Arendt I: The Human Condition in the Modern Age.

Our discussion on Monday got a bit side-tracked (I'm not sure exactly why) and I'm not sure the ethical (as opposed to practical) component of the Robopet exercise was addressed very well. So as a final question about how we might treat non-human beings, let's draw everyone out briefly concerning the following scenario:

In a mix of past and future, suppose you were riding the non-stop Bonanza Bus from New York to Providence last year, and that the passengers on the bus were an assortment of humans, cyborgs and robots. The appearances of the passengers lead you to think they vary in terms of class, gender, culture, and intelligence, but you perceive no particular correlation between these qualities and the degree to which they appear human or not.

You've decided to forgo watching the movie on this trip in order to finish an essay for the Brown Admissions office, and you are happily and busily typing away when the passenger next to you makes a noise you realize is designed to get your attention. You look up and the passenger says:

"Sorry to bother you, but I'm in a bit of a jam. I don't know whether you've realized it by now, but I'm a robot. Unfortunately, my batteries are very low. I had planned to take the train today, where I could have plugged in a recharger, but Amtrak cancelled the train and I need to be in Providence by noon. Now I find that my batteries are so low that I might lose consciousness before I arrive and, as no one is meeting me, I don't know what will happen to me if I'm not awake. The truth is that losing consciousness does damage to my insides and I'm told it could even make recharging impossible. I know that your laptop uses a kind of battery which, if you'll let me use it, will let me get to Providence with enough juice left to recharge myself at the station. I see that you're busy, but I've done a check of the passengers on the bus and there is no other being on this bus with a battery I can use, so I wonder whether you have a spare battery or, if not, whether you would lend me the battery you're currently using?"

Unfortunately, you do not have a spare battery and, after thinking a moment, you realize that your battery is the only chance for the robot to stay conscious long enough to reach an electrical outlet.

1. Would you lend the robot your battery?

2. Suppose your lending the robot your battery would keep you from finishing your essay in time for your interview at Brown. Would you lend the robot your battery?

3. Suppose this interview at Brown is a "last chance" sort of thing, so you know that by not finishing the essay in time your chances of being admitted to Brown will be reduced to zero. Would you lend the robot your battery?

4. If you have answered "yes" to all of the above, is there a circumstance in which you can imagine answering "no"?

What is the "Modern" Age?

Arendt's book examines the characteristics of the "human condition" (as opposed to "human nature") in "the modern age" (and "the modern world"). But what, in her view, distinguishes this Age from earlier times?

The Modern Age, or "Modernity", is usually contrasted with the Middle Ages, and a common view is that the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century is contemporary with the rise of Modernity. One of the characteristics of the Modern Age, according to Arendt and others (e.g. Hans Blumenberg in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age), is the value placed on a life of action and making, rather than a life of contemplation. Whereas before the Modern period the kosmos was considered a well-ordered, divinely created whole exemplifying values like harmony, purpose, and perfection, we think of the Modern universe as characterized exclusively by "facts" rather than "values". Although we may use the term "harmony" or "beauty" in modern Astronomy or Astrophysics, the notion is "secularized" and usually defined in the language of science rather than religion. This is only fitting if we believe, unlike Medieval scholars of the kosmos, that knowledge of the world is to be gained not by passive contemplation but by the active reconstruction (through experiment, modeling and simulation) of the world we wish to know. Thus "theory" as the contemplation of truth, is replaced by "theory" as hypothesizing, testing, revision, decision and more hypothesizing, testing, etc. In the last chapter of The Human Condition, Arendt writes:

Where formerly truth had resided in the kind of "theory" that since the Greeks had meant the contemplative glance of the beholder who was concerned with, and received, the reality opening up before him, the question of success took over and the test of theory became a "practical" one -- whether or not it will work. Theory became hypothesis, and the success of the hypothesis became truth. (278)

All this may seem well and good, but there is a question that bothers many philosophers of the Modern Age (including Arendt) concerning "value". When we could look to the Heavens and contemplate "perfection" and "harmony", believing that we were clearly observing expressions of the Divine, we had natural and authoritative measures of value to apply to ourselves and to society. But once we think our theories of the universe are less contemplations of the truth (of divinely-created reality), and more our own self-assertive hypotheses requiring regular revision, framed in ways that reflect our own human purposes, then there is a new sense in which truth seems "man-made." What becomes of our search for "meaning" and "value" in this pursuit? The only "meaning" of this sort of hypothesis-making is as a human-centered means to some human-centered end (i.e. ideas are just means, or instruments, and their truth is determined solely by their usefulness). On p. 156, Arendt writes:

Man, in so far as he is homo faber [man the maker], instrumentalizes, and his instrumentalization implies a degradation of all things into means, their loss of intrinsic and independent value, so that eventually not only the objects of fabrication but also "the earth in general and all forces of nature," ... lose their "value because [they] do no present the reification which comes from work." (Arendt is quoting Kant here)

Are "utility" and "usefulness" enough to ground our ethical judgements? If so, aren't animals and robopets in trouble? What about policies concerning the treatment of "criminal" or "unproductive" or "high maintenance" members of society?

But if "utility" is not enough, what then should we replace or supplement it with? Arendt's answer is rooted in the Kantian imperative to treat humans as "ends in themselves", but it's not clear that this will help us in our dealings with cyborgs or robots. (Perhaps calling into question the special meaning/value of the "human" might be thought the natural culmination of modernity.)

Arendt's The Human Condition, Prologue

Here are some questions to help us work our way into Arendt's text:

• Arendt says that the problem with giving scientists the power to make political decisions is that they "move in a world where speech has lost its power." What does she mean, and is the future described by Moravec such a world (for everyone)?
• Arendt discusses the idea/myth that automation has freed (or can free) humans from labor's "toil and trouble", and ends with the remark that ".. we are confronted with .. the prospect of a society of laborers without labor .." In light of her (later) distinction between work and labor, how do you understand this remark?
• Arendt says that "What we are doing" is the "central theme of this book." Because the book doesn't really deal with "current events" what does she mean by "what we are doing"?
• What is the importance for Arendt in the distinction between "the human condition" and "human nature"? between the Modern Age and the modern world?

Arendt's The Human Condition, Chapter 1

More questions:

• What do you think Moravec would make of Arendt's discussion of "the problem of human nature" (pp. 10-12)? Do you agree with Arendt's position?
• In "The Term Vita Activa Arendt talks about Aristotle's description of the three ways of life which free people might choose. Imagine yourself "free" in this sense (e.g. no financial constraints). Which of these ways of life seem most worthwhile to you?
• According to Arendt, why did the Greeks consider contemplation superior to "activity" and how does this correspond to your own ranking of two? (15)
• What is the distinction between the "eternal" and the "immortal" supposed to help us understand?

Arendt's The Human Condition, Chapter 2

Arendt gives an analysis of the private and public realms in the ancient world, suggesting important differences between what these realms involved for ancients and moderns. She then talks about the rise of the "social", against which she says both the public and the private have been "incapable of defending themselves". What is she talking about and could it be stated more clearly/simply?

For Next Time:: Finish chapter 2 and begin Chapter 6 in The Human Condition.

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