Ethical Mastery of Innovative Technologies
Serban
Broché and Costea Munteanu
According
to conventional wisdom, economic activity is part of society, and therefore,
the economic actions of people are subject to ethical rules and can be
evaluated from the moral point of view, just as any other human activity can be
so evaluated. There is hardly an ethical problem, in fact, without its economic
aspect; human daily ethical decisions are in the main economic decisions, and
nearly all people’s daily economic decisions have, in turn, an ethical aspect.
Ethical conclusions cannot be arrived at independently of, or in isolation
from, analysis of the economic consequences of institutions, principles, or
rules of action. Ethics and Economics are intimately related, as both of them
study human action, choices, and valuation, though from different points of
view.
Under
these circumstances, it is not surprising that, particularly during the last
decades, research works situated at the interface between Economics and Ethics
have proliferated and a new field, Economic (Business) Ethics, has emerged. It
is now a firmly established field, defined by a set of interrelated problems
with which it deals. In fact, Economic Ethics typically involves four main
kinds of activities [De George - 1986, pp.18-19]. The first is the applying of
general ethical principles to particular cases or practices in business. The
second kind of activity is metaethical: investigation of whether moral terms
that are generally used to describe individuals and the actions they perform
can also be applied to organizations, corporations, businesses, and other
collective entities. A third conventional activity of Economic Ethics is the analysis
of the presuppositions - both moral presuppositions and presuppositions from a
moral point of view - of economic activity. Fourthly, it deals with macro-moral
issues, such as whether rich countries have any moral obligations to poor countries
or transnational corporations to host countries. In brief, the traditional
approach to Economic Ethics suggests that this field can help people address
moral issues in business more systematically, and with better tools than they might
otherwise use.
The
Conventional Morality-Based Approach to Economic Ethics
For
conventional researchers in Economic Ethics, ethical rules, judgments, and
propositions are attempts to answer the question: what is the best thing to do?
As all human action is undertaken in order to substitute a more satisfactory
state of affairs for a less satisfactory state, the ethical conduct is the
conduct considered likely to lead to the most satisfactory situation in the
long run. But, to say that people seek to maximize their satisfaction in the
long run is only another way of saying that they seek to maximize their
happiness and well-being (In its broadest sense, happiness is synonymous with
the greatest possible harmonization and satisfaction of human desires).
Accordingly, for standard ethical economists, the morality of human
(economic) actions can be judged by their tendency to promote long-run
happiness and well-being.
It follows that
the conventional approach to Economic Ethics can be fitted into several very
broad classifications, namely [Hazlitt/1990, pp.166-167]:
-
it
is eudaemonic, because it
regards the end of economic action as the promotion of the greatest happiness
and well-being in the long run;
-
it
is teleological, because
it judges economic actions or rules of action by the end they tend to bring
about, and defines “right” actions as actions that tend to promote “good” ends;
-
it
is utilitarian, insofar
it holds that economic actions or rules of action are to be judged by their
consequences and their tendency to promote human happiness;
-
it
is also cooperative, as
the broad purpose of ethical rules in economic activity is to harmonize human
attitudes and actions so as to make the achievement of everyone’s aims as far
as possible compatible. This purpose can be realized when these rules are not
only such as to enable people to anticipate and to depend upon each other’s behaviour,
but when they promote and intensify people’s positive cooperation with each
other. That is why, advocate conventional ethical economists, social
cooperation can be considered as the heart of morality in economic affairs, and
the means by which each individual can most effectively supply his own wants
and maximize is own satisfactions.
Consequently,
the conventional approach to Economic Ethics appears to be an essentially
anthropocentric one, as the content and scope of ethical judgments applied to
economic activity are exclusively limited to social requirements and norms. In
fact, the ethical limitations on economic activity as perceived by standard
economics are basically social limitations (from reverse discrimination or
truth in advertising to workers’ rights or trade secrets). By contrast, it
seems to us that there is an increasing number of researchers who are now much
more inclined to see economic activities and ethical judgments attached to them
as being limited by physical factors, rather than by social ones. It is what we
call the first radical reconsideration
of the conventional Economic Ethics.
