تقسیم پساپدیدارشناسانۀ روابط انسان و تکنولوژی از نظر دون‎آیدی و ظرفیت‎های آن برای اخلاق کاربری تکنولوژی

Post Phenomenological Division of Human Relationship with Technology from Don Ihde's View and Its Capacities for the Ethics of Using Technology

Morteza Tabatabee¹, Gholamhossein tavakkoli²

¹PhD graduate of philosophy (corresponding aouthor)

²Associate Professor, University of Isfahan

Abstract

Ethics of using technology requires proper classification of technologies so that the ethical principles appropriate to the common characteristics of each major category of technology can be provided. Don Ihde in his post-phenomenological approach categorizes our relationship with technology into four categories of embodiment, hermeneutics, alterity, and background; hence, one can similarly classifies technologies based on their primary function. Accordingly, embodied technologies expand our perceptions; hermeneutical technologies refer to something other than themselves and are like a text open before us; technologies of alterity appear a human person before us; and the background technologies are engaged on the margin of our consciousness. This article intends to show that Ihde’s division is an appropriate foundation for the ethical issues, especially the ethics of using technology, because of its capacities such as its noticing the human relationship with his surrounding world, its including of old and new technologies, and its objectivity and neutrality. However, this division has its ambiguities and shortcomings, including the lack of collectivity and formal flaws. It seems that these shortcomings can be eliminated with a few reforms.

KeyWords: post-phenomenology, ethics of using technology, Don Ihde, embodiment relation, hermeneutical relation, contextual relation, arteritis relation.

1. Introduction

The ethics of technology use, as an important branch of applied ethics, is based on the ethical principles that any technology user is required to observe when using technology. For example, how much an Internet user is allowed to use different identities in cyberspace, or which of the applicable ethical principles of the real world s/he is exempted from is a debate in the field of the use of cyber ethics. However, for any modern technology, due to the complexity and scope of their application, ethical principles are needed for proper use. Cannot we have some common ethical principles be considered for the use of all the various technologies? Certainly, the use of any of the technological tools is very special, and it is difficult to find a common point among all other than human application; therefore, applying some ethical rulings and principles to all of these different types, as well as the various and unpredictable types that may be invented and produced in the future, requires careful consideration. Hence, those who deal with the philosophy and ethics of modern technology have taken several different approaches which can be categorized in these groups: segment-oriented, holistic approach, moderate.

In the segment oriented approach, as the most common approach, a specific technology is discussed separately; its features and applications are examined, and appropriate ethical considerations are discussed. The thing, for example, which was done by Hubert Dreyfus on the Internet (Dreyfus, 2001), Francis Fukuyama about the Genome project (Fukuyama, 2002), Christine Shrader-Frechette on nuclear energy (Shrader-Frechette, 1993), and Jose Van Dijck on digital memory (Dijck, 2007). In this way, the researcher can easily address the technical details of a specific technology, and has a detailed examination of its cultural and social implications and ethical requirements. However, this approach has limitations; First, in such an approach, the scope of users is much more limited than the holistic approach and their suggestions are solely for the users of the same specific technology. Second, if this approach is to be comprehensive, it is necessary to study all different types of technologies, which are numerous, and countless works are to be written. And third, in this approach, many of the common outcomes of all or some of different technologies are repeatedly mentioned, and the relationship between technologies is to some extent overlooked. On the other hand, in the second approach, the holistic approach, all types of technologies are perceived as one, and the implications of all modern technologies for human life are analyzed. In this approach, it is not necessary to speak of various modern technologies, rather it is possible to consider the nature of modern technology, which is a comprehensive concept and separated from the common features of a variety of modern technologies (though not all of them), and before the ethical assessment, one can talk about its overall impact on culture, economics, human policies, and also environment. Those such as Hans Jonas (Jonas, 1982), and Hussein Nasr (Nasr, 2007) have followed such an approach. Of course, this approach has some disadvantage: first, it's not easy to find a common, intrinsic and distinct feature among all types of modern technology. Besides, it is unreasonable to ignore the large number of differences between nuclear bombs, digital cameras, accounting software, digital pens, and puppet robots in favor of one or more general common feature. Secondly, in this approach, judgments toward modern technology deliberately or by mistake are inaccurate and unfair in such a way that the researcher is any moment about to fall in the trap of utopian or dystopian point of view, and always seeks to generalize a specific feature to all types of technology.

Consequently, due to the limitations of the first approach and the disadvantages of the second approach, it seems reasonable to adopt a moderate approach; an approach in which there is no need to examine the types and numbers of technology and users individually, and does not ignore the prominent differences in technologies. This middle solution is to categorize different technologies based on most common features in various groups. The preferred moderate approach in this article, is based on Don Ihde’s post-phenomenological view, in which ‘relation’ is criterion of technologies’ division; the relation between human and technology, and between human and world through technology. 

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