Making Things Real: Technology, Creation andSome Lessons from Tolkien

James HarringtonPhilosophy Department

Loyola University Chicago

July 10, 2007

Abstract

I argue that our conception of artifacts continues to be infected by theimplausible assumption that artifact are metaphysically deficient in virtue oftheir status as artifacts. This makes it impossible to see our artifacts as whatthey actually are in themselves, and distorts our relationships to them. First,I examine the standard conception of artifacts as extensions of their makers.Here I point out an apparent contradiction in Lynne Baker Ruddys concep-tion of artifacts. Second, using some examples from J. R. R. Tolkiens TheSilmarillion, as an intuition pump, I sketch a new conception of artifacts aspossessing a truly autonomous existence. I argue that we must learn to ac-cept our artifacts as parts of our environment metaphysically indistinguishablefrom the other elements of our environment. I conclude by considering twoexamples, in ecosystem restoration and in biotechnology, that serve to indicatethe utility of such a conception for problems in the philosophy of technology.In both cases I argue that our insistence on a significant distinction betweennatural and artificial entities makes it impossible to make sense of the actualissues at stake in the debates.1

1An earlier version of this paper was presented at Questioning the Philosophy of Technology atNUI-Galway in June 2007. Thanks to all of those attending for their questions and comments, butespecially to Ed Spence, Annamaria Carusi, Don Ihde, and Pascal OGorman.

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1 Introduction: Made Things as Things

This essay constitutes the first steps in articulating an ontology of artifacts thatmay better be considered an anti-ontology of artifacts. My fundamental contentionis that artifacts pose no distinctive ontological problems, nor do they, as artifacts,possess any distinctive ontological status. Once an entity comes into existence, itsexistence is independent of the mode of coming into existence. I do not contend thatthere are no interesting philosophical problems about artifacts, merely that whateverthose problems are, they are not problems in the ontology of artifacts. Thus, I wantto explore an answer to the question: What is an artifact? which has not receivedmuch attention in the philosophical literature, or perhaps better, has received thewrong kind of attention. In one sense, this will be the simplest possible answer tothe question: an artifact is a made thing. Since at least Aristotle, the debate hasfocused precisely on the problem of articulating those features of made things thatdistinguish them from other kinds of things, e.g. natural things.

However, this is precisely the wrong way to proceed. Insisting on an intrinsic dis-tinction between artifacts and other kinds of thingstreating the distinction betweenartifacts and non-artifacts as a metaphysically significant distinction whose groundsare located in the nature of artifactshas led us into deeply problematic places inthinking about, inter alia, technology. This is particularly true when the search foran ontology is combined with the perfectly natural intuition that the distinctive fea-tures of acts of making rests in their expression of the intention of the maker. Thesetwo sets of intuitions together lead us naturally to a conception of artifacts, goingback to at least Aristotle, as fundamentally metaphysically impoverished. In Aris-totelian terms, artifacts are not fully substantial because they lack an autonomoustelos. What they are is defined by the uses to which they are put. However, notehow odd this is. We seem to have lost track of the original definition. In trying tounderstand made things we have lost track of the second part of our definition; amade thing is still a thing.

Can we drop the assumption that artifacts have their existence only derivatively?And, what are the consequences? The immediate consequence will be the clarificationof many issues in the philosophy of technology because we will be able to much moreclearly delimit the range of possible relations between ourselves and our technologicalartifacts. Unfortunately, as the previous paragraph points out, this runs in the faceof 2000+ years of philosophical tradition so the argument proceeds in three phases.First, I lay out the core of the conception of artifacts as extensions of their creator.Second, I locate an intuition pump for an alternative conception of artifacts in somepassages from J. R. R. Tolkiens The Silmarillion. This leads to a first pass at an

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alternative conception of artifacts anchored in an appreciation of their existence. Inthe final section, I apply this skeletal conceptions to shed light on two distinct butinter-related issues in biotechnology and in environmental philosophy.

2 Creating, Building and Procreating

If an artifact is a made thing, then the next, obvious, question is: What is it to makesomething? Again, the question has an obvious answer: to make something is tobring that thing into existence. This, however, leads to a problem resulting from theimmediate tendency to distinguish two modes of bringing into existence. Lets call thetwo modes, building and procreating. The traditional way to make the distinctionbetween building and procreating is to locate the distinction in the products of thosetwo processes: built objects and natural objects. One standard way of articulatingthe distinction is that built objects, artifacts, inherit their natures from the intentionof their builders, while natural objects have their natures in a different way.

