Best, Kendall Clark, The Monkeyfist Collective
Title: The Moral Life of Geeks Abstract: In a society that is increasingly undemocratic and fascist, what moral dilemmas do technically-minded people face, and how might they resolve them?
Develop the fundamental theory, algorithms, and software for the
design and analysis of robust, high-performance, team-based,
multi-agent cooperative control systems operating in dynamic,
uncertain, adversarial environments.
That sounds like fun, where do I apply? As it turns out, the
[1]Office of Naval Research. It seems that most of the really
interesting research -- especially in areas of intersection between
computer software, biotech, and nanotech -- is funded today either
by the Pentagon System or corporations. But what if you are, like
most Monkeyfisters, a geek and a leftist? What if you are a person
inclined to do technical work but also inclined to refuse to work
for evil institutions, that is, institutions that cause undeserved
harm?
The basic dilemma lies between, on the one hand, not developing
one's innate and learned capacities, which can be a kind of harm to
oneself and to others, and, on the other, developing one's
capacities by working for evil institutions.
The dilemma has many forms. For example, most Monkeyfisters are or
have been involved in developing [2]free software, often [3]because
of moral considerations. And yet there is a moral tension: Richard
Stallman wrote the [4]GPL in order to give software people a way to
share their efforts freely with neighbors. But one of the guiding
principles of [5]open source software is that licenses cannot
[6]discriminate against fields of endeavor. But what about fields of
endeavor that are evil? What about writing software, or doing
research, that will, directly or indirectly, be used to cause
undeserved harm to others?
I owe myself and others a duty to develop my capacities; and one way
I've chosen to do that is to be involved in the development of a
free software infrastructure. But I also owe an obligation to refuse
and resist cooperation with evil institutions. Under all standard
free software licenses, anyone may use the fruits of my labor --
including evil institutions like the Pentagon, the US Armed
Services, defense contractors like [7]Boeing and [8]United
Technologies; online porn merchants; biotech corporations like
[9]Monsanto; and agents of globalization like the [10]World Trade
Organization. So in developing free software it appears that far
from resisting cooperation with evil institutions, I'm may be
directly or indirectly contributing to them.
I've only used free software development as a representative
activity; what I've said so far about it applies to many kinds of
technical R&D. Why shouldn't I discriminate against evil fields of
endeavor? There are three standard responses:
1. Technology is amoral. The first response is that since
technology is morally neutral, so as long as I don't put my work
to evil ends, I'm not morally blameworthy.
2. Redefine the dilemma. The second response says that just because
I can write software or do research that may be used by evil
institutions, doesn't mean I have to. I could be a waiter or a
farmer instead.
3. Applied technology v. basic science. The third response
distinguishes between basic research and applied technology; in
doing so, it claims that, since it increases human knowledge and
is only indirectly, if ever, applied, basic research is morally
praiseworthy, or at least not prima facie morally blameworthy,
even if evil institutions ultimately use it to achieve evil
ends.
The first response is flawed. It's simply not the case that all
technology is necessarily amoral. Technology, like any other
cultural artifact, doesn't just fall from the sky. It's always
already embedded in, and inextricable from, social space, which is
always already a political space, which, in turn, is always already
an ethically-contested space.
I take this lesson from the work of David Noble and Steven Shapin.
Technology, with very few exceptions, gets developed in our late
Western capitalist era because its development gets funded by
governments and corporations, often in partnership. Failing to take
that social and political context into account when evaluating
technologies, and the morality of one's participation in their
development, is simply to fail to take account of all the relevant
facts. While some technologies -- for example,
[11]computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) -- can be used
equally well for good or evil ends, technology itself is not
necessarily amoral.
The second response is coherent, but problematic if you believe, as
I do, that persons have a duty, to themselves and to some others, to
develop their innate and learned capacities as a necessary condition
of human flourishing. The second response is applicable in what we
may call limit situations in which the only choice one has is either
developing one's capacities in association with an evil institution
or not developing them directly, if at all. What proponents of the
second response fail to recognize is that limit situations are rare.
In sum, then, the second response is a useful and valid one, but
only in some rare situations.
The third response claims, essentially, that whatever the moral
status of particular bits of applied technology, or engineering,
basic research is at least only second-order problematic. While I
agree that we shouldn't abandon all basic research, even when it's
reasonable to assume that some of it will be used to achieve evil
ends, it's unclear whether most technical people do basic research,
or whether doing basic research funded by evil institutions should
be done at all. The modern research university is obviously of
crucial importance, but an ever-increasing majority of research done
in universities is funded by the Pentagon and corporations. In
short, that basic research is only second-order morally problematic
can at best be ameliorative, not dispositive, of the basic dilemma.
(And in the particular case of software geeks, most software
development is more like applied tech than basic research, i.e.,
more like the development of, say, the [12]Apache Web server than
what Donald Knuth does, and so the third response isn't very helpful
to the geeks.)
So how should technical people respond to this dilemma? I suggest
three kinds of response, the first two of which are specific to the
development of free software, while the third is generally
applicable.
First, we need to reinvigorate moral debate about free software
(and, by extension, about technology and intellectual property in
general) by talking not only in terms of freedom, which Richard
Stallman has done well, but also in terms of responsibility, that
is, acknowledgment of one's duty to avoid cooperating with
institutions that are evil. One way to do that is to talk about an
Ethical Public License, at least as a thought-experiment. What
might such a license look like? Is it legally possible to write
binding software license that prohibits particular its use within
fields of endeavor or particular types of institution? What kind of
moral claims are involved in such a license? How far should one go
to prohibit one's work from being used to cause undeserved harm?
Could the resulting license still make a claim to be free software,
that is, a tool of extending personal freedom?
Second, and this applies primarily to those of us who are both
leftists and geeks, we need to challenge the wholly unreflective
libertarianism of free software, and Internet, culture. Most geeks,
I suspect, would not credit the dilemma I've described, if for no
other reason than that most geeks are habituated libertarians, who
don't think about their technical work in terms of social or
institutional analysis.
Finally, we need, especially in America, to reassert democratic
control over the kinds of institution that fund technology
development and basic research, but particularly those that are
ostensibly democratic: government and universities. In that way we
may be able to reassert control over public corporations as well.
What good can come of reasserting democratic control? If
governments, universities, and corporations were under democratic
control, they could be harnessed to pursue ends that contribute to,
rather than impede, human flourishing. Under strong, reinvigorated
democratic control, the moral status of basic research becomes much
clearer, since it becomes reasonable to assume that the applications
of that research will be for good, not for harm. Democratic control
of these institutions would make limit situations exceedingly rare,
since it would tend to promote the pursuit of good ends over evil
ones.
Technology has liberative potential, but only if it's controlled by
democratic structures and institutions. And given the sorry state of
American democracy at present, it's no wonder that geeks, engineers,
and scientists of good will daily face difficult moral dilemmas. The
solution to those dilemmas, and the key to harnessing technology for
the good, is the reassertion of democracy in the face of its slow,
ongoing demise.
References
1. http://www.onr.navy.mil/sci_tech/special/muri2001
2. http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
3. http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/why-free.html
6. http://www.opensource.org/osd-rationale.html#clause6
11. http://usabilityfirst.com/cscw.html
-- Posted on Monkeyfist at http://monkeyfist.com/articles/651