Amish Values
The Amish values case shows that rejecting many modern devices is not the same as rejecting technology itself. Amish communities evaluate technologies by asking whether they support or threaten values such as humility, equality, simplicity, family life, and social cohesion. Cars, televisions, phones in the home, and many electric appliances are often rejected because they can pull people away from local community life or encourage status competition. Yet some technologies are permitted when they serve Amish purposes, such as refrigeration for dairy production or public phones used outside the home for business needs. The ethical issue is whether communities should judge technologies mainly by efficiency and convenience, or by how they shape the kind of people and communities they become. This case complicates the usual contrast between technological pessimism and optimism because the Amish are not saying that all technology is bad. Instead, they practice an unusually strict form of the critical attitude: every technology must be evaluated in relation to the values and social life it will either protect or undermine.