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There are many people in the West, and in America, who harbor deep anxieties about technology, even as they concede, and enjoy, its conveniences. The biggest concern is that technology will undermine cherished values such as privacy, individuality, community, and human dignity. The critics say that technological progress does not produce moral progress.

The critics are not all “technophobes” or “Luddites.” We can’t simply accuse them of “living in the past.” They, like us, are living in the present and looking to a better future. The debate is over what kind of future we want. Even so, the critics’ blanket dismissal of new technologies is short-sighted and wrong-headed. In reality, technology doesn’t just make our lives easier; it also strengthens our core values. Thus technological progress can, and has, generated moral progress.

The most dramatic illustration of this is the abolition of slavery. Slavery was common in the ancient world. The Chinese, the Indians, the Greeks, and the Romans all had slavery. Slavery was pervasive in Africa, and American Indians had slavery long before Columbus landed on these shores. Why did people accept slavery so readily? The reason is given by Aristotle. In every society, Aristotle says, somebody has to do the dirty work. Only if slaves perform the menial tasks can other people find leisure to attempt higher things, like art and sculpture and philosophy. Aristotle views the slave as performing a function similar to a mower or tractor. The slave is a human tool.

But Aristotle’s argument contains an interesting corollary: if a society has mowers and tractors, then it doesn’t need slaves. In America, one of the reasons that slavery was abolished in the northern states much earlier than in the southern states was because mechanization in the North performed the tasks for which Southerners relied on their slaves. Anti-slavery northerners realized that it was no longer necessary to force humans to do tasks that machines could more willingly and more efficiently perform.

So technology helped to free human beings from bondage, and that is a moral gain because it extends a cherished value, freedom.

A second example of how technology promotes moral progress is the emancipation of women. America is a much better place because we recognize the equal dignity of women, and this includes extending to women the same right to work that men have traditionally enjoyed. Feminists fought for these rights, but in a way that feminists have not appreciated, what made their victories possible was technological advance.

Far more important than Betty Friedan or the National Organization for Women in liberating women to work were the pill, the vacuum cleaner, and the forklift. Think about this: until a few decades ago, housework was a full-time occupation. Cooking alone took several hours. The vacuum cleaner, the microwave oven, and other domestic appliances changed that. Until recently, work outside the home was harsh and physically demanding. Forklifts and other machines have reduced the need for human muscle. Finally, before the invention of the pill, women could not effectively control their reproduction and therefore for most women the question of having a full-time career simply did not arise.

So just as technology advanced the cause of liberty for slaves, it has also promoted the cause of equality for women.

Finally, technology has greatly extended the human lifespan. A century ago, the life expectancy of a person born in the United States was 49 years. Now it is 79 years, a thirty-year gain. Other countries, including Third World countries, also show impressive gains in life expectancy. This change was not brought about through the United Nations or the Welfare State; it was brought about by advances in medicine, in nutrition, in fertilizers and crop yields. Technology has given millions of people longer and healthier lives, and the chance to see their grandchildren. This is a moral gain because it has resulted in the reduction of human suffering and the strengthening of family bonds.

Today we are confronted by new technologies that do new things. These technologies make many people uncomfortable. The critics focus on the moral dangers of technology. Those dangers do exist, and we should debate them.
But what the critics miss is the possibility of moral gains. Used correctly, technology can generate moral progress by strengthening and affirming our highest values, as we have seen it do in the past. Technology doesn’t just offer us the chance to be better off; it offers us the chance to make a better society.