Technological Intervention and the Malady of Happiness
Philippe Gauthier, John M. Cullars · Design Issues · 1999
Translated by John Cullars improvement of the quality of the artificial environment, which is composed of objects, houses, and cities, has always been accepted as conducive to the happiness of human beings. Design is specifically devoted to guaranteeing this objective, in so far as its technical interventions contribute as much as possible to the well being of populations. In terms of the numerous dysfunctional results-environmentally, as much as socially or culturally-generated by the technological progress, however, one must admit that the technical action is far from always systematically leading to good results.' Certainly, our purpose, once again, isn't to indict technology and to hold it responsible for all the ills of contemporary society. These dysfunctional results, however, oblige us to rethink the conditions in which a technological project can constitute an action that is legitimate and attuned to the common good. problems accompanying technological innovation demonstrate that it is illusory to seek guarantees of happiness in the design process,2 which one finds in a large number of professional disciplines. One of the major difficulties that we face here lies in the fact that design isn't sufficiently oriented toward the elaboration of hypotheses on the usage of objects. At best, such hypotheses sometimes are borrowed from marketing or from ergonomy which, moreover, are not interested in uses per se but rather in the needs and identity of types of users. elaboration of hypotheses specifically concerning uses rarely is considered necessary in conceiving an object. Moreover, in the course of the design process, this work is rapidly evaded by the definition of objects, that is a process aiming to translate an idea into a thing by means of diverse representations. It is precisely in regard to the true virtues of this painstaking workmanship of objects with which design is involved that the question of an ethics of technology raises doubts. In fact, this work centered on the object manifests itself as a process of closure that gradually forbids social arguments, while exclusively promoting technological and commercial ones.3 Insofar as the social stakes of technology have become the center of interest for the design process, it is important to redirect its course to better lead to the description and normalization of routine uses, or of the interconnection of the social and the technological. In order to make some contribution to such a program, one first must lay out in detail an interpretation of the ethical problems raised by design practice. As to marking technological intervention, Technological innovation, moreover, involves fears that are increasingly less well hidden, and which, if they prefigure a more or less prudent attitude toward technique, too often are still associated with ignorance. This is the case for nanotechnologies, as pointed out by a journalist in Hamburg's DerSpiegel: The invasion of micromachines doesn't raise more doubts... But what will be the extent of that revolution? Its promoters