ABSTRACT. In a market economy, the corporationis the primary institution through which new tech-nologies are introduced. And the corporation, beingprimarily interested in economic goals, may askvery limited questions about the safety and worka-bility of a particular technology. This viewpointcauses problems which manifest themselves in manycases where the concerns of engineers and techniciansin corporations about decisions relating to a par-ticular technology clash with managers prone tooverlooking these concerns in favor of organizationalinterests. The problem can be seen as a structural onethat is inherent in the capitalistic system. It can alsobe seen as an organizational or policy problem thatrequires changes in the organization to give engineersmore authority in decision-making or to facilitatewhistle-blowing on the part of engineers or techni-cians. In this paper, we take the view that problemssurrounding the misuse of technology lie in a lack of

understanding of technology’s inherently social andmoral dimensions. Technology creates a moral situa-tion, and this situation should provide the context fordecision-making. Technology is also experimental,and everyone involved with introducing a particulartechnology needs to ask the question as to whethera real life experiment is warranted. Finally, technologydemands a moral sensibility which recognizes thatbusiness interests and technological interests alike needto be understood in the network of concrete relationalcontexts in which they are embedded.

KEY WORDS: moral, pragmatism, technology, value

In a market economy, the corporation is theprimary institution through which new tech-nologies are introduced. And the corporation,being primarily interested in economic goals,may ask very limited questions about the safetyand workability of a particular technology. Thisviewpoint causes problems which manifest them-selves in may many cases where the concernsof engineers and technicians in corporationsabout the uses of, or decisions relating to, a par-ticular technology clash with managers prone tooverlook these concerns in favor of organiza-tional interests (Buchholz, 1989; Vandiver, 1990).

Supposedly an engineering decision is basedon certain technical realities such as the physicalcharacteristics of materials, features of productsinherent in the design, and other such concerns,while managers must base decisions on financialconcerns, budget considerations, schedules,customer desires, and similar kinds of organiza-tional concerns. The differences between adecision based on technical concerns and adecision based on organizational concerns canlead to vastly different courses of action. When

Technology and Business: Rethinking the Moral Dilemma

Journal of Business Ethics

41: 45–50, 2002.© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Rogene A. Buchholz, Legendre-Soule Professor of BusinessEthics, Loyola University New Orleans, has published12 books and some 75 articles in the area of businessethics, social issues in management, and environmentalethics. He has served on several editorial boards and ispast Chair of the Social Issues in Management Divisionof the Academy of Management.

Sandra B. Rosenthal, Distinguished Professor ofPhilosophy, Loyola University New Orleans, has pub-lished 11 books and approximately 200 articles, is onnumerous editorial boards, and is past president of TheSociety of the Advancement of American Philosophy,The Charles Peirce Society, and the Metaphysical Societyof America, among others, and past member of the executive committee, American Philosophical Association.

Rogene A. BuchholzSandra B. Rosenthal

This paper received the Deans’ Award as the bestpaper presented at the Eighth Annual ConferencePromoting Business Ethics held at DePaul Universityin Chicago, Illinois, October 2001.

faced with this situation, managers oftentimesignore or deny problems that arise about thesafety and workability of their products, some-times ignoring or “shooting” the messenger whobrings bad news, falsifying test data, or somethingsimilar. While technical realities do not alwaystake priority in decision-making, they do takepriority in the real world when a technologyfails to function as designed and may lead todisastrous consequences (Maier, 1992; Vaughn,1996).

Solutions to the problem

Previous attempts to define this problem andsuggest a solution have taken diverse paths. Theproblem can be seen as a structural one that isinherent in the capitalistic system, in which thecorporate organization has to serve certain setsof values which are antithetical to the demandsof modern technology. The problem can also beseen as one of organization or policy, a problemthat requires changes in the organization to giveengineers more authority in decision-making orto facilitate whistle-blowing on the part of engi-neers or technicians. Both of these ways ofviewing the problem have been developed bywell-known economists who were interested inthe technological dimension of business.

Throstein Veblen’s (1965a) analysis of thisproblem on a structural level was based on a dis-tinction between what he called the machineprocess and the business enterprise, two aspectsof what is still a single, continuous activity. Asdescribed by Veblen, the machine process, ortechnology, is a high-level abstraction thatconsists of an interlocking, detailed arrangementthat requires disciplined habits of thought,regularity, coordination, uniformity, standardiza-tion, and interchangeability. Such characteristicsare necessary because the machine process,according to Veblen, is based on an impersonaland mechanical cause and effect relationship,requiring close and unremitting thought whichruns in standard terms of quantitative precision.Within this machine process, the elementsof materials, machines, buildings, tools, skills,and techniques are organized for the efficient

production of material goods, and its operatorsare engineers, technicians, mechanics, andscientists.

