Thomas Aquinas, Ronald Dworkin, and the Fourth Revolution: The Foundations of Law in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Kyle Lauriston Smith ()
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Kyle Lauriston Smith: College of Theology, Grand Canyon University, Phoenix, AZ 85017, USA

Laws, 2023, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-27

Abstract: Since the publication of Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism , the strategies of Surveillance Capitalists and appropriate responses to them have become common points of discussion across several fields. However, there is relatively little literature addressing challenges that Surveillance Capitalism raises for the foundations of law. This article outlines Surveillance Capitalism and then compares the views of Thomas Aquinas and Ronald Dworkin in four areas: truth and reality, reality and law, interpretation and social custom, and virtue and law; finally, it closes by asking whether the law alone can provide a sufficient response to Surveillance Capitalism. The overarching argument of the article is that, while Aquinas’s view of the foundations of law accounts for and responds to the challenges of Surveillance Capitalism more effectively than Dworkin’s, law alone cannot provide a sufficient response to this emerging phenomenon.

Keywords: surveillance capitalism; Shoshana Zuboff; Thomas Aquinas; Ronald Dworkin; truth; reality; virtue; technology; behaviorism; fourth revolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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