Basic Characteristics of Western Marxist Critique of Technological Rationality

As a prism through which Western Marxist theorists reflect on the existential condition of human beings in contemporary capitalist society, the critique of technological rationality not only reconstructs a technological value system underpinned by humanism but also broadens the theoretical horizon of Marxist philosophy of technology. Although Western Marxist theorists differ in their specific discussions of the relationships between modern technology and ethical values, political effects, ecological consequences, social gender, and so on, their consistent practice of combining technological critique with institutional critique determines their shared value orientation and theoretical characteristics.

作为西方马克思主义理论家反省当代资本主义社会中人的生存境遇的一面棱镜，技术理性批判不仅重构了以人本主义为底色的技术价值观，而且拓宽了马克思主义技术哲学的理论视域。尽管在具体讨论现代技术与伦理价值、政治效应、生态后果、社会性别等之间的关系问题时，西方马克思主义理论家存在分歧，但他们始终把技术批判与制度批判结合起来的做法，决定了其共同的价值取向和理论特征。

Taking the problem of the rationality of technology as the theoretical theme

以技术的合理性问题为理论主题

Since the modern industrial revolution, the high integration of reason and technology has given rise to technological rationality. Human reason has acquired a stable material form, not only penetrating extensively into all spheres of social life but also, as a worldview that pursues utility, dominating people’s modes of thinking and patterns of behavior. However, the modern value system of capitalism formed on the basis of rationalism, along with its modernizing practice, has proven that the development of science and technology does not necessarily bring about social progress and human freedom. This has compelled people to begin reflecting on the ills of Enlightenment reason and the rationality of science and technology. The French Enlightenment thinker Rousseau was among the first to explore this issue. In his essay *Discourse on the Sciences and Arts*, he pointed out that the Enlightenment civilization built on science and reason had not brought happiness to humanity but had instead aroused various unreasonable desires in people and plunged them into moral decay—such as suspicion, jealousy, hypocrisy, and arrogance. [1]1 Rousseau’s *Discourse on the Sciences and Arts* (1750) won a prize from the Academy of Dijon and argued that the progress of the arts and sciences had corrupted morals rather than improved them. Subsequently, modern thinkers such as Nietzsche, Simmel, Spengler, and Heidegger conducted in-depth studies of the problem of technological rationality from different perspectives, producing a series of rich theoretical results. However, most of them, basing themselves on abstract metaphysical and cultural-philosophical standpoints, not only failed to identify the root cause of technological alienation but mistakenly regarded technology itself as the source of modern problems, adopting a pessimistic, skeptical, or even hostile attitude toward technological progress, ultimately falling into the quagmire of anti-technologism.

自近代工业革命以来，理性与技术的高度融合催生了技术理性，人的理性获得了稳定的物质形式，不仅广泛渗透到社会生活的各个领域，而且作为一种追求效用的世界观支配着人们的思维方式和行为模式。然而，在理性主义基础上形成的资本主义现代性价值体系及其现代化实践却证明：科技发展并不必然带来社会进步和人的自由。这促使人们不得不开始反思启蒙理性的弊病和科学技术的合理性。法国启蒙思想家卢梭较早开始探讨这一问题，他在《论科学和艺术》一文中指出：构筑于科学和理性之上的启蒙文明非但没有给人类带来幸福，反而激起了人们的种种不合理欲望并使之陷入道德败坏——如怀疑、猜忌、虚伪、傲慢等。此后，尼采、齐美尔、斯宾格勒、海德格尔等现代思想家又从不同视角对技术合理性问题进行深入研究，形成了一系列丰富的理论成果。但他们大多基于抽象的形而上学和文化哲学的立场，不仅没有找到造成技术异化的罪魁祸首，而且把技术本身误认为造成现代性问题的根源，采取悲观、质疑甚至敌视的态度对待技术进步，以至于最终陷入反技术主义的泥淖之中。

Unlike the thinkers mentioned above, Western Marxist theorists, adhering to Marx’s tradition of “techno-social critique,” place the problem of technology within the theoretical framework of the critique of capitalism. They comprehensively examine the relationships between technology and value, politics, nature, and women under capitalist conditions, thereby revealing that it is the capitalist use of technology, rather than technology itself, that is the source of the overall reification of society. They strive to bridge the rupture between instrumental rationality and value rationality, to reconstruct the intrinsic connection between technology and value, and to shape a technological ethics that highlights the spirit of humanism.