A Non-Conventional
Biophysical – Based Approach to Economic Ethics
Over
the last hundred years, economist remained attached to one particular idea, the
mechanistic epistemology which dominated the orientation of the founders of the
neoclassical school [Georgescu-Roegen/ 1975, p.347]. By their own admission,
the greatest ambition of these pioneers was to build an economic science after
the model of mechanics - in the words of Stanly Jevons - as “the mechanics of
the utility and self-interest” [apud Georgescu-Roegen, op.cit., p.347].
The
latter-day standard economists have apparently been happy to develop their
discipline on the mechanistic tracks laid out by their forefathers, strongly fighting
any suggestion that economics may be conceived otherwise than as a sister
science of mechanics. The consequence of this indiscriminate attachment to the
mechanistic dogma was the viewing of the economic process as a mechanical
analogue consisting of a principle of conservation (transformation) and a
maximization rule. The economic science itself was thus reduced to a timeless kinematics.
To
equate the economic activity with a mechanical analogue implies, therefore, the
idea that the economic process is a self-sustaining, circular flow between
“production” and “consumption” which cannot possibly affect the environment of
matter and energy in any way. The obvious conclusion is that there is no need
for bringing the environment into the analytical picture of that process.
However, the crucial point is that the economic process is not an isolated,
self-sustaining one. This process cannot go on without a continuous exchange
which alters the environment in a cumulative way and without being, In its
turn, influenced by these alterations [Georgescu-Roegen, op.cit., p. 348]. For
the critics of mechanistic epistemology which dominates standard economics, actual
economic phenomena move in a definite direction and involve qualitative change.
At least, this is the lesson of classical thermodynamics. Therefore, the
economic activity, like any other life process, is irreversible and cannot be
properly explained in classical mechanical terms alone. It is thermodynamics -
as already we have said – through the entropy law, that recognizes the
qualitative distinction which economists should have made from the outset
between the inputs of valuable resources (low entropy) and the final outputs of
valueless waste (high entropy).
The
extraction of resources, their combination and transformation in production and
their final disposal in the form of waste (or their recycling) results in a
continuous change of the “orderliness” of the earth. The concept of entropy can
be used to characterize the orderliness of a system: the higher the disorder
the higher the entropy and vice versa. The extraction of a resource from a site
with a high concentration and its final disposal into the environment, where a
diffusion process takes place, increases the entropy of the system [Faber and
Proops/1985, p.607].
One
important implication is the fact that the entropy law is actually the taproot
of economic scarcity; in the context of entropy, every action, of man or of on
organism, in fact, any process in nature, must result in a deficit for the
system. Another critical implication is that, given the entropic nature of the
economic activities and processes, waste is an output just as unavoidable as
the input of natural resources. “Bigger and better” economic products
necessarily cause not only “bigger and better” depletion of natural resources
but also “bigger and better” pollution [Georgescu-Roegen/1972, p.18]. In this
respect, it is worthwhile to mention that the last two decades withness the
realization by many economists that economic activity has a biophysical
underpinning that cannot be ignored [Faber and Proops/ 1985, p.599]. Thoben
[1982] has suggested that the use of mechanical analogy in standard economics
should be supplanted by the use of “organistic” analogy, recognizing that a
complex economic system is more akin to a self regulating and developing
organism than to a mechanical system. A similar exploration of organistic
analogy is due to Fehl [1983, apud Faber and Proops,op.cit.,p.601], who draws
an analogy between economics and “dissipative structures”. In a similar vein
Hannon [1985] has argued for the analogy between economics and ecosystems to be
recognized, with ecosystems offering the potential for an experimental systems basis
for economics.
