KNOWLEDGE AND MORALITY

One could hardly find fault in a soldier researching ways to make weapons from household products. Information such as this could possibly be needed in the course of his or her service to country. It may be quite another matter, however, if someone were to teach a ten-year-old how to make bombs. Although no knowledge by itself can ever be classified as morally good or bad (only acts can have such qualifications). the acts of acquiring, teaching, using, and refusing to share knowledge can.

Sharing knowledge

When knowledge is transferred from one person to another, there are no guarantees concerning how it will be used by the one receiving this knowledge. For example, when people of Europe learnt how to make gun powder from China, the Chinese would not have conceived that it would be used as a weapon of war. After all. for the Chinese it was something to be used in joyful celebrations. In the case of someone teaching a ten-year-old how to make bombs, however, it seems obvious that the teacher ought to anticipate the possibility of this knowledge being used to the detriment of innocent persons. At least the teacher might be guilty of reckless and dangerous behaviour.

Refusing to share knowledge

According to circumstances, just as teaching any technology can possibly be morally wrong, refusing to teach can arguably be wrong as well. Consider the following examples.

A company doing medical research discovered that a simple preparation of a combination of herbs was very effective in the treatment of AIDS. Realizing the great financial rewards possible from such a find, they manufactured drugs from the herbs and sold them at exorbitant prices. The knowledge of how to make the simple, inexpensive home remedy was kept as an industrial secret while many hundreds of thousands of people from the poorest countries around the world died.

Acquiring knowledge

Is the ten-year-old in the first story guilty of an immoral act? Is it ever wrong to pursue any type of knowledge?

First of all, if any technology is pursued with the intention of using the knowledge in the performance of an immoral act, then the acquisition and use of that knowledge are linked to each other by a common intention.

Secondly, if the person acquiring the knowledge feels that sometime in the future, he or she might use it to perform an immoral act, he or she might be guilty of reckless and dangerous behaviour by the pursuit of the knowledge.

Thirdly, because one's time and resources are always limited, the pursuit of knowledge in one area would preclude for that time the pursuit of other more important or more useful knowledge. Of course, acquiring knowledge with the intention or hope of using it for noble purposes is in itself noble.

Using knowledge

Most straightforward and obvious is the ability of man to use his knowledge for good or evil. It is said that knowledge is power. The challenge is therefore to manage this power responsibly and for the good of people. In this lies the whole question of morality in technology and knowledge.

For over one thousand years, whenever a certain Amazonian tribe needed to expand, a section of their population would locate suitable land. They felled just enough trees as necessary. They hunted game, fished in the rivers. Then came foreigners to the Amazon. These people had much greater knowledge of geology and advanced technology in fishing. They set up industries of gold panning, lumber, and even started a small fishery business.

Many young men and women of the tribe were hired to work in the newcomers’ industries for which they earned a small salary. Traditional village life would change forever. Instead of hunting and fishing the tribe developed a dependency on the currency of the newcomers which was used to purchase food and supplies. Many also fell victim to the new pastimes of drinking alcohol and gambling. For a time, life seemed easy and so they were oblivious to the hardships which lurked ahead. Eventually the mines were spent, fish stocks depleted, and forests destroyed. The newcomers left as suddenly as they came, leaving nothing.

How can the world's natural resources be properly exploited?

Must the exploitation of the world's resources benefit everyone? What should be done to stop people from being unfairly exploited in the process?

Should the indigenous people have been told about the likely consequences of the newcomers" activities? Should they have had a part in planning the way their environment was to be exploited?

Should they have had a say in the type of technology used in activities which affect their environment?

How has technology affected our life within the past fifty years? How has television, the internet, and air travel, changed the world's culture? Can you list some good changes as well as bad?

Some more developed countries have advanced agricultural technology sponsored by their governments and can produce various items at a fraction of the cost of similar items by other (under-developed) countries. The effect of this is that less developed countries find it difficult if not impossible to sell their produce internationally. More than this, in the under-developed countries, items imported from the developed countries with their advanced technologies are often less expensive than those produced locally. The result is that many local industries go bankrupt and there develops a dependency syndrome for imported goods which further impoverishes that state.

Should technology which can help poorer countries overcome their poverty, be controlled or protected by anyone? Should it be withheld from poorer countries for fear that as countries become self-sufficient, they may compete more fairly in international markets?

Is it fair to pressure countries that spend time and money developing technologies to share their acquired knowledge with others?

By far the technology which costs the most time and money has been war technology. The pursuit of finding more efficient and ingenious ways of killing other people and destroying structures consume more of our world's wealth than all other technologies put together. It has been estimated that the resources spent on military technology for one year could be enough to eradicate all poverty in the world.

In the context of responsibly using our resources, is the world's pursuit of war technology immoral?

Activity: Write and perform a dialogue between the leader of the South American village and the owner of the company who exploited the village's resources.