Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers || Means/Ends and the Nature of Engineering

Means/Ends and the Nature of EngineeringAuthor(s): Michael HodgesSource: PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association,Vol. 1980, Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers (1980), pp. 456-463Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/192604 .

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Means/Ends and the Nature of Engineering

Michael Hodges

Vanderbilt University

One of the most interesting and influential views in Aristotle's work is his distinction between the practical life and the contemplative life. The division is based on two important claims. The first is a philosophical psychology which involves a hierarchy of human faculties, the highest of which is the intellect. The second is a distinction between two kinds of human doing. One sort of doing is essentially aimed at ends for the sake of which it is undertaken and the other is a doing pursued for its own sake, merely as an exercise of appropriate faculties, skills, or capacities. The hierarchy of faculties and division of human doings grounds Aristotle's view that the exercise of intellect, what he calls " contemplation', is the highest form of human activity. Its pride of place derives not from the exceptional benefits which are its products but simply from its being the sort of activity it is, i.e., an activity of the highest capacities of human beings. If there is anything problematic about the contemplative life it is not derived from its intrinsic excellence but rather from our frail and inappropriate natures. Aristotle says,

... such a life would be more than human. A man who would live it would do so not insofar as he is human, but because there is a divine element within him. This divine element is as far above our composite nature as its activity is above the active exercise of the other, (i.e., practical,) kind of virtue. So if it is true that intelligence is divine in comparison with man, then a life guided by intelligence is divine in comparison with human life. We must not follow those who advise us to have human thoughts, since we are (only) men, and mortal thoughts, as mortals should; on the contrary we should try to become immortal as far as that is possible and do our utmost to live in accordance with what is highest in us. (Aristotle 1177b 27-36).

PSA 1980, Volume 2, pp. 456-463 Copyright ( 1981 by the Philosophy of Science Association



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This is by no means faint praise. The contemplative life requires no justification via its extrinsic products. In fact, to offer such would constitute a misconception of the activity itself.

Practical doing as Aristotle implies is in a completely different position vis-a-vis justification. Practical arts find their justification in their products. In fact, one might define practical activity as that doing which aims at bringing about some good beyond itself. In this vein Aristotle also says, "...there is a difference in the ends at which they [human doings] aim: in some cases the activity is the end, in others the end is some product beyond the activity. In cases where the end lies beyond the action the product is naturally superior to the activity." (Aristotle 1094a 3-6). The practical arts, by definition then, fall into the second category and as such "the product is naturally superior to the activity." Surely in so far as one performs an action in order to bring about a particular result the worth of the act must be judged by reference to its success or failure in producing the product.

This classical division of human activities into those done for their own sake and those done for the sake of their products, together with the identification of the former with the higher human faculties has been the cornerstone of the defense of intellectual activity in western thought. Armed in this way either explicitly or implicitly, intellectuals from Aristotle to Barzun and Hutchins have argued for the value and purity of the intellect, rejecting the burden of "justification by fruits" as a perversion of the intellect itself. At the same time those engaged in the more lowly practical arts have been required to shoulder the burden of justification. After all the productive arts are just that, productive, and as such they must appeal to the only things that could rightly justify them, namely their products. The intellectual tradition is thus insulated from all but internal criticism. Jacques Barzun argues, for example, that the only standards appropriate in intellectual activity are its own. (Barzun 1959,see especially Chapter VI). If it be argued that philosophy bakes no bread, the philosopher will quickly and legitimately respond that man does not live by bread alone, and that, in any case, it is not philosophy's job to bake. If, on the other hand, it is claimed that engineering bakes no bread or that it bakes a foul loaf the criticism seems to go to the heart of the matter.

In the history of technology the burden of justification has sometimes been light when the fruits have been many and obviously wonderful. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for example, in the eyes of many, technology's wonders were so clear that its prophets proclaimed the dawning of a new era for mankind. As Samuel Florman says, "To be an engineer in 1902, or at anytime between 1850 and 1950, was to be a participant in a great adventure, a leader in a great crusade. Technology, as everyone could see, was making miraculous advances, and, as a natural consequence, the



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prospects for mankind were becoming increasingly bright." (Florman 1976, p. 4). Only the most visionary social critic could seriously have doubted the positive value of technology in this setting. In any case the weight of the burden of justification reached an almost lighter than air status in the motto of the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago World's Fair which was "Science Finds, Industry Applies... Man Conforms."

It has only been in recent times that this sort of technological euphoria has begun to abate, as the products of technology and engineering activity have become more clearly seen as mixed bless- ings. In my view many present day evaluations of engineering and technology have become as excessively negative as those by the early prophets of engineering were positive. However an assessment of the legitimacy of such evaluations is not relevant to my present point. What necessarily underlies any assessment is a view of the nature of what is being assessed. Given the classification of technology and engineering as productive arts all is as it should be. The need to justify such activity by its fruits is inherent in the nature of the activity itself.

