Mostafa Eslami; Abbas Geraei
Abstract
With the advancement of technology and its deep penetration into human societies, gaining an increasingly thorough understanding of this phenomenon, along with its implications and ...
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With the advancement of technology and its deep penetration into human societies, gaining an increasingly thorough understanding of this phenomenon, along with its implications and consequences, has become a pressing necessity. One of the key issues requiring careful examination concerns the manner in which technology is to be evaluated and the effects it exerts on human life. The present study seeks to establish a criterion for the valuation of technology. The data for this research were gathered through library methods and adjudicated using an analytical approach. Based on the findings of this research, it must be stated that, on the one hand, valuation is meaningful only in relation to voluntary action. In the process through which technology comes into existence, the stages of selection, design, production, and application of technology are all shaped by deliberate human action; accordingly, only those stages that are connected to the human agent as the subject of action are susceptible to value judgment. By contrast, the technological artifact itself, independently and without being measured against the criterion of human felicity, cannot intrinsically be characterized as good or bad and is, in this sense, value-neutral. Therefore, since the ultimate value, which has intrinsic worth based on the ultimate perfection and felicity of humans, is the degree of proximity (taqarrub) that each voluntary action brings for a human in relation to God Almighty, the criterion for value assessment in technological artifacts will also be evaluable based on the voluntary actions associated with it. These actions are: (1) the selection of an artifact for production; (2) the design of the artifact; (3) the production of the artifact; and (4) the use of the artifact by free and responsible agents. It is on this very basis that technological valuation becomes both meaningful and possible.
