Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
—Albert Einstein
For the sake of one life, you will destroy the world. Some things are not ours to tamper with. Some things are God’s.
—Carla Warren (Walter’s assistant in 1985)
This chapter will focus on the broadening range of what is ethically significant when we take into account advancements in science. On Fringe, we encounter scientific and technological advancements that range from the plausible to the impossible, at least as we gaze upon it from within our current context. The particular examples we see on the show do resemble our own advancements to the extent that they present ethical dilemmas where technology is concerned, for while our technologies might be different, the constant development of new technology broadens the range of ethically significant action in both the real and fictional universes.
The first part of this chapter will provide a discussion of the benefits of technological advance and the cautiously optimistic attitude we must take when producing technology that, depending on how it is used, could be detrimental to society as a whole. Using Hans Jonas’s imperative of responsibility, we will examine the desirability of restraining science, in effect discouraging certain types of innovation. The imperative of responsibility teaches us that we should act in ways conducive to continuing human life and not destructive to it. Jonas’s dual imperatives should teach us to call into question the familiar scientific credo of “if science can do it, then science ought to do it.”
The second part of this chapter will examine our own ethical tendencies when confronted with the situations we meet in the show, taking into account our relationship to the fictional characters with whom we have become familiar over several years and assuming that we would react to the fictional situation in the same way we would react to a similar ethical scenario in the real world. Thus in the second section we consider how our experience of the ethical dilemmas on Fringe can give us an indication of what we would do, whereas the first section focuses on what we should do. We conclude that, in facing our natural tendency not always to use technology to the benefit of all, the restrictions suggested in the chapter’s first section are justified.
We want to cast a cautious gaze on the role that science and technological progress play on Fringe by looking at their effects on society through an ethical lens. We will begin with a discussion of the benefits that technology can bring us, because there is a strong sense of optimism within our society when it comes to technological progress and the good that may come as a result. New technologies expand the realm of what is possible and have the potential to enhance our lives in innumerable ways. But alongside these developments, and our desire to push the limits of what is possible, come developments that should rouse strong feelings of suspicion and apprehension. Here we shall discuss the desirability of putting constraints on science in order to temper our appetite for innovation and discovery in an attempt to articulate Han Jonas’s imperative of responsibility through his ethics of responsibility.
Then we will shift the discussion toward two specific examples from Fringe: Massive Dynamic’s development of nanotechnology and the Observers’ use of advanced technologies to save their society from planetary destruction. While both cases may initially seem far removed from our own scientific realities, properly relegating such developments to the realm of science fiction, our aim is to draw an analogy between the fanciful world depicted on Fringe with our own prospects in the not so distant future. The imperative of responsibility teaches us two things: to act in ways that are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life and to act so that the effects of your action are not destructive to the possibility of such life. Jonas’s dual imperatives call into question the ethos of “if science can do it, then science ought to do it.”
Before getting into the doom and gloom portion of this chapter, we would like to look at the ways in which science and technology have benefited us. We may not have the hover cars and colonies on the moon that our parents’ generation was promised with the dawn of the twenty-first century (neither in our own world nor in the Fringe-verse), but nevertheless we still encounter some astonishing technologies on Fringe. One piece of technology that is of particular interest is the transdimensional window, a portal of sorts that allows us to peer into the alternate universe.
We learn that by 1985, Walter had developed a window to look into the other side. The society he found there was very similar to ours but more advanced in some areas. Although he is unable to cross into the alternate universe at this time, Walter is able to copy its advanced technology, some of which was sold to the military to benefit the world at large. Those whose well-being would be significantly diminished without their beloved smartphones have Walter and his window to thank for that. In 1985 Walter mentions that the technology for a digital cell phone is thirty years away in our universe, yet by 1988 we already have the first digital cell phone on our side; kudos, Dr. Bishop!
