Thursday, September 01, 2011

Technological progress isn't moral progress

Francis Bacon talks of how technological progress is moral progress. I would say that in some cases it could help moral progress, however it often times opens people up to more immoral temptation than they would normally encounter as well as it is easier to see other people using technology for immoral things, making it seem more acceptable. It is each persons responsibility to avoid easy accesable immoral temptations, and use the technology we have to progress morally.

1 comment:

patty-wack said...

I totally agree 100% with Mr. Cappel on this. Technological progress often times does in fact lead to immoral actions. Now for me personally my faith/religion helps me define what is moral and what is not. With that being said the simplest way for me to define an immoral action is anything that goes against God, i.e. sin. It is very evident that as progress is made in the technological field it becomes progressively easier to sin (act immorally). A great example of this idea is cell phones. Cell phones provide a great service to us all and are in many cases are required in everyday life. This is what makes cell phones good. The problem is they make "immoral temptations" that much easier in many ways; thus impeding progress of us striving to be a moral race. This could then lend itself to support the idea that progress then is immoral. Although there is logic behind this thought it too is flawed because progress has many moral applications. This brings us to a cross roads, is technological progress moral or immoral? The answer to this question lies in the individual’s use of the progress itself. So personally then I would argue that it is mostly immoral given trash that can be found the internet... All in all it is a very astute observation.