The interplay between the needs of society, the implications of society using technology on a wide scale, and the role of morality all play a role in defining human progress. The goal is to balance each in order to create a sustainable future. A sustainable future involves using resources and creating an environment that can sustain future generations. However, it is clear that the current triangle of human progress is an unsustainable arrangement because the arrangement is unstable. Therefore, progress does not necessarily translate to a sustainable future. However, one must take a closer look at what defines progress and how it relates to sustainability in order to discover a connection between them. Furthermore, a further examination of the needs of society, society’s use of technology, and the role of morality is necessary to understand why the interplay between them is unsustainable.
One must first acknowledge the existence of different kinds of progress in order to understand the connection between progress and a sustainable future. Human progress is now classified as either material progress or moral progress. Material progress involves inventing things without a complete rationalization. This leads to a progress trap. Progress traps involves human societies pursuing progress and inadvertently introducing problems they do not have the resources or will to solve for fear of short-term losses in status, stability or quality of life. Our society is experiencing this phenomenon right now. Our society foolishly believes that resources are infinite and neglects the problems that our overconsumption creates. Moral progress involves inventing things for a reason. There is some kind of rationalization involved in moral progress. S...
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...in morality requires that your actions benefit others almost as much as yourself. Human nature makes this hard because an extension in morality generally requires a restriction of freedom. Society’s wide spread use of technology in our agricultural system exemplifies of how our culture disregards morality. The evolution of resistance to pesticides is also a concern because these pesticides negatively affect our bodies. Nevertheless, human progress is related to the needs of society, the implications of society’s wide use of technology, and the role of morality. However, there is evidence to suggest that the interplay between the three does not necessarily equate to human progress. Progress and a sustainable future are related when considering moral progress. Morality plays a key role in a sustainable future and yet is succumb to our culture’s wide use of technology.
Every day I use technology and science, from the allergy pill I take to my cell phone and my Apple watch, technology is a vital part of my day. Are the human values of integrity, honesty and kindness a part of my everyday life, though? Everyone wants to believe they are a good person, but there are so many things in life that aren't good or positive at all, it is apparent that people-who want to think they are good-do mean things. Some of the worst things are done with some of the best intentions, with the idea that the ends justify the means. Science can improve several things, like one's life expectancy, but can it improve the quality of life? Science without morals to support it can be a dangerous thing. This is seen in several of the works we have read this semester, including Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five.
Perhaps the most important question moral philosophy can ask is: who or what is entitled to moral rights? When we discuss differing moral philosophies such as utilitarianism or deontology we do so with the underlying assumption that human beings are centric to the moral code. Should we assume this? Historically speaking humans have only been present on this planet for 100,000 years. The planet itself has been around 4.6 billion years, so the environment and animal life existed long before intelligent human life emerged. Why then, is morality generally accepted to be applied solely to humans? To answer this question I intend to discuss some of the basic tenets of morality, such as the moral community. What does membership in the moral community entail? Does not being a contributing member to the moral community mean that you are not entitled to moral consideration? The way humans deal with the topics of animal rights and environmentalism hinge upon the answer to these questions.
Initially, The book “The Moral Arch” by Michael Shermer talks about as technology advances that we all become more moral to each other. I agree that as we become more technological, we become more moral in majority life, especially when it comes to capital punishment, violent crimes, religion, freedom, and democracy. We can see it through our history during the industrial revolution era, and through our generation today. Science will continue to make us more moral about our daily activities.
I feel that there is progress happening everywhere in the world today. Not all progress is from new advancements in science and technology but a lot of it is. There is so much knowledge held amongst people to allow such advancements to occur. Having knowledge is a great tool because without it, there would be no progress of any sort. People need to learn that they should study as much as possible so maybe one day they can contribute to making more progress happen. Achieving progress is a helpful way of improving our standard way of living. Even though progress is a good thing, I also feel that it can cause problems too. People just need to realize that in order to produce new and better things we might have to go through some rough times on the way. New advancements will continually be arising in the future and hopefully somebody one day will find away to make it so these new advancements will not contain new problems.
Human civilization is constantly in a state of flux. It is always changing, evolving, and adapting to the ways that humans not only interact with one and other, but also with the earth on which we reside. We often call this evolving interaction progress. Progress can be defined as the destruction and re-building of social, political, and religious norms to promote a more prosperous and equitable society. Perhaps more than any other event in human history the European “discovery” of the New World fundamentally altered the social, political, and religious landscape the world over.