与上述思想家不同，西方马克思主义理论家秉承马克思的“技术—社会批判”传统，把技术问题置于资本主义批判的理论框架中，综合考察资本主义条件下技术与价值、政治、自然、女性之间的关系，从而揭示了技术的资本主义使用而非技术本身，才是造成社会全面物化的根源，致力于弥合工具理性与价值理性之间的断裂，重建技术与价值之间的内在关联，形塑一种彰显人本主义精神的技术伦理观。

“Rationality,” as an evaluative or normative concept, refers to the assessment of whether human action conforms to regularity and purpose. In essence, it means examining, correcting, and perfecting real life through the lens of reason. In this regard, the Western Marxist inquiry into technological rationality does not discuss the ethical issues of specific technologies and their use at the empirical level. Rather, on the premise of confirming that modern technology plays the dual role of productive forces and ideology, it reexamines technology’s profound impact on politics, economy, culture, and even daily life. Lukács’s advocacy of critical reason to oppose reified consciousness, the Frankfurt School’s opposition to positivism as a philosophy of acquiescence, [2]2 The Frankfurt School, a group of critical theorists associated with the Institute for Social Research founded in Frankfurt in 1923, used “positivism” to refer to a philosophy that accepts given facts uncritically and thereby reinforces the status quo. ecological Marxism’s reinterpretation of the concept of “domination of nature,” and feminist Marxism’s critique of capitalist patriarchal ideology—all these views are in fact aimed at transforming the technological rationality and its modern value system that have been hijacked by capital. They take as evaluative criteria whether technology is conducive to the exercise of human subjectivity, to the realization of social justice, to the protection of the ecological environment, and to the promotion of women’s liberation, advocating that science and technology develop in a direction that is humanized, democratized, ecological, and degendered.

“合理性”（rationality）作为一个评价性或规范性概念，指的是对人的行动是否合乎规律性与目的性的评价，实质上就是用理性的眼光去审视、矫正和完善现实生活。就此而言，西方马克思主义理论家对技术合理性的追问不是从经验层面谈论具体技术及其使用过程中的伦理问题，而是在确证现代技术扮演生产力和意识形态双重角色的前提下，重审它对政治、经济、文化乃至日常生活的深刻影响。卢卡奇主张以批判理性反对物化意识、法兰克福学派反对作为顺世哲学的实证主义、生态学马克思主义重新阐释“控制自然”的观念、女性主义马克思主义批评资本主义的父权制意识形态等看法，事实上都是为了改造被资本裹挟的技术理性及其现代价值体系。他们把技术是否有利于发挥人的主体性、是否有利于实现社会公平、是否有利于保护生态环境、是否有利于促进女性解放作为评价尺度，主张科学技术朝着人性化、民主化、生态化以及去性别化的方向发展。

Taking the dual logic of value critique and institutional critique as the theoretical approach

以价值批判和制度批判的双重逻辑为理论进路

From its inception, Western Marxism was deeply imbued with Marx’s thought on the critique of technology and influenced by contemporary Western social currents. From Lukács to the Frankfurt School to later Marxists, based on a pathological diagnosis of the overall crisis of contemporary capitalism, they have unfolded a deep critique of the proliferation of technological rationality and its social consequences from the dual dimensions of philosophical values and the capitalist system. Precisely because they have consistently combined value critique with institutional critique in reflecting on the phenomenon of technological alienation, they stand out as distinctive in the clamorous wave of modern critique.

西方马克思主义在其诞生之初就深受马克思技术批判思想的浸染和当代西方社会思潮的影响，从卢卡奇到法兰克福学派再到晚近的马克思主义者，基于对当代资本主义总体性危机的病理学诊断，从哲学价值观和资本主义制度的双重维度，展开对技术理性泛滥及其社会后果的深层批判。正因为他们始终把价值批判与制度批判结合起来反思技术异化现象，才使其在众声喧哗的现代性批判浪潮中独树一帜。

