Can courts "force" technological discovery to occur?

Abstract

In determining our social relationships to the natural world, we assume that between the natural and social, the natural can determine and resist the social, but not vice versa. Furthermore, in pluralist cultures, we allow the legal aspects of our social world to determine the moral aspects. Consequently, if something is legal, it is therefore good. Where does technology fit into this presumed linear pattern of assumptions? Technology is a manifestation of the social world and the social world's relationship to the natural world, and is not solely a manifestation of the natural world. In fact, the limitations of the natural world are far removed from our ultimate technological practices. Therefore, "forcing" technological discovery to occur means constructing a norm about our relationships with each other and the natural world. The resistance to that force is social, not natural.