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Technology in Society 34 (2012) 326–336

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Technology in Society

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ techsoc

Technology, choice and the good life: Questioning technologicalliberalism

Taylor Dotson*,1

Science and Technology Studies Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th Street, Sage Building 5th Floor, Troy, NY 12180-3590, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 6 April 2012Received in revised form 19 September 2012Accepted 12 October 2012

Keywords:Technological liberalismMaterial agencyChoiceAffectThe good life

* Tel.: þ1 5187032564.E-mail address: dotsot@rpi.edu.

1 Taylor Dotson is currently a PhD student in the Dand Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Inin the philosophy of technology, the good life andnity. He has also been an applied mathematicianmathematics instructor.

0160-791X/$ – see front matter � 2012 Elsevier Ltdhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2012.10.004

a b s t r a c t

Technologies should be recognized as impacting personal choice concerning the good life.Yet, technological liberalism – the idea that technology permits an extending of individualvolition concerning the good without distortion – remains a dominant collective belief. It isnot 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 andaffect. Technologies-of-choice can be viewed as enabling the belief that one may act as anunencumbered self, even though they do not unequivocally extend the human will.Consideration of the impact of technologies on human volition suggests possible avenuesof research into when and how technologically reflexive decision making may actuallyoccur as well as how societies could create space for technologies more compatible withalternative notions of the good, such as that exemplified in the philosophy of AlbertBorgmann. Yet, the task of enabling a wider deployment of more focal or communitariankinds of technology is far from straightforward.

� 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Contemporary scholarship concerning technology andsociety pays too little attention to the shaping power oftechnology on human choice-making and its ramificationsfor the pursuit of the good life. Scholars in the field ofScience and Technology Studies (STS), for instance, gener-ally seem more interested in discussing the social, culturaland technical aspects of being than the personal. There areplenty of conversations concerning political and socialmovements, the process of innovation or epistemologicalesoterica, but the field is relatively silent on the subject ofhow one is to live and find meaning in a technological

epartment of Sciencestitute with intereststhe study of commu-and a tribal college

. All rights reserved.

society. I do not mean to argue that the former are unim-portant, of course, but that the latter merits more attention.There are a large number of articles for example, investi-gating neoliberal governmentality and the protesting of cellphone masts [1] but far too few inquiring about the role ofcell phones in meaningful social relationships. The maincontemporary question concerning “good” technologiesappears to be: Is it green, democratic and socially respon-sible? No doubt, this question should concern technologyscholars; yet, such inquiries do not completely exhaust thedepth or breadth of the role of technology in the humancondition.

Such a state of affairs is not actually all that surprising. Itmay merely reflect the contemporary western belief thatthe good life is purely a matter of individual responsibility.That is, if there is a problem with technology and thepursuit of happiness or human flourishing, it is simply thatthe neutral space necessary for individuals to explore andpersonally construct the technological good life for them-selves may be threatened by something like governmentalmalfeasance or income inequality. Within this paradigm of

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thought, the choices and abilities afforded by technologiesare generally assumed to “extend” human volition ina straightforward and unproblematic way. The potentiallyrestraining role of technology on choices concerning virtueor well-being is too seldom acknowledged. Yet, the seeds ofdoubt for this view already exist within the literature.Specifically, the individual autonomy of human decisionmaking appears to be increasingly questionable in light ofevidence showing how technological contexts can signifi-cantly shape human thinking and action.

As such, the question under consideration here is:What are the limits of and the alternatives to the“extended volition” paradigm of technology and the goodlife? Also, what are the barriers to the wider enactment ofalternative technological modes of pursuing the good?Such questions are in the spirit of a body of literature thatmerits more attention in contemporary technologyscholarship. Pacey [2], Borgmann [3] and Csikszentmi-halyi and Rochberg-Halton [4], for instance, have eachsought an understanding of things as “shapers of self” aswell as reflectors of one’s relationship with others andthe environment. Tatum [5], in his work on the HomePower movement, ventured similar explorations of therole that technologies play in frustrating or affordingindividuals’ ability to put their values into action in dailyliving.