The
fact is that the debate over the importance of environmental and resource
problems generated by economic activity caused many economists to adjust their
conventional stance and come to accept that economic activity has a biophysical
foundation, rather than a merely socially - conditioned one. Moreover, they
came to understand that the economic activity of any generation has some
influence on that of the future generations - as terrestrial resources of
energy and materials are irrevocably used up and the harmful effects of
pollution of the environment accumulate. For the non-conventional economists, one
of the most important ethical economic problems for mankind, therefore, is
nowadays the relationship of the quality of life of one generation with another
- more specifically, the distribution of mankind’s dowry among all
generations. Standard economics cannot even dream of handling this problem. The
object of mainstream economics, as has often been explained, is the
administration of scarce resources; but to be exact, one should add that this
administration regards only one generation. For conventional economics it could
not be otherwise: each generation can use as many terrestrial resources and
produce as much pollution as it alone decides. Future generations are not,
simply because they cannot be, present on today’s market. And it would certainly
be poor economics – for standard economists - to sacrifice anything for a
nonexistent beneficiary. Accordingly, there is no doubt that the market
mechanism cannot protect mankind from ecological crises in the future and
cannot optimally allocate resources among generations, even if we would try to
set the prices “right”.
The
only way to protect the future generations, argue the supporters of the
non-conventional, biophysical-based approach to ethical judgments in economics,
is by reeducating ourselves so as to feel some sympathy for our future
fellow humans in the some way in which we have come to be interested in the
well-being of our contemporary “neighbors” [Georgescu-Roegen/1975, p.376].
This
nonconventional perspective suggests that economists need not only an
understanding of environmental and resource problems from their biophysical
foundations, but even more, an appreciation of the ethical implications
attached to economic activity within a biophysical framework. Under such a new
ethical orientation, the morality of the economic actions will no more be
primarily judged by their tendency to promote long-run happiness and well-being,
but rather by their tendency to refrain from “unnecessary” harm to the
ecosystem.
The Intermediating Role of
Technical Change
The
biophysical view on ethical issues in economics represents, as already mentioned,
a first major reconsideration of the standard economic ethics. This non-conventional
perspective is due to the realization by many economists that economies have a biophysical
underpinning that cannot be ignored. They are concerned, in fact, about the
biopsycal limits to social activity, as follows:
-
on the
one hand, the problem of the irreversibility of productive activity and the
constraints this places on economic activity in the long run because of finite
exhaustible resources;
-
on
the other hand, the problem of how pollution may act as a physical limitation
on man’s economic activity.
For
non-conventional economists, in the long-run biophysical limitations might well
be binding. However, they argue, these constraints are likely to generate a
social response which moves the economy away from the constraint, through
technical and social adjustment. In the view of these economists, social
transformation, technical change and biophycal constraints come together to
form a web of recursive interrelationships, with technical change springing
from the combination of social demand and the constraints on physical supply
[Faber, Niemes and Stehpan/1983, chapter 8; Faber and Proops/1985, p.608-609].
Therefore technical progress, in addition to its usual interpretation, has the
important role of intermediating between social demand and the physically and
technically possible.
These leads the above mentioned
economists to conclude that it is not sufficient to look at social and economic
activity solely with the concepts of standard economics and conventional economic
ethics since this would ignore a major source of social change, namely technological
innovation which springs from the biophysical nature of economic activity. In
other words, in order to be ethical, human (economic) actions should refrain
from “unnecessary” harm to the ecosystem, and this can be effectively achieved
if technological innovation intermediates between social demand and biophysical
constraints. That is, technological innovation means social demand
adjustment to biophysical constraints by restrainig from “unnecessary”harm to
the ecosystem.
1.
