Borgmann, Technology and the Good Life? and the Empirical Turn for Philosophy of Technology

Hans Achterhuis;

doi:10.5840/techne20026114

Borgmann and the Non-Neutrality of Technology

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology ◽

10.5840/techne201951497 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 83-103 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Trine Antonsen ◽

Erik Lundestad ◽

Keyword(s):

Behavioral Economics ◽

Good Life ◽

Philosophy Of Technology ◽

Libertarian Paternalism ◽

The Good Life ◽

Material Environment ◽

Contemporary Life ◽

Basic Approaches

The paper focuses on Albert Borgmann’s philosophy of technology. We argue in support of Borgmann’s “Churchill principle” (“we shape our buildings, and afterwards they shape us”) as presented in Real American Ethics (RAE) (2006) by comparing it to findings within behavioral economics in general and to the “libertarian paternalism” of Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler in particular. According to our interpretation of it, the Churchill principle implies that because our material environment in fact influences our choices, this environment can and should be rearranged so that we “automatically” will tend to make better decisions. Having defended the Churchill principle, we go on to discuss how this principle is related to Borgmann’s approach in Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (TCCL) (1984). In this earlier work, Borgmann suggests we reform technology by making room for focal practices, that is, meaningful practices in which we develop our skills and excellences. We argue that while these two works have different basic approaches—rearranging the material environment in RAE and developing certain skills and excellences in TCCL—they can and ought to be seen, not as mutually excluding, but as supplementing one another. Together they form a highly salient critique of technology that takes into consideration questions of the good life without becoming overly paternalistic.

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Reflections on Promises and Perils Thinking for Emerging Technologies

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190851187.013.39 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Deborah G. Johnson

Keyword(s):

Good Life ◽

Philosophy Of Technology ◽

Emerging Technologies ◽

Cost Benefit Analysis ◽

Cost Benefit ◽

Sociotechnical Systems ◽

The Good Life ◽

Benefit Analysis ◽

Sources Of Uncertainty ◽

Advantages And Disadvantages

Recent work in the philosophy of technology draws attention to the connection between technology and the good life. Discourse around emerging technologies also makes this connection, albeit implicitly, when it focuses on the promises and perils of going forward with a nascent technology. Emerging technologies are touted for their potential to bring about increased safety, health, convenience, or enlightenment and disparaged for their perils—diminished freedom, erosion of privacy, new vulnerabilities to nature. Use of the promises-and-perils framework is commonplace and rarely challenged. A comparison between the promises-and-perils framework and cost-benefit analysis reveals some of the advantages and disadvantages of promises-and-perils thinking. Uncertainty is an overarching problem and that makes plausibility important. How can the plausibility of promises and perils be assessed? A sociotechnical systems understanding of technology reveals at least three sources of uncertainty, and these provide some basis for evaluating the plausibility of promises and perils.

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Technology and the Good Life

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology ◽

10.5840/techne20111529 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 82-95

Author(s):

David Lewin ◽

Keyword(s):

Good Life ◽

Philosophy Of Technology ◽

The Good Life ◽

Human Beings ◽

Essential Aspect ◽

Ultimate Concern

This essay argues that a purely secular philosophy of technology omits an essential aspect of technical activity: the ultimate concern for which any action is undertaken. By way of an analysis of Borgmann and Hickman, I show that the philosophy of technology cannot articulate the nature of the good life without reference to an ultimacy beyond finite human goods. This paradoxically implies that human beings desire something infinite which they cannot name, a paradox that theologians have long understood in terms of a theological dialectic.

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A Natureza na Filosofia da Tecnologia de Albert Borgmann

Philosophica: International Journal for the History of Philosophy ◽

10.5840/philosophica2016244722 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 24 (47) ◽

pp. 77-92

Author(s):

Tiago Mesquita Carvalho ◽

Keyword(s):

Natural Resources ◽

Good Life ◽

Philosophy Of Technology ◽

The Good Life ◽

Contemporary Life ◽

The Rich

In this paper we intend to evaluate the role that nature has in the philosophy of technology of Albert Borgmann. According to the author, contemporary life has been taken by the device paradigm; technology follows a pattern that transforms the rich dimensions of things into devices; these are composed of commodities, easily available and without demanding any effort, and mechanisms, hiding the ways how natural resources are used. This pattern does not make explicit the promoted notion of the good life. The experience of nature shows how something that escapes the device paradigm can endure and flourish beyond our utilitarian purposes; its eloquence can thus take us to propose a reform of technology through the notion of a center; however, this center demands to be cultivated through focal things and practices in order to turn in to a structuring habit of our lives.

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