But when we are discussing Fringe and technology, we can’t help thinking of Massive Dynamic. On the show, Massive Dynamic represents the pinnacle of technological progress. It was founded by William Bell, who aspired to “satisfy the technological needs of this century and the next.” One of Massive Dynamic’s early contributions was new developments in prosthetics; in fact, Nina Sharp’s robotic replacement arm was an invention by Bell himself. This innovation couldn’t have come at a better time. The Persian Gulf War had just concluded, and with the help of these new technological advances, Massive Dynamic (then named BELLMEDICS) gave a new sense of hope to soldiers who lost their limbs in conflict.1 When technology is viewed from an instrumental perspective like this, it generally implies a positive ethical assessment: technology’s ability to increase the possibilities and capabilities of humans generally seems desirable.
What we should take from this discussion is that we do not necessarily have to oppose increased industrialization or new technology. Nor should we concern ourselves with Martin Heidegger’s hostility to technology as a threat to essence, preventing us from seeing a more primal truth. Modern developments in technology can help increase someone’s well-being and allow them the means to function, something that wouldn’t be possible for those soldiers had it not been for the innovations in prosthetics made at Massive Dynamic.
However, we should not dismiss outright all critiques of technological progress just because they do not share our technoenthusiasm. If we get bound up in a narrow focus on scientific discovery, we may get caught up in our own hubris. Traditionally, scientists view scientific progress and discovery as an unqualified good that should be exploited at all costs. We do not deny that we should strive for progress and development, only that we should critically reflect on whether technological progress is an unqualified good.
In an impassioned speech at U.S. Army Research Headquarters, Walter explains, “Our success thus far should serve as an example of our ability to achieve that which most can’t even imagine. What you must understand is that, as scientists, we must embrace every possibility. No limitations. No boundaries. There is no reason for them.” Implicit in Walter’s argument is an endorsement of the neutrality thesis, which holds that technologies are value-neutral tools. They are used to perform valued functions, but the moral characteristics that we attribute to them can be attributed only to the use of technology, not to the technologies themselves or their creators. Certainly Walter would not deny that technologies can be put to good or bad uses, but he holds that there should be no constraints on scientific discovery. Walter is trying to express the worry that governmental—and, for that matter, moral—regulations would stifle scientific research and potentially inhibit the development of beneficial innovations.
A philosopher who would be leery of Walter’s enthusiasm about scientific discovery is Han Jonas, whose book The Imperative of Responsibility calls into question the neutrality of science and technology, in effect imposing moral responsibility on scientists and their research.2 Drawing on a philosopher who wrote about technology in the 1970s may seem curious in light of all the developments in technology since then, but this discussion is meant to illustrate the importance—if not a growing importance—of Jonas’s pleas.
Jonas begins with the observation that the promise of modern technology has turned into a threat of disaster. New and unknown forces have been conferred upon us by science, which has allowed power to become its own master. We have turned the perspective of salvation into apocalypse through the ability of a single life form—humankind—to endanger all life forms. According to Jonas, this calls for a new ethical theory. Traditional ethical theories prove deficient because they are limited to interactions with individuals, while the power of modern technology bestows upon us control over nature. In the Fringe-verse, that includes power over alternate universes.
New dimensions of responsibility come into play with modern technology because of the irreversible and cumulative character of our actions on the living world. For moral responsibility to apply, however, three conditions must be met: first is casual power, so that action can have an impact on the world; second, the action must be under the agent’s control; and third, the agent must foresee the consequences to some extent. We see a prime example of this when Walter seeks to cross over into the alternate universe to save their Peter.
Watching his son die for a second time through his transdimensional window, Walter presses on with his research to find a gateway to the other side. Even before Walter attempts to cross through the bridge, we know of the potential dangers in crossing over. Walter’s assistant, Carla Warren, urges him not to go through with it, reminding him that shattering the wall between the universes could rupture the fundamental constants of nature. In a somber voice, Walter acknowledges the threats but seems willing to disregard them, saying, “It’s a theory, and we don’t know that to be true.” Walter’s attempts to dismiss the dangers as purely theoretical seem to skirt the implications of the consequences.
