals. The technology was used morally by one person and immorally by another person.
Again, morals have nothing to do with knee-jerk emotional reactions.
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Revelation
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 25, 2011 12:49 AM |
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Edited by Fauch at 00:55, 25 May 2011.
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I think I agree with Elodin this time.
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morals are rather subjective and emotional decisions often ignore facts, particularly when the situation is complicated or foreign.
I also doubt it is necessarily subjective. for most people, their moral is the result of their conditioning, they do it because they were told it was the right thing to do, they didn't think about it themselves. unless that also qualifies as "subjective" ?
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Emotional decisions based on morals are often reflexive, almost instantaneous, based more on these perceptions than on actual data or facts.
Making any decision based on pure emotion will often get you into trouble. I would certainly not say that moral decisions of people who believe in moral absolutes are kneed jerk reactions or based only on perceptions. People who hold morals to be absolute may base their viewpoints on things you don't consider to be facts but that does not mean their decisions are not based on facts.
it might be a bit of a stretch to say that making decisions based on pure emotions will OFTEN get you on trouble. btw, wouldn't it be more accurate to say just "acting" instead of "making a decision"? because that involves a thought process, and then it isn't emotionnal.
anyway, about what corribus wrote, decisions based on morals are almost instantaneous, but actions based on emotions are instantaneous. between the perception of the fact and the action, there is no interval. whereas if you are acting according to morals, between the 2, there is a small interval (even if you aren't aware of it) of your inconscious telling you what's the moral thing to do.
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mvassilev
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posted May 25, 2011 01:50 AM |
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Corribus:
You're not at all up to your usual standards.Quote:
No it's not.
Read what you quoted. Let me spell it out even more simply for you: The standard by which you determine whether an outcome determined by risk analysis is positive or negative is morality. Risk analysis tells you what can happen and what the chances are - but morality takes over from there. Risk analysis tells you, there's a 50% chance of X happening. Morality tells you if X is good or bad (positive or negative, if you prefer).
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Morals are part of the risk analysis process itself, as they determine what the perceived consequences are in the first place.
No, they're not. Morals have nothing to do with what the perceived consequences are - they can only tell if these perceived consequences (whatever they may be) are good or not. You seem to think that facts and morality can conflict, but that's just not true (unless you're talking about applied morality). Facts will tell you what is. Morality will tell you how to act based on that.
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Fauch
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 25, 2011 02:01 AM |
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Corribus:
You're not at all up to your usual standards.
I guess it shows he is human 
actually, I think he meant that a decision based on morality don't take all the facts into account. but of course, that is probably the case for an analysis too, except that if you follow morality, you will miss far more facts.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted May 25, 2011 03:47 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 03:52, 25 May 2011.
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@Smithey
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Well the question in the OP was "should we do whatever is necessary for the greater good or should we stay restricted within the borders of "morality"?"
I don't think it's really possible to answer that generally. For one thing, I'm not sure that those two things are not one and the same.
I'm human and I use morals and emotions to filter information just like everyone else on a daily basis. On the other hand, I'm an experienced scientist so I'm also used to looking at information objectively and making deliberative decisions. If nothing else, when it comes to making decisions about technology, I believe in treating technological breakthroughs on a case-by-case basis. I believe that politicians need to be better informed and listen to scientists before making decisions. I also believe that the analytical solution may not be the right one. Society has a right to determine what technologies it utilizes and which ones it decides are too dangerous - but such decisions need to be made in full possession of the facts rather than on simple emotions and affective heuristics. In a sense, technologies need to be restricted by the "collective morality", which they typically are in any case because technologies have to be legal, and laws are to a large extent based on the collective moral framework of the citizens.
I do think that sometimes people are overly cautious and the risks of new technologies are overblown, or things that are perceived to be risks by laypeople aren't really risks at all. That's sort of par for the course I guess. The long and short of it is that society needs to have serious discussions about emerging technologies, people need to listen to scientists before judgement, and people with extreme agendas need to stop monopolizing the conversation.
Does that sum it up for you?
@Fauch
If I could ask you one thing, PLEASE do not take Elodin's misunderstandings, misquotings and misrepresentations of what I write as indicative of what I believe. In fact, I wish Elodin would afford me the same courtesy that I afford him - I wish he would ignore me altogether. I don't appreciate that people confuse my position because they are listen to his frothy-mouthed, knee-jerk reactions to whatever he thinks I meant when I wrote something.