From the dimension of the critique of philosophical values, Western Marxist theorists hold that instrumental rationality and value rationality constitute the basic content of “reason”—the former pursues the maximization of efficiency, the latter pursues human freedom. They emphasize that only instrumental rationality regulated by value rationality can enable society to develop healthily. However, while modern natural science liberated people from the shackles of religious theology, it increasingly drove reason toward mathematization, instrumentalization, and formalization. At this point, “reason” degenerated into instrumental rationality devoid of the guidance of value rationality. This one-sided understanding of reason, in turn, allowed positivist philosophy to prevail, and consumerist culture and the concept of “domination of nature” gradually became widely accepted values. This led to the irrational use of science and technology by people, further intensifying the tensions among society, nature, and human beings. On this basis, the Frankfurt School’s denunciation of positivist philosophy and consumerism for stifling people’s negative thinking and critical spirit, ecological Marxism’s critique of the concept of “domination of nature” in the Western cultural tradition and its ecological consequences, and feminist Marxism’s attack on patriarchal culture that emphasizes male superiority and female inferiority—all of these, without exception, reveal the inherent defects of technological rationality from the perspective of the critique of philosophical values, expressing strong dissatisfaction with the high integration of contemporary capitalism and its comprehensive control over human beings and nature.

从哲学价值观批判的维度看，西方马克思主义理论家认为工具理性和价值理性构成了“理性”的基本内容——前者追求效率的最大化，后者追求人的自由，他们强调只有在价值理性规范下的工具理性才能使社会良性发展。然而，近代自然科学在把人们从宗教神学的桎梏中解救出来的同时，使理性越来越走向数学化、工具化和形式化，至此“理性”退化为失去价值理性指导的工具理性。这种对理性的片面理解，又使实证主义哲学大行其道，消费主义文化和“控制自然”观念也逐渐成为人们普遍认同的价值观，由此导致人们对科学技术的非理性运用，进一步加剧了社会、人与自然三者之间的紧张关系。基于此，法兰克福学派对实证主义哲学和消费主义扼杀人的否定性思维与批判性精神加以控诉，生态学马克思主义对西方文化传统中“控制自然”的观念及其生态后果展开批判，女性主义马克思主义对强调男尊女卑的父权制文化进行挞伐等，无一不是从哲学价值观批判的视角揭示技术理性的内在缺陷，表达了对当代资本主义高度一体化及其全面控制人与自然的强烈不满。

From the dimension of the critique of the capitalist system, Western Marxist theorists point out that the collusion between technology and capital has turned science and technology into a new type of ideology, controlling human beings and nature. The bourgeoisie, with the help of modern technology, vigorously promotes consumerist values and modes of existence, gradually dissolving the value rationality and emancipatory potential originally contained in science and technology. In other words, the effective mechanism through which the ideology of science and technology functions lies in “desire satisfaction.” By means of the transformative capacity of science and technology, it diverts public attention from the political public sphere to the non-political sphere of consumption, causing people to become excessively immersed in the illusion of equality through conspicuous consumption. This wins public support for and loyalty to the existing social system, further consolidating the legitimacy of contemporary capitalist rule. Thus, although technological progress has greatly raised the level of social productive forces and brought people abundant material life, it is in essence a tool for capital to maximize profit, ultimately becoming an effective means for the bourgeoisie to “dominate nature” and “dominate human beings.” Therefore, Western Marxist theorists repeatedly emphasize that it is the capitalist use of technology, not technology itself, that is the root cause of the alienation of human beings and nature. They advocate achieving coordinated development among “human beings, nature, and society” through a comprehensive transformation of philosophical values and the social system. It is precisely by reexamining the problem of technological rationality from the dual dimensions of value critique and institutional critique that Western Marxism avoids falling into the extreme position of opposing technological progress and social development, as do currents such as humanism and ecologism.

从资本主义制度批判的维度看，西方马克思主义理论家指出技术与资本的合谋使科学技术成为一种新型意识形态，控制着人和自然，资产阶级借助现代技术大肆宣扬消费主义价值观和生存方式，使原本蕴含于科学技术中的价值理性及其解放潜能被逐渐消解。换言之，科技意识形态发挥作用的有效机制在于“欲望满足”，通过科学技术的转化能力把公众的注意力从政治的公共领域引向非政治的消费领域，使之过度沉湎于炫耀式消费的平等假象，从而赢得了公众对现存社会制度的支持和忠诚，并进一步巩固了当代资本主义统治的合法性基础。由此可见，虽然技术进步极大地提高了社会生产力水平，给人们带来富足的物质生活，但它在本质上是资本追求利润最大化的工具，最终彻底沦为资产阶级“控制自然”和“控制人”的有效手段。所以，西方马克思主义理论家再三强调技术的资本主义使用而非技术本身是造成人和自然异化的罪魁祸首，主张通过哲学价值观和社会制度的全面变革实现“人—自然—社会”之间的协同发展。正是基于价值批判和制度批判的双重维度重新审视技术的合理性问题，才使西方马克思主义不至于像人本主义、生态主义等思潮那样陷入反对技术进步和社会发展的极端立场。