At later points in the show—once we discover the actual effects Walter’s crossing had on the alternate universe—we find that Walter was more aware of the potential consequences than he let on. Here we find all of Jonas’s conditions for responsibility met: Walter’s crossing over creates tears in the alternate universe; his actions were clearly his own, motivated by his desire to save the alternate Peter; and the potential consequences were at least foreseeable (if only in theory, but a good theory, Carla would add). By denying that there is a line that cannot be crossed, denying that there is a threshold of danger that should urge us to take heed, and denying that there are some matters that belong only to God, Walter embodies the drive for unbridled scientific discovery. But despite his violation of the imperative of responsibility, perhaps we can find grounds to excuse Walter for his actions.
The Walter we meet delivering the speech at U.S. Army Research Headquarters presents a stark contrast to the gentle old man that we are introduced to in the Fringe present. Here we find a man humbled by experience and the sheer power that science can have on the world, much like what happened to Robert Oppenheimer when he witnessed the destructive effects of the atomic bomb. We can contrast this response to that of Walter’s former colleague, William Bell.
In the season 4 finale (“Brave New World”) we discover that David Robert Jones and the members of ZFT are actually colluding with Bell in an effort to realize Bell’s sinister plans to destroy both universes. Bell, slowly dying of cancer despite effects of Cortexiphan, became disillusioned with his condition and began to reflect on the younger, more naïve Walter’s scientific outlook. It occurs to him that Walter’s earlier pronouncements about science were right: there should no limitations, no boundaries—there is no reason for them. Bell believed that “if we are capable of being Gods, then it is our destiny to do so.” Here Bell embodies the scientific ethos of if science can do it, then science ought to do it.
After losing Peter twice, Walter comes to question how any God could allow for so much suffering. He embarks on a path to create a universe that would operate by his own rules. The experience also changes Walter’s disposition regarding unbridled scientific research and its (inevitable) application. Jonas would explain this as the beginnings of a new consciousness awakened by the euphoria of big victories, which allows for the harsh daylight of dangers to impose on us the barriers of responsibility.
According to Jonas, our arrogance needs to be replaced by humility, which stems from the discrepancy between our power to harm and destroy and our incapacity to predict and take responsibility for the consequences on the other. Fear and trembling will keep our power from overwhelming us or those who follow us. It was this realization on Walter’s part—that he was smart enough to actually construct his own universe—that frightened his past hubris out of him. This stark realization induced Walter to ask Bell to cut out a portion of his brain to prevent Walter from bringing his universe to fruition: “We cut those ideas out of your head to literally put ‘the Genie’ back into the bottle.”
Walter’s story shows us that the traditional claim by pure science to freedom of research cannot be maintained. The distinction between pure science and applied technology is being increasing blurred, according to Jonas. A further lesson that we can take from Walter’s story is that it should behove us to refute Nina Sharp’s prediction that “suffice to say, we’ve reached a point where science and technology have advanced for such an exponential rate for so long, it may be beyond our ability to regulate and control them.”
Instead, we should promote Jonas’s dual imperative for responsibility to “act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life” and to “act so that the effects of your actions are not destructive to the future possibility of such life.” The final two sections of this part of the chapter take up each imperative in turn, first considering nanotechnology and then the case of the Observers.
Developments in nanotechnologies have the potential to pose profound challenges not only to our traditional ethical notions, but also to human life as we know it. Advocates hail the development of nanotechnology for its potential to solve environmental problems, offer alternative fuels, and provide innumerable medical benefits. Critics warn of the potential negative effects on human health and the environment and the social disruption that nanotechnology may cause.
On Fringe, commenting on the development of nanotechnologies, Nina Sharp says to a room full of board members: “Nanotechnology—the bloom is not off the rose. Because of the far-ranging claims that have been made about potential applications of nanotechnology, a number of serious concerns have been raised about how this will affect our society if realized, and what actions, if any are deemed appropriate, might be needed to mitigate these risks. This is not Massive Dynamic’s concern. We create technology. How it is used is not our concern. We just own the patents.” Nina’s remarks express that scientific ethos of uninhibited pursuit of research and development with complete and utter disregard for its societal impacts. What we have been urging throughout this chapter is the need for some sort of constraints on science and technology, not a condemnation of scientific progress.
