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Theory, Culture & Society
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Morality and Technology

The End of the Means

Bruno Latour

Ecole Nationale des Mines in Paris.

Couze Venn

Technology is always limited to the realm of means, while morality is supposed to deal with ends. In this theoretical article about comparing those two regimes of enunciation, it is argued that technology is on the contrary characterized by the `ends of means' that is the impossibility of being limited to tools; technical artefacts are never tools if what is meant by this is a transmission of function in a mastered way. Once this modification of the meaning of technology is accepted, then it is possible to relate technology, in a totally different way, to morality which is not about values, but about the exploration of ends.

Key Words: `ends of means' • exploration • morality • technology • values

Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 19, No. 5-6, 247-260 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/026327602761899246
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