However, this machine process is managed andcontrolled by another entity, what Veblen (1964a)calls the business enterprise, which is able tocontrol the machine process through control ofthe capital goods that are used in the produc-tion process. The notion of private property isan important element of this kind of control,because the owners of capital are given the finalright to determine how this capital shall be usedand combined in the production of goods. Thesedecisions as to how capital shall be employed aremade on the basis of the pecuniary return tothese owners, who are concerned about indus-trial efficiency only to the extent it increasesprofitability (Veblen, 1964b, p. 217). Thus themachine process is capitalized on its businesscapacity and not on its industrial capacity(Veblen, 1965b, p. 107).

Veblen (1965b) argues that while communityinterests are incidental to the nature of businesstransactions, the whole organizational apparatusbased on pecuniary principles ultimately dependson an appropriate and safe technology that worksand serves community interests. Yet the com-munity at large continues to support and safe-guard the primacy of business interests throughthe mistaken belief that such interests, rather thantechnological interests, are what serve to benefitsociety.

Seeing problems developing in this arrange-ment, Veblen (1965a) predicted that the businessenterprise would eventually be undercut by themachine process on which it depended becausethe vested interests of the business enterprisewould constitute more and more of an extra-neous interference and obstruction to the indus-trial system in the interests of making a profit.These vested interests would so badly misallocateresources as to enter a stage of increasinglydiminishing return and reduction of the nationaldividend beyond limits of tolerance. This devel-opment constitutes the “secular trend” that hecalled “the cultural incidence of the machineprocess.” Eventually, Veblen (1965b) predicted,a revolution in industrial society will take placein which the engineers draw together, work out

46 Rogene A. Buchholz and Sandra B. Rosenthal

a plan of action, and decide to disallow absenteeownership out of hand.

Galbraith’s (1967) analysis is much less revo-lutionary than Veblen’s and is focused onthe need for organizational or policy changes.Galbraith makes a case for involving more engi-neering and technical people in the decisionmaking process of the modern corporate orga-nization. His understanding of decision-makingwithin the corporation is encapsulated in hisconcept of the “technostructure,” which refersto all persons who contribute specializedinformation to group decision making in theorganization. The technostructure consists ofmanagement, technical specialists, scientists, andother knowledgeable people who may beinvolved, depending on the type of decision.

Galbraith’s point is that the complexity ofmodern technology makes it impossible for topmanagement to possess enough knowledge tomake a decision that will work in the corpora-tion’s best interests. They have to rely more andmore on technical specialists within the organi-zation and include them in the decision-makingprocess, thus moving decision-making andcontrol from the top of the organization downinto lower levels, involving more and moreemployees. In this way power has shifted in somedegree to those who possess knowledge ratherthan just status or position.

There has been some movement in this direc-tion, as companies have had to involve moreengineering and technical people in decisionmaking because of the complexity of moderntechnology. Yet as many examples clearly illus-trate, engineering people can be shut out of thedecision-making process when a managementdecision has to be made involving a particularincident (Maier, 1992). Moreover even if tech-nical people are given more clout in managementdecision-making, and even if the reporting struc-ture is changed so that engineering has moreauthority at top levels of the organization, whena critical decision has to be made, the topengineer may be asked to put on his managementhat and make a management decision (Maier,1992). For this reason, making engineersmanagers does not seem to solve the problem,indeed, in companies where many, if not most,

managers have engineering backgrounds, thesemanagers tend to become part of what Veblencalled the business enterprise and are subject toits values and requirements.

A new look at the problem

In the final analysis, this problem of engineeringversus managerial values is not a structuralproblem of capitalism that can be solved bydeveloping some new kind of system in whichprivate property or absentee ownership is abol-ished. Socialistic system fared even worse thancapitalistic systems in efficiently and effectivelymanaging technology and were almost totallyunresponsive to concerns about environmentalproblems. Nor is the problem simply an organi-zational or policy problem that be addressedby giving engineers and technical peoplemore authority in corporate organizations. Theproblems surrounding the misuse of technologylie in a lack of understanding of technology’sinherently social and moral dimensions. And thislack of understanding in turn is related to theabstraction of technology from the concretesituations in which it operates and from its rolein enhancing the fullness and richness of humanlife.

