Psychological interference, liberty and technology

Henrik Skaug Sætra and Stuart Mills

Technology in Society, 2022, vol. 69, issue C

Abstract: Power and the use of force are central concerns in liberal political theory. Yet, it is claimed that liberal theory fails to account for the power that is exerted through, for example, personalised nudging based on Big Data. We dispute this claim and through a reappraisal of the concept of negative liberty we show how psychological interference can be both coercive and manipulative. This reappraisal is partly achieved through an examination of psychological equivalents of physical interference, in order to highlight the arbitrariness of excluding the non-physical from consideration. The liberal understanding of liberty and interference here provided enables us to see how power is exerted through technology. It thus provides a novel contribution to the analysis of the liberty reducing effects of new technologies combined with a lack of privacy and a will to manipulate, based on an individualist liberal theory argued to be incapable of just that.

Keywords: Liberty; Psychological interference; Coercion; Manipulation; Nudging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:teinso:v:69:y:2022:i:c:s0160791x22001142

DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.101973

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