The
Bioepistemological – Based Approach to Economic Ethics
Conventional
ethical economists remain attached to anthropocentric approach, insofar
the content and scope of ethic judgments applied to economic activity are
exclusively limited to social requirements. Their object study is the
application of general moral principles to particular cases or practices in
business, while social cooperation is considered as the heart of
morality in economic activities. Consequently, the purpose of moral rules in
economic affairs is to harmonize human attitude and action so as to make the
achievement of everyone’s aims as far as possible compatible. All these explain
why, for conventional ethical economists, the morality of human economic
actions can be judged by their tendency to promote long-run happiness and
well-being.
By contrast, biophysical economists
are much more inclined to see economic activities and the ethical judgments
attached to them as being primarily defined in terms of physical constraints,
rather than in social ones. For these economists, the thermodynamic approach
is a way for economics to get in touch with its biophysical foundations,
while using the concept of entropy makes an economist aware of the irreversible
nature of the time structure of many environmental and resource processes.
In the context of entropy, every human economic action results in a deficit for
the entire ecosystem, so that resource depletion and environmental pollution
are unavoidable outputs. Accordingly, the principle of optional resource
allocation among generations gets a crucial relevance, and the ethical
content of any human economic action can be judged by its tendency to refrain
from “unnecessary” harm to the ecosystem.
There is no doubt, in our opinion,
that the approach proposed by biophysical economists represents a radical and
beneficial reconsideration of the reductionist view promoted by conventional
ethical economists. However, thermodynamics - with its concepts of irreversibility
and entropy – is only a component process of the evolution and development of
the Univers, in general and of the ecosystem, in particular. Recent
authoritative research works in the field of physics suggest that in our
Univers the negentropic processes complement the entropic ones.
Accordingly, it is our conviction that a more integrative perspective is needed
(we shall propose the self-organization approach) and a more elaborate founding
principle has to be employed (we shall propose the ameliorative equilibration
principle) in order to properly explain and understand the way ecosystem
evolves and to better define the issues that Economic Ethics has to deal with.
In other words, it seems to us that a second-generation revision of
conventional Economic Ethics is needed.
The Principle of Ameliorative Equilibration
The
phylogenetic, psychogenetic and sociogenetic systems operate according to a law
of direction (called by biologists
vection) which is the ameliorative equilibration. This vection is being
realized by means of an evolutionary strategy which could be summarized as it
follows: introduction of a maximum of COMPATIBLE novelty with the conservation
of the maximum of validated acquisitions.
We
won’t insist upon the functional reason of the vection as it is obvious that in
all fields and at all levels the
disequilibrations play an important role since they require reequilibrations.
From a structural point of view the
main issue is to justify both functionally and inseparable dimensions: the
compensation of disturbances, which trigger the
disequilibrium motivating the search, and the construction of novelties, which
characterizes the amelioration (i.e. re-equilibration).
Unlike the organic assimilations and
accommodations, which lay upon substances and energies necessary to conservate structures that continuously
became more specific, the assimilation and accommodation at the cognitive
level, extending these biological process, can constantly enlarge its field
(that comprises larger sectors of reality, including the progressive world
of co-possibles). This indefinite
extension cannot be reduced to empiling because the specificity of the
assimilation consists, on the contrary,
of a genuine integration - that is,
a game of establishing relations which entails the formation of
totalities cyclically self closed. These
remarks lead us to the structural considerations.
1.
The
first reason that conditions the other ones, is the features of interdependence
of the components of the entire assimilation cycle (beginning with the
elementary schemes up to the formal
schemes of sciences). When we talk about assimilation we necessarily refer to a
previous system, irrespective of its rank, that is more or less solidly or
durably integrated, this integration depending on such cycles. Otherwise the
assimilation would be reduce to some accidental-empirical associations.
2.
The
second reason takes into account the fact that the fundamental factor of an
epistemic equilibration is the conservative
action that the totalities of the systems of any rank exercise over their parts to the
extent that both are accomplished. It
is also true that this accomplishment is variable, hence the degrees of
invariance: a stronger or a weaker
stability depending of the new accommodations. But the action exercise by the
totality is essential to all stages because it arises from the previous
functioning of the assimilation and the conservation of the entire cycle, that
is the parts’ subordination, is a sine qua non condition of the continuation of this functioning.