Indeed, while Veblen provides us with a usefuldistinction inherent in the corporate form oforganization that aids in understanding theconflict between the technical and businessaspects within a corporation, his analysis missesthe mark in providing an understanding of themoral dilemmas faced by corporations withregard to technology. Whereas he recognizesboth that the pecuniary principles of businesscannot function on their own and that profitalone provides an inadequate measure of ser-viceability to the community, his entire analysisviews the machine process as a self-sufficientmechanistic system with its own self-sufficientideal of maximum material productivity. Themachine process as described by Veblen is abenefit to the welfare of the community at largeonly if its welfare is equated with maximum pro-ductivity. Veblen seems to recognize that tech-nology cannot be understood as an instrument

Technology and Business 47

for bringing about goals external to the process,but because the process is viewed through theabstract, limited lens of reductionism, the goalsthemselves are similarly limited.

The moral dimension of technology

The problems surrounding the misuse of tech-nology lie in a lack of understanding of tech-nology’s inherently social and moral dimensions.And this lack of understanding in turn isrelated to the abstraction of technology from theconcrete situations in which it operates and fromits role in enhancing the fullness and richnessof human life in its concreteness. Technologycannot be understood as an instrument forbringing about goals that are external to thecontexts in which it operates, but the relationalcontexts in which technology functions areimbued with values which demand consideration.Thus technology, as it actually operates inconcrete situations has a contextually dependentmoral quality. Technology creates a moral situa-tion, and this situation should provide thecontext for decision-making.

Some observers of modern culture do note dis-parities and tensions between contemporary doingand making, between ethics and technology. Theycomplain that, while technology has advanceddramatically, our moral aptitude in dealing with ithas not. But this complaint is as radically mistakenas the general divorce of doing from making. Itfails to see that a technological accomplishment,the development and adoption of a technologicaldevice always and already constitutes a moraldecision (Borgman, 1992).

Moreover, according to Veblen, the human“virtues” to be cultivated in participating in thisabstract system stem from a mechanistic viewof human activity. Contrary to what Veblenimplied, however, engineers cannot run the cor-porate organization solely on technical factors,nor can managers run it solely on economicfactors. Both of these ways of measuring thesuccess of the organization are abstraction fromthe richness and complexity of a given situation.Furthermore, the people who fulfill these roles

are not just engineers or just managers. Whenthe head of engineering in the Challenger criseswas asked to take off his engineering hat and puton his managerial hat and think like a manager,he was in essence being asked to be just amanager, and he responded accordingly in alimited fashion by supporting the launch, adecision that he had previously opposed.Underneath the managerial or engineering role,however, is a holistic human being who, tofunction as such, must be attuned to the com-plexity of the situation and the conflicting valuesemergent within the situation.

Technology as experimental

Technology itself is experimental, and whileengineers and technicians may raise questionsabout the safety and workability of a technology,there is no certainty that they are right and thattheir concerns should thus override managerialconsiderations. But they may, at least, introducean element of “reasonable doubt” into thedecision making process. There may be a “rea-sonable doubt” that a technology will workproperly that needs to be taken into considera-tion. What managers may actually be doing inignoring these concerns is conducting a realworld experiment that will hopefully falsify theconcerns of the engineers and technicians.

Part of the problem is that the people whoare most directly affected by an experiment ofthis nature are not usually informed as to thenature of the experiment in which they are par-ticipating. The final decision as to whether togo ahead with the experiment should involvethose who put their lives at risk, and not merelyrest in the hands of either managers or engineerswho are not directly participating in the exper-iment. There should be severe sanctions formanagers who willingly and knowingly placepeople in experimental situations without dis-closing the full nature of the experiment to thosewho will be most directly affected.

If these managers were to envision themselvesor their loved ones in the experimental situationengendered by the technology and ask if the risksto which they are subjecting others would then

48 Rogene A. Buchholz and Sandra B. Rosenthal

be acceptable, rather than viewing the situationin terms of dehumanized and decontextualizedabstractions, their decisions might well be dif-ferent. And when there are “reasonable doubts”concerning the proper outcome of such experi-ments, at the very least the individuals involvedhave a right to know the nature of the risks theyface when involved in such experiments so theycan make an informed decision not to participateif these risks are judged to be unacceptable.

Neither managers nor engineers can beexpected to be moral heroes who put their jobsand careers on the line when raising questionsabout the workability and safety of a particulartechnology. Rather, what is needed is opendialogue through which they share their knowl-edge and responsibility with the rest of the orga-nization, so that it then can be shared with thepublic at large when appropriate. The board ofdirectors, for example, needs to know the natureof the risks involved in the experiment that isbeing conducted, as does the entire managementteam involved in a project.