As shown on Fringe, nanotechnologies have tremendous potential to contribute to medical research. When the two Fringe teams encounter each other for the first time in the alternate universe, Agent Lee is left with third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body. If this happened on our side, he would not have much of a chance. In the alternate universe they developed cellular regenerative nanotechnologies that were able to heal Agent Lee in a matter of days.
Yet we also encounter a more malicious side of nanotechnologies when they are weaponized and targeted against civilian populations. On the season 4 finale, the Fringe team is sent to investigate a case where two dozen people appear to have spontaneously combusted. Turns out Bell created nanites that embedded themselves into people’s bodies and caused the body to overheat as the nanites reacted to the body’s kinetic energy. However, the same type of technology can be put to positive uses: research is currently being conducted on the possibility of running a cellular phone battery off nanites, which would recharge the battery from the body’s kinetic energy.
While the potential dangers that come from nanotechnologies can have a highly destructive impact on human life as we know it, this does not mean that we should put an end to the development of nanotechnologies. Not even Jonas would call for complete abolishment; rather, nanotechnologies should be developed with Jonas’s first imperative in mind, so that they are consistent with the permanence of genuine human life. What Jonas tell us is that the scientists at Massive Dynamic themselves must be held morally responsible for their research. Responsibility does not fall merely on the user but resides with the scientists and the corporations that develop the technology. What we can derive from this claim is that we may pursue research that has the potential to enhance human life. If we were able to use the Fringe alternative universe’s advances in medical research, it might be possible to regenerate organs and limbs for individuals in need, for example.
In Fringe, we learn that by the year 2609 the Observers had made our planet uninhabitable. The Earth was destroyed ecologically, making the air and water toxic. By utilizing technology from their time period, the Observers were able to exist “outside of time.” Having ruined their planet, the only option they had was to travel back in time to a healthier planet. The year 2015 became known as the purge, as that was the year that the Observers arrived on “present-day” Earth, enslaving humans. Whereas Jonas’s second imperative holds that our actions should not be destructive to the future possibility of life, we find an inversion of the imperative operating here on past human life.
The arrival of the Observers themselves would not have been problematic in itself. Perhaps their futuristic cell phone technology and their collapsible binoculars would be useful. But their arrival on Earth proves to be destructive to potential future human life. Finding the planet’s air too oxygenated during our time, they emit extra carbon monoxide. Henrietta Bishop tells us that the effects will soon be irreversible and lower the average age of natives (the human population) to approximately forty-five.
According to Jonas, we have mortgaged future life for our present short-term gains and needs. What we do in our present—whatever time that may be—has a massive effect on countless lives who have no say in the matter. Jonas concedes that perhaps this is inevitable and there is no way of avoiding our impact on the future (or the past, in the case of the Observers), so our actions should express a concern for posterity, “namely in such a way that their chance of coping with that mortgage has not been compromised in advance.”
A further lesson can be drawn from the case of the Observers. When Windmark—the Observer who seems to be in charge of native affairs—gets asked by Colonel Broyles, “What did you do up there in the future to get yourself such a ‘crap detail’?” Windmarks responds with an amused tone in his voice: “I like animals.” Fringe is suggesting that according to the Observers we are nothing but a bunch of animals. This draws an interesting parallel: if we feel so morally violated when the Observers enslave us and proceed to destroy our own planet, why do we not feel the same way when the same happens to animals?
Our traditional anthropocentric ethics are being challenged here. What we should take from this case is that when we are developing technologies, perhaps we should expand our circle of ethical concern to include animal life. Jonas highlights the need to broaden our ethical concern because of how the power that technology gives us expands our dimensions of responsibility. Our concerns should then include, at least, any living being’s interests—past, present, or future—when our powers of action have a causal effect on their well-being.