There are, at least, three ways in which technology mayimpact human decision making. The first two are alreadywell established in the literature, but the last merits moreattention. This work will draw upon all three. First, theextent or scale of certain technological systems may makecertain practices exceedingly difficult if not impossible.Ivan Illich [6], for instance, considered how the system ofroads and highways in modern cities often results inwalking not being a viable transit option. He referred to thissituation as imposing a “radical monopoly” upon one’s styleof living. Winner [7,8] has also contributed much to thisunderstanding of technology, describing technologies as“legislations.” Kirkman [9] has more recently examinedhow the obduracy of technological systems in the cityimpacts the efficacy of one’s strivings and erects barriers toagency more generally. Second, as Latour [10] has argued,technologies can “script” behavior. One of his main exam-ples is the seat belt warning light, whose insistent bleetingasks the driver – not so politely – to put on his or her seatbelt; most drivers end up eventually complying with thewishes inscribed in the light. Verbeek [11] has referred tosuch systems as “materializing morality” – that is, moraldecision making. Finally, technologies are also emotionevoking objects that influence human practice in a moresubtle, psychological way. They constitute part of thecognitive and affective ecology within which decision-making occurs. That is, the cell-phone in a pants pocket,a TV in a living room or an Internet-enabled computer ona desk exert emotionally charged nudges on human choice.

This work differs from earlier ones by placing extrafocus on the third way in which technological agencyimpacts emergent decision making. As such, it builds uponthe view of materiality developed in the “performativeturn” of STS. The performative turn is often overshadowedby more well-known theories of material agency. However,

it is better compatible than the others with the psycho-logically deep perspective pursued herein.

The line argument within this work will be at oncedescriptive and prescriptive. It will begin with an illustra-tion of the ways in which some modern technologies affectchoices in general and in regards to the good life. With thisillustration, the paradigm of technological liberalism – theidea that technologies can extend individual human voli-tion, without distortion, in pursuit of the good life – isproblematized. Focus is placed on both critiquing techno-logical liberalism as not accurately reflective of reality butalso questioning it in regards to human values. It is foundthat technological contexts can and often do frustrateattempts to put one’s values into action, and the phenom-enological experience of commodity led choice-makingmay too often provide only an illusion of control butnonetheless promise to “materialize” the moral decision-making of the unencumbered liberal self. Finally, thephilosophy of Albert Borgmann is explored as a startingpoint for developing an alternative framing of the good lifethat acknowledges the role technologies play in shapingone’s practices, a framing based on not detachment andconsumer-like choices but committed engagement andphronetic judgment.

Ultimately, the author maintains that – because certaintechnologies too often serve as barriers to the realization ofalternative practices and values – the relationship betweentechnologies, choice and the good life is already andunavoidably a public question and social problem; thediscourse of choice simply renders invisible the indirect“legislations” that many modern technologies alreadymake on the good life.

2. An initial provocation: internet distraction and“freedom”

This study both draws theoretical inspiration from andaims to contribute to the performative turn in STS, as rep-resented by Lucy Suchman [12], Andrew Pickering [13] andothers. Performative studies conceptualize humans as sit-uated actors; actors whose behavior emerges temporally inthe confluence of themselves and the affordances andresistances of their material and social worlds. That is,human action not only shapes but is also shaped by itsmaterial context. Neil Postman ([14, p. 18]), though exteriorto this literature, expressed a similar view of technologywhen he argued that “technological change is neitheradditive nor subtractive. It is ecological.” By this, he meantthat a change to society’s technological context can havedramatic, nonlinear and unexpected implications for thedynamics of human practice. This view is strengthenedfurther if one understands human thinking and behavior asfundamentally embodied. Indeed, social psychologists havesuggested that people’s higher mental processes are“scaffolded” by their experiences with the physical world[15]. Therefore, it may not be too large a leap to suggestthat, rather than existing as neutral means to purely userdefined ends, how technologies mediate embodied practicecan alter the scaffolding that frames human thinking.

