Updates on philosophy research in energy ethics
Cover image Robot Sketch by Bung Carol
This is one of the upcoming philosophy research chronicles on energy ethics. I intend to find the balance between a more colloquial tone in doing philosophy while still mainly emphasising on philosophical content. However, it is also worth noting that since it is a weekly update, the reflection proposed here may seem scattered here and there, and may be prone to further precision and correction by the following ones. That being said, above all else, this type of writing is meant as a responsibilisation from my side to keep as many people as possible informed about one of many contemporary ventures in moral philosophy: energy sector.
In the hope of tailoring it into a colloquial form while remaining content-based, the readers may also come across my more direct comments vis-à-vis my readings on the topic of the week. This type of tone is not something that you would find in probably any rigorous philosophy journal due to this style being labelled immature or shallow for an academic discussion. However, that does not mean that blunt comments and impressions have no place in a broader philosophy discourse. As I imagine talking to a large, pluralistic public via this blog, it appears that non-academic philosophers would benefit more from a clearer position such as taking an idea as strong or weak, an example as representative or misleading, an analysis as deep or shallow, or an understanding as comprehensive or poor.
Lastly, do not be surprised that one topic may be talked about more than once, or even continuously; all for the reason mentioned above: that ideas are always worth revisiting and reevaluating.
All of that being said, I invite you all to dive into my reading this week about the embedded values in technologies, particularly in energy infrastructures. Two main questions are majorly affecting my reflection on the subject. First, what does value mean? Second, what does it mean to value something?
What Values Are
Values may come across with various interpretations in our mind, and the same happens in the history of moral philosophy. It may be worth noting that values as one subject of ethics can very well be a subject of its own. That being said, during the last week, among some reading materials, the one which stood out the most to me is written by Ibo Van de Poel and Peter Kroes titled “Can Technology Embody Values?” from The Moral Status of Technological Artefacts.
The main purpose of the article is that we can embed or embody values into the technological artefacts that we design, and this process happens from the moment we design them.
But what does it mean by value? We can always say that X is of value, or that Y has no value. We can also say that I am fighting for value a or value b, or that value a or b is worth fighting for. It is used many times enough in our daily life from an individual to a communal level, and that is where I think we can start while also seeing what Van de Poel extracts from the moral philosophy debate on value.
For starters, I would propose that values exist as at least two things, namely, objects or things (individuals included) and as a verb, namely, to value. I do not mean to say that values exist as tangibly as empirical objects since that does not seem to be the case. But whether or not values really exist empirically or metaphysically, we cannot orient ourselves in the world without values. Even the most fundamental object which governs our vital interaction, namely, money in trade, is a full embodiment of economic value.
So what are values? My proposition is that values are contents of things which orient their classifications and use cases. By contents I mean both physical and mental content from the immediately observable ones such as hardness, colours, materials, to abstract entities such as numbers, usefulness, market values, up to something as ultimate as goodness. By classifications and use cases I mean the place and orientation of things between what they could do and how they are supposed to be.
Cash money, for example, could be used for trading and is supposed to be used for living a better life. Another example, guns, are used for shooting and they are supposed to be used only to defend yourself instead of robbing other people. However, there are some more abstract things which are valuable in themselves, i.e. without separating their use case from their normative use. Health is one of the examples. We can always point out a healthy person from the unhealthy ones, but the concept of health as an overall physical state which in itself is valuable is more abstract than objectal things like guns or knives.
In one word, value means goodness. To say that something is good for x or good in itself, regardless of whether or not it is the real good – since the real good is directly connected to the question of real value – is to say that x is valuable.
This brings us to what philosophy has contributed with regards to values. Van de Poel and Kroes have summarised that we can differentiate values into four types: epistemic value (truth), aesthetic value (beauty), pragmatic value (efficacy/efficiency), and moral value (good). Meanwhile, if we take into account the way values exist, they can be put into the coordinates of two opposing modes of being: intrinsic vs extrinsic, and instrumental vs final.
Intrinsic value (Non-relational) | Extrinsic value (Relational) | |
Final value (For its own sake) | Intrinsic final value | Extrinsic final value |
Instrumental value (Not for its own sake) | Intrinsic instrumental value | Extrinsic instrumental value |
Sharpness or the ability to cut as a value of a knife, for example, is the type of pragmatic value since it relates to its main function that is to cut. This sharpness is also built into the knife’s design (intrinsic), and while at the same time is the primary determinant of a good knife (final). Therefore, sharpness in a knife is a pragmatic value (goodness) which is intrinsic and serves its own sake (making it qualify as a knife). In a bigger picture, however, a knife’s sharpness is also embodied into it while imagining an optimal use case such as for cutting vegetables, for example, and hence gives it an instrumental aspect (a use case). We can also imagine materials used and the styling of its handles and edges which have no direct correlation to the main value of a knife (sharpness), and hence making materials and artistic design extrinsic final values.
What I would like to underline here is that an object consists of a combination of goodness and hence makes it valuable on multiple levels. Whether or not all of its goodness is the real value or the real goodness is a separate matter.
What Valuing Is
Understanding how values exist in things is but one side of the coin. Another side is that for a thing’s value to be effective or valuable, others need to deem it valuable. The intrinsic final value of a gun, for example, is to shoot, and it serves an instrumental value of self-defence, for example. But a gun’s value is only really valuable if I consider the self-defence with a gun important.
This is what valuing means. To value something, as Van de Poel and Kroes put it, is to bear a positive attitude towards an object. Actions such as buying, using, collecting, keeping, and the likes, are considered positive, while actions such as leaving, rejecting, throwing away, or even opposing, are signs of devaluing. We draw ourselves towards or appreciate things which are of value to us.
But what requires someone to value something? This is where value as goodness in things at their multiple levels are elevated into a more abstract level since at this stage, we are talking about personal value systems. This is also where values in things which are mainly pragmatic since they primarily present functions or utilities are appraised against the personal value system. In individual levels, more complex values appear, namely moral values. They coordinate and orient our actions in the world and our attitude towards the world.
Therefore, in order to value something, the values of things need to align with our value systems. I need to value effective work and efficient time consumption in cooking in order for me to value a good knife.
To value means to bear a positive attitude.
One little side note. Both Van de Poel and Kroes also use a positive attitude as a mark of real value. The paper does not talk in length about it since the goal is to show that we can put values into design. But it is still worth noting that the paper suggests that 1) instrumental values are not real values, and 2) we know which real values are when there is an affirmative attitude from an individual.
This side-note is actually interesting, but an addition needs adding, namely, real values are not true values. It is not enough for things to offer some values and they are affirmed positively by us for it to be truly valuable. I will not assume what Van de Poel and Kroes mean by real value, but to say that one value is real simply means that it is important to me. For something to be a true value, some further reflection still needs to be made, which unfortunately is not part of this week’s reading.
I hope that next week I can touch on technological artefact, or more particularly, electricity systems as one particular example of technological artefacts.