Technology Assessment, Facts and Values

Abstract

The central thesis of this paper may be put thus: There are good theoretical and practical reasons to avoid any appeals to a fact-value distinction in the assessment of technology. Alternatively, one could say that in the assessment of technology any appeals to a fact-value distinction will be at least useless and at most dangerous and self-defeating.

Earlier versions of this paper were presented to the Research Group on Expertise and Lay Participation in Health Policy Decisions at the Institute of Society, Ethics and the Life Sciences, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York; the Morris Colloquium on Morality, Rationality and Environmental Crises at the University of Colorado, Boulder; and the Policy Studies Organization Workshop on Social Values and Public Policy, Washington, D. C.; as well as this German-American conference on the philosophy of technology. Obviously I have had plenty of good suggestions in all these places, including the Bad Homburg conference — for which I am grateful.