This approach likely bears a superficial resemblance toother theories of material agency, like Actor Network

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Theory (ANT). There are several reasons why this workfollows Suchman and Pickering rather than Latour [16],Callon [17] or Law [18]. First, the notion of actants is anunnecessary construct for the cases under considerationand arguably lends itself too easily to an inappropriatedegree of symmetry between humans and objects. Thetheoretical shift toward treating objects as interest-ladenactants, even if only semiotically, is not necessary torecognize a decentering or weakening of the human will.Pickering’s [13] theorization of material agency as mani-festing in the accommodations and resistances that aretemporally emergent in response to human action, forinstance, more than suffices for that purpose. As Suchman([12, p. 269]) suggests of her own analysis, “persons andartifacts do not constitute each other in the same way.” Forthe cases under consideration, Ihde’s [19] concept of tech-nological “intentionality” is more prudent. It is not thattechnologies have intentions but that they exhibit a certaindirectionality with respect to reality. Second, ANTmay helpsome scholars map out networks or assemblages of humanand non-human actants and reach an explanation of somesocial action without having to appeal to social forces orenduring structure, but it is unclear if it has anything tocontribute to the understanding of human decision-making. Viewing human–material interactions as interestnegotiations may be appropriate for certain styles ofsociological explanation. However, it arguably lackspsychological depth. ANT “black boxes” the actors withinthe network; they are cognitively shallow and disem-bodied. Since this work is concerned primarily with theaffective and cognitive aspects of human choice as itemerges within certain technological contexts, a human-centered performative theory is more appropriate.

Returning to the matter at hand, consider the exampleof the Internet enabled computer. It is generally taken forgranted that modern computers unambiguously enhancethe human will. Compared with other technologies, theyare quite flexible and diverse in their potential uses. Thecomputer user is often portrayed as increasingly liberatedfrom the constraints of time and space, the computerpromising to allow them to come closer to being able toauthor a more desirable version of their life in cyberspaceor simply work more efficiently. They can choose betweena greater variety of goods, information sources andpersonal relationships. However, such optimistic rhetorichides the actions and decisions made more difficult bya seemingly endless proliferation of individual choice thatcomputers seem to afford. Many computer users, theauthor included, are frustrated by the ease to which theybecome distracted by the Internet and how this distractionimpacts their lives. A recently developed computerprogram – ironically named “Freedom” – promises to helpusers reassert their agential mastery over their computersby blocking Wi-Fi access until the computer is rebooted. Inlight of the apparent popularity of this program, theInternet enabled computer may not be an unambiguousgodsend to human agency. Rather, it appears that thehuman will is often too weak in the face of easy access toa wealth of entertaining information; the affordances ofInternet browsing have an affective and seductive pulltoward distraction. Erecting a small but non-trivial barrier

can diminish the salience of this affective dimension toa sufficient degree that those who want to avoid shirkingcan pursue their work undistracted. The “script” of thepersonal computer is altered by changing the design of itsaccomodations and resistances.

This situation is not surprising given the growing bodyof experimental studies that highlight the ease to whichone’s thinking and behavior can be “nudged” by mundaneobjects in one’s environment – to borrow Thaler and Sun-stein’s term [20]. Having a warm drink in a person’s handsencourages them to see other people as having “warm”

personalities and act more generously [21]. Attachinga resume to a heavy clipboard makes it more likely fora candidate to seem qualified [22]. Changing organ dona-tion forms to have a check mark to opt-out rather than opt-in leads to skyrocketing organ donation rates [23], sug-gesting that many simply do what is cognitively easierwhen faced with a complex, uncertain or otherwise chal-lenging decision about the future. Similarly, Nicholas Carrhas provocatively [24,25] asked “Is Google making usstupid?” in arguing that the context of the Internetdecreases one’s ability for careful and deep thought. Hiswork appears to be partially confirmed by research [26]suggesting that chronic media multitaskers performworse than non-multitaskers on certain cognitive tasks,even including multitasking itself. So, it is clear that arti-facts have a demonstrable influence on human thinkingand decision-making; they have some agency.

