What Good Is Technological Progress Without Moral Progress?

What Good Is Technological Progress Without Moral Progress?


What good is technological progress if it does not go concomitantly with moral development? While technology aims delivering products and services that are safer, faster, cheaper, easier and better, the equivalent should be the happiness of the majority if not the world population. The gap between rich and poor continue to increase with more middle-class falling into the lower class. Terrorism and war continue to scare the world population who could think Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was right in proclaiming the twentieth century as bloodiest of all since God is dead, and scientific and technological advances had made belief in God untenable. Such division between the have and have-not could subtly inject Nietzsche's philosophy stating that since free from an absolute God who encompasses absolute moral values, human being could fabricate their morality around the concept of slave morality and master morality:
Nietzsche advances the controversial thesis that contemporary European (or Christian) morality is in fact descended from a slave morality. Although freed from the material conditions of slavery, modern people have become habituated to serve as their own slave masters. Burdened by guilt and wearied by relentless self-surveillance, moderns impose upon themselves,(Conway,2005)
Technology progress must go along with moral progress in achieving the happiness of all. If utilitarian defends the greatest happiness of the majority even at the expense of the minority, such theory could only be relevant if applied to technology. Right technology progress must lead to the greatest happiness of the majority of people if not all of them. While human cannot be used as a means to an end, technology must be utilized as a mean to an end. Economics principle has demonstrated rich and poor a better off after the trade than before the trade. Since we are relational being, ones’ happiness must contaminate another’s unhappiness. It will not make sense I am rejoicing while the person beside me is crying. The quest for moral progress alongside technological progress emphasizes the need to understand universal values in our common humanity, and the golden rule (learning to identify with each other) highlights the basic principle of such universal value and common humanity. 

Conway, D. (2005). Nietzsche, Friedrich W. In C. Mitcham (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics (Vol. 3, pp. 1323-1324). Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX3434900463&v=2.1&u=embry&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=532879b040aaf56ad2b9fcb85d1c9a89

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