Is technology really value-neutral, focusing on the differences and responsibilities between science and engineering

This article analyzes the inherent differences between science and technology, discusses how societal values influence the purpose of technology, and highlights the responsibilities and roles of engineers.

 

When something is said to be “value-neutral,” it usually means that the object is free from external subjective value judgments and has no specific ethical or social value in and of itself, or that researchers should focus on the objective facts of the subject and not be influenced by subjective values. However, value neutrality in science is a complex concept with many dimensions, including four main meanings The philosophical dimension is that science is about facts, not imperative morality; the methodological dimension is that science’s experiments, logic, and math apply equally to everyone and are independent of subjective values; the normative dimension is that the scientific community should not be influenced by external factors and should pursue pure science; and the social responsibility dimension is that scientists should not be held accountable for their work. We can see that the concept of value-neutrality in science encompasses both the factual proposition that “science is value-neutral” and the deontological proposition that “science ought to be value-neutral.” It’s a much more complicated concept than it seems, and many scholars have offered their opinions, and the debate over the rightness or wrongness of content has a long history.
In comparison, the value-neutrality of technology is less discussed, either because it’s only recently begun to impact our lives, or because science and technology are often lumped together under the term “science and technology”. But the pace of technological advancement has been staggering, and some say we’re on the verge of a singularity, a point at which the rate of technological development will exceed a certain level and usher in a new era. At a time when we are more dependent on technology than ever before, it is imperative that we have a serious discussion about the value-neutrality of technology in order to understand it and handle it properly. Therefore, I would like to address the myth that technology is not value-neutral like science by focusing on the semantic difference between technology and science and the social responsibility of engineers to ask the question: is technology really value-neutral?
The dictionary definition of technology is “the means by which objects in nature are processed to make them useful for human life through the practical application of scientific theory”. It can also be said that it is the creation of new mechanisms for human convenience based on already known facts, whether empirical or theoretical. As it is the realm of ‘how’ to do something for a given purpose of human convenience, it is essentially different from science, which belongs to the realm of ‘why’ to explore the principles of how nature works. In addition to the difference between how and why, technology and science are also very different in that individual technologies all have one or more specialized purposes that they serve. Of course, some branches of science also have specialized purposes. Alchemy, the foundation of chemistry, had the very secular and specific purpose of turning all matter into gold, or astrophysics and thermodynamics, which have made great strides because existing theories don’t fully explain new natural phenomena, have a purposeful need to create theories that do. But technology is different because every individual piece of technology has a purpose, but that purpose is very specific and distinct from the purpose of other pieces of technology. The purpose of the automobile, to create a self-driving cart to replace unwieldy and bulky horses, is not the same as the purpose of stealth technology, to create a fighter jet that is invisible to enemy radar. Scientific research, on the other hand, can be easily categorized into several goals: to determine how a newly discovered natural phenomenon fits into current theories, to create a new explanatory model, or to test a new model created by others.
Technology differs from science in that it has individualized and specific goals. And in setting those goals, non-technical factors such as social ideologies and value judgments are bound to play a role. This is why technology is not inherently value-neutral. In general, the human benefits that technology aims to achieve include saving money and time, psychological comfort for users, or stabilizing systems through technology. In this case, the technology is deployed with value judgments already presupposed, such as “saving money and time is good” or “stabilization should be pursued”. If the value judgment comes from within the technology or during the development of the technology, it is an internal issue and does not affect the value neutrality of the technology from the outside. However, the previous value judgment is external to the technology and comes from a common set of values that members of the society that uses the technology believe to be correct and share with each other. Depending on which group studies and uses the technology, it will come from a different starting point and go in a different direction, and therefore the technology is not value-neutral.
Consider the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi Germany, where Nazi engineers devised a technology called the gas chamber to efficiently kill Jews. This technology, like all technologies, was created for human convenience, but the only humans who benefited from it were Nazi Germany, not the entire human race. The specific ideology of German National Socialism, which stated that the greatest race, the Germanic people, had a mission to dominate other peoples, and that the Jews, as a cancer on society, must be exterminated to prevent them from infecting other peoples, heavily influenced the purpose of the technology, resulting in the deaths of an estimated three million Jews. Beyond these extreme examples, most technologies are unwittingly embedded with the particular ideas of the groups that develop and use them. These external factors set the direction of the technology early in its development and, to some extent, determine where it will end up, so technology is neither free from external factors nor free from value judgments.
Let’s take a break from the heavy topic and go back to the late 19th century, when the automobile first appeared on the scene. At the time, no one realized that the joy of no longer having to clean up horse manure from the streets would lead to serious environmental pollution just 100 years later, with more than a billion cars on the road. However, the number of cars has steadily increased over the past few decades, and cars have become an integral part of our lives. The argument that we shouldn’t build cars to protect the environment has become silly, and we’re just trying to make them more fuel-efficient or reduce emissions.
As the case of the automobile illustrates, once an engineering technology or invention begins to have a significant impact on our lives and becomes an integral part of them, it’s like a giant snowball rolling down a mountainside. If this fist-sized snowball falls into an uninhabited valley, that’s fine, but not all snowballs will, so you have to keep an eye on where it’s going and carefully steer its course from the time it’s a fist-sized snowball. And as an engineer, it’s your duty to make sure that the snowball you’ve created doesn’t roll in a dangerous direction.
Some might argue that the future ethical, environmental, or accidental risks of technology are for ethicists, environmentalists, and futurists to predict and fix, not engineers. The problem with this argument is that it is based on the belief that in a highly specialized modern world, if engineers focus on technology development, other problems will be solved by experts in their respective fields. Of course, it is the role of sociologists and economists to answer questions such as whether it is right to build a nuclear power plant near a residential neighborhood with the risk of a major catastrophe, or what the economic benefits of building a nuclear power plant are. But it is up to engineers and scientists to make reasonable predictions about what problems nuclear power plants can cause, what efforts are needed to prevent possible accidents, and what alternatives are available. In other words, the role of engineers does not end with the development of the technology, but also includes the maintenance, management, and repair of the technology after it is commercialized. Therefore, by communicating and sharing opinions with experts in various fields, engineers must always keep their hands on the steering wheel of the technology they have created.
This ties back to our previous discussion. Technology is not inherently value-neutral, which is why engineers need to keep a close eye on it. Because social factors play a large role in deciding what technology to create in the first place, engineers responsible for developing technology need to be concerned with whether the technology is working as intended, whether there are problems with its intended purpose, and if so, how to prevent and prepare for potential disasters.
But no matter how much engineers want to be behind the wheel, the snowball of technology cannot be steered properly if society keeps them away from the wheel. The negative perception and treatment of engineers, the so-called “co-drivers,” contributes to this problem. Our society still tends to think of engineers as passive beings who simply create things on demand, and this can lead to tying them to their craft. This is disastrous for engineers, who will not be held accountable for their actions, and for the public, who will be left without the talent to solve problems outside their cubicles.
I mentioned earlier how complex the concept of value-neutrality in science is, and how many different sub-concepts it contains. For each of these sub-concepts, most people do not have a unified position that “science is value-neutral in all respects,” but rather that it is value-neutral in some respects and not in others. The same is probably true for the value-neutrality of technology. People will probably have different views on different aspects of the concept of technology neutrality. That’s why it’s important to have a discussion about the value neutrality of technology. I welcome rebuttals to the points made in this article. You are welcome to add new thoughts on other aspects of the topic that we haven’t covered. Whatever the case may be, the more people who think about the question of whether technology is value-neutral, the deeper and richer the concept of value-neutrality will become, and the more we can help steer the giant snowball of technology that is picking up speed.