On The Thought Of "Materializing Morality" In Modern Ethics Of Technology

The thought of "Materializing Morality" is a new trend in the filed of contemporary western ethics of technology. It means to embody the abstract ethical norms into the structure and function of the technological artifacts through appropriate technological design, enabling the technological artifacts to morally influence or regulate the user’s decisions and behaviors when they are being used. Using Latour’s terminologies,"Materializing Morality" is to "write" the ethical norms into technological design, forming a "script" to guide human’s behaviors, just like the movie scripts play a regulative role on the actions of actors, the scripts of technology, to some extent, can also "direct" human’s actions on the stage of real life. In the view of Dutch philosopher of technology, Peter-Paul Verbeek, this implies that technologies actually provide a "material answer" for human’s ethical practices and designers engage in "ethics by other means".The advent of "Materializing Morality" has a profound background in terms of historical origins, contemporary opportunities and theoretical foundations. On the aspect of ideological origins, Michel Foucault’s thought of "Micro-power", Langdon Winner’ thought of "Techno-politics" and Bruno Latour’s thought of "Sociology of Artifacts" inspired the thought of "Materializing Morality"; On the aspect of contemporary opportunities, the "empirical turn" and "ethical turn" after the declination of classic philosophy of technology provided a platform for the advent of this thought; On the aspect of theoretical foundations,"Technology Mediation Theory", based on Don Ihde’s "Postphenomenology", Bruno Latour’s "Actor Network Theory" and Albert Borgmann’s "Focal Practices", provides a sound theoretical basis for the advent of "Materializing Morality""Materializing Morality" was proposed firstly by a Dutch scholar Hans Achterhuis and it had evolved into a relatively systematic and comprehensive theory under the fruitful efforts of Peter-Paul Verbeek. Afterwards, with the expansion of the sphere of influences, many scholars joined in the studies of this thought, and it appeared a trend of pluralistic development. Meanwhile, many practices, which bear similar features with "Materializing Morality", have appeared in the field of industrial design and social fields. Even though these practitioners give their practices different names, the basic ideas are commensurable with "Materializing Morality". They have an echoed relationship with each other. This phenomenon also demonstrates that the thought of "Materializing Morality" becomes a widespread and influential trend of the time.The thought of "Materializing Morality" implies great significances both in theory and in practice. In terms of theory, for ethics, it discovers the moral functions of technological artifacts and expands the scope of participants of moral activities; for philosophy of technology, it makes up the shortcomings of the "externalist" approach in philosophy of technology and provides a new way for the integration of the engineering tradition and humanist tradition which have been separated for a long time. In terms of practice, it contributes a new method to regulate human behaviors and enlarges the value space of the traditional design, from the utility and aesthetic dimensionalities to the ethical dimensionality.Nevertheless, the thought of "Materializing Morality" still confronts lots of theoretical suspicions and practical problems. The main suspicions include: firstly, from the angle of mechanism of action, there are possibilities of immoral materialization; secondly, it may challenge the freedom of humans; thirdly, it may cause difficulties in defining responsibilities; and lastly, it may lead to technocracy. In addition, for the main practical subjects in the practices of "Materializing Morality", such as designers, ethicists, enterprises and government, What role they respectively play and how to play their roles in the practices of "Materializing Morality" have not been studied in depth. These are the practical problems which should also be solved.Based on the dialectic analysis of the thought of "Materializing Morality", this thesis introduces the principles of nudge, obligation and dialogue in allusion to the theoretical problems, with the aim to prevent the possible negative consequences of this thought. In allusion to practical problems, it proposes to establish an institutional mechanism, which covers the regulatory mechanism of ethical education, the intervention mechanism of ethicists, the social responsibility mechanism of enterprises and the policy mechanism of government. Last but not least, on the issue of localization, it looks ahead the possibilities to practice this thought in China based on Chinese traditional ethical resources.