In order to see the significance of this inheritance assumption in theories of ar-tifacts, consider a recent account of artifacts from Lynne Rudder Baker. As I do,Baker intends to rescue artifacts from the metaphysical ghetto to which they havebeen consigned since Aristotle. However, she retains the inheritance assumption inher definition of artifacts. Consider how she distinguishes artifacts from non-artifactsin the following passage.

Most prominently, artifacts have proper functions that they are (inten-tionally) designed and produced to perform. What distinguishes artifac-tual kinds from other primary kinds is that an artifactual primary kindentails a proper function, where a proper function is a purpose or useintended by a producer. Thus, an artifact has its proper function es-sentially: the nature of an artifact lies in its proper functionwhat is wasdesigned to do, the purpose for which it was produced. (Baker, 2004,102)

However, now consider Bakers second, of five, possible ways of distinguishingartifacts from genuine substances.

Fs are genuine substances only if there are laws that apply to Fs as such,or there could be a science of Fs (105)

Baker, properly points out, that there are of course a large of number of sciencesthat take artifacts as all or part of their domains. But, given her definition of

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artifacts, we seem forced to ask: How is this possible? To discover the laws thatgovern a given kind of objects just is to discover the nature of that kind of objects.However, if artifacts inherit their nature from the intentions of their builders, howcan it be possible for those very creators to discover their natures?

Baker considers the case of polymers, some of which are natural and some ofwhich are synthetic. Baker rightly points out that the study of polymers proceedsindependently of those facts. But, then the proper response seems to be that thesynthetic polymers do not belong to primary kinds determined by the intentionof their makers. Instead, they belong to the same primary kinds as the naturalpolymers. This should lead us to take more seriously the possibility that there areno artifactual primary kinds in Bakers sense.

Alternatively, I propose a conception of artifacts, as simply objects. When wemake something, we make something real; something which did not previously exist.And, like everything real they exist independently from us and out-run our abilityto control or understand them. On this conception, while there remain interestingmetaphysical issues in the vicinity, they are not issues in the ontology of artifacts.There are interesting differences between the two processes of creation, building andprocreating; those differences center on the different ways in which our intentionsare connected to the productive capacity of those processes. However, I claim thatproducts of those processes do not inherit any interesting differences from thoseprocesses. Once we create something, the method and intention of the creativeprocess simply do not constrain the natures of the products in any interesting way.We will see below that this is particularly true when the products are themselvesparadigmatic Aristotelian substances: living organisms.

It is time to ask what happens to our conception of artifacts and of creation ifwe simply cease to presume that being an artifact is a metaphysically significantcategory. To that end, I want to turn our attention to some of the most profoundreflections on creation in 20th Century literature: those of J. R. R. Tolkien.

3 Tolkien and Technology

Tolkiens work likely seems an odd place to begin to articulate a clear understandingof technological artifacts. His antipathy to modern industrial society can surpriseno one who has so much as glanced at The Lord of the Rings. From its first recep-tion, Tolkiens grand romance was assured a place as one of the great anti-modernpolemics. Tolkien has no patience with the Twentieth Centurywith its speed, withits filth and with its destructive potential, both physical and spiritual. I want to ex-plore that strand in Tolkiens work again an apparently pointless exercise. However,

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I believe that one of, if not the most significant sources of that critique has largelyescaped notice. More significantly, this strand of Tolkiens work moves us beyondmere discomfort to a latent, but profound critique of industrial society; ultimatelyTolkiens fundamental problem with industrial society is not its filth or its destructivepotential, but the manner in which it profoundly disfigures the relationship betweenhuman beings and the world that we make.

What does this mean? Consider another dominant theme in Tolkiens fiction, theproblem of creation and sub-creation. Puzzles about creation constitute perhaps themost dominant theme in the thought and writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. In his fictionthe stories are almost universally driven by the relationships of various characters toparticular artifacts, whether the Ring of The Lord of the Rings or the Silmarils of TheSilmarillion. Even beyond this Tolkien tells us in On Faerie Stories that MiddleEarth is, itself, the product of certain philosophical puzzles about creation, aboutthe concept of a sub-creation. Thus, Tolkien suggests in the same lecture that theworlds of literary sub-creation are, as artifacts, precisely as real as the actual world.However, Tolkiens attitude towards artifacts is notoriously mixed. He has little or nopatience with industrialization, and the corruption of his characters results usuallyfrom the rejection of nature and natural ability in favor of the artificial.

