The main, underlying issue discussed by Arendt, Jonas, and Serawitz is the divide between academic scholarship and the application of policy. Arendt and Jonas focus on the dangers of new technologies, and its potential to cause irreparable harm to society. Jonas describes how modern technologies pose a greater danger than any previous form of ethics can handle. He calls for a new ethical principle, which is most simply “in your present choices, include the future wholeness of Man among the objects of your will.” In other words, Jonas argues that our technological ability, which developed out of our increased scientific knowledge, is outpacing our knowledge of wisdom, and therefore ethical policy has to take future generations into account. Arendt takes a slightly different tack, but also warns of the dangers posed by technology. She cautions that technological advancement will lead to “the advent of automation” and the end of manual labor—a remarkably prescient observation, as this is one of the main political issues today. Unlike Jonas, Arendt does not provide an answer to the ethical problem of scientific advancements. Instead she claims that the answer to this problem is one of everyday politics, and therefore not appropriate for either “professional scientists or professional politicians.”
Serawitz agrees with Arendt that the responsibility for scientific advancement should not belong to the policymakers, suggesting that society’s understanding of the policymaking process as entirely based off of scientific advancement is wrong. Serawitz also does not suggest an answer to this problem, but instead expresses somewhat nihilistic despair about the divide between the sciences and ethical policymaking. All three of the scholars are essentially concerned with the lack of normativity in the hard sciences, and the danger that is beginning to pose to humankind. However, the practice of activist scholarship might help to bridge this divide. It is essentially science, or the pursuit of knowledge, with the express purpose of improving the world. As such it has to contend with ethical questions and requires the researcher to question both their motives of research and the ethical consequences of their research. This reduces the risk of policymakers using scientific advancements inappropriately, and also forces scholars to take responsibility for their research, minimizing the potential dangers Arendt and Jonas fear face humankind. While the divide between political action and the sciences, whether hard or social, is not completely overcome by activist scholarship, it can help unite the two spheres.
1.Hans Jonas, “Technology and Responsibility: Reflections on the New Task of Ethics,” in Social Research 40, no. 1 (1973).
2. Ibid.
3. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958, 4.
4. Ibid, 3; 5.
5. Daniel Serawitz, “Science and Environmental Policy: An Excess of Objectivity,” in Earth Matters: The Earth Sciences, Philosophy, and the Claims of the Community, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000, 83.