|
January 6, 2005
The politics of science. I can see the shift away from a realist metaphysics, namely:
"...the metaphysical universe of modernity...[that is]...the concept of nature as an objective entity that obeys its own laws and scientists who claim a privileged authority to represent the facts of this external realm and to interpret their implications for our lives. [This gives us] a world in which facts and values, reality and morality, science and politics, and causal necessity and freedom are seen...as dichotomous."
Latour rejects this realist philosophy of science for a more constructivist one. Well you could say that capitalism requires the subjugation of the entire objective world, which includes nature, to ensure its production. Nature must be made to appear under the instrumental control of the capitalist through the use of science and technology.
And there is a big literature on technocracy: on the way that technology and science could bring about a utopia, a society of harmony, security, abundance, and leisure; in order for these ideals to be realized, society would have to conform to the needs of the machine; with this transformation of society and its superstructure needing to be supervised by an elite group of scientists and engineers. Technocracy is a threat to democracy.
I presume this technocratic figure of modernity is what Latour is arguing against.
But I cannot see the new connection between science and democracy, other than a constructivist philosophy of science being more respectful of the multitude of diverse viewpoints, more egalitarian and more deliberative, and its denizens are ready to resolve conflicts through compromise rather than by appealing to unchallengeable knowledge or final truths.There seems to be nothing about an ethically informed and politically engaged science.
Yet technocracy has returned in the new guise of pro-genetic engineering, that defends progress as a good thing, and tells us to trust institutional science to make the right decisions.
That trust should be questioned given the philosophical background of technicism behind genetic engineering. Egbert Schuurman says:
"Technicism reflects a fundamental attitude which seeks to control reality, to resolve all problems with the use of scientific-technological methods and tools. Technicism entails the pretense of human autonomy to control the whole of reality. Human mastery seeks victory over the future. Humans are to have everything their way. We want to solve all problems, including the new problems caused by technicism; and to guarantee, whenever possible, material progress. Technicism obeys two fundamental norms, as if they are the two main commandments: technical perfection (or effectiveness) and efficiency."
That implies that it cannot make ethical judgements.The manner in which, and the means by which the ends of human mastery are achieved through scientific-technological control are not put into question.Nor are the ends that sanction the instrumental means of scientific-technological control.
|
