CMPE 80E
NOTES FOR WEEK 9
Spring 10

Finish up a few points from week 8:
Recall the idea that Virtue Ethics and Process Ethics may be
totally ok but that the engineered product might still be
disengaging or deadening or dissonant (i.e. non-focal).
Remember the Precautionary Principle.
What about “why” questions?
What about The Conversation of the Lifeworld?
Recall the Device Paradigm idea of machinery (receding)
and commodity (standing out).

Borgmann has advocated focal things and focal practices.
He has taken Heidegger’s philosophy of technology and
concretized it in a profound manner. For Heidegger the
thing can be either a resource (das Bestand within das
Gestell) or a “thingly thing.” The resource can be revealed
as either a present-at-hand or ready-to-hand entity. The
“thingly thing” things by gathering a world around it. World
consists of earth/sky/divinities/mortals gathered into a
resonating wholeness.

The question becomes: can devices be anything other than
functional? Can they be focal? Can they be thingly?
(In the Borgmannian sense DEVICE is the broad inclusive
term that encompasses systems, structures, organisms,
networks, machines processes, utensils, tools …..)

For instance, the Intranet is a system (device) that typically
would fall under the sway of “The Device Paradigm” but as
shown in the text it can become a focal product by
contributing to the already extant focal practice of the
communal engagement of the well-networked people in
Williams Bay in Australia. Patterns are embellished.
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
As another example, structures can be enlivening (says
architect Christopher Alexander) by gathering people to be
with and in and through them. People should feel invited by
the focalness of the structure. Spirit is elevated and people
want to be there. E.g. the courtyard.

Modern Engineering is characterized by the manufacturing
of desires and the products that satisfy them (Disposable
Reality).
Focal Engineering is characterized by addressing real needs
with resonant products that engage and enliven.
(Commanding Reality.)
Should we distinguish between needs and desires?
Eliminate desires and satisfy needs (The Buddhist Way)?
The problem: One person’s ceiling is another person’s
floor.

Focal Engineering aims to bring into the world products
that make us happy and enhance the Quality of Life (QOL).
Bill McKibben in an essay entitled “Reversal of Fortune”
says the formula for human well-being used to be simple:
make money, get happy. But that no longer seems to work.
More is no longer necessarily the same as better. If two
beers make me feel good will ten make me feel five times
better? And we tend to drink alone, and bowl alone. The
individualism served by the modern engineering enterprise
is tending toward a hyper-individualism within hypermodern engineering. McKibben: “During the same decades
when our lives grew busier and more isolated, we’ve gone
from having three confidants on average to only two, and
the number of people saying they have no one to discuss
important matters with has nearly tripled. Between 1974
and 1994, the percentage of Americans who said they
visited with their neighbors at least once a month fell from
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almost two-thirds to less than half, a number that has
continued to fall in the past decade. We simply worked too
many hours earning, we commuted too-far to our tooisolated homes, and there was always the blue glow of the
tube shining through the curtains.” The answer seems to
lie in recognizing that we have kept on doing things past the
point that they work. Accumulating more and more
disposable stuff doesn’t seem to enhance our Quality of
Life much anymore. Perhaps a turn toward procuring stuff
with a commanding reality will. That means focal things
and focal practices in a world characterized by post-modern
realism. To turn away from hyper-modernism and toward a
post-modern realism requires a three-fold shift:
1) an aggressiveness toward nature shifts into a more
respectful involvement
2) a universalism characterized by Cartesian methodology
shifts toward a concern with particulars
3) the stress on individualism shifts toward a concern with
community and communitarianism.
(Gesellshaft is the society of individuals who get together
for functional purposes, whereas Gemeinschaft is the
society of people who are together from tradition or
belonging to common ancestory.)
(Gesellshaft refers to “together” in the belonging together,
whereas Gemeinschaft refers to the “belonging” in the
belonging together.)

A QOL Index is a way to measure how well these shifts are
working. As in the Ethics Engine we can write
J = α1 J1 + • • • • + αN JN
where 0 < Ji < 10
and
α 1 + α2 + • • • • + α N = 1
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(Check the website assessing the QOL of 194 countries
around the world.)
(Regarding “Quality” check out the book Zen and the Art
of Motorcycle Maintenance by R. Persig.)

HCI, a Modern Engineering movement, is concerned with
person/product accord. The idea is to fit the product to the
person (a good idea). But Focal Engineering aims at a
person/product/world accord. World = context.