Taking human freedom and liberation as the theoretical aim

以人的自由和解放为理论旨趣

Human freedom and liberation are the eternal themes of the development of human society and, at the same time, the ultimate goal tirelessly pursued by Marxist philosophy. Western Marxist theorists inherit Marx’s belief in “changing the world,” pulling the contemplation of technology from the “heavenly kingdom” back down to the “human world.” From the different perspectives of value, politics, ecology, and gender, they launch a radical critique of science and technology under twentieth-century capitalist conditions and their social consequences, providing a new way of thinking for people to break free from the shackles and enslavement of the ideology of science and technology.

人的自由和解放是人类社会发展的永恒主题，同时也是马克思主义哲学孜孜以求的终极目标。西方马克思主义理论家继承了马克思“改变世界”的信念，把高悬于“天国”的技术之思拉回“人间”，从价值、政治、生态、性别等不同视角对20世纪资本主义条件下的科学技术及其社会后果进行激进批判，为人们挣脱科技意识形态的束缚和奴役提供了一种新的思路。

Western Marxist theorists primarily examine the issue of technological rationality from the dimension of cultural critique, and on this basis have broadly formed two different strategies for emancipation. If early Western Marxism and ecological Marxism tend to focus on the question of the freedom and emancipation of humanity as a whole, then the Frankfurt School and feminist Marxism are more inclined to focus on the question of the freedom and emancipation of the individual human being. The former, keeping in view the principle of subjectivity or ecological rationality, explores the path to freedom and emancipation for the proletariat as a whole, either advocating a total revolution encompassing politics, economy, and culture, or emphasizing the comprehensive emancipation of humanity and nature through an eco-political revolution of a “red-green” alliance. Lukács vigorously opposed the deprivation of human subjectivity by the capitalist production system under the domination of technological rationality, pointing out that the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat must be reshaped through the dialectics of the unity of subject and object. Ecological Marxism, based on the overall interests of humanity, proposes abolishing the capitalist development model of high production and high consumption, and establishing an eco-socialist society founded on ecological rationality. For instance, Gorz advocates using ecological rationality to limit economic rationality; O’Connor proposes replacing “distributive justice” with “productive justice”; Foster argues that an eco-social revolution must be carried out to lay the social foundation for the rationalization and ecological transformation of technology, thereby achieving harmonious development among humanity, nature, and society. The latter is devoted to discerning the existential predicament of modern people from the perspectives of the culture industry, consumption alienation, identity politics, and so forth, advocating that the individual human being, as an individual, be set on the path to freedom and emancipation through different means such as critical rationality, communicative rationality, and gender consciousness. The theorists of the Frankfurt School believe that contemporary capitalism relies more on cultural ideology to maintain its legitimacy of rule. They unanimously place their hope for self-redemption in the artistic realm that manifests individuality, such as Marcuse’s use of the category of “new sensibility” to transform the existing technological system. Feminist Marxism emphasizes the domination of women by patriarchal ideology and a unified “female experience,” pointing out that the key to women’s emancipation lies in individual difference rather than clinging to identity recognition, and regards new technologies that bridge the gender gap as a potential force for women’s emancipation. Furthermore, contemporary Western Marxist theorists, in conjunction with real-world issues such as consumer society, speed politics, and the control of immaterial labor, explore how isolated and helpless individuals can break through the cage of modernity. Although their rescue plans are tinged with idealism and pessimism to varying degrees, they have never abandoned the theoretical promise of realizing individual freedom and emancipation.