Everyone involved with a technology needs toask the question as to whether the results ofexperimental testing conducted thus far warranta real life experiment. They need to ask them-selves if they are willing, should that experimentfail, to take responsibility for the decision andshow the public that it was rationally and morallyjustified based on the available evidence. Theorganization in which they work must developa culture where community interests come first,community interests in a safe and workabletechnology that will enrich the lives of peopleexposed to the results of technology.

Moral sensibility

Technology demands moral sensibility, as tech-nology creates and operates within moral situa-tions. Economic considerations are an abstractionfrom a concrete situation involving technology,and concrete situations always have somethingthat goes beyond mere economics, they havemoral dimensions. Moral sensibility doesn’tignore technological factors, doesn’t falsify tech-nological data, and doesn’t reduce the conflicting

demands of a concrete situation to abstract prob-abilities, in which human lives and deadlines andprofits become nothing more than equal weightsin a probability matrix. Moral sensibility recog-nizes that business interests and technologicalinterests alike need to be understood in thenetwork of concrete relational contexts in whichthey are embedded, and that there needs to be arecognition that business interests, technologicalinterests, and community interests are inseparablyintertwined in the ongoing process of concretegrowth.

Technologies, as inherently experimental, mustbe constantly re-evaluated. The evaluation andredirection of the consequences of various tech-nologies, a grasp of the goods and ills of whichthey become a part, requires that advancedtechnological know-how be accompanied byadvanced enhancement of the tools of attune-ment, creativity, and imagination involved inliving a moral life. The frequent characterizationof technology as itself a neutral instrument at ourdisposal is inadequate, for technology is part andparcel of the way we exist in the world and isinseparably intertwined with the way we knowand value the world. Any technology embodiessome set of values, and as a technology succeedswithin a society, that technology’s values will inturn be reinforced. Every technology promotessome values, inhibits others, and bears with itsongoing use its own distinct style. In acceptingor rejecting particular technologies, we aremaking a statement about our values and ourunderstanding of our place in the world.

Conclusion

This paper has argued that the problems whicharise with the use of technology in a capitalisticsystem are not the result of structural problemsinherent in the system, as claimed by Veblen, norare they organizational problems inherent in therole given to engineers in the modern corpora-tion, as claimed by Galbraith. To the contrary,the arguments for these positions are based on areductionist, mechanistic, truncated, atomisticview of individuals in their respective roleswithin the capitalist system or within the cor-

Technology and Business 49

poration. This view of individuals, which weargue is a deeply rooted source of the problem,permeates, either explicitly or implicitly, a longtradition of dealing with ethical issues in business.

What is needed is a holistic relational under-standing of human beings as they function withinthe capitalistic system at large and within the cor-poration in particular, one in which individualsare not reduced to a specific role but ratherfunction in their concrete humanness to dealwith technological issues in the contextual, valueladed situations in which these issues are inex-tricably embedded. And what is also required isa recognition of the experimental nature of tech-nology, and the communication of relevant dataand an ongoing open honest dialogue which suchexperimental activity demands.

References

Borgman, A.: 1992, Crossing the Postmodern Divide(The University of Chicago Press, Chicago).

Buchholz, R.: 1989, ‘The Dalkon Shield: Self-Interest’, in Fundamental Concepts and Problems inBusiness Ethics (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs,NJ).

Galbraith, J. K.: 1967, The New Industrial State(Houghton Mifflin, Boston).

Maier, M.: 1992, A Major Malfunction: The Story

Behind the Challenger Disaster (SUNY Press,Binghamton, NY).

Vandiver, K.: 1990, ‘Why Should My ConscienceBother Me?’ in W. H. Hoffman and J. M. Moore(eds.), Business Ethics: Readings and Cases inCorporate Morality, 2nd ed. (McGraw-Hill, NewYork).

Veblen, T.: 1964a, Absentee Ownership: And BusinessEnterprise In Recent Times (Augustus M. Kelley,New York).

Veblen, T.: 1964b, The Instinct of Workmanship(Augustus M. Kelley, New York).

Veblen, T.: 1965a, The Theory of the Business Enterprise(Augustus M. Kelley, New York).

Veblen, T.: 1965b, The Engineers and the Price System(Augustus M. Kelley, New York).

Rogene A. BuchholzLoyola University of New Orleans,College of Business Administration,

New Orleans, LA 70118,U.S.A.

E-mail: buchholz@loyno.edu

Sandra B. RosenthalLoyola University of New Orleans,

Department of Philosophy,New Orleans, LA 70118,

U.S.A.E-mail: rosenth@loyno.edu

50 Rogene A. Buchholz and Sandra B. Rosenthal