Increasing responsibility as technological destiny?
human reproductive technology and the problem of meta-responsibility
pp. 135-150
in: Paul T. Durbin (ed), Technology and responsibility, Berlin, Springer, 1987Abstract
Responsibility refers to the consequences of human actions, especially to the bad consequences, as far as we have control over them. Responsibility, therefore, presupposes (a) that the bad consequences could have been foreseen, i.e., that the acting person has enough empirical knowledge to be able to anticipate the outcome of his or her action; and (b) that it would have been possible to avoid these bad consequences either by renouncing the action or by modifying its execution in such a way that they do not occur. The first presupposition indicates the cognitive or theoretical limits of our responsibility; the second, its practical or technological limits.