Food and Agricultural Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective by Paul B. Thompson

Author:Paul B. Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030612146
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

8.1 Technology, Politics and the Prediction of Social Change

As discussed in Chap. 2, Hans Jonas developed the philosophical rationale for predicting and managing the risks of technological innovation in The Principle of Responsibility. Though foresighted in calling attention to health and environmental impacts, Jonas was primarily interested in the way that technology functions as an infrastructure for interpersonal relations. He stressed the way that communication and transportation technologies were transforming the idea of responsibility itself. Throughout much of human history, ethical evaluations of human conduct presumed that face-to-face interaction would predominate. Adam Smith had noticed initial transformations of the day-to-day giving rise to anonymous transactions and contracting. Jonas argued that by the 1970s, the very nature of the ethical domain had already been transformed by what we would today call globalization, (Jonas 1984).

Jonas argued that attempts to manage technology’s social consequences is controversial in part because the mechanisms that link technological innovation to its eventual impact are generally opaque to non-specialists (including many of the scientists, engineers and administrators who bring about the innovation), and often obscure even to scholars of technology. This basic conceptual problem would limit our ability to discuss and debate the social consequences of technology in the best of circumstances, but agrifood biotechnologies were not introduced under the best of circumstances. Cold War politics complicated debate over technology during the last half of the twentieth century. The less industrialized agricultural economies of Africa, Asia and Latin America became a battleground. Competing strategies for promoting economic development in nations that were gaining independence from colonial powers reflected the debate between capitalism and socialism. The small group of social activists at the core of the anti-GMO social movement were critics of capitalism, while scientists working with corporate support were committed implicitly to market mechanisms for diffusion of their innovations, (Schurman and Munro 2010). The debate over GMOs was prefigured as a debate over social philosophy, with boosters taking a dismissive attitude toward any claim that smelled of Marxist influence. Yet, from a philosophical perspective, omitting Marx’s thought from any discussion of technology’s social consequences is either naïve or intellectually dishonest. The following analysis is indebted to his work. Nevertheless, many regard Marx’s ideas as suspect, and the use of his name inevitably colors the manner in which assessments of technology’s social impact is received, especially in the United States.

The upshot is that simply predicting the social consequences of food biotechnology can spark controversy, irrespective of the norms or values that are applied in evaluating the ethical significance of those consequences. Schurman and Munro’s analysis of the social movement to oppose gene technology describes anti-biotechnology advocates as resisting the growing power of multinational corporations. They wanted to shield small farmers from corporations’ ability to dominate markets for farm commodities, (Schurman and Munro 2010). However, Schurman and Munro do not discuss the socioeconomic mechanisms that link agricultural production technology to harmful impact on small farmers. Some sort of account that portrays introduction of the technology as a cause, and social disruption as the effect is critical for a risk-based approach.

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