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by jonnycomputer
2878 days ago
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And if her college boyfriend becomes depressed after she leaves and loses it, gets drunk, and hits someone crossing the road while driving, I still hold the thief to have some moral culpability. Moral culpability is shared and distributed across moral agents in time and space, as some function of causal distance and intent. It is the second word, intent, that is the hang up. If a person hurts someone but it was not their intent to do so, that person is not typically to be held morally responsible. So, at least in the western concept of moral culpability, intent matters. But... people also have a responsibility, a responsibility to try to anticipate the consequences of their actions. One cannot shield oneself from culpability by intentionally remaining ignorant. I think that engineers avoid thinking about these things, not out of humility, but because its in their interest to do so. |
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Absolutely agree.
> I think that engineers avoid thinking about these things, not out of humility, but because its in their interest to do so.
This is perhaps the reason we differ. My experience has been that the vast majority of technologists want to make the world a better place.
I believe you see the industry is filled more with people like Wernher von Braun who want to build something cool regardless of social cost. At the dawn of the social media revolution the dominate theory in tech circles was that information shall set you free. The people making it did not come into the industry for status, being a nerd was still a social negative. Today with the ever rising salaries things are changing.
Perhaps you are right that as the industry matures the sphere of liability should increase. I would still argue that the suggestions in the original article swing that much too far. We shouldn't prevent scientific discoveries merely because engineers may build something bad with the information. On the balance scientific discovery has improved the lives of everyone by many orders of magnitude - even if its distributed unevenly.