This condemnation of the artificial is, however, not unambiguous. The onlysuggestion of an intrinsically evil artifact in all of the Middle Earth tales is the Ring.And, there are many unambiguously good ones: e.g. Frodos Light and the weaponsSting and Narsil-Anduril. Moreover, Tolkien clearly prefers his nature pastoral ratherthan wild. Both before and after the corruption of Saruman, the Shire is principallya country shaped by hand and not by nature. What then is the proper relationshipbetween makers and their artifacts? How does Tolkien want us to understand thispuzzle of the natural and the artificial? This is the fundamental key to a deeperunderstanding of Tolkiens position.

In The Silmarillion, we are presented with three distinctive acts of creation: thecreation of the world, Aules creation of the Dwarves and Feanors creation of theSilmarils. In the first two cases, the most distinctive feature of these creations is thatthe entities created and the joy to be taken in them is directly related to the wayin which they are, or are intended to be, more than intended. Consider the Valarsresponse to the world when they realize what they have helped to accomplish:

. . . they perceived that they themselves in the labor of their music hadbeen busy with the preparation of this dwelling, and et knew not it hadany purpose beyond its own beauty. (Tolkien, 1977)(7)

Or, Aule, after realizing that the Dwarves cannot be any more than extensions of

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himself, without the intervention of Eru (God):

I did not desire such lordship. I desired things other than I am, to loveand to teach, that they too might perceive the beauty of Ea [the World],which thou hast caused to be. (40-41)

It is, of course, precisely Melkors inability to accept this subordinate position relativeto creation that drives the conflict of The Silmarillion. Even more strikingly considerFeanors reaction to the suggestion that he allow the Silmarils to be destroyed so asto undo the poisoning of the Two Trees:

For the less even as for the greater there is some deed that he may ac-complish but once only; and in that deed his heart shall rest. It may bethat I can unlock my jewels, but never again shall I make their like; andif I must break them, I shall break my heart, and I shall be slain. (87)

Despite the florid language, there is a profound philosophical moral to be drawn fromthese three fictional incidents. Only when we relate to our creations on their ownterms it it possible to properly understand and act on our relationships to them.Only because the Valar love The World for itself and not merely as a product oftheir efforts can they take part in it. Only because Aule desires that the Dwarves bein the fullest sense of the term is his act in attempting to create them anything butpurest hubris. And, only because Feanor cannot separate himself from his creationand allow them to be what they are in themselves does he set in motion his owndownfall and that of his people.

We can call this idea, drawing on a Kantian theme in a non-Kantian way, theautonomy of the real. Each thing in the world, whether artifactual or natural, andwhether animate or inanimate, is, first and foremost, itself. It possesses its ownnature, independently of its creator, or any other being; and to that extent constitutesan end-in-itself. Thus, any attempt to reduce our relationships to anything in theworld to a purely instrumental level radically distorts our moral relationships. Or,put it slightly differently. Once a thing is made, it is part of the landscape, bothliterally and figuratively, and we do not possess any special rights or powers over itthat we do not possess over any equivalent piece of landscape.

It is worthwhile to pause a moment to clarify the connections between this con-ception of the autonomy of the real and a truly Kantian conception of autonomy. Iam not claiming that objects such as automobiles possess autonomy in a fully Kan-tian sense. Kant clearly connects full autonomy to moral agency. An automobiledoes not possess moral agency. However, the analogy seems useful in order to em-phasize an aspect of the notion of intrinsic value that I am chasing here. A significant

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part of the intuitive moral force of Kants autonomy formulation of the categoricalimperative results from the way it foregrounds an intuition that my relationshipswith other people must take account of their own self-definition. Thus, I am heresuggesting that our relationships with all entities in the world must take account ofthe fact that they are governed by laws not of our own making, but anchored intheir own natures.2

Consider two consequences of this reading for our understanding of Tolkien. First,it solves one of the fundamental interpretive puzzles of The Lord of the Rings ina particularly neat fashion. To understand Tolkiens world, we must answer thefollowing question: what is The Ring and why must It be destroyed? But, considerthe following. Of all of the objects in Tolkiens world, only The Ring exists purely tobe used. To possess The Ring without using it is to possess nothing at all. It is theembodiment of pure instrumental power, and, as such, has no value beyond its use.This explains why for Tom Bombadil, the one entity whom we meet in The Lord ofthe Rings without any desire to make the world other than it is, The Ring is entirelyinert.