Consequently,
this power of conservation exercised by the totality is the supreme regulator
that orientates every minute the local regulations of the parts. This is done
as an imperative requirement: either the insertion of new assimilations and
accommodations within the entire cycle
became possible, or the cycle is broken and the system abandoned.
3.
The
third reason refers to the fact that the totalities elaborated as we described
before never represent the final term. This is so because, on the one hand, the
possibilities opened by the establishment
of its structure are virtual disturbances related to its current
(present) state (which raise the problem of the critical thresholds) and , on
the other hand, due to the fact that the regulation of their functioning
generate sooner or later anticipations which at their turn produce
“reflechissements”, hence new levels on which the actions or operations used as
instruments in previous structures
become thematized object of thinking.
The
result of it is an enlargement of a structure, with to the extension of
some variations in plus or minus and new morphisms between negations and
positive features. The entire history of sciences reveals such a process of
reflective abstraction which explain the formation of the new structures
(totalities) starting from the previous ones.
4.
The
reflective abstraction (abstraction reflechissante), responsible for the
formation of new levels, is indissolubly connected to a reorganizing reflexion
(abstraction reflexive) oriented towards more sophisticated compensations
between negations and affirmations. Both the reflective and reflexive abstractions
are jointly responsible for the sophistication of the process of regulation: if
the first arises from what is called “prise de conscience” (J. Piaget), hence
the thematization of previous operations, the second is in fact a new
regulation grafted onto the previous
regulation, which provides them a better guidance. The formation of the
regulations of regulations can be explained by the joint action of
reflective and reflexive abstractions and not as a new factor introduced from
the outside.
5.
The
fifth reason leads to this apparently paradoxical result: each structure
(totality) is backed upon the next one which realizes the possibilities opened
by the previous structure (totality): indeed, if the regulator of the previous
structure is the power of its totality as cycle, then the construction of the
next totality is submitted even from its starting point to the necessity to
preserve the previous one in its form of cycle, but extending it.
In
other words, the new assimilations and accommodations are simultaneously derived
from the previous and the back-up of previous because they clarify them by
completing them.
Distinct
from the return to a previous equilibrum, the ameliorative equilibration which
unites indissolubly the constructions and compensations is not explicable only
by the need to feed the scheme of assimilations (theoretically unlimited, but
alone it could lead only to an accumulation
of juxtapositions). The ameliorative equilibration consists of the fact
that the forms of the previous structure (totalities) become, due to the
reflexive thematization, contents for the superior forms and can be then completed
with new contents thanks to this type of completive
generalization which generates its own contents by combining and
synthesizing the proactive, retroactive and justificative implications.
The
fact that these systems are based on the evolutionary strategy of knowledge
acquisition means that the ameliorative products of the previous
constructive cycle are integrated in the
current (present) totality to form the initial object of the next cycle.
It
results from this that, on the one hand, the system is self constructive and
“on the other hand that the constructions of the previous cycle become
available for the next cycle both as components for new constructions and as
precursors (forerunners) submitted to an ameliorative reconstruction, the products
acquired being also submitted to a continuous and selective re-evaluation which
can at each cycle replace them.
To
sum up, the evolutionary principle of ameliorative equilibration can be expressed as it follows: the goals and
the forms of the parts are compatible with the goal and the form of the totality.
The Epistemological Precarity of
the Process of Technological Innovation
Non-conventional
biophysical economists have convincingly argued that social transformation,
technical change and biophysical constraints come together to form a web of
recursive interrelationships, with technical change springing from the
combination of social demand and the constraints of physical supply. Therefore,
the process of technological innovation has the important role of
intermediating between social demand and the physically and technically
possible.
