Conference paper
UTILITARIAN AND ETHICAL MEASURES OF TECHNICAL AND SCIENTIFIC ADVANCE
Antun Šundalić
; Faculty of Economics, Osijek
Abstract
Man as the measure of all things or as a tiny part of God's creation – this is the dilemma present in various forms throughout the history of human thought. The first approach positions the man above nature, whereas the second melts the man with the nature that was created together with him. In spite of the difference in the apprehension of man in the world – as man–creator or as man–creature – the thesis that the man's natural need is another man has never been historically contested. Although, however, the awareness of this thruth is one of the civilizational values, it was always questioned and contested by man. An organization based on community (of man and nature as well as of man and man) was replaced by the organization of atomistic and individualistic orientation. This orientation put utilitarian measures (benefit for man, reduced to few people) into the leading position of technological and scientific development, whereas ethical measures (care for all) were given only a secondary role.
Current reality indicates the necessity to join the utilitarian and the ethical measures of the technological and scientific development and advance in such a manner that would set ethicality as the primary starting point, which would then spread out on nature. Naturalization, and thus also reconcilement of ethical and utilitarian measures means the man's return into natural order. This can also be regarded as a transition from the fundamental values of modernity (economic rationality and material efficiency) towards the values of postmodernity (social rationality, ecological and human values).
Keywords
ethical standards; natural order; post–modernity; technological and scintific development; utilitarian standards
Hrčak ID:
141722
URI
Publication date:
15.1.2000.
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