Seminar: Fabian Scholtes on moral knowledge in technology-based development

ZEFZentrum für EntwicklungsforschungCenter for Development ResearchUniversity of Bonn

Fabian Scholtes: On Moral Values and Solar Panels: Moral knowledge in technology-based development – STEPS, Oct. 31, 2008

Outline

Fabian Scholtes, Centre for Development Research, Bonn

Moral values and Solar Panels:

moral knowledge in technology-based development

1. Introduction: why look at the morality-technology nexus

2. Observations: development and the practice of moral norms and values

3. Moral knowledge: a concept for empirical research

4. The moral facet of solar panels



Background

General objective: understand better how micro interaction works in development practice

• Focus 1: moral values as ubiquitous but ambivalent aspect in a moral-political field

• Focus 2: technology-based development – renewable energy technologies (RETs)

• Focus 3: hinterland of Northeast Brazil – the poorhouse in a regional superpower

• Focus 4: local practices around the socio-cultural installation and integration of tangible technological systems

Link to STEPS: the S/sustainability of RETs



The morality/technology nexus

Insights from STS

• The ‚morality‘ of a weighty hotelroom key and a fast-closing door-spring: pre-scription and ethics delegated to things

• Socio-cultural life-cycle of technological devices/systems:

– from design to use and re-configuration

– co-constructions of/according to purposes and meanings

• The morality of green technology: ‚morality made durable, and to be installed durably‘ – but subject to life-cycle

=> nexus for this research: ambivalence of ‚good technology‘ as a materialisation of the ambivalence of ‚development‘



Development and morality

Assumptions

• Moral: oughts/obligations, as related to (interaction with) others => formal, analytical, external concept

• Practice of moral norms/values vs. moral practice

‘Evidence’ from the literature: strands of ambivalence– Undermining/instrumentalising e.g. ‘participation’

– Moral discrepancies and struggle at social/cultural interfaces

– Brokerage/translation: moral boundary concepts

– Emergence of moral order from contestation and improvisation

– Discursive moral structure

– Limits to ‘orderly’ and moral practice



The ‚technical code‘

• A classical double-bind of donor agencies‘ policy:

• Get them in the driver‘s seat (it‘s about their ownership/Sustainability)...

• ... to go the way we want them to (we have to account for success)

• Stage development as technical fix/support

• Hide donor‘s influence in technical rationality of means

• Maintain partner‘s autonomy

• Technical code as meta-code that enables negotiation (rather than depoliticisation)

=> Technical, but nevertheless moral (liberally ‚neutral‘) discourse as constructive repertory



Facets of practice

• Moral values as social structure:

• restrictive (norms) and enabling (orientation) frame

• repertory: strategic and cooperative (boundary objects)

• Agency: affirmative, deviant, constructive

• Agents: morally ‚and‘ strategically motivated

Ex.: participation: restricting policies, orienting

practice, killer argument, unite diverse actors



‚Moral knowledge‘

• Why understand moral values as knowledge?• Differentiate from morality as condition or motivation

• Capture the structural (frame) and agency (resource) aspect

• Capture intangible character and levels of consciousness (practical vs. discursive consciousness)

• Differentiate/relate to other knowledges

– know-that vs. know-how; empirical (causal/process vs. facts/state);

– knowledge systems: local, expert, organisational, …

• ‘Moral knowledge’: ensemble of moral norms and values that are relevant in context by ‘being known’

• A sociological approach, unlike moral epistemology!



Operationalising

Some insights from F. Barth’s Anthropology of Knowledge

• Stock of knowledge: what is known to be ‘good’, ‘just’ etc.

– elements are overlapping and distributed – who knows what?

• Ways of knowing (1): the creation of stock and structure

– how elements are represented, communicated etc.

– how elements are attributed a moral status

– how (new) elements are (re-) ordered and made coherence

• Ways of knowing (2): agency and the practice of structure

– Implementation, orientation, use, manipulation, justification of choices, …

– Structuration: affirmation, critique, re-production

=> ontologically, separating these is wrong! It is dialectical analysis.



Application

Where to find and research moral knowledge?

• ask for judgements/arguments; check moral codes

• analyse performance of ethics in ‚moral breakdowns‘

• observe management of daily dilemmas, conflicts etc.

• explicitly ethical set-ups (participation) vs. others

• document developments of practice and of the moral

status of

– a policy, a practice, a project

– an artefact or a socio-technological system ???



Decentralised RETs: installed morality?

“Worldwide more than 1,6 billion people do not have access to electricity. 80 % of those live in rural areas. […] The provision of a stable and reliable access to electricity in rural areas […] becomes the foundation for development and progress. Electricity […] enables poor communities to take their destiny in their own hands.

[…] How can access to electricity and the fight against climate change be reconciled? Renewable energies are the solution. […]”

(Ernesto Macias, President, Alliance Rural Electrification ARE)

• Empowerment: general infrastructure, purposes open

• Humanism: close to beneficiary, master of destiny

• Environmental soundness

• Productivism: create production, growth, employment



Solar panels

• Public/collective uses

• Water pumping and storage

• Agricultural processing

• Street and public building lighting

• Community centre (solar ICT kiosk)



Solar panels

• Public/collective uses

• Water pumping and storage

• Agricultural processing

• Street and public building lighting

• Community centre (solar ICT kiosk)

• Private uses

• TV, radio, lamps,

electric fan

• small processing units



The co-construction of the morality of PV

• „what is the device‘s moral legacy when being induced?“

– who provides the technology? How do their intentions relate to ‚local‘ ones?

• using and making markets? imperialist modernisation?

– which are (inbuilt) long-term development intentions and justifications?

• standard of living, growth, climate change mitigation, ...

– which are the intended uses and applications? What is their moral status?

• „how are practices and people re-organised?“

– autonomy of users vs. accountability, reponsibility, solidarity, ...

• SolarHomeSystem vs. community panel

• Who benefits? distributive justice – man‘s gain?

– cultural change and the introduction of new values

• „which moral meaning does the technology acquire?“

– a driver of individualisation? Of new dependence?

Which MK is practiced in this lifecycle, how, and how does it change?



Discussion

- (How) does it make sense – and is it useful – to research the moral status and moral power of RET, or of technology in general?

- (How) does it make sense to conceptualise the practice of moral norms and values as a practice of knowledge?

- How could sociologies of knowledge add/relate to this?

- How could sociologies of technology add/relate to this?

Thank you!

Further comments are much appreciated:

Please email to [email protected]

Education

Seminar: Fabian Scholtes on moral knowledge in technology-based development