The point is that modern
technological innovation process does not play such a role. On the contrary,
there is strong evidence that most of the current technologies that dominate
the productive processes in advanced countries conflict with the ecosystem. In
our interpretation, the reason lies in a basic epistemological precarity
which founds the modern process of technical change. This precarity consists of
its serious deviation from the principle of ameliorative equilibration. This deviation means that the goals
and froms of the parts (synchronic logics of the market, market fundamentalism*) try unwisely to impose its hegemony
over the goal and form of the totality (the evolutionary self-equilibration of
the ecosystem, which sustains the human subsystem).
The deviation from the principle of
ameliorative equilibration takes the shapes of monotelism, fragmentarism,
and reductionism.
First of all, in order to properly
understand the epistemological precarity of the technological innovation
process, a comparative approach between the engineer’s cognitive effort (who
finds himself involved in economic process) and the biologist’s cognitive
effort (involved in the study of the ecosystem) is worthwhile to be undertaken.
The engineer is
focused on a function which is supposed to become operational within certain
artificial structure having a final economic utility, without paying attention,
however, to the causal context**) of
both the selected function and the selected components needed for assembling
the artifact. By contrast, the biologist starts his investigation from the study
of some already synthesized superior (integrative) structures and functions, in
order to perform afterwards a functional decomposition, having all the time in
view, across all decomposition phases, the totality (that is, the organism).
Being conceptualized in such a way,
the technology is subordinated to the end of the market subsystem, while
involving a causal chain which goes beyond the logics of market.
It is what we call the monotelic
feature of the technological innovation process. It consists of focusing
exclusively on a single purpose (the mercantile logics of market) and ignoring
both the ecosystem’s context and the consequences upon it. Missing the
functional synthesis, as a necessary complement to functional analysis, the
engineer’s performance is condemned to the fragmentation of problems and process he wants to address.
In this manner, the avoidance of the multiple causality context – generated, in
its turn, by the absence of functional synthesis – implies the unavoidable
limitation to the market logics.
Now, if we approach a more profound
level of analysis, required by the self-organization theory, we can better
understand the epistemological precarity of modern technical change process by
means of a comparative analysis between technogenesis and phylogenesis. In this
respect, the engineer places himself exclusively within a synchronic level,
paying no attention to the fact that the synchronical stand he adopts is only a
transitory moment of an indefinite diachronic process in time – in other words,
of the evolution itself. A crucial difference between the functional
construction performed by the engineer (that is, technogenesis) and that
performed by the natural evolution (phylogenesis) comes to evidence, namely:
-
on
the one hand, within the engineer’s cognitive system, the representation of the
function to be performed comes first to the construction of the structure;
-
on the other hand, within the phylogenesis
system, the stage of the construction of structures comes first to the stage of
their selection. This selection is determined by the fact that the variant
performs a new subfunction which differentiates a superior function of the
organism or improves on already existing one, contributing in this way to the
differential reproduction of genes, that produces it.
The
lesson to be learned from the comparative analysis between technogenesis and
phylogenesis is the following: phylogenetic processes, to whom the
technogenetic ones belong, operate according to a logics which says that goals
and forms of the parts are compatible with the goal and the form of the
totality [Lesniewsky/1986]. In the living processes, there is a transitivity
mechanism induced by the goal of totality (the organism, i.e.) upon the goals
of the parts (the organs, i.e.). A different story is illustrated by the
process of technogenesis, corrupted by a certain reductionism, that is
the conception that the effective understanding of a complex system (the
totality) can be achieved by focusing on the properties of the isolated parts
of that system. The implied presupposition of this reductionist view can be
summarized as follows: the totality is the sum of its parts. However, life shows
us that totality, irrespective of its rank, is always something else than the
sum of its parts.
In this way, the reductionist
methodology so typical to the present-days techno-corporative structures can be
neither an efficient way of understanding the large natural systems to which
these structures belong, nor an efficient way to harmonize them.
