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Introducing Transformative Technologies into Democratic Societies

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Abstract

Transformative technologies can radically alter human lives making us stronger, faster, more resistant to disease and so on. These include enhancement technologies as well as cloning and stem cell research. Such technologies are often approved of by many liberals who see them as offering us opportunities to lead better lives, but are often disapproved of by conservatives who worry about the many consequences of allowing these to be used. In this paper, we consider how a democratic government with mainly liberal values that is governing a population divided between liberals and conservatives can introduce new transformative technologies and try to achieve consensus about the introduction of such technologies. To do so, we draw on recent work in moral psychology which enables us to better understand the intuitive and emotional responses that underpin conservative objections to such new technologies. We then show how a government may introduce incremental changes in our social practices that have the long-term effect of weakening conservative objections to transformative technologies and better enabling governments to achieve consensus about these.

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Notes

  1. For a sense of the spread of ethical concerns about such novel technologies, see the President’s Council on Bioethics ‘Topics of Council Concern’: http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/pcbe/. The President’s Council on Bioethics was an advisory body appointed by President George W. Bush in 2001 and was dominated by conservatives. It was abolished by Barack Obama and replaced with the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues in 2009.

  2. Sandel has been widely criticised for failing to provide reasons to accept his characterisation of human qualities as gifts. As it stands, anyone who does not already view human qualities as gifts (from God, presumably) is unlikely to be persuaded by Sandel’s argument (Roache and Clarke, 2009: 4.4; Caplan, 2009: 207–8; Singer 2009: 279).

  3. Related debates in bioethics that focus on the ethics of enhancement are commonly described as debates between liberals and ‘bioconservatives’ (Roache and Clarke 2009).

  4. See, for example, Toffler 1970, Kurzweil 2001.

  5. For example, the UK charity Age UK has recently expressed fears that old people who do not use the internet risk becoming ‘more and more marginalised members of society’ (Wakefield 2010).

  6. Liberals disagree about conceptions of liberty. According to Isaiah Berlin (1969) liberty is freedom from interference by others, whereas according to Thomas Hill Green (1986) and others one must be self-directed and autonomous in order to experience liberty. See Gaus and Courtland 2007.

  7. We will follow Levy’s definition of intuition here, which is compatible with a broad range of uses of the term in philosophy and psychology. As Levy notes, some intuitions are modified by reflection over time. Nevertheless they remain intuitions provided that they are experienced as occurring spontaneously.

  8. A notable liberal appeal to particular moral emotions, as well as a careful discussion of the proper role of those emotions in legal and philosophical reasoning, which we do not discuss here is Nussbaum (2004).

  9. Thomson (1971) does not explicitly state that her assumptions about our common reaction to this thought experiment rest on an appeal to intuition. However, as she does not introduce any theoretical considerations that would do the work of accounting for this reaction, it seems clear that this is the best way to understand her, and indeed it is how she is very often understood.

  10. Prominent recent challenges to the possibility of our having the ability reliably to detect moral truths turn on consideration of evolutionary theory. See Joyce 2005 and Street 2006. For a contrary view see James 2009.

  11. Haidt’s account has been challenged by a number of defenders of rationalist accounts of moral judgment who consider various ways in which reason may play a larger role in the formation of moral judgment than Haidt allows (Clarke 2008: 808–10).

  12. This process of reinforcement through interaction with like-minded others is part of the process of ‘group polarisation’. Group polarisation also involves an increase in the degree to which members of own group sense that they are different from other rival groups (see Sunstein 2005).

  13. See Haidt and Joseph 2004, Haidt and Graham 2007, 2009, and Graham et al., 2009.

  14. We thank Walter Sinnott-Armstrong for this point.

  15. We have focused on instances where conservative moral views are altered; however, this strategy is not tailor-made for the purpose of manipulating the moral views of conservatives. It could be used to manipulate any moral beliefs that are at least partially underpinned by intuitions, regardless of the political orientation of the subject.

  16. However Bovens (2008) suggests that some nudges may be significantly less effective if the use of these is apparent to the people who are being nudged.

  17. Similarly, a conservative government could use nudges to increase the strength and breadth of conservative intuitions. For example, a government might make it cost effective to attend education institutions that stressed the development of patriotism and obedience to authority in curricula.

  18. Thoroughgoing libertarians may suspect that libertarian paternalism lacks genuine libertarian credentials. They may suppose that one can have one’s liberty interfered with without having one’s choice set altered. If so, then they will find reasons to object to our approach too. See Hausman and Welch (2010) for further discussion of the libertarian credentials of libertarian paternalism.

  19. Amir and Lobel (2008: 2121) argue somewhat similarly.

  20. Thaler and Sunstein concede that neutrality will not always be possible (2008: 243).

  21. The authors would like to thank Allen Buchanan, Larry May, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, two anonymous referees and audiences at the University of Oxford and the Australasian Association of Philosophy annual conference in 2009, held at the University of Melbourne for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program on the Ethics of the New Biosciences, Oxford Martin Institute and Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Suite 8, Littlegate House, 16-17 St. Ebbes Street, Oxford, OX1 1PT, UK

    Steve Clarke

  2. Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford Martin Institute and Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, Suite 8, Littlegate House, 16-17 St. Ebbes Street, Oxford, OX1 1PT, UK

    Rebecca Roache

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Correspondence to Steve Clarke.

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Clarke, S., Roache, R. Introducing Transformative Technologies into Democratic Societies. Philos. Technol. 25, 27–45 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-011-0013-z

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