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Surprising Science —

Technology and Morality

What’s the difference between new ideas that are good, and those that are merely novel? Professor Alan Jacobs insists on asking moral questions as technology progresses.
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The old distinction between science as “pure” knowledge and technology as “applied” knowledge is too facile if used absolutely, but it has practical value. Johnson deals in both kinds of knowledge without discrimination: what led Darwin to the theory of natural selection is grist for his mill, but so too is what led Willis Carrier to invent the air conditioner. Yet it seems to me that there’s a difference between “good ideas” that lead to increased understanding of the world and the creatures in it, and the “good ideas” that are instrumental, that lead us to manipulate the created order for purposes that vary greatly in their character and value.

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Progress
How do you define progress?
As with any “big idea” progress means a lot of different things to different people and not everyone comes into the discussion with the same priors. Some experts are primarily focused on material progress while others emphasize the importance of moral progress. So to start the discussion, we asked each expert to define the term as they see it from their specific vantage point.
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