An Exemplification of the
Epistemological Precarity
Scientific
revolution from the first half of the 20th century turned modern
Physics and Chemistry into sciences capable to influence nature on a global
scale and to create, for the first time on earth, absolutely new forms of
substances.
For
example, chemistry made remarkable strides (progress) during this period.
Especially important for their effects on the ecosystem proved to be the
knowledge acquired by the chemistry of organic compounds.
The
chemists discovered practical methods to create most of the molecular
structures theoretically possible. The knowledge of the fact that the organic
compounds’ variety is quite infinite and that the methods to realize most of
possible combinations are at hand proved to be irresistible. As more knowledge
has been accumulated about the chemical basis of some molecular properties types
of molecular structures (that determine colour, elasticity and resistance of
a substance or its capacity to kill
bacteries, insects and weeds), became
possible to design new molecules with a unique purpose. These instruments,
unprecedented as force and overwhelming as novetly, came into force as a result
of market mercantilism (increase production under the pressure of demographic
boom, hence increase consumption and profit).
Only later, the vice with
potentially fatal consequences of the new technologies applied in industries on
large scale was detected. The vice was the lack of reference to ecosystem and
the lack of connexion with one the discipline which largely contributes to its
understanding - the biochemistry (the chemistry of natural living systems).
The evolutionary biochemistry
teaches us that the types of chemical substances existent in the living
creatures organism and in ecosystem are a class more restraint than the class
of possible ones.
The reason of this
fact is that each living creature and the entire ecosystem have benefit of
three (3) billions years of research – development – evaluation “ of evolution.
By differential reproduction and differential conservation the living creatures
have acquired a complex structure made up of COMPATIBLE PARTS: those possible
combinations between parts which are incompatible with the totality are eliminated.
Therefore, the structures of the present living creatures and present ecosystem
organization are the best solutions selected by the ameliorative equilibration
of the phylogenetic system. This is true to such extent that any other form
of organization would be undoubtedly
unfit from the point of view of adaptation.
A striking feature of the living –
systems’ chemistry is that for each organic substance produced by an organism
there is in nature an enzyme capable to decompoze it. In this way the recycling
interactions are made effective.
But when men creates a new synthetic
substance whose molecular structure cannot be founded in the eco-system or deviates very much from the
types existing in nature, there will not exist any degradative enzyme and the
substance will tend to accumulate and
destroy the self-regulatory mechanisms of the ecosystem.
The technological mutations – initiated
by a conceptual and methological reductionism - are typical for the numerous
substitutions of the natural process
with the artificial ones.
This reductionism injects a disjunction,
a lack of coordination between the field of theoretically possible and the
field of really necessary, ignoring the category of potentiality.
As a consequence, any technological
innovation derived exclusively from one discovery in a single discipline is
meant from the very beginning to error and
failure because it ignores the fact that its application within the
domain it defined trigger a chain of complex causal mechanisms at many levels
of the reality.
Our bioepistemological approach
suggests that economists need not only an understanding of the ecosystem in
terms of irreversibility, but even more, an understanding of the negentropic
processes of the evolution. That is, un understanding of the way the processes
in ecosystem make actual the principle of ameliorative equilibration.
The cross-disciplinary approach
(which synthetizes the horizontal coordination between sciences with the
vertical coordination of their epistemologies) and the parallel optimization
method are able to exercise a negative selection against the nonintegrable and
nonintegrative technological innovations.
This means that among many technological innovations that extend the
field of the possibilities only those that prove to be integrative and able to
ameliorate the adaptation process will be chosen and preserved.
Only this type of prospective
approach could be considered ethical as it realizes the principle of
ameliorative equilibration and harmonizes the technological innovation process
with the processes of the ecosystem.
REFERENCES
*) We have in view the interpretation proposed by George Soros in “The
Crisis of Global Capitalism”, Public Affairs, 1998
**) In our understanding, a causal context refers to the relationships
between the function and its selected components, on the one hand, and the web
of inerent, multiple and often imperceptible relations of the ecosystem.