In class, we have learned about two political philosophies: conservatism and progressivism. Conservatism is a commitment to traditional values in which change is opposed. On the other hand, progressivism is the advocacy of improvement of society through change and reform movements. This philosophy is based on the idea of progress, expressed in the advancements in science, technology, economics, and social organization. In Billy Joy’s “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” Joy expresses the impact of technology in the lives of 21st century citizens. Joy states that the human race will be overrun and outcompeted by technological advancements to a point where humans are not necessary. To face these challenges in the 21st century proposed by Billy Joy,
Ronald Wright’s A Short History of Progress gives an overall view of the world’s history of progression since mankind has entered the earth. He discusses the argument whether human’s progression has been beneficial or resulted in many catastrophic mistakes. He uses examples to back his argument up such as the civilizations in the past and how their progression also was their reason for their downfall. A civilization needs to handle progression in their society responsibly. Wrights contributions to this argument have been able to lead to further discussion in relation to being a responsible citizen in our world today.
Throughout world history, progress has always been influenced by external factors, which shaped society’s experiences and actions, and which in turn reshaped progress. Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines progress as “the process of improving or developing something over a period of time.” Early scientists and philosophers, such as Copernicus, challenged conservative thinking established by the Catholic Church. They pushed society to be more open minded and consider other possibilities. Over time, as society progressed, many became concerned with how progress was taking place. It seemed to have no consideration for what might be right or serve the greater good. Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, represented an uncontrolled advancement
The term, progress, is synonymous with phrases that denote moving forward, growth, and advancement. It seems unorthodox then that Ronald Wright asserts the world has fallen into a progress trap, a paradox to how progress is typically portrayed as it contradicts the conventional way life is viewed: as being a natural progression from the outdated and tried towards the new and improved. Wright posits that it is the world’s relentless creation of innovative methods that ironically contributes to the progress trap rather than to progress itself, the intended objective. Wright’s coinage of the term “progress trap” refers to the phenomenon of innovations that create new complications that are typically left without resolve which exacerbate current conditions; unwittingly then, matters would have been much better if the innovation had never been implemented. In his book, “A Short History of Progress,” he alludes to history by citing examples of past civilizations that collapsed after prospering, and ones that had longevity because they avoided the perilous progress trap. Wright recommends that societies of today should use indispensable resources, such as history, to learn and apply the reasons as to why certain societies succeeded, while also avoiding falling into the pitfalls of those that failed, the ones that experienced the progress trap. This can easily be interrelated with Godrej’s concept of “the overheated engine of human progress,” since humans for centuries have been risking environmental degradation for progress through ceaseless industrialization and manufacturing. This exchange is doomed to prevent improved progress and will lead to society’s inevitable decline since it is unquestionable that in the unforeseeable future, cl...
The Myth of Progress goes in depth about the elements that define progress and how they impact the environment. The book discusses how people think and how the laws of physics effect the boundaries of nature. The Myth of Progress focused on linear versus complex systems throughout the entire book, this evaluation of them made me look at things in a new way. Complex problems do not have simple solutions even though people want a quick fix to everything. Everything about the environment is a complex system, yet humans keep looking for simple solutions to solve a growing problem. Understanding this forces people to change their thinking of the way systems work and blend together.
Generational conflicts, political strife, environmental regulations, stakeholders in big oil, and many more hurdles affect the push to fully sustainable economies around the world and even here in America. In a world where coal, oil, and natural gas are limited, countries are gobbling it all up as fast as they can before other poorer countries come on the grid. Even though America and other countries gobble up these resources the life of the people is still a struggle to meet basic needs. Sustainability is an intermingling of resource use and protection of the “quality of life”, it is met by using resources sparingly and by recycling or reducing the use of other non-renewable resources to provide for our immediate need, but also to conserve and protect the needs of the next generation and to improve the quality of all the lives to come.
We need a critique of moral values, the value of these values should itself, for once, be examined?. [What if] morality itself were to blame if man, as a species, never reached his highest potential power and splendour? [GM P 6]
...t of the condition of the mankind, it involves learning, and the outcome is discovering the yet unknown. And it seems that progress is the highest when freedom is present, in other words we can not get the most out of ourselves if we have constraints. So by the definition of progress we are unable to say what good is it going to make us, but it will do something generally valuable.
The evolution of technology has changed society in both positive and negative ways. People all over the world use and benefit from modern technology. Technology has simplified the access to many tools people need in education, medicine, communication, transportation, etc. However, using it too often has its drawbacks as well. In most cases, the time of finishing projects is cut by more than half with the help of technology. Many people do not realize that technology has its negative affects society as well, and its rapid advances has changed life for worse in a number of different ways.
This paper discusses the relationship between technology and society. It focuses on how technology has influenced various aspects of the society. The areas looked are: how technology has affected the communication, transportation, education, health, economic activities, environment, food production, food conservation and preservation and food distribution. It has gone further to explain how technology has radically changed the demographic structure of the societies in question, specifically Japan society. In addition, it has discussed how technology has influenced government policy formulation.