CMPE 80E
NOTES FOR WEEK 6
Spring 09

FYI --- check out the BLOG of Karl Stephan on
engineering ethics:
http://engineeringethicsblog.blogspot.com/

By now everyone should have a sense of how the “ethics
engine” works. Does it provide answers to ethical
dilemmas? No. But it can help to orient the conversation.

Isaac Asimov: “Never let your sense of morals prevent
you from doing what is right.”

Up to this point in the course, we have been looking at the
micro view of the modern engineering project. Before we
move backwards in time to a micro view of the premodern engineering project, we will step away from the
micro view and look at the macro view of the engineering
project.

The macro view of the engineering project sees it as a
contextualized phenomenon. In the pre-modern era we
have a strong force of contextualization, whereas in the
modern era we have a weakened version of it. The
tendency within the modern engineering enterprise is to
side-step context as much as we can, de-contextualization
being intrinsic to the Cartesian methodology which
informs the modern engineering enterprise.

The contextualized nature of the engineering project can
be envisioned in terms of a Venn Diagram:
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
CHPT 3 stresses COLONIZATION which is the primal
force within the modern engineering enterprise.
CHPT 6 stresses CONTEXTUALIZATION which is the
primal force within the pre-modern engineering endeavor.

Colonization implies that the principles and values of a
systemic way of being – rationalization, efficiency,
functionality, calculability, productivity, predictability,
quantitative measures, and control – are imposed upon the
non-systemic Human Lifeworld.

Contextualization implies that communication and
conversation of the lifeworld generates inputs to the
systemic realm which influence and shape and form these
systems.

Both of these forces are generally operative. But if there is
only colonization, that is called Technological
Determinism, and if there is only contextualization, that is
called Social Constructionism.
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
Technological Determinism has been championed by J.
Ellul.
Social Constructionism has been championed by STS.

Engineering is both world-shaping and world-shaped. The
forces of contextualization and colonization are both
always already operative. Colonization is more
pronounced in the modern engineering enterprise and
contextualization more so in the pre-modern engineering
endeavor. We will seek a balance within the focal
engineering venture.

So colonization of the Lifeworld by the realm of System is
a major event of the modern era (according to Habermas).

Lifeworld = the wherein wherein what comes to be comes
to be.
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
Lifeworld (German: Lebenswelt) is a concept used in
philosophy and in some social sciences, meaning the world
"as lived" prior to reflective re-presentation or analysis.
Edmund Husserl introduced the concept of the lifeworld in
his ''Crisis of European Sciences'' (1936) following Martin
Heidegger's analysis of Being-in-the-world (In-der-WeltSein) in ''Being and Time''. The concept was still further
developed by students Jan Patočka, the Husserlian Alfred
Schütz, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jürgen Habermas, and
others. For Habermas, lifeworld is more or less the
"background" environment of competences, practices, and
attitudes representable in terms of one's cognitive horizon.
It's the lived realm of informal, culturally-grounded
understandings and mutual accommodations.
Rationalization of the lifeworld is a keynote of Habermas's
2-volume ''Theory of Communicative Action''. Penetration
of lifeworld rationality by bureaucracy is analyzed by
Habermas as 'colonization of the lifeworld'. Social
coordination and systemic regulation occur by means of
shared practices, beliefs, values, and structures of
interaction, which may be institutionally based. We are
inevitably lifeworldly, such that individuals and interactions
draw from custom and cultural traditions to construct
identities, define situations (at best, by coming to
understandings, but also by negotiations), to coordinate
action, and create social solidarity.

Q: how far do we go with colonization assuming it is not an
irresistible force?
e.g. shopping cart but not hi-tech version?
e.g. ubiquitous computing?

The Human Lifeworld BINDS and CONSTRAINS and
ORIENTS the engineering project (always) even as a
plethora of engineered products pervade and transform the
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Lifeworld. If only the “pervading” is taken into account (as
in modernism), we have Technological Determinism which
implies that we have a ZEITGEIST which conditions us all
to be 100% efficient in a thoroughly technological world.
This is Jacques Ellul’s position.

Heidegger’s position is similar. He maintains that Being
shows itself as the framework (das Gestell) within which
all beings become resources (das Bestand).

Triple Colonization and Triple Contextualization:

Watch video “Ethics in Biomedical Research” and do an
in-class writing exercise.

MIDTERM EXAM Thursday

A few notes on “Notes on Habermas”:
The core of any action is communication. We need to
create opportunities for communication. As the pre5
modern era gave way to the modern era and advanced
capitalist societies developed, the core integrative function
of communication has been disabled (colonized).

Colonization undermines our trust in the legitimacy of our
institutions. Guided by values of efficiency and
productivity our institutions appear more and more cold
and inhospitable. We should restore communicative action
to restore legitimacy e.g. promote participatory democracy
based on the rights of individuals and guided by reasoned
discourse … this is the best hope for society (says
Habermas).

A-G-I-L work together to explain societal stability:
A = Adaption which depends on the generalized
medium of money.
G = Goal attainment which depends on power
(votes).
I = Influence.
L = Values commitments.
A & G indicate money & votes or power which can be
counted and are active in the realm of system and are
QUANTITATIVE (whoever has the most wins)
whereas I & L are enacted in communication between
persons and are active in the realm of the non-systemic
lifeworld and are QUALITATIVE.

Colonization implies that social settings that were I & L
orientated via qualitative communicative media now
become dominated by A & G quantitative media.
(No conversation of the Lifeworld, just count the money
or votes.)
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
KEY IDEA: the legitimacy of SYSTEM depends on the
constant acts of influence & value-commitment intrinsic to
LIFEWORLD. And as system colonizes lifeworld we
come closer and closer to CRISIS.

Money and votes can certainly be useful in getting things
done, but only so long as their legitimacy is assured by the
common understanding of influence & valuecommitments.

Via communicative action and the conversation of the
lifeworld, the colonizing effects of SYSTEM are
mitigated.

Contextualization counters colonization.

A few more ideas drawn from CHPTS 3 & 6:
Andrew Feenberg proposes what he calls
Primary Instumentalization (PI) &
Secondary Instrumentalization (SI)
(See Handout page)

Homework for the weekend:
a) EP Chapter 4 (Person)
b) the essay “Capitalism, Work, and Character”
c) the essay “Platonic Virtue Theory and Business Ethics,”
d) the short piece on “The Earliest Engineers”
e) write one page explaining the relevance of the Platonic
system of ethics for the modern engineering enterprise.
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