Recognition of the agency of technology on humandecision making should evoke significant concerns abouthow liberal philosophy typically approaches the good life.To start, if one’s choices and behaviors are not totally one’sown then the basis of the view that the good life is, ought tobe or even can be constructed out of autonomous, indi-vidual choices becomes increasingly questionable. Yet,taking apart this view will require more elaboration.

3. Technological liberalism and the good life

In the contemporary moral and political climate, “thegood life” may carry undesirable connotations of tradi-tionalism and parochialism. Yet, it has roots in philosoph-ical thinking, at least since Aristotle’s concept ofeudaimonia. Furthermore, it has gained acceptance as anobject of scientific inquiry in fields like positive psychology.At the same time, it can be argued that visions of the goodlife more substantively ground most political debate anddaily living than abstract philosophical principles. Yet, thewidespread embrace of a morally minimalist philosophicalliberalism eliminates the question of the good life fromopen consideration in public discourse; it is assumed thatthe good life is solely the responsibility of individuals tocompose and pursue.

Within the framework of many contemporary schools ofphilosophical liberalism, society and government are rele-gated to the role of merely providing a procedurally neutralcontext for individual choice. However, onemay reasonablywonder if such a neutral space has yet to be found outsideof the minds of philosophers and libertarians, if it is morean ideal than reality. Sandel [27] argues that part of thephilosophical support for such procedural neutrality is

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problematically rooted in the concept of the unencum-bered self and the assertion that the right can be definedprior to the notion of the good. Sandel attacks both thepossibility for and the desirability of a self able to remaindetached or aloof from any tie that threatens to be consti-tutive. Such aloofness is a necessity if one is to have therequisite detached rationality that permits the autonomouschoosing of one’s own attachments. He views the hypo-thetical unencumbered self as forever lurching betweendetachment and entanglement, thus without moral depth.What makes one’s constitutive ties – family, community,friends – meaningful and valuable for the good life is thevery fact that they are not simply chosen in the way onemight chose a tube of toothpaste in a supermarket, andthey cannot be easily detached without damage to the self.

However, the enhanced mobility and widening array ofconsumer choices enabled by technological modernityseems to promise to make such a detached selfhood moreof a reality. The appeal of many technologies lies inappearing to increasingly enable the individual to tran-scend their previous material, social and technologicalconstraints. As such, the paradigm of technological liber-alism is premised on the idea that a non-distorting exten-sion of the individual freedom to choose is possible throughtechnology and that such extensions ultimately lead tousers making better choices toward a more meaningful,liberating and satisfying life.

Technological liberalism is obviously pervasive inmodern advertising, which promises better decision-making and consumer power through the purchase ofany number of gadgets. More surprising is its presence inscholarship. Wellman [28,29], for instance, has focusedmuch of his work on attempting to answer the communityquestion: the concern that modernity has caused a declinein traditional communal relationships. His answer to thatquestion is as much semantic as empirical; he redefinescommunity as an ego-centric network of social support. Inviewing community as centered around individuals whoact as unencumbered “entrepreneurial operators” ofnetworks and build up personal “portfolios” of specializedties, Wellman seems to view communities as having beenliberated by technological modernity from a basis inostensibly outmoded ideas such as local, place-based soli-darity or mutual obligation. Not surprisingly, his theoriesare most often put to use in studies of online socialinteraction.

