Virtual Morality: Christian ethics in the computer age
Graham Houston, Apollos, 1998, £?, pb, 224ppI remember when I first visited a cybercity with a colleague (I think it was called Narnia) and ‘sat’ in a cybercafé where he met and counselled another cybernaut whose friend had just committed suicide. This café visitor was a lecturer on the West coast of the USA where it was 3am. Or was he? Was she in fact a housewife in Hull with a vivid imagination? The ethics of cyberspace are even more slippery than those of realspace. But the ethics of our imagination and of our every day doings are closely connected according to Houston. There is an obvious correlation with the teachings of Jesus about the imaginative realm of heart and mind as the dark source of malevolence, but there is a greyer area of creative imagination - and this is what is often at work in Virtual Reality (VR). I often adopt an alter ego in cyberchat. Must I declare that, or is it OK so long as I’m not causing harm to others or self? This is but the tip of the iceberg and Houston delves well below the water line into the murky depths of child abuse, violence and even the confusing abstraction of Baudrillard’s hyperreality.
Houston wants to establish that philosophy of technology is to Christian ethics (in the creative tension of postmodernity); what philosophy of science is to systematic theology (in late modernity). So he needs to explain his view of the philosophy of technology. It is an ambitious attempt, embracing en route the Ethics of Realism (following Oliver O’Donovan), the dangers of technicism (building on Jacques Ellul’s early insights) and the primacy of publicly shared truth in a pluralistic society (overtones of Lesslie Newbigin). By technicism he means technology for technology’s sake, or ‘belief’ in technology as the saviour of mankind. Science and technology were always going to save the universe in early Star Trek (3 hits in the index). In contrast, the latest Star Trek: Insurrection. sees the human spirit triumphing over technology. Houston makes obvious that technology is value-laden and thus Virtual Environments (VEs) are value-laden. Furthermore, technology is bound up with Homo Faber (Man the Maker) and therefore bound up with fallen humans capable of self-deception and a century of atrocious technological wars.
This is an interesting book which I read in no particular order. It’s a bit dense in places and set out like a scientific PhD, which is indeed what it is. A glance through the index shows us that Ellul, O’Donovan and Philip Wogaman get the highest number of hits for mortals (‘God’ wins outright) and their influence is seen clearly in the summarised conclusions. Cupitt and the Sea of Faith fall by the sword of MacIntyre and the necessary transcendent - no God, no agreed basis for morality. Secular futurologies are shown to be inadequate and unrealistic in the light of Christian eschatology and the theology of hope. This is a very good survey of ethics in general and a clear suggestion for a way forward not only for VR but plain old R as well. The form of the book will appeal to techies.
Church Times
