DEMOCRACY IN A TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Transcription

1 DEMOCRACY IN A TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY

2 PHILOSOPHY AND TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 9 Series Editor: PAUL T. DURBIN Editorial Board Albert Borgmann, Montana Mario Bunge, McGill Edmund F. Byme, Indiana- Purdue at Indianapolis Stanley Carpenter, Georgia Tech Robert S. Cohen, Boston Ruth Schwartz Cowan, SUNY Stony Brook Hubert L. Dreyfus, California - Berkeley Bemard L. Gendron, Wisconsin - Milwaukee Ronald Giere, M innesota Steven L. Goldman, Lehigh Virginia Held, CUNY Gilbert Hottois, Universite Libre de Bruxelles Don Ihde, SUNY - Stony Brook Melvin Kranzberg, Georgia Tech Douglas MacLean, Maryland, Baltimore County Joseph Margolis, Temple Robert McGinn, Stanford Alex Michalos, Guelph Carl Mitcham, Pennsylvania State University Joseph Pitt, Virginia Polytechnic Friedrich Rapp, Dortmund Nicholas Rescher, Pittsburgh Egbert Schuurman, Technical University of Delft Kristin Shrader-Frechette, South Florida Elisabeth Stroker, Cologne Ladislav Tondl, Czechoslovak Academy of Science Marx Wartofsky, C UNY Caroline Whitbeck, MIT Langdon Winner, RPI Walter Ch. Zimmerli, Bamberg The titles published in this series are listed at the end ofthis volume.

3 OFFICIAL PUBLICA TION OF THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY AND TECHNOLOGY PHILOSOPHY AND TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 9 DEMOCRACY INA TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY Edited by LANGDON WINNER Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, U.S.A. SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.

4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Democracy ln a technologlccl society I edited by Langdon Winner. p. cm. -- (Phl1osophy and technology ; v. 9) "Offlclal publlcatlon of the Soclety for Phllosophy and Techno 1 ogy. " Inc 1 udes 1 ndex. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Technology and state. 2. Technology--Phl1osophy. r. Wlnner. Langdon. II. SOclety for Phl1osophy and Technology W.S.) III. Se'les. T '6--cc ISBN Printed an acid-free paper AlI Rights Reserved 1992 Springer Science+8usiness Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1992 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, inc1uding photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.

5 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE, Paul T. Durbin INTRODUCTION, Langdon Winner Vll 1 PARTI THE NA TURE OF THE PROBLEM MARX W. WARTOFSKY I Technology, Power, and Truth: Political and Epistemological Reflections on the Fourth Revolution 15 JACQUES ELLUL I Technology and Democracy 35 ROBERT L. FROST / Mechanical Dreams: Democracyand Technological Discourse in Twentieth-Century France 51 PART II SOME PROPOSED SOLUTIONS PAUL T. DURBIN I Marxism and the Democratic Control of Technology 81 LARRY A. HICKMAN I Populism and the Cult of the Expert 91 JOHN FIELDER I Autonomous Technology, Democracy, and the Nimbys. 105 KRISTIN SHRADER-FRECHETTE / Technology, Bayesian Policymaking, and Democratic Process 123 RICHARD E. SCLOVE I The Nuts and Bolts of Democracy: Democratic Theory and Technological Design 139 PARTIII HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL REFLECTIONS STANLEY R. CARPENTER I Instrumentalists and Expressivists: Ambiguous Links Between Technology and Democracy 161 VITAL Y GOROKHOV I Politics, Progress, and Engineering: Technical Professionals in Russia 175 TOM ROCKMORE / Heidegger on Technology and Democracy 187 ALBERT BORGMANN I The Moral Assessment of Technology 207 JOSEPH MARGOLIS I Political Morality under Radical Conditions 215 NAME INDEX 235

6 PREFACE This ninth volume is one of the most arnbitious in the Philosophy and Technology series. Edited by technopolitical philosopher Langdon Winner, it assembles an impressive collection of philosophers and political theorists to discuss one of the most important topics of the end of the twentieth century - the bearing of technology, in all its rarnifications, on the practice of democratic politics in the developed world. When set beside the previous volume in the series - Europe, America, and Teehnology - the two together open a philosophical dialogue of great significance about the ways technology challenges democracy at its very roots. Some philosophers think the attack is fatal. Others are optimistic that democratic means can be discovered, or invented, for the control of technology. Still others object to an optimism-versus-pessimism formulation of the issue. But ali agree that the issue is highly significant, one that demands serious philosophical inquiry. The Society for Philosophy and Technology was fortunate in being able to draw this group of writers to Bordeaux, France, in 1989, along with a large number of others whose contributions to the debate could not be included here. It is equally fortunate to have chosen Langdon Winner as president when the time carne to select the best of the papers to fashion this volume. University of Delaware PAUL T. DURBIN Vll