Arguably, there is no longer even a question concerningcommunity to answer if one reconceptualizes the trans-formation of community to an increasingly egocentric andpersonalized construct not as a potentially problematiccultural pathology but as progress. While Wellman ([30, p.248]) declares somewhat triumphantly that “this is thetime for individuals and their networks, not for groups,”many may not share his view of unencumbered networkedindividualism as a desirable form of life nor appreciate theirrelative lack of agency in the matter. The technologicalsystems that enable the practices of networked individu-alism could be argued to serve as radical monopoliesagainst practicing “thicker” notions of community; asinstitutions and infrastructures are increasingly modeledon networks, alternative communal arrangements may

become prohibitively difficult. Again, to be clear, the criti-cism being leveled against Wellman here is not against hisempirical observations of the affordances of modern tech-nological society for affording an increase in the individ-ual’s ability to remain more aloof to one’s social ties, butthat he seems to present the emergence of an egoistic formof community as an ultimately desirable expansion offreedom.

The intimate relationship between modern technologyand liberal politics has been critiqued at length by GeorgeGrant ([31, p. 129]), who argued that modern liberalismgenerally serves to legitimate technological society. Insofaras liberalism holds paramount the individual’s ability toauthor their own existence and modern technologyappears to already and increasingly enable this abilitysuggests a symbiotic relationship between the two. That is,liberalism is both seen as justified by and used to justify thetechnological context of modernity. One ends up ina circular argument where it appears that the humancondition cannot reasonably be otherwise but is fortu-nately in line with the march of progress of a set of liberaldesiderata premised on promoting a more unencumberedindividual selfhood; it “ought” to be because it already andincreasingly “is.” As Darin Barney ([32, p. 51]) puts it, “Tothe extent that technological liberalism purports to be freeof the specification of the good, it is a politics in denial.”Technological liberalism’s most extreme manifestation isthat of the “Californian Ideology,” described by Barbookand Cameron [33] as a mix of triumphant technologicaldeterminism and individualistic libertarianism that hasemerged in magazines like Wired and the writings ofStewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others with the advent ofthe Internet.

4. Technology and choice making

The question concerning technology and the good life,however, is not only a philosophical and normative ques-tion but also an empirical one. Not only should one bewilling to examine the philosophical assumptions foundingtechnological liberalism and its effects on human meaning,but also ask if it reflects reality. To be clear, the focus here ison a “thick” notion of choice-making, one that is moresubstantial than trivial forms of consumer choice, such asthose made in drug stores between flavors of mouthwash.That is, what matters most is the ability of people to makechoices about how they ought to live or how easily they canput their values into action. By highlighting how physicalreality often “nudges” decision-making, the abovementioned research suggests that one’s choices are oftennot completely open to individual formulation but emerge,in part, from the more proximate context. As socialpsychological research has suggested for many years [34],human decisions are generally local and emotional ratherthan detached and rational. As performative theoristsargue, it is situated. The process of decision-making is wellillustrated by Jonathan Haidt [35], who describes thelimitations of the human will through the metaphor ofa rider on an elephant. The rational part of the self is therider, who can only imperfectly direct the path of the sub-rational and emotional elephant.

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In spite of the promise of modern technology, thetechnologically-enabled, unencumbered self may be moremyth than reality. Again, recall the program called“Freedom.” There is no logical reason for such a program toexist if technologies like the Internet simply extended thehuman rational will. While it may enable access toa diversity of sources of information, it may also frustrateattempts to put those sources to use in practices that manywould consider to be more valuable than the pursuit ofentertainment.