Modern (Hypermodern) engineering brings forth Devices
that exhibit a sharp separation of ends and means.
Focal engineering brings forth focal products (focal things
in their own right or products that serve focal practices).
They exhibit an integration of ends and means.
e.g. TV
e.g. running shoes

Watch the Borgmann video and do an in-class ½ pager.

We turn now to CHPT 8 of the EP text --- Material Ethics.
We have considered Virtue Ethics in terms of the values
(virtues) of fairness, honesty, caring. And we have
considered Process Ethics in terms of the values of health
& safety, social justice, environmental sustainability. Now
we will consider Material Ethics in terms of the values of
engagement, enlivenment, resonance.

Most products emerging from the engineering process are
DEVICES, known primarily for their functionality. They
belong to a realm of “disposable” reality. However, some of
the products emerging from the engineering process can
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be FOCAL THINGS or THINGLY THINGS known
primarily for how they gather a world about them and for
their “commanding” reality. They are engaging, enlivening,
and resonant.

So the products of the engineering process tend to be
devices but they can be focal things or they can be things
that serve focal practices. Recall the distinction between
structures and devices:

We can talk about these as structural devices or nonstructural devices:
(a) Structural devices can be focal by exhibiting a
“commanding” reality rather than a “disposable”
reality. In them there is no sharp separation
between ends and means, between commodity and
machinery. They are both functional and focal.
(b) Non-structural devices more rigorously follow The
Device Paradigm and exhibit a sharp divide into
machinery (which recedes) and commodity (which
stands out). That commodity aspect can be put into
the service of a focal practice and in this way the
non-structural device can be both functional and
focal.
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
Structural Devices example --- Christopher Alexander
designs and builds engaging and enlivening structures, like
courtyards.

Non-Structural Devices example --- appliances /
instruments / machines / utensils / etc. whose commodity
aspects stand out but can be made to serve focal practices.
How so? By aiming the product at the engagement and
enlivenment of the end-user and at the resonance of the
practice in its world.

From last week we saw how Focal Engineering aims at a
person/product/world accord, not just a person/product
accord. We need to bring the Human Lifeworld more fully
into our deliberations. How so?
By asking about contexts.
By asking about origins (FORMAL / MATERIAL /
EFFICIENT causes).
By asking about goals (FINAL cause --- the telos).
Such questions animate the conversation of the lifeworld
and keep lifeworld alive in our assessments.

Engineering Ecologies are local Human Lifeworld
habitations within which Focal Engineering assessments
can be initiated. The notion of ecologies comes from the
work of Nardi and O’Day. They “define an information
ecology to be a system of people, practices, values, and
technologies in a particular local environment. In
information ecologies, the spotlight is not on technology,
but on human activities that are served by technology.” We
can take engineering ecologies and information ecologies to
be essentially the same thing. “A library is an information
ecology. It is a place with books, magazines, tapes, films,
and librarians who can help you find and use them. A
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library may have computers, as well as story time for twoyear-olds and after-school study halls for teens. In a library,
access to information for all clients of the library is a core
value. This value shapes the policies around which the
library is organized, including those relating to technology.
A library is a place where people and technology come
together in congenial relations, guided by the values of the
library.”

Focal Engineering is Local Engineering (at least initially).
Conversations of the lifeworld begin in engineering
ecologies: workplaces, schools, homes, libraries, hospitals,
churches …

Material Ethics which is a form of consequentialism can be
illustrated with an Assessment Triangle:
END-USER
engagement
enlivenment
resonance
WORLD

PRODUCT
The values of engagement, enlivenment, and resonance can
be visualized as legs of the triangle connecting the vertices
of engineered product, the lifeworld, and the end-user.
Resonance is the harmony between world and product.
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Engagement is the harmony between product and user.
Enlivenment is the harmony between world and user.

The use of THE ETHICS ENGINE can assist in getting an
initial take on a Material Ethics assessment. As before, we
restrict the Js to be between -3 and +3 and the weighting
factors add up to 1.0. We can write:
Jm = γ1 Jeg + γ2 Jel + γ3 Jr
Where γ1 + γ2 + γ3 = 1

After going through this assessment and the other two for
virtue and process ethics, we can combine everything into a
single overall value function:
J = α Jp + ß J v + γ J m
with α + ß + γ = 1
e.g. let it be the case that
Jp = 3.0
Jv = 1.2
Jm = -2.2
with equal weightings all around, we get J = 0.67 which
indicates an ethically rather neutral situation and if we are
striving for optimal focality, we would want J (or at least
Jm ) to be closer to 3.0.

Do the in-class group exercise.

HOME-WORK: read the Amish essay
read the Heikkero essay
read Chpt 9 in EP
(no writing but finish the term project – due
THURS June 3)
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