Ethical Reflection On Chinese American Science Fiction Writer Ted Chiang's Works

As one of the most prestigious science fiction writers in contemporary world,Ted Chiang is the first Chinese American science fiction writer who has won both Nebula Award and Hugo Award,which are the two most significant prizes in the field of science fiction.Since his first story Tower of Babylon was published,he has only published 13 stories during the 26 years.However,his works have earned a surprising number of science fiction awards.His works are full of exotic ideas,fantastic imagination,strong feelings,detailed narration and profound thoughts.This thesis intends to analyze the ethical issues in his works from the perspective of ethics,aiming at examining Chiang's ethical thoughts in the future and showing the real social problems brought about by the development of science and technology,and providing new topics for the researches in the field of science fiction and Chinese American literature.This thesis takes The Lifecycle of Software Obejects,Linking What You See: A Documentary,Seventy-Two Letters as the main textual references,and respectively chooses three aspects of the novels: the order of social ethics,the ethical dilemmas of artificial intelligence and the ethical crisis of life,to explore the ethical problems in a progressive way.Except the introduction and conclusion part,this thesis will be divided into three parts.The first part focuses on the problems of social injustice caused by the calliagnosia in Linking What You See: A Documentary.Can the calliagnosia eliminate the inherent prejudice and discrimination in human nature? This chapter makes a detailed exploration of ethics of society,politics and even humanity from the perspective of contents and writing styles.He thinks that humanity can not disappear and human can only rely on the influences of social culture and education to gradually make a change.The second part analyzes the ethical dilemmas of artificial intelligence in the The Lifecycle of Software Objects: ethical identity,experience and emotion,free will.By digging the ethical dilemmas encountered by the digients in the process of self-cognition,coexistence with humans and self-seeking,this thesis concludes Chiang's ethical views on artificial intelligence and his ethical reflection on the anthropocentrism and identity of marginal groups.The alienation of things and materialization of humans lead to the conflict of instrumental rationality and value rationality,and humans' behavior itself is the key to solve its ethical dilemmas.The third part is about the ethical crisis of life in Seventy-two Letters.This chapter takes three aspects of life to profoundly study life ethics,and discusses whether the progresses of science and technology can realize the absolute equality and freedom of life or not,and whether the artificial men can prevent mankind from extinction or not.Through the study,it is concluded that science and technology can not replace the natural and sacred essence of life,and the ultimate goal of science and technology is to improve and serve human beings,thus the ethical problems of science and technology returns to the purpose of science and technology itself,namely,the changes of selfish views on scientific ethics and pursuit of the lofty goal of serving the whole mankind.Through the analysis and summary of the three ethical issues in his works,the author of this thesis thinks that Ted Chiang,as a Chinese American science fiction writer,not only concerns about the progresses of science and technology,but also focuses on the ethical problems brought about by the technological changes and development of mankind from a perspective of whole universe.He combines the science and technology in the imaginary world with the ethical problems in reality to explore the ethical dilemmas of technology development and human development,so as to seek for a harmonious ethical views of science,which has universal and practical significance to the world today.