西方马克思主义理论家主要是从文化批判之维检视技术的合理性问题，在此基础上大致形成了两种不同的解放策略。如果说早期西方马克思主义和生态学马克思主义倾向于关注作为整体的人的自由和解放问题，那么法兰克福学派和女性主义马克思主义则更侧重于关注作为个体的人的自由和解放问题。前者着眼于主体性或生态理性原则，探索作为整体的无产阶级的自由解放之路，要么主张进行包括政治、经济和文化在内的总体革命，要么强调通过“红绿”联盟的生态政治革命实现人与自然的全面解放。卢卡奇极力反对技术理性支配下的资本主义生产体系对人的主体性的剥夺，指出通过主客体统一的辩证法重塑无产阶级的革命意识。生态学马克思主义基于人类整体利益提出废止资本主义高生产和高消费的发展模式，建立以生态理性为基础的生态社会主义社会。譬如，高兹主张以生态理性限制经济理性，奥康纳提出以“生产性正义”替代“分配性正义”，福斯特认为必须进行生态—社会革命，为技术的合理化和生态化转型奠定社会基础，从而实现人、自然与社会之间的和谐发展。后者致力于从文化工业、消费异化、身份政治等视域洞悉现代人的生存困境，主张以批判理性、交往理性、性别意识等不同方式使作为个体的人走上自由解放之路。法兰克福学派的理论家们认为，当代资本主义更多地是依靠文化意识形态维系其统治合法性。他们不约而同地把自我救赎的希望投向彰显个性的艺术领域，如马尔库塞以“新感性”范畴改造现有技术系统。女性主义马克思主义强调父权制意识形态和统一的“女性经验”对妇女的宰制，指出女性解放的关键在于个体的差异性而非执着于身份认同，把弥合性别鸿沟的新技术视为女性解放的潜在力量。此外，当代西方马克思主义理论家还结合消费社会、速度政治、非物质劳动控制等现实问题，探究孤立无援的个体究竟该如何冲破现代性牢笼。尽管他们的拯救方案在不同程度上带有理想主义和悲观主义的色彩，却从未抛弃实现个体之自由和解放的理论承诺。

Overall, Western Marxist theorists not only examine the ideological roots of rational pathology from the perspective of philosophical values, in order to reshape the humanistic dimension of technology, but also propose, from the perspective of social institutions, that changing the capitalist mode of production is a prerequisite for the rational application of technology. This path of salvation, which combines the transformation of social institutions and social structures with the transformation of people’s values, is conducive both to overcoming the emptiness of humanist philosophers of technology who remain at the level of speculative philosophy, and to avoiding the narrowness of engineering philosophers of technology who are confined within the technological system itself, thereby manifesting a spiritual temperament that combines reality with ideality. However, we must soberly recognize that the Western Marxist critique of technological rationality was nurtured in highly developed capitalist societies where science and technology are highly integrated. Because it relies too heavily on the critique of cultural ideology, it deviates from the basic line of Marxist political economy, ultimately sliding from technological critique into a moral utopia. Therefore, in future technological research and practice, we must firmly adhere to the standpoint of historical materialism, base ourselves on the new historical stage in which China is advancing from a large scientific and technological country to a powerful one, neither adopt an attitude of blanket rejection nor engage in wholesale copying, but rather “with analysis and discrimination” absorb the theoretical nourishment of the critique of technological rationality, so as to more properly handle the complex relationships among technological innovation, social progress, the ecological environment, and gender equality in the construction of socialist modernization.

总的来看，西方马克思主义理论家不仅从哲学价值观视角考察理性病变的思想根源，以重塑技术的人文主义向度，而且从社会制度视角提出改变资本主义生产方式是技术合理运用的前提条件。这种把社会制度、社会结构的变革同人的价值观变革相结合的拯救之道，既有利于克服人本主义技术哲学家停留在思辨哲学层面的空洞性，又有利于避免工程主义技术哲学家囿于技术系统内部的狭隘性，由此彰显其现实性和理想性相契合的精神气质。但我们应清醒地认识到，西方马克思主义的技术理性批判孕育于科学与技术高度一体化的发达资本主义社会，因过于倚重文化意识形态批判而偏离了马克思主义政治经济学的基本路线，最终从技术批判滑向道德乌托邦。因此，在今后的技术研究与实践中，必须坚守历史唯物主义立场，立足我国从科技大国向科技强国迈进的历史新阶段，既不采取一概排斥的态度，也不搞全盘照搬，而要“有分析、有甄别”地汲取技术理性批判的理论养分，从而更妥善地处理社会主义现代化建设中技术创新与社会进步、生态环境、性别平等之间的复杂关系。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