Many recent attempts to characterize the nature of technical activity implicitly accept the Aristotelian dichotomy and with it the logic of justification that I have outlined. Consider, for example, J. K. Feibleman' s attempt to come to some definitions. He says that pure science aims at a description of nature "and nothing else." (Feibleman 1961, p. 35). As such it is grounded in the desire to know and is comparable in its seriousness of purpose only to art and religion. On the other hand, the applied sciences, and with them technical activity,"are concerned with the improvement of human means and ends and with nothing else... . [they are] conducted by men whose chief desires are practical: either the improvement of human conditions or profit or both... . Their sights while valid are lower."(Feibleman 1961, p. 35). He goes on to argue that while both may be necessary, considered intrinsically pure science is clearly superior. There are a number of serious difficulties implicit in the definitions Feibleman suggest but as they stand they represent as clear an example of the Aristotelian dichotomy in modern dress as could be found. Pure science speaks to the intellectual need to know and as such exercises the highest of human faculties, being comparable to the intrinsic values found in art and religion. On the other hand the applied sciences only serve our practical needs. They have no intrinsic value as activities. It is their contribution to the "improvement of the human condition' that must be their standard.

Almost no one who has written about the nature and justification of technological and engineering activity has been either willing or self conscious enough to reject or even examine the presupposi- tions of the Aristotelian classification. Recently, however, a few thinkers have had the audacity to propose the idea that the justification of technology and technical activity might proceed along that



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high road reserved for the intellect until now. (See Florman, 1976 and Anonymous 1970.) I, for one, find this an exciting suggestion which when worked out illumninates not only certain value dimensions of technical activity but also exposes the fatal weakness in the classical defense of intellect.

What I will show is that technical activity deserves to be classi- fied with intellectual activity as an intrinsically valuable type of human doing. The failure to see this point seems to me to rest on a misunderstanding about the way in which ends relate to hurman actions. At the same time, however, those who might suppose that the presence of such value in technical doing frees it from the burden of justification by reference to fruits are mistaken. I think that Florman is guilty of this sort of move, but I don't intend to argue the case in detail. Simply put, my point will be, what seems to me the obvious one, that the very same activity may have both sorts of value so that the discovery of one does not exclude the other. Further it does not follow that if an activity has positive intrinsic value that it will have positive extrinsic value. This point has important implications both for technical and intellectual activity.

One can begin to see my line of argument by considering a distinction between two ways in which ends, products or goals may be related to human doings. Consider, for example, the relation between winning and any sporting activity. There is a perfectly clear sense in which it is true that when we engage in any competitive sporting activity we do so in order to win. And there is another equally clear sense in which we certainly need not "play to win'. We always play to win in the sense that everything we do is structured by its being the whole point of the game to score points or goals or whatever. That is, each individual act, say serving, has its meaning only in the context of an activity the point of which is to score points against the opponent. Now it certainly does not follow from this truism about the nature of sporting activity that everyone who plays, "plays to win". That is, it does not follow that players need place any value on winning outside the context of the activity itself. To provide ourselves with some convenient termi- nology, I suggest that we say that an activity has a "structuring end" when it is of the first type-- when the end is internal to the activity. Let us reserve the notion of "product" to ends which are related to doings as winning is related to playing for those who " play to win' in the second sense-- when the end is external to the activity.

Another example or two may help to clarify my point. One completely misunderstands the nature of fishing as a sport if he supposes that it is done for the sake of its product in the sense defined above. If, for example, one merely wants to have the fish, then tossing a stick of dynamite into the water will produce the appropriate result. Catching fish is not a product of sport fishing; it is what I want to call a structuring end. It may be true that one



460 cannot understand what a sport fisherman is doing without knowing what his end is but it is equally true that one cannot understarnd sport fishing solely from the perspective of its product. In a similar way being at the top of the mountain is not a product of mountain climbing-- it is the structuring end.

This distinction can, I believe, be used to shed light on the nature of technological activity. Those who claim, as Feibleman seems to, that technical doing is essentially concerned with the production of goods to be used for the betterment of man have failed to recognize the distinction we have just made. It is no more essential to technical doing that its products be used for purposes beyond itself than it is essential to fishing that one eat the fish. For the technologist the so called product may be a structuring end.

A view of technology along these lines has been developed with admirable clarity in an article entitled "Pure Technology" the author of which remains anonymous. He or she says:

The usual attitude taken toward technology-- certainly by those who put up the money for it-- is that its value lies only in the profitable consequences, and research and development in itself is an unavoidable interim expense. Yet to the engineer the chase may be as rewarding as the kill;... divorcing [his activity] partly or almost wholly from the sordid aftermath of profitable applications.

This attitude of mind defines the Pure Technologist. Pure technology is the building of machines for their own sake and for the pride and pleasure of the accomplishment. It is a creative art form somewhere between art and science. (Anonymous 1970, p. 52).

