Defining Human Action, Labor, and Technological Risk
The Nature of Human Action
The human being knows and is intelligent, but also acts. Precisely through intelligence, we feel the need to react to different alternatives. Action can be defined as the capacity to imagine, organize, plan, and realize desires, projects, plans, and intentions.
Defining Traits of Human Action
Three traits define human action:
- Intentionality: Aristotle understood the way the subject acts, moving towards the external world as reality. Two modes are directed towards the object: theoretical intentionality (which expresses the human will to feel) and practical intentionality.
- Finality (Purpose): Means and ends define an action. Means are used to achieve an end. Our means are subordinated to tools in order for the ends to be achieved.
- Flexibility: One goal can be achieved by different means.
Work and the Greek Distinction of Life
Next, we consider work, which is the activity by which humans meet their needs. When someone was obliged to perform some activity merely to survive, that life was considered servile by the Greeks. The Greeks differentiated two types of life:
- Private Life: Corresponds to addressing the needs of life and must remain hidden.
- Public Life (Polis): Relates to human affairs; it is the only life worth living—a life without labor. Labor is reserved for slaves and women.
Labor vs. Work (Poiesis)
Furthermore, we differentiate between labor (body work) and work (poiesis). Labor is an activity oriented towards obtaining consumption goods, while work is the activity aimed at producing useful things of a durable, artificial character.
Key Characteristics of Work
Work has other features:
- It is a violence against nature.
- Work is guided by a model.
- The activity converts the human into Homo Faber (designer and inventor of tools).
- The worker gets paid.
The Industrial Revolution and the Transformation of Labor
During the Industrial Revolution, the concept of labor changed, leading to six major consequences:
- The rise of factories, allowing many people to work together.
- The distribution of time moved from being computed by the sun to fixed hours.
- Production became centralized in cities.
- The bourgeois capitalist owner emerged.
- The proletariat was created, often working under dire conditions.
- Women began to enter the workforce.
Post-War Society and the Complexity of Modern Work
The Second World War marked the end of an era and the appearance of a political society based on democracy, equality, and sustained growth. Parallel to the increase in consumption, there was a constant process of modernization and automation of production driven by new technologies. Today, with this incorporation, the structure of work is much more complex. New jobs are steadily emerging; periods of unemployment alternate with training, and it is becoming increasingly necessary to readjust to new job profiles.
Defining Technique and Technology
Within the context of work, we also find technique. Technique is an ability whereby natural reality is transformed into artificial reality, in the words of Ortega y Gasset. Technique encompasses craftsmanship (which does not incorporate scientific knowledge) and industrial technology (techniques related to scientific knowledge).
Ethical Warnings on Technological Danger
Human beings project their future, and technique helps to create it, according to Gasset. Hans Jonas and Ortega y Gasset warned of the dangers of technique to humans and the catastrophic consequences for the environment. To counter this, a new type of human ethics is necessary to ensure the survival of the planet.
Technological Risk and Societal Collapse
We observe the technological unfolding, but within it, there are also risks. As Ulrich Beck stated, our society lives with the potential nightmare of a global environmental catastrophe and collapse, which produces the paradox of fear. Philosophical analysis often insists on the dangers and evils that technology can lead to all mankind, noting that acting to mitigate risk is itself a risk. This does not mean that technology operates without external control. While there are measures for assessment and control, both internal and external, technology does have negative effects. However, these can only be combated with appropriate knowledge.