Innocuous and seemingly liberating technologies oftenshape the way one lives, not always for the better. Considerthe effects that cell phones have had on daily living. Theyno doubt afford new freedoms of communication andinformational access. However, many may feel increasinglytethered to and dependent on them. The author, forinstance, finds himself more easily distracted and moreoften attempting to multitask because of the mistakenbelief that it will give him more time or because of anincreased intolerance to waiting or boredom. He is lesslikely to venture a risky conversation with a stranger inpublic. If he is lonely, the author most often contacts one ofhis already existing ties for a much “safer” interaction. Thisis not an arrangement he has rationally chosen. In thisinstance, the fearful elephant is clearly leading its rider.Furthermore, in light of observational findings [36]showing that mobile phone users are much less likely toengage in serendipitous public interaction than peopleoccupied with a book or even a laptop, it appears that suchan experience is not unique to the author.

Consider a similar situation, likely familiar to those withchildren. Sitting kids in front of media devices such astelevision can provide a well needed respite for over-worked and stressed parents who want to relax oraccomplish household chores without distraction [37,38].This is no doubt convenient and pleasing, but many of theparents doing so would likely agree that this practice doesnot exactly constitute good parenting – much lesscontribute to the production of well adjusted children.However, some may justify this behavior in light of theostensible educative benefits of the content and the epis-temological uncertainty concerning the possible develop-mental damage of too much screen time. Nevertheless,those who would argue that the decision between the twoalternatives, sitting one’s children in front of amedia deviceand directing one’s children into more active and engagedpractices, is one that can be done easily and rationallyprobably have neither spent an evening around rambunc-tious young children after a bad day at work nor consideredmedia’s affective pull on children and parents needinga break.

The choice that many people would see as the betteroption – that is, not using media as a babysitter or pacifier– is often more difficult and probably not made nearlyoften enough; the observation [39] that children less thanseven average somewhere between two to 4 h of mediaexposure each day in the United States, while the averageskyrockets to around seven or 8 h each day for eight toeighteen year olds, attests to this. As well, survey resultsshow that approximately half of parents with tablets orsmart phones use them to distract their kids while in the

car or at restaurants [40]. Such statistics may reflect theease and allure of simply turning on the television, orsome other device, to keep children occupied. However, itis clearly also confounded by the relative difficulty ofalternatives if one lives in a suburban neighborhood withlittle else to occupy children as well as the degree to whichparents are too mentally and physically drained – perhapsworking long hours or several jobs just to stay financiallyafloat – to find other activities to engage their children.Indeed, the occurrence of levels of television viewing thatexceeds American Academy of Pediatric guidelines iscorrelated with factors associated with low socio-economic status: poor neighborhoods, low levels ofeducation and race [41]. Plopping the kids in front ofa screen may not match the values of many parents, yetthe circumstances likely frustrate many attempts to putthose values into action.

Admittedly, limitations on choice are likely as muchsocioeconomic as psychological and technological. Power[42] has argued that the modern capitalist economy is likea technological device – the design of which keeps people“trapped” into patterns of consumption. My argumentconcerning technology, however, is parallel in form torather than stemming directly from such critiques of themarket. Neoliberals tend to see markets as neutral andobjective means of distributing goods that straightfor-wardly expands human agency, enabling them to morefreely pursue their own happiness. People, via markets, areseen as more “free to choose” – to borrow the title of one ofMilton Friedman’s books. Arguably, that perspective isincreasingly shortsighted. Not only do markets generallyonly provide a trivialized version of choice – one primarilydecides between competing commodities – but, as Powerargues, it brackets out the socially constructed nature ofmarkets and ignores the non-neutral role markets play inconstructing new kinds of chronically dissatisfied (non)citizens. Traditional capitalist economics takes for grantedthe homo economicus model of human behavior, assumingthat the market choices made by consumers are an undis-torted window into their values and utilities. Psychologicalexperiments, however, suggest that market structuresproduce very different habits of behavior than thoseproduced by social and moral norms. For instance, askinglate parents to pay a fee when picking up their childrenfrom day care encourages further tardiness because parentscome to see their lateness as a purchasable service ratherthan a moral failing [43]. One study suggests that simplygetting people to think about money tends to evokeisolating and self interested behavior [44]. The argumentthus far has been that such contextual non-neutralityextends far beyond markets to technologies themselves;technological contexts can as easily “trap” people inpatterns of behavior as markets do.

