End Use

Computer-aided design is morally neutral insofar as it is examined by its end use: that is to say, it is not intrinsically morally good, nor is it intrinsically morally evil, but it can become either morally good or morally evil depending on its end use.

Both Joy [1] and Summers & Markusen [2] evaluate the morality of a given item or process by its likely end use. A morally evil end use might be spying and intelligence gathering, or military action [2], which last includes the moral evil of landmines [3] and the WMD perils of nuclear, biological, and chemical attack (NBC) [1]. Further morally evil end uses are the self-replicating technologies of genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR), technologies developed by corporate enterprises, unlike the relatively-contained military-spawned evils of NBC, resulting in a many-headed hydra fuelled by global capitalism and its profits and competitive pressure [1]. If computer-aided design has been used in the design, planning, production, or distribution of any of these things, then CAD becomes a moral evil.

Similarly, the use of computer-aided design towards a moral good, like feeding the hungry, or housing the homeless, renders CAD a moral good.

CAD is a tool which may swing two ways. Just as a hammer can be used for murder or for building and repair, so a polyline function [images] can be used to delineate the exterior of a home or to sketch the main features of a land mine.