Research On Ethical Responsibility Of Decision-maker For Technology

We got used to enjoying the great interest from rapid development of science and technology. With the rapid development of modern science and technology, the "evil" of technology of comes out even more obviously. For modern technology increasingly serious negative effects, German-American philosopher Hans Jonas raised out of the responsibility for our ethical prescription, he urged us to be responsible for nature and our future generations. In recent years, some major technical project decisions aroused widespread controversy. Lack of technical ethical responsibility is the reasons for ethical dilemmas of these technology projects.philosopher Jaspers was awared that modern technology had characteristics such as threatening, utilitarian and delay of consequences. So we need technology decision-making,especially for great technology projects. Technical decision-making is a process of choosing variety of technical routes, technical measures and technical solutions which were analyzed and compared, and the process of selecting the best solution. Technology decision-making ethics has important guiding significance to technology experts, engineers, managers, and public participation in decision-making techniques. Responsibility can be basically divided into professional responsibility, legal responsibility and ethical responsibility. We believe that ethical responsibility and moral responsibility has certain little difference. "Ethics of responsibility" concept originally developed by a famous German sociologist Max · Weber in the early 1900s. The rise of the ethics of responsibility is derived from the German scholar Hans · Jonas. In the new era of our ability to intervene in human nature growing faster, the consequences of the technology become more and more dangerous. We need develop a new sense of responsibility, such a sense of responsibility to the future-oriented behavior, which is called "preventive responsibility" before. Therefore, the ethical responsibility of individuals can be classified according to the main social and ethical responsibilities, such as professional ethics, ethical responsibilities of social groups (such as the government’s administrative ethical responsibility, corporate social and ethical responsibility), and role responsibilities (such as engineers ethical responsibility), charity (moral responsibility) and so on.In technical activities it will appear different subjects of interest, but there are different stakeholders. Decision-making in choosing technology brings about ethical issues which mainly contains the following basic elements:technical decisions ethical issues such as technical program selection, technical risks, technical experts and managers as well as decision-making responsibilities vested rights and so on. Technical decision makers’ ethical responsibility is assumed by the technical decision maker’s moral virtue, concept of good and evil, concept of interests, ethics and social responsibility requirements of the decision. According to Marx’s theory of human nature and interests, technical decision makers assume ethical responsibility as a real individual in the history of the relations of production render moral and humane requirements. Marxism placed people’s individual value and the social value on an inherent and indivisible state to conduct investigations. Marx thought that the concept of good and evil is historical, such as DDT technology decisions. Jonas provided a theoretical basis for Technology Ethics. Its main contents are:first, the responsibility for the future of mankind; second, the responsibilities for nature. However, the technological development increasingly excluded revealing one kind of ethical tendencies. Utilitarian concern has become a legitimate objective for most technical experts. Therefore, how to make technology the better benefit of mankind become the major social responsibility for the science and technology experts.There are several decision makers for technical project, rather than one. As the main technical decisions have direct and indirect options cases, so long as participants are related to the decision-making they will become the decision-making subjective and will bear the corresponding ethical responsibility. The subjective of technical decision maker are the government and its officer; company and its business executives; engineer and technical personnel; public and personal. Technical decision makers bear ethical responsibility looking forward and consequential liability, directly ethical responsibility and indirect ethical responsibility. The directly ethical responsibility primarily based on fault-responsibility which decision-makers are responsible for accidents or injuries. Forward-looking responsibility for technical decision makers is to predict risk; consequential responsibility for technical decision makers is to bear the consequences of technology implementation which responsibilities are related to decision making; direct ethical responsibility primarily refers the direct responsibility for accidents or injuries directly relevant to decision-makers in the decision-making errors or technical implementation fails; indirect ethical responsibility for technical decision makers is the responsibility which is indirectly related to the consequences of the techenical project. The ways of government decision-maker bear ethical responsibility in general are:(1) to make corrections; (2) being ordered to make a written examination and oral explanation; (3)being given notice of criticism; (4) job suspended or expired for main person; (5) being responsible for administrative action for direct person. However, scientists and engineers’ direct ethical responsibility is to comply with ethical norms of scientific research, and to predict the consequences and risks of technical activities. In the era of "big science of decision making process", a single technical worker participation the decision-making process in the technical project is limited, then, technical workers’ direct ethical responsibility is to fulfill " the notice of danger of technology, the proposed countermeasurement for technology". The main indirect ethical responsibility for technical decision makers is their obligation, such as the government has the ethical responsibility to keep the decision-making open and equal; technical workers have the ethical responsibilities for keeping good faith etc.Despite the technical decisions are always subject to some intentional or unintentional ethical guidelines, there are at least three conscious mode of implantation ethical guidelines:concept of Values, Utilitarian and moral doctrine. These standards also become the technical ethical assessment standards for decision makers. Technical decision makers ethical responsibility assess is a part of a technical assessment. Ethical responsibility assess including confirming the technical and ethical decision-making subjective, acknowledging responsibility, technical decision makers choosing the main ethical responsibility evaluation standards. To determine the technical basis for ethical responsibility of decision makers is from the values, utilitarianism, deontological ethical judgments. Technical basis for decision-makers assume ethical responsibility consists of five parts:technical consequences; causality; Values judgment; utilitarian and deontological judgment.Chinese technical decision-making are often caught in ethical dilemmas. Chinese lack of ethical responsibility for technology decision-making based for the following performance:(1), absence of the subjective for ethical responsibility; (2), ethical responsibilities are not clear; (3), the absence of ethical responsibility; (4), the weak ability of ethical responsibility. The reason why Chinese technical decision makers are lack ethical responsibility is because:(1), the main decision-maker’s neglect and misunderstanding; (2), ethical responsibility system being imperfect; (3), ethics education being missing. To establish Chinese technical decision makers countermeasures system for ethical responsibility is:(1), to develop ethical awareness; (2), to establish clear institutional system of ethical responsibility for technical decision makers; (3),to construct different ethical responsibility normative system; (4), to improve ethical responsibility education support systems; (5), to make use of social media to supervise techenical decision-making.Based on a number of ethical principles and ethical responsibility standards, the dissertation analyzed two cases. One case is China 7 · 23 High way accident. We made ethical responsibility assessment for high way train technology decision and analyzed the ethical responsibility for each decision makers of train and train parts. Another case is based on our ethical responsibility for technical decision-making system, we proposed a trial decision-making plan for production transgenic rice in China We believe that the participation of technology decisions ethics and decision-makers undertaking the ethical responsibility for technology decision is the good approach to walk out of the ethical dilemmas.