If you disagree with my position - please ask me for clarification rather than arguing with me through someone else.
@Mvass
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You're not at all up to your usual standards.
Really, mvass, if this is where you'd like to take the conversation, then I've no problem ignoring you as well. I've no need or desire to be graded like a college student.
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mvassilev
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 25, 2011 04:02 AM |
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This isn't where I'd like to take the conversation and you know it. Do you understand what I'm saying? Or are you going to ignore it and focus on one irrelevant sentence? It's unusual for you to be like this. Let's get back to the subject at hand.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Smithey
Promising
Supreme Hero
Yes im red, choke on it !!!
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posted May 25, 2011 04:22 AM |
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Edited by Smithey at 04:23, 25 May 2011.
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@Corribus
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I don't think it's really possible to answer that generally. For one thing, I'm not sure that those two things are not one and the same.
I'm human and I use morals and emotions to filter information just like everyone else on a daily basis. On the other hand, I'm an experienced scientist so I'm also used to looking at information objectively and making deliberative decisions. If nothing else, when it comes to making decisions about technology, I believe in treating technological breakthroughs on a case-by-case basis. I believe that politicians need to be better informed and listen to scientists before making decisions. I also believe that the analytical solution may not be the right one. Society has a right to determine what technologies it utilizes and which ones it decides are too dangerous - but such decisions need to be made in full possession of the facts rather than on simple emotions and affective heuristics. In a sense, technologies need to be restricted by the "collective morality", which they typically are in any case because technologies have to be legal, and laws are to a large extent based on the collective moral framework of the citizens.
I do think that sometimes people are overly cautious and the risks of new technologies are overblown, or things that are perceived to be risks by laypeople aren't really risks at all. That's sort of par for the course I guess. The long and short of it is that society needs to have serious discussions about emerging technologies, people need to listen to scientists before judgement, and people with extreme agendas need to stop monopolizing the conversation.
Does that sum it up for you?
Of course it sums it up, you believe that we should be restricted by morality, and you would prefer if such restrictions weren't made by hasty decisions and fear but instead made only after both sides have been heard and evaluated... I don't see why did you not find it to be such, but IMO that is a clear general answer to the question... 
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Elodin
Promising
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Free Thinker
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posted May 25, 2011 04:52 AM |
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Edited by Elodin at 04:57, 25 May 2011.
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If I could ask you one thing, PLEASE do not take Elodin's misunderstandings, misquotings and misrepresentations of what I write as indicative of what I believe. In fact, I wish Elodin would afford me the same courtesy that I afford him - I wish he would ignore me altogether. I don't appreciate that people confuse my position because they are listen to his frothy-mouthed, knee-jerk reactions to whatever he thinks I meant when I wrote something.
If you disagree with my position - please ask me for clarification rather than arguing with me through someone else.
This is why you would make a poor moderator. You can't keep personal attacks out of discussions. Well, that and you said moderators should not have to be fair to everyone.
You are lying in saying my reactions are "frothy-mouthed, knee-jerk." I read what you said, thought about it, and responded to what you said. Instead of responding to my points you chose to lie and throw around insults. Sad but typical or your responses to me.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted May 25, 2011 05:13 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 05:29, 25 May 2011.
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@Smithey
Just FYI, I have already written extensively on this topic in another thread. You can find my thoughts on how society should approach new technologies here. You should be able to find the post easily enough, about halfway down.
@Elodin
You know what? You're right, my characterization of your temperament was uncalled for and unprovoked in this case. I apologize.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted May 25, 2011 06:19 AM |
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No problem. The OSM involves real world discussions and such discussions can get heated.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 25, 2011 07:41 AM |
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(Technological) history shows that a "risk analysis" isn't possible. One of the reasons is, that with many things there are secondary and tertiary consequences.
Technology CHANGES not only "life", but also humans. It changes morals, and it changes RISKS, while it introduces new risks and new morality questions. It's like with antibiotics. On the surface their development was great - they would save lifes. However, their wide-spread and often unnecessary use has negative consequences as well.
This leads to another conclusion: it's not the technology that is the problem - it's the use and control of it that is crucial. You can see that clearly in daily life. It's not a problem that there ARE things like alcohol, burgers, TV, gaming, and so on - the problem is, to make the "right" and ONLY the right use of it.
So, should we somehow LIMIT technology? Decide, that something shouldn't be researched into?
