Is technology really morally neutral?

Five minutes before your presentation, the photocopier refuses to work and taunts you with its green lights. You could swear it wants to ruin your day! You reason with yourself: the photocopier is an object, not a person, which means it’s morally neutral. Now, if this is true of a photocopier, is this the case of all technology, whatever its scope and function? What about those tools that seem evil in themselves: from the gun to the nuclear bomb, to “gain of function” research, which aims to make viruses more virulent? While technological developments threaten our living conditions through the extraction of resources or the disappearance of living things, techno-optimists assure us that technology will save us from death, and techno-pessimists that its excesses will be our downfall. So, is technology really morally neutral?

Beyond nature’s limits

Technology is often seen as a mere means, i.e. neutral, usable for good or bad purposes. The term comes from the Greek technè, which refers to the act of making things or know-how. In Latin it became ars, which gave us “art”. In its beginnings, technology – or rather, technique – was described as craftsmanship. And in the field of archaeology, “artefacts” testify to the culture of a people and allow for its classification. Technology was therefore first and foremost something that was handled by man. And so, from the 4th century BC, the claim that it’s neutral was made by such thinkers as Plato, who lent this opinion to the sophist Gorgias (in the dialogue of the same name). Whether it be objects (tools, medicines, buildings) or methods (artistic, rhetorical, medical), the rhetorician argues, any technological tool can be used for good or bad purpose – only “those who abuse it” are responsible for its deviations. So there’s no point in blaming the new reporting software you’re asked to download every two years – it’s your managers who are to blame, as they’re the ones forcing you to use it!

When used well, technology can also be of great service to us. This is the meaning of the myth of Prometheus, as told in Plato’s Protagoras. Sent by Zeus to ensure that his brother Epimetheus has provided for the needs of man, Prometheus discovers the latter “naked, without shoes, without blankets, without weapons.” In short: in their natural state, human beings aren’t likely to survive. Moved by a feeling of pity, Prometheus steals ability and fire from Athena and Hephaestus, and gives them to man so that he can survive. Destitute at birth, man is said to have gained ascendancy over other species through his tools and the energy they provide him.

‘For Descartes, humans can become ‘as masters and possessors of nature’’

In the 17th century, advances in science and medicine gave this myth a new meaning. In the Discourse on Method (1637), René Descartes calls for a use of technology that would allow man to lead a longer and more pleasant life, protected from diseases and shortages. Never mind those who worship nature, without trying to understand or transform it! By performing surgeries, digging quarries, flattening mountains, men can become “masters and possessors of nature”, instead of suffering its hazards.

But that would be forgetting that the myth ends rather badly for Prometheus. For having wanted to upset the natural order between men and gods, he is condemned by Zeus to have his liver devoured every day by a giant eagle. A warning against the excess of power conferred to man by technical mastery? Maybe. Because if technology gives us the power to change the world, it’s already in itself the bearer of a certain purpose: efficiency.

To each tool its end

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