The article continues to present a history of pure technology presenting such interesting examples as Hero of Alexandria's famous steam reaction-turbine, the hot air balloon, and even the modern SST or Concorde. In all these cases the technological activity has a structuring end but it does not have a product. Each constitutes an instance in which the technology is developed in order to provide an occasion for the exercise of technical skill.

There is some confusion in the article as to whether pure technology is exemplified in a limited set of specific technical achievements throughout history or is a dimension of all technical doing. I am inclined to argue that almost all technical activity has "pure technology" as at least one of its dimensions of value. Lewis Mumford puts the point in a characteristically grand style: "At every stage, man s technological expansions and transformations were less for the purpose of directly increasing the food supply or controlling nature than for utilizing his own immense internal resources... ." (Mumford 1962, p. 79). It seems clear that technical



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doing is not essentially tied to the productive process and thus cannot be refused co-ordinate status with contemplation as an activity whose value transcends and is independent of its products.

There is only one pillar of the Aristotelian defense left standing. It is the hierarchy of human faculties in which intellect is the highest. It might be contended that although technical doing has intrinsic worth as the exercise of specific human capacities still those very capacities are far exceeded in value by the intellect. Surely the exercise of a lesser faculty is a lesser exercise. Remember that Aristotle says, "This divine element is as far above our composite nature as its activity is above the active exercise of the other." There is a great deal that needs to be said with regard to such a view but I will limit myself to a few dogmatic points. In the first place the very distinction between intellect and technical capacity is suspect. It rests on grounds which are surely shakey even for Aristotle himself. That is, it depends on an account of intellect which allows it a separate and non-embodied status. (And of course such a view runs counter to central themes in Aristotle's own thought.) In any case, I find such a view epistemologically and metaphysically unacceptable. Intelligence, as Dewey clearly saw, and as Aristotle should have seen, is always in the midst of doing. Simply put, in any ordinary sense of the terms, technical activity obviously involves intellect, and should not be set over against it. It is already a kind of intellectual activity not an alternative to such activity.

In the second place, it is by no means clear what it could mean to say that one faculty or capacity was better than another, divorced from any purposes which it might serve. I, for one, have a much more democratic conception of the intrinsic value of the manifold of human faculties. Each is of equal value unless considered in the context of some further good which it might promote. But remember that here we are specifically considering the intrinsic not instrumental worth of faculties. What then can it mean to claim superiority for the intellect?

I think that we must conclude that if the justification of intellectual activity is entitled to proceed along the high road of intrinsic worth so also should engineering be permitted to pass. As we have seen engineering need not be viewed as an essentially productive art which can be properly justified only by reference to its products. It has an intrinsic value all its own which makes it, for those equipped to pursue it, of incommensurable value.

Having vindicated engineering's claims to intrinsic respectability we must nonetheless remember that to claim that a full and proper evaluation of engineering must see it in the category of intrinsic goods is not to deny that it cannot be and in fact is not also properly open to evaluation by reference to its products. As we have seen one man's structuring end is another man's product. To ignore this fact simply because one is interested only in the



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activity itself is to be irresponsible. Unless we recognize and make room for technical activity as an expression of human capacity, we certainly miss a fundamentally important source of human value. However, currently the way in which room has been made is almost exclusively in the service of the productive process. No one -- technologist, apologist or social critic -- can ignore this fact. The responsible engineer must take responsibility for the results of his own creative activity.

Granting all this we might now decide to take either of two courses. We might attempt to break the tie between engineering and production and by so doing admit engineering into the inner sanctum of divine but useless respectability. On the other hand we might take the analogy in the opposite direction. We might argue that just as technological doing can lay claim to both sorts of value but in so doing lays itself open to both sorts of critique, so contemplation should come out of hiding behind the Ivy Walls and justify itself in the world of practical affairs never, for a moment, forgetting that for those able to pursue it, it has an intrinsic worth which is independent of its fruits.



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References

Anonymous. (1970). "Pure Technology." Technolo-v Review 70: 38-45. (As Reprinted in Teich, A. (ed.) Technoloev and Man's Future. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1972. Pages 51-61.)

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. (trans.) Martin Ostwald. New York: The Library of Liberal Arts, 1962.

Barzun, J. (1959). The House of Intellect. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Feibleman, J.K. (1961). "Pure Science, Applied Science, and Technology: An Attempt at Definitions." Technolorv and Culture 2: 305-317. (As Reprinted in Mitcham and Mackey (1972). Pages 33-41.)

Florman, S.C. (1976). The Existential Pleasures of EngineerinU. New York: The Free Press.

Mitcham, C. and Mackey, R. (eds.). (1972). PhilosoDhy and Technology: Readings in the PhilosoDhical Problems of Technologv. New York: The Free Press.

Mumford, L. (1962). "Technics and The Nature of Man." In KnoWledge Among Men. Edited by Paul H. Oehser. New York: Simon and Schuster. Pages 174-182. (As Reprinted in Mitcham and Mackey (1972). Pages 77-85.)



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Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers || Means/Ends and the Nature of Engineering