Values, Work & Technology

Virtues of Work Challenges of Tech

Exploring how technology challenges our culture’s values

Humanity and Work

What is the relationship between being human and the toil that it takes to maintain a livelihood?

What is the meaning of virtue in human effort?

Answers to this questions have changed over the millennia.

The Ancient Virtue of Work

In the ancient world, the skilled trades (masonry, woodworking, blacksmithing, etc.) were avenues outside of religious rituals in which people recognized and communicated with god(s).

Physical labor and human technology were sacred, not merely a means of livelihood.

This idea was reflected in the works of Plato (4th century B.C) and St. Augustine (5th century A.D.)

Hephaestus on an anvil: God of fire, metalworking, stone masonry and

sculpture.

Plato: Socrates and Phaedrus

Written around 370 B.C. by Plato, a student of Socrates, who used his teacher’s voice to illuminate his own philosophy.

Plato’s dialogues use questioning to get at the heart of an argument.

In this case, Plato deals with the virtue of wisdom with respect to the technology of writing.


Q. Does the technology of writing contribute to true knowledge, or does it give an illusion of understanding?

• Phaedrus argues that first-hand experience (vs. reading) is a critical component of wisdom.

• Socrates argues that truth is truth in all its forms, and reading the written word is one way to receive it.

• Yet, that’s not all there is to it...


Plato further argues that the written word is simply a shadow of living knowledge, which is held only in the soul of a person.


Plato: Wisdom is alive only when it is in practice.

Writing is like planting seeds of wisdom so it may be practiced in others, rather than containing wisdom itself. In order to grow, it must be internalized into the life of the reader.

Augustine and Virtue

Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo (located in today’s Algeria), wrote City of God around the 5th Century during the sack of Rome.


City of God is designed to help believers understand the difference between the spiritual and physical worlds, and the role of humanity with respect to both realms.


Augustine contrasts the virtues he sees in the Judeo-Christian worldview (the “City of God”) and Roman paganism (the “Earthly City”), to which he attributes the decline of civilization.


The last section of City of God, Book XXII, delves into how human technology can be used for virtue or corruption.


Book XXII, Chapter 24, discusses the dual nature of the human being.

Like every animal, God gave humans the gift of sex and procreation.

Humanity also received the gift of a rational mind, which is an amazing attribute specific to people.

The human body, as a gift from God, is beautiful, not simply utilitarian. It has an inherent dignity.


Book XXII, Chapter 24, discusses the dual nature of the human being.

Yet, the blessings of procreation, rational thought and physical flourishing carry risks

Human beings endanger these blessings by turning away from God


Human beings risk these blessings by:

Corrupting sensuality through vice

Using human reasoning to make war and enslave others

Using physical efforts (i.e. technologies of war and oppression) to undermine God’s blessings


Yet, decay is not the destiny of humanity

Christ’s suffering on the cross is a pledge from God that humanity will someday surpass the misuse of his blessings

The afterlife will be characterized by unpolluted sensuality, rationality and physical effort (rather than an absence of these key features of humanity)


Augustine: Don’t wait until the end of time to pursue virtue

Labor, rationality and technology in the present realm can be directed toward death and destruction (the Earthly City), or connect a person to eternal hope and perfection (City of God)

Labor: Sacred or Profane?

In contrast to Plato and Augustine, competing perspectives on work and technology dominated many parts of the ancient world.

Labor: Sacred or Profane?

Simone Weil observed: “The belief in direct instruction in the various trades by God implies the memory of a time when the exercise of these trades was above all a sacred activity. No trace of it remains in Homer, nor in Hesiod, nor in classical Greece, nor in the other civilizations of antiquity, so far as our scanty knowledge about them goes. In Greece, labor was held to be servile.

Plato, in his age, was a survival of an already far-distant past...The Romans destroyed systematically whatever remained of spiritual life in the countries occupied by them... Under their rule, every human activity without exception became something servile; and they ended up by taking away [the idea of common human dignity through] the institution of slavery. (Weil, The Need for Roots)

Enlightenment and Industrialism

The Scientific Revolution helped improve the efficiency of agricultural production and manufacturing technology.

Enlightenment and Modernity removed the reigning theological, and eventually, philosophical systems from dominant places in Western culture.

The idea of virtues in Work and technology were re-conceived in terms of industrial efficiency.

Values alien to the viewpoints of Plato and Augustine emerged.

Virtues of Technology

In the early 19th century, British products dominated the world’s markets.

British exports of wool and cotton soared thanks to the burgeoning industrial revolution.

Some criticized factories for exploiting the poor for profit.


In “The Philosophy of the Manufacturers” (1835), Andrew Uredefended the technological and labor advances that had transformed the British economy.


Ure defended the industrial system as providing an easier life and better compensation for workers:

“The constant aim and effect of [improved technologies] are philanthropic, as they tend to relieve the workmen either from niceties of adjustment which exhaust his mind and fatigue his eyes, or from painful repetition of efforts which distort or wear out his frame.”


Ure: The Industrial Revolution:

- Allowed the production of items that would otherwise be unavailable.

- Improved the amount and consistency of products headed to market.

- Conserved costs by reducing skilled workers in favor of unskilled labor (i.e. young women and children).

Industrial Revolution: Actual Conditions

Dr. James Philip Kay in The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes of Manchester in 1832:

Described terrible living conditions of factory workers in early 19th

century Britain.

Criticized welfare laws as replacing the social good of charity with government programs

Argued that harsh physical conditions contribute to moral decline in working class neighborhoods

The Path Ahead: Emerson

Emerson: “Can anybody remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce ?”


Emerson: The “essence of nature” helps makes us human. It animates our own work, whether the work of our minds or hands.

That essence is distinct from us, but its meaning is imbued with emotions we associate with it. It always remains in some sense, alien to us.


Emerson: How we use technology and labor can further alienate us from the full essence of nature or bring us closer to it.

Discussion Questions

What parallels do you see between Emerson’s, Plato and Augustine’s ideas about labor and technology?

How do Emerson and Augustine connect the interior life of the individual with their ethical use of labor and technology?

What were the driving values of Ure’s endorsement of Industrial Revolution technologies?

What values regarding work and technology do you see at work in today’s society? Please give examples.

Walter Ratliff, 2015

Values, Work & Technology

Education

Transcript of Values, Work & Technology