 Technology, choice and the good life: Questioning technological liberalismTaylor Dotson Technology in Society, 2012, vol. 34, issue 4, 326-336 Abstract: Technologies should be recognized as impacting personal choice concerning the good life. Yet, technological liberalism – the idea that technology permits an extending of individual volition concerning the good without distortion – remains a dominant collective belief. It is not enough to recognize that technologies can serve as “radical monopolies” or “script” human action. They also influence human action and choice in terms of cognition and affect. Technologies-of-choice can be viewed as enabling the belief that one may act as an unencumbered self, even though they do not unequivocally extend the human will. Consideration of the impact of technologies on human volition suggests possible avenues of research into when and how technologically reflexive decision making may actually occur as well as how societies could create space for technologies more compatible with alternative notions of the good, such as that exemplified in the philosophy of Albert Borgmann. Yet, the task of enabling a wider deployment of more focal or communitarian kinds of technology is far from straightforward. Keywords: Technological liberalism; Material agency; Choice; Affect; The good life (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:teinso:v:34:y:2012:i:4:p:326-336 DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2012.10.004 Access Statistics for this article Technology in Society is currently edited by Charla Griffy-Brown More articles in Technology in Society from Elsevier |
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