Does Toyota have blood on its hands for manufacturing pickup trucks? Are the people put machine guns in the back balanced by the people using identical pickups to deliver aid? What about all the pickups that people use going about their day to day lives? Some of the people using trucks in their daily lives are no doubt able to raise their standard of living by using the truck to carry more material more effectively than they could without.
I won't go so far as to call all technology inherently neutral (machine guns and nerve gas being just two examples I'd be pressed to find much neutrality in), but cell phones, like pickup trucks are about as neutral as you're likely to find. Globally, for every person using their Galaxy S3 to target missiles, there are probably a comparable number using a similar phone to coordinate medical or material relief efforts and tens or hundreds of people just using their phones as they go about their lives, many of whom benefit materially from the ability to contact other people or look up information online at their convenience.
And if you aren't convinced of the neutrality of pickups and cell phones, what about the companies that made:
1) the pot the guy is stirring explosives in?
2) the lathe they're turning missiles on?
3) the ladder that got incorporated into the slingshot?
4) the glass beverage bottles that have become Molotov cocktails?
5) the steel pipe and sheet steel that show up in weapons in half the pictures?
Do they/we all have a moral obligation on the carnage brought about by these things?
I won't go so far as to call all technology inherently neutral (machine guns and nerve gas being just two examples I'd be pressed to find much neutrality in), but cell phones, like pickup trucks are about as neutral as you're likely to find. Globally, for every person using their Galaxy S3 to target missiles, there are probably a comparable number using a similar phone to coordinate medical or material relief efforts and tens or hundreds of people just using their phones as they go about their lives, many of whom benefit materially from the ability to contact other people or look up information online at their convenience.
And if you aren't convinced of the neutrality of pickups and cell phones, what about the companies that made: 1) the pot the guy is stirring explosives in? 2) the lathe they're turning missiles on? 3) the ladder that got incorporated into the slingshot? 4) the glass beverage bottles that have become Molotov cocktails? 5) the steel pipe and sheet steel that show up in weapons in half the pictures? Do they/we all have a moral obligation on the carnage brought about by these things?