论技术德性的建构

Cultivating the Technomoral Self

受移动电脑、人工智能、机器人、基因工程,以及其他新技术的影响,人类社会与制度的变迁日渐受制于技术的变化。本文面对的问题是"人类怎样在因新兴技术不断涌现而变得日益复杂和充满不确定性的社会中生活得更好"。我对于此问题的简短回答就是"通过共同和谨慎的培养我们自身的思想品德,即技术德性美德"。本论文主要致力于解决三个方面的问题,即:为什么我提出的问题会在当前对人类构成挑战;人类将来是否会繁荣发展取决于我们如何更好地回答此问题;为什么这需要清晰的技术德性品德和美德。我所谓的技术社会模糊性可以解释并回应这样一种现象,即弱化我们的能力以便可靠地参与到未来社会;或者复杂化我们的努力去制定一种能够带给我们及他人美好生活的计划。本人认为,分别独立起源于古代中国、印度及希腊的道德理论——德性伦理学便是一种对当代技术社会模糊性的最合适的理论。接下来我勾勒出了7种技术德性习惯和12种技术美德的框架来解释21世纪人类必须集体培育以应对新技术条件下对美好生活的追求。

Human societies and institutions are increasingly subject to rapid technosocial changes caused by mobile computing, artificial intelligence,robotics, genetic engineering and other new technologies. This paper confronts the question,4〈How can humans hope to live well in a world made increasingly more complex and unpredictable by emerging technologies＇＂ In an abbreviated form,my answer is this： uby collectively and deliberately cultivating in ourselves a specialkind of moral character ,one that expresses what I will call the technomoral virtues. This paper is devoted to explaining three things： why the question I have posed challenges humanity at this historical moment; how the future of human flourishing dependsupon our ability to answer this question well; and why doing so will require an explicit account of technomoral character and virtue. My account responds to a growing phenomenon I call acute technosocial opacity＇ a phenomenon which, by weakening our ability to reliably anticipate the future, also complicates our efforts to plan for and bring about a good way of life for ourselves and others. I argue that virtue ethics,a moral theory with roots in disparate cultures from classical China＇ India and Greece,is an old approach that is ideally suited to modern conditions of technosocial opacity. I then outline an account of seven technomoral habits and twelve technomoral virtues that 21^st century human beings must collectively seek to cultivate if we are to have any hope of living wisely and well with emerging technologies.