The enlightenment and Technical Rationality

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The enlightenment and Technical Rationality

• Using Theories in Social Theory (Part II)
• Nigel Horner
• (based upon slides developed by Don Blackburn)

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Why the historical view?

• It is difficult to understand modern debates
  without knowing how they developed
• This lecture will focus on two world views
  Modernism and Postmodernism
• We will try to link ethical questions into the
  debates about knowledge

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The Age of Enlightenment

• 17th and 18th Centuries
• Scientific revolution
• Technical revolution
• Economic revolution
• Political revolutions
• The power of Science and Reason (as a way of
  thinking OR a way of knowing) preferred to
  superstition and traditional ways of thinking.

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Enlightenment, Reason and Progress

• Why was Rationality so attractive?
• Science and technology appeared to deliver The
  Good Life (i.e. Progress) - We may have
  problems - but rational science and technology
  can resolve them.
• Rational political systems are democratic and
  progressive.
• Rational economic systems deliver economic
  progress through capitalism.
• KEY POINT The Enlightenment saw science as a
  route to truth - banishing superstition.
• Science as the source of true knowledge,
  neutral and value free.
• Reason in the form of Rational Practice is the
  way of thinking that supports all of these.

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Benefits of rationality

• Science and Technology delivered progress -
• Disease conquered
• Food production increased
• Good quality housing
• Energy available for all
• Transport

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Transport

• Steamships
• Trains
• Flight
• Mechanisation of travel
• Increased speed
• Moving large numbers of people around
• Shrinking world

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James Clerk Maxwell 1831-1879

• For some writers, science was not simply applied
  to objects and things
• The whole system of civilised life may be
  symbolised by a foot rule, a set of weights and a
  clock

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The clock

• A mediaeval invention
• regulated the religious day
• represents a human purpose
• involved in a change in sense of self
• before the clock - by the rhythms of nature
• after the clock - by an artificial process, an
  abstract, quantified process.

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Immanuel Kant

• Was ist Erklärung? (What is Enlightenment?)
• Enlightenment is man's emergence from his
  self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the
  inability to use one's own understanding without
  the guidance of another.
• Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own
  understanding! (Dare to know!)
• This is an argument for individuals making up
  their own minds, being independent, autonomous,
  free.

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Enlightenment, the individual and politics

• The reasonable individual making rational choices
  for her/himself in the world
• Citizen NOT subject
• Politically and economically FREE to make their
  own choices

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Development of democracy

• Extension of franchise
• New political states
• New political parties

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Work

• Dominance of science, technology
• Mass production, mass administration
• linked to calculating economic system
  (capitalism)
• Development of the professions
• Professional technique involved in solving social
  problems
• Regular, repeatable practice
• Uniform application of expertise

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Technical or Instrumental Rationality

• The application of rational thinking to social
  problems
• Social problems and issues can be dealt with
  technically think about housing, planning,
  population control
• efficiency became the criterion for resolving
  problems.

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Religion and the Enlightenment

• Against priests and vicars
• Reason against Superstition
• God is Dead
• The secular state

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Power of religion
The plague, famine, wars
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What ought we to do?

• The Enlightenment focus on rationality and the
  end of superstition and religion created a key
  problem -
• How do we resolve ethical issues if we no longer
  have religious authority to tell us what to do?

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Immanuel Kant

• Recognised the problem
• Wanted to approach ethical questions rationally
• You should always act in such a way that you can
  turn your decision into a general rule that
  should apply to other people

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Kant and ethicality

• Ethics are based upon the nature of human beings
• Because humans are rational beings - they have a
  duty to behave rationally when it comes to
  ethical decisions
• When we act for reasons we commit ourselves to
  beliefs about what any person would have a reason
  to do i.e., we commit ourselves to universal
  norms or principles applying to all rational
  persons.

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The Categorical Imperative

• Rational beings have a duty to be rational
  ethical beings
• "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your
  own person or in that of another, always as an
  end and never as a means only.

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Enlightened Science Technology?

• The Enlightenment appeared to promise much from
  being rational and following scientific
  principles, but a few minutes reflection on 20th
  and 21st Century
• Nazi Germany?
• Mechanisation of war?
• Motor car?
• BSE and food supply?
• Nuclear power?
• Genetics?
• Surveillance of the population?

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Enlightened Social Life?

• Democratic deficit?
• Consumer Culture
• Commodification of all aspects of our lives
• Standardisation and rational planning of all
  aspects of our lives

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Enlightened Society?

• Inequality, social exclusion
• International inequality
• Pollution and global warming?
• Reaction to modern society
• In other words people are more sceptical nowadays
  about the benefits of science and rational
  thinking

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Key problem

• Rational decision making may have helped develop
  science and technology, commerce, industry.
• But does it help with the old question from
  Socrates How ought we to live?
• In other words is it helpful with ethical
  questions about our lives as human beings?
• This is a key question for the unit and the essay.