And, second, it is this that explains Tolkiens fundamental problem with indus-trial society; it converts the entire world into our tool. The true product of anindustrial society looks at each thing in world and asks only one question; what doesor can it do for me? How does it aid or impede me in achieving my own desires?

4 Artifacts without Artifactuality

The fundamental problem is that, as with so much literature, Tolkien is much betterat asking questions than at suggesting answers. The world to which Tolkien seemsto want to return never existed. In Tolkiens world, no one lives in filth or squaloras their natural state; children do not die of a cracked tooth; women do not almostuniversally die in childbirth. To deny that our technology possesses merely instru-mental value need not include a denial that it does possess such value. Alternatively,those of us who do not get to cloister ourselves at Oxford do not get to go back-wards, or even to pretend to. We can only move forward. But, we must do so in theunderstanding that each of those moves, each act of creation and destruction, is amorally serious act and that the claim that this will allow me to achieve my desiresnever constitutes a sufficient reason to make that move.

Let me conclude by illustrating the force of these considerations with two briefexamples. The first, from environmental philosophy, embodies what, from this per-

2Thanks to Ed Spence for bringing the possible confusions here to my attention.

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spective is a strange preference for the allegedly natural over the artificial. This is thedebate over ecosystem restoration. The basic objection to, e.g. prairie restoration inthe US midwest, is that the prairies that it brings into existence are not sufficientlynatural. But, this seems to me simply to confuse the difference between real and fakeprairies with the difference between natural and artificial prairies. Only if we thinkthat the act of deliberately building the prairie imbues it with some metaphysicaldisadvantage does this argument even make sense. If it is worth having a prairie in aparticular place at a particular time, how does the fact that human beings chose toput it there make it not a prairie? If it does, then the distinction between naturaland other kinds of environments is, barring the interior of Antarctica, completelyempty. Every environment on the planet is a product of human endeavor, but sowhat. Everything on the planet is a product of biological activity, and we are justpart of the biological activity of the planet. This does not mean that there are notproblems in environmental philosophy and ethics, just that they cannot rest on thedistinction between the natural and the artificial.

As my second example, I note what seem to be two widely shared, pre-philosophicalintuitions, about stem cell research. First, destroying a cloned human blastocyst isnot morally equivalent to murder. Second, destroying such a blastocyst is not morallyequivalent to destroying a blood sample. The fundamental question is: why? Ifthe cloned blastocyst is a distinct living thing, then the only kind of living thing itcan be is a human being. Thus, moral consistency would seem to require that wetreat its destruction as the killing of a human being, as murder. However, if it is nota distinct living thing, then it has no more moral claim on us than any other clumpof tissue.

But, consider this problem from the perspective developed in the previous section.In creating the blastocyst, whatever we ultimately decide about its metaphysicalstatus, we have created something new in the world. And, creation for the merepurpose of destruction is morally problematic. Once this new being comes intoexistence, we must concern ourselves not merely its instrumental value, but withits intrinsic value well. This does not solve the problem; I dont actually think thatphilosophers can solve such problems. It does, however, point us in what should bea more fruitful direction.

In particular, it allows us to see what is wrong with the two simple solutions. Onone side, we find an argument that basically amounts to: Were just trying to helppeople. But, such arguments simply fail to take account of the fact that bringingsomething new into the universe is a morally serious act in itself. The good youachieve might very well justify your actions; but your intent to achieve a good enddoes not by itself justify the action. However, on the other side, is an argument that

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amounts to, Dont play God! But, such arguments fail to take account of the factthat we do that all the time. Every time we create, we play God. As I said above,I do not have a direct solution on offer. But, I do know that, especially given ourincreasing ability to create living artifacts, and even to re-shape ourselves as our ownartifacts, the old categories are not going to lead us in particularly fruitful directions.Only if we can see through the illusion that our artifacts are fundamentally dependenton us, can we ever figure out reasonable questions to ask.

References

Baker, L. R. (2004). The ontology of artifacts. Philosophical Explorations: AnInternational Journal for the Philosophy of Mind and Action, 7(2):99111.

Tolkien, J. (1977). The Silmarillion. Ballantine, New York.

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