Daedalus, or Science and the Future

Answers

• Q26CONTROL

  Can inventors remain responsible for harmful uses of their inventions that they did not intend?

  No. the inventor's task is discovery; society must adapt its morals. Uses Daedalus, who caused the death of Minos yet was never punished, to argue that the scientific worker is not concerned with gods and that mankind must adjust its morality to the powers science gives it.

  But Minos held that a labyrinth and an annual provi¬ sion of 50 youths and 50 virgins were excessive as an endowment for re¬ search, and in order to escape from his ruthless economies Daedalus was forced to invent the art of flying. Minos pursued him to Sicily and was slain there. Save for his valuable invention of glue, little else is known of Daedalus. But it is most significant that, although he was responsible for the death of Zeus’ son Minos he was neither smitten by a thunderbolt, chained to a rock, nor pursued by furies. Still less did any of the rather numerous visitors to Hades discover him either in Elysium or Tartarus. We can hardly imagine him as a member of the throng of shades who besieged Charon’s ferry like sheep at a gap. He was the first to demonstrate that the scientific worker is not concerned with gods.

  Internet Archive text; Daedalus passage (pp. 47–48) and closing pages read.

• Q30SACRED

  Should technological invention be understood as carrying out a divine purpose?

  This answer is hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.