In the Fringe universe, we regularly encounter scenarios where scientific advances may be used for the good of the many and the detriment of the few, or conversely, for the good of the few and the detriment of the many. There is a certain sense in which these scenarios, as presented in the show, are no longer hypothetical. The rational “What would you do?” question of the hypothetical situation becomes a visceral “What do you want to happen?” We feel for these characters; we get anxious when they are in danger, and we want them to always succeed. If we didn’t, we would be watching very bad television. No one would care what happens next, and all the characters might as well get hit by buses.
So it is safe to assume, based on the fact that we watch the show at all, that we do care about the characters, we do care about what’s going to happen next, and we don’t want them to suffer. And so it is often the case that our rational considerations about what would be best for the Fringe universe(s) become subordinate to our visceral response to their plights. And we want the best things to happen to the characters we’re most used to; we like them the best, and we favor their happiness over others’. We want to save Peter, other universe be damned.
We also cannot dismiss this reaction by telling ourselves this is only a TV show. By the same logic that would permit our favoring the main characters, we should not care about them at all. But that is certainly not the case. And so we take it as given that we do care about what happens in the Fringe world and we favor the main characters over any random extra (they were probably introduced only to be sacrificed anyway). The fact that we do this is analogous to how we normally live. The purpose of this portion of the chapter will be to take a look at why we look at Fringe with these particular goggles on and how it is possible to do so in the first place.
We will examine some common notions first of all as to why viewers seem to enjoy television, particularly why we prefer certain characters over others and how we react to the situations we’re presented with, far removed from our daily experience as they may be. We have probably all heard that we like characters we can relate to, but this is a simplification of what’s really going on. We’ve also probably heard that we like to see familiar scenarios (it can’t all be techno wars, where’s the romance?). Here we’re getting closer to something coherent. And more recently, we’ve heard that watching reruns of your favorite TV show produces the same mental benefit as hanging out with old friends—Olivia Dunham is awesome and I can predict exactly what she’s going to do—way better than real people.3 There’s a better philosophical interpretation of this phenomenon, though the common theme of our analysis is identified, one that constitutes a broader philosophical issue: how we deal with fictional worlds, how we relate to the people in them, and what we can learn by examining our relation to the fictional. The individual examination should have generalizable conclusions: how we form preferences that influence our decisions is by no means individual. By looking at ourselves with a critical eye, we can infer similarities with other people by analogy.
Our relationship to fictional characters is analogous to our relation to actual people. Though they seem like simplified versions of real people, we can imagine any number of ways in which their being can be complicated, and it is often the case that they are. For instance, sometimes we introduce a back story that happens to explain why so-and-so acts in a particular way in situation X. We undergo the same process in getting to know a fictional character as we do a real person. And we like them.
This introduces a philosophical problem: Why do we like the people we do? And there’s a corresponding problem for fictional characters: Why do we prefer certain characters over others?
As we stated earlier, we prefer familiar characters over unfamiliar ones. We feel closer to Peter Bishop than we do to office worker number four, even though we are not international criminals of boundless genius. Familiarity is an important factor in why we prefer certain people (fictional or otherwise) over others, and this may be just a function of how often we see them on-screen. Nevertheless, this familiarity determines whether we think Peter should sacrifice himself for the good of humanity or stick around. Consider, for instance, when Peter disappears into the Machine in order to save both universes. The fact that he does so willingly certainly helps us to feel better about his doing it, but we also want him to come back. And when he does, we want the old Peter back, not the one who has no place in the current universe. We want him to be happy.
But this contradicts some of our basic assumptions about the people we like. We assume that we like the characters who are most like us, but Fringe introduces such a diverse range of possible character traits that it seems impossible one should find one’s television doppelganger among its cast. We take this as evidence that the most important factor in our relationship with fictional characters is not that we feel we have the most in common with them with respect to the attributes of their character. Most viewers are not mad scientists, nor telepathic FBI agents, nor international men of mystery. Therefore, we’re looking for something more basic. This observation extends to real people as well; it is not always the people with whom one has the most in common that one becomes friends. And so if we cannot say that the only reason we care about fictional characters is because we think we have so much in common with them (at this superficial level), we must entertain another possibility.
