Can we just say no? Towards a Tolstoyan criterion of technological progress

Abstract: The rapid advancement of technology has profound implications for society, ushering in novel ethical risks and disrupting established norms and practices. Yet despite this disruptive potential, discussions surrounding the ethics of new and emerging technologies often neglect to examine the nature of our obligations to resist, reject, or even prohibit technological innovation and advancement. Given this, my goal in this paper is to take up this issue and explore some of the ethical considerations that bear on technological advancement. First, I trace our permissive attitude towards technological innovation to the traditional liberal view that free market forces tend to select for technologies that contribute to aggregate welfare. While this view correctly ties the permissibility of technological advancement in its relation to social progress, I argue it faces problems due to its overly optimistic assessment of market forces and its simplistic standard for evaluating social progress. I then consider an alternative, Tolstoyan criterion of technological permissibility which holds that technological advancement should only be supported if we have good reason to believe it will contribute to our collective ability to live a meaningful life. I argue that this standard ensures a more robust connection between technological advancement and social progress and would have far-reaching implications for the way we evaluate, regulate, and fund technological research. I conclude by exploring these implications with a special focus on its implications for healthcare research in particular.