No, of course not. Not only is it unrealistic to assume that this would even be possible, it's also against our curious nature as a species. Humans want to KNOW about things, and if a secret or a dicovery lurks behind the corner, we WILL round it, no matter the costs.
That leaves use and control, and here we are at the heart of the problem. The time when technological breakthroughs were made by "interested amateurs" are through - today PROFIT is the motor behind development, and that means, if there IS s discovery, a new technology, a development, someone has invested money into it and expects to turn it into a profit FAST.
Add advertisement into the equation, and we have a potentially uncontrollable situation where new technologies are becoming part of our life too fast and too soon - the speed with which life is changing, is dramatically increaasing. Just take the wireless technologies - can anyone imagine how much "waves" are "around" us now? Does anyone know how what long-term effects this massive increase of electromagnetics around us will have?
Nah. We'll just have to trust that we'll survive it without too many bad consequences or that technology will find a fix, if there are any.
Truth is, NEITHER ethics NOR risk analysis plays a starring role here. If you believe in capitalism and that the basic "mechanics" of our economic foundations are in order and functioning, then you shouldn't be pessimistic about technology either, since technology development follows and obeys the rules of our economy.
If, on the other hand, you are pessimistic about it, you'll have the opinion that there will be snow-up after snow-up, and eventually there will be one snow-up too many.
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 25, 2011 01:43 PM |
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yeah, as I said, it's about people being responsible. of course, not everyone is, so at least the researchers should be. if they can't measure the potential risks of a new technology and instead immediately throw it to the public for profit, that's not responsible.
of course, it wouldn't prevent all accidents, but it's better than nothing.
in particular, we should make sure that reseachers aren't mainly tempted by personal profit of any kind (money of course, but also fame for exemple)
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted May 25, 2011 03:59 PM |
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(Technological) history shows that a "risk analysis" isn't possible. One of the reasons is, that with many things there are secondary and tertiary consequences.
I don't think this renders risk analysis useless or impossible. I think it means that technologies have to be continuously re-evaluated as information changes. Also, I think risk analysis can't be done efficiently at the generalized technological level - I think it needs to be done on an application level. It's hard, for example, to speak of the risks of nanotechnology as a generalized entity, because the risks of its use in foods are going to be different than its risks in the use of medicines, solar cells or computer chips. Continuous re-evaluation is important not only because our understanding of the risks changes, but the technologies themselves change.
The example of antimicrobials is interesting, but it's a little unfair because it predated formal risk analysis. It may be that risk assessors may have predicted antimicrobial resistance as a potential downside of chemical antimicrobials. (Although I don't think this would have been reason to abandon research in the area.) More to the point, even if risk assessors HAD failed to predict this consequence of antimicrobial proliferation at the outset, it would certainly be (and is) incorporated into more modern risk-asessments of using antimicrobials in certain situations. Such risk assessments do guide when and under what circumstances hospitals and doctors prescribe antibiotics. Risk assessors determine under what circumstances it makes sense (benefits outweigh risks) to hand them out.
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JollyJoker
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posted May 25, 2011 04:33 PM |
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What I wanted to say is, that "risk" is ill-defined - technologies may have consequences that are not part of it.
Let's take THE CAR. Besides the things that come with the technology CAR, there are things like ROADNET: Lots of land is converted to allow cars to roll, completely changing the character of cities.
Or LESS WALKING which has consequences for health and weight of people.
And so on. It's not only the direct effect of a technology or application - it's the side-effects on people and society that may be pretty difficult to assess.
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Seraphim
Supreme Hero
Knowledge Reaper
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posted May 27, 2011 10:18 PM |
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technology is overrated.Most of the tech developments do not affect the whole populance and are idiotic at best.
New 8 core pc's new 12 core pc's,how awesome...
New I phone BS,new Ipad bs...
Some random scientist found a better tech for combating Alzheimer's disease,how amaizing that this new discovery will take another couple of years to get o the public unless you are rich.
New anti cancer drugs that do nothing more except having mroe side effects...
I think Ethics outweight >>science and technology.
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"Science is not fun without cyanide"
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Warlord
Famous Hero
Lord of Image Spam
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posted May 27, 2011 10:19 PM |
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Some random scientist found a better tech for combating Alzheimer's disease,how amaizing that this new discovery will take another couple of years to get o the public unless you are rich.
But if he didn't find it, it'd never get to the public.
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