The second contender for the reason why we care about fictional characters is that we think of them not as television versions of ourselves but as (imaginary) friends. Perhaps we don’t think we are closely related in character to the people we are watching, but we find their characters likeable and fun to be around. Walter Bishop is totally awesome, and we should hang out. While this certainly is true (call me, Walter, we’ll set something up), this still doesn’t completely account for our relationship to fictional characters. The analogy to real friends is once again enlightening. Where we interact with real people, we are an important part of the relationship. We have some relationship with our real friends, something that is most definitely lacking within our posited relation to a fictional character. When something bad happens to them, we are there to comfort them, and we ask for their opinions on particular things relevant to our lives. But our television friends act of their own accord, no matter what we think they should do. They don’t even ask us. (How rude; frankly, they’re putting our friendship in jeopardy.)
Nevertheless, we do care about them in some way. If it’s not because they represent ourselves or that we relate to them as friends, we submit that it is only a function of familiarity that we care what happens to our characters. But this raises another issue: Why do we get so attached to familiar things? We might say we simply hate change, but you’d think, what with the world changing all the time around us, coupled with the fact that we’re not currently suffering as a result of it, that change is not the monster here. At least, not change in an unqualified sense. What our television viewer-ship can teach us is that we’re absolutely fine with change; what we hate is change we can’t anticipate. Once we become accustomed to a character, we can predict what he or she will do in a given situation, and we’re happy that we can. If Peter is running around killing shape-shifters, he probably has a good reason. We base this judgment on our past experience of the character, and we’re angry if television writers have our characters do something that doesn’t fit with the sense we’ve acquired of them. The fact that familiarity is primary in a fictional world as well as a real one evidences a more general claim: given that nothing that happens on Fringe can be to our personal detriment in any way, and yet familiarity seems important to us, we cannot claim that we as human beings fear the unfamiliar; rather, we just like the familiar. That’s all there is to it.
So no matter what kind of man Peter is, we want him around, and we want him to be Peter. We’ve grown attached to him as he is. And this is why we get that visceral reaction to his being endangered, despite the fact that in the Fringe universes there are billions of people we could also just as easily have come to know and like; but kill them all if our Peter is threatened—unless, perhaps, we’re shown a very sympathetic shot of some particularly sympathetic person about to be harmed by our choices.
In addition to having empathic relationships with fictional characters (regardless of their being similar to ourselves or being some kind of analog to real friends), there are certain situations in which we feel an immediate reaction. And the strength of our reaction is dependent on our proximity to the situation. We can all look at a poverty-stricken child on television (especially a particularly cute one) and get all weepy-eyed. “Help them!” our empathic response cries out; then another commercial comes on and we develop a sudden craving for toaster strudel.4
The reason that they show you one child suffering is because you will have a greater reaction to one child that you can see than one million that you cannot. Perhaps it’s a very simple corollary of what we concluded in the previous section: our caring is a function of our familiarity. You’ve known that television child for thirty seconds now, and those other million you’ve never even seen. The point is that when we are presented with a particular situation we find troublesome, and with someone in that situation, we have an immediate response, regardless of whether we’ve gotten to know that individual over the past four seasons. Somebody is suffering; but they have to be a definite somebody in order for us to have a visceral reaction (as opposed to a purely rational, “Gee, that sucks for them”).
This is where our analysis might be able to say something about ethical motivations in the application of scientific technology in general. In the vast majority of situations, all we can have is a rational response. Yes, we should improve agricultural techniques so that the world’s resources become sufficient to provide for its entire population. Of course we should reduce, reuse, and recycle to protect the environment, even though the landfills are currently far from my own backyard. And even though we don’t know anyone from Hiroshima, we know the guy who pressed the button on that one was a murderous jerk.
Fringe provides us with the opportunity to see how very abstract questions about the ethical significance of scientific advancement may come down to personal considerations. Because we’re aware that the closer we get to a situation, the more our opinion of the ethicality of that situation will change. Twelve children were drugged—okay, we’ve got plenty more of those around, at least they’re not starving to death and working in sweatshops. Olivia was drugged—Oh no! Those bastards. The general observation we can make here is that, when it comes to making ethical decisions, we tend to take ourselves out of the situation we’re evaluating, unless we’re forced into it. Our relationship to fictional characters is forcing us into the situation, and if we take a second to think about it, it’s scary to think what we would have done to the universe to help those few fake people. And we’re certainly not alone on this one.
If we constantly made rational decisions about using science for the benefit of humankind as a whole, we would all be watching a television program where the characters seem to do nothing but make horrible decisions that are an affront to our better judgment. And nobody wants to watch that show. Nor would we want to watch it if they constantly made decisions that disregarded our empathic affiliation with the characters we like. It is the tug-of-war between our rationality and a natural empathic response that makes Fringe interesting, dramatic, and, in the end, frightening. For the fact is that it is not the general public that decides what is an appropriate use for technology. We have to trust in a small set of individuals who do have that power, and if they’re anything like us, we wouldn’t extoll them as pinnacles of rationality with our best interests at heart. More likely they respond to ethical scenarios in the same way that we do: inconsistently and with the interests of those closest to them in mind, taking risks that would seem completely inappropriate to anyone looking in from the outside but that make perfect sense from an alternate perspective.
But we also see, every so often, what an individual does do when the burden is placed on him or her to consider his or her own benefits when compared with those of a much larger group of individuals: in the end, Peter gets into the machine. We can also imagine, then, that when the burden is placed on us to decide what we should do (what some abstract individual should do), whether it would be better to do something horribly unpleasant for the sake of others or to live with ourselves as moral scum. This example seems more representative of what the average person might do when encumbered by some moral burden than some other examples we’ve seen (for example, William Bell destroying the universe because he thinks it would be fun). A large part of how we define the heroes and villains of our story is how well their motivations fit with our own; and if we take this into account, the fact that we identify with the self-sacrificing Peter to a much greater extent than the self-worshipping William Bell means perhaps there’s hope for humanity after all in the face of a potential doomsday. But we cannot take this as an indication that we should be comforted by the immediate moral response of the average person (assuming it’s the “good” choice); what William Bell’s exploits have to tell us is that, if we’re going to use some fictitious or future technology to destroy the universe, it only takes one. Now it seems like a more palpable problem, for certainly we can imagine there existing one individual somewhere in the world who would use scientific advancements to do horrible things to us, no matter how loudly and often we tell them they’re defying moral principles.
Einstein’s words in the epigraph to this chapter serve as a sobering warning about the potentially devastating effects that science and technology can have in the wrong hands. Through technological progress science has brought us some of our greatest achievements, such as insulin and the Special Theory of Relativity. But our history of technological progress is not without its darker moments, one of the most regrettable occurrences being the development of the atomic bomb.5 On Fringe we encounter science and technology that sit on the brink of what is plausible, sometimes bordering on the improbable, and often delving into the downright impossible. Sitting around at home, we are left wondering (and hoping sometimes) whether there is someone out there working on this new technology.
1. Massive Dynamic website, http://www.massivedynamic.com.
2. Han Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for a Technological Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981).
3. See, for instance, research on the social surrogacy hypothesis, such as Jaye Derrick, “Energized by Television: Familiar Fictional Worlds Restore Self-Control,” Social Psychology and Personality Science (August 2012), 1–9; and Jaye Derrick et al., “Social Surrogacy: How Favored Television Programs Provide the Experience of Belonging,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45, no. 2 (2009): 352–62.
4. For an excellent exposition of how and why this happens, see Edith Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, trans. Waltraut Stein (Washington, DC: ICS, 1989), as well as the relevant portions of Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorian Cairns (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1977).
5. While it is a common misconception that Einstein was part of the Manhattan Project itself, it was his special theory of relativity that served as the basis for the bomb and a letter penned to former president Theodore Roosevelt that some say proved to be the decisive factor in initiating the bomb’s development. When Einstein was informed about the devastating effects of the bomb, he said that he wished he had become a watchmaker, indicating perhaps that would have been better than becoming a scientist.