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46 S. Cal. L. Rev. 617 (1972-1973)
Technology Assessment and the Fourth Discontinuity: The Limits of Instrumental Rationality

handle is hein.journals/scal46 and id is 627 raw text is: TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT AND THE FOURTH DISCONTINUITY: THE LIMITS OF INSTRUMENTAL RATIONALITY LAURENCE H. TRIBE* It has been said that mankind stands today at the brink of a precipice as deep as the three ego-smashing divides that our species has already traversed in its intellectual history.' The first crossing, signalled by the Copernican revolution if not earlier, dislodged man from his seat at the center of the universe by establishing a continuity in his perception between the earth he inhabited and the physical bodies he observed in the heavens. The second, heralded by Darwin, dethroned mankind from its secure place at the pinnacle of life by bridging the gap that had separated it from the rest of the animal kingdom. And the third crossing, due largely to the work of Freud, challenged the supremacy and autonomy of the human ego by linking the primitive and archaic in man with the civilized and the evolved. But this sequence is not yet complete. There remains, it is said, a fourth great discontinuity2- that between man and his machines-which must be bridged if man is to live in harmony with his tools, and hence with himself. The only alternative to such unified coexistence, according to this view, is the dilemma of either rejecting man's technologies in Luddite panic--or becoming their slaves. In this Article, I will argue that bridging this fourth discontinuity--truly regarding and treating our technologies as parts of ourselves-is tantamount to developing certain modes of thought and action that lie outside the domain of instrumental rational- * Professor of Law, Harvard University. A.B. 1962, J.D. 1966, Harvard Uni- versity. I am indebted to many colleagues at Harvard and elsewhere for helpful com- ments on earlier drafts of this Article. I owe particular thanks to Bruce Ackerman, Charles Fried, Murray Gell-Mann, Philip Heymann, Duncan Kennedy, Anthony Oet- tinger, Alan Stone, Jerome Wiesner, and Roberto Unger. Errors, of course, are mine alone. @ Copyright 1973, Laurence H. Tribe. 1. Mazlish, The Fourth Discontinuity, 8 TECHNoLOGY AND CT.vuR 1 (1967). 2. Indeed, I shall later note a fifth (see note 137 infra), and there is no reason to suppose that the journey's end will ever be discerned.

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