This assertion, of course, raises the question: If humanchoice-making suffers these significant limitations, why isit that technological liberalism remains so tenacious? Ananswer may lie in considering how the experience of manymodern technologies potentially provides the scaffoldingfor a particular way of understanding one’s placewithin theworld. The way in which technologies-of-choice reveal theworld may help to instill the belief that people can and

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should exist apart from a reality that serves mainly asa resource with which they author their own lives. Thisbelief frames choice as an imposing of one’s will on theworld rather than a working with or through reality.However, it is not that people are actually no longerinterdependent or are really sufficiently empowered toimpose their will so directly and arbitrarily, but rather thatthe feeling that one’s own capacities have been extendedcan effectively prevent them from noticing, experiencing orpracticing interdependence. The user of a technologyremains perennially reliant on large-scale or globalnetworks, dependent on the continued proper functioningof devices and subjected to the disciplining characteristicsof the technology itself. Yet, the ability to choose betweena diversity of commodities or dial in custom settings ona gadget feels empowering. Within the phenomenologicalexperience of using many technologies, larger dependen-cies remain cognitively distant, toward the limit of humancomprehensibility and attention, but the act of choosing –

however trivial – remains cognitively near. Stated anotherway, devices do not produce unencumbered selves as anunquestionable reality but rather help to reproduce thebelief that one is an unencumbered choosing self throughthe practices they enable and the aspects of being their useobscures. They “materialize” a version of moral decision-making: the unencumbered liberal self.

The ability to maintain a belief that one can steer one’sown life against a harsh reality that otherwise would notsubmit to one’s will but command one’s respect may bepart of the allure of technologies that only marginallyexpand one’s options among a range of commodities butotherwise do little to support the ability to choose analternate means of living. Indeed, psychologists suggestthat feelings of control, even if illusory, contribute tomental well-being [45,46]. Though, others suggest that thesubstantial emphasis given to individual choice for well-being is a social construction particular to mainlyeducated westerners and that too much choice can bedetrimental [47]. Nevertheless, in many areas of life, thedominant concept of choosing has become so thin that it istaken to mean the ability to pick among a number ofmarket provided options rather than anything moresubstantive. Consider popular arguments to the effect thatsubsidy of public television is no longer necessary ina world with hundreds of cable and satellite channels. Sucharguments are founded on the assumption that there isnothing more to television than providing fragmenteddemographic targets and lifestyle enclaves with theentertainment they most prefer to receive, bracketing outany consideration of whether or not the ability to chooseprogramming undergirded by a broader concern for thepublic interest or the development of citizenship matters.Simply, insofar as technologies provide a range ofcommodious but too often trivial options they may impartthe illusion of control and conceal the choices and practicesmade more difficult or impossible by the embrace of thosetechnologies.

So far, technological liberalism has been characterizedand found wanting. Many modern technologies are not thenon-distorting extenders of individual human agency thattechnological liberalism purports them to be. A seemingly

liberating technological context can often be a barrier toputting some set of values into action rather than a helpinghand. This suggests two ways forward. First, scholars couldstudy how technologies could actually enable morereflexive decisions and thus the ability to more easily putone’s values into action. Second, technologies could bediscussed, designed and deployed in more open acknowl-edgment of their implications for the good life. The latterhalf of this work will attempt to address mainly the secondoption by building upon the philosophy of Albert Borg-mann. His concept of a focal practice provides an alterna-tive to technological liberalism.While alternative pathwaysdo exist, the practice of appropriation is argued to beinsufficient to help most people to be able pursue thosealternatives; one must adequately consider the extent towhich alternative technologies can conflict with bothentrenched liberal alternatives as well as many aspects ofthe present economic system.

5. Focal technologies and the good life

Albert Borgmann [3] has argued for a division of tech-nology