Key Arguments

• Debate has been "led astray through an all-too-exclusive concentration upon the service or disservice the machines render to men."
• Instrumentality relates "much more closely" to the object to be produced; their "sheer ‘human value’" is restricted to use.
• "the toolmaker, invented tools and implements in order to erect a world, not—at least, not primarily—to help the human life process."
• Thus the question: "whether machines still serve the world and its things, or if, on the contrary, they and the automatic motion of their processes have begun to rule and even destroy world and things."

Source Quotes

The categories of and his world apply here no more than they ever could apply to nature and the natural universe. This is, incidentally, why modern advocates of automation usually take a very determined stand against the mechanistic view of nature and against the practical utilitarianism of the eighteenth century, which were so eminently characteristic of the one-sided, single-minded work orientation of The discussion of the whole problem of technology, that is, of the transformation of life and world through the introduction of the machine, has been strangely led astray through an all-too-exclusive concentration upon the service or disservice the machines render to men. The assumption here is that every tool and implement is primarily designed to make human life easier and human labor less painful.

The assumption here is that every tool and implement is primarily designed to make human life easier and human labor less painful. Their instrumentality is understood exclusively in this anthropocentric sense. But the instrumentality of tools and implements is much more closely related to the object it is designed to produce, and their sheer “human value” is restricted to the use the makes of them.

But the instrumentality of tools and implements is much more closely related to the object it is designed to produce, and their sheer “human value” is restricted to the use the makes of them. In other words, , the toolmaker, invented tools and implements in order to erect a world, not—at least, not primarily—to help the human life process. The question therefore is not so much whether we are the masters or the slaves of our machines, but whether machines still serve the world and its things, or if, on the contrary, they and the automatic motion of their processes have begun to rule and even destroy world and things.

In other words, , the toolmaker, invented tools and implements in order to erect a world, not—at least, not primarily—to help the human life process. The question therefore is not so much whether we are the masters or the slaves of our machines, but whether machines still serve the world and its things, or if, on the contrary, they and the automatic motion of their processes have begun to rule and even destroy world and things. One thing is certain: the continuous automatic process of manufacturing has not only done away with the “unwarranted assumption” that “human hands guided by human brains represent the optimum efficiency,” but with the much more important assumption that the things of the world around us should depend upon human design and be built in accordance with human standards of either utility or beauty.

Key Concepts

• strangely led astray through an all-too-exclusive concentration upon the service or disservice the machines render to men
• their instrumentality is understood exclusively in this anthropocentric sense
• the toolmaker, invented tools and implements in order to erect a world, not—at least, not primarily—to help the human life process
• begun to rule and even destroy world and things

Context

20 INSTRUMENTALITY AND Animal Laborans: Reorients evaluation of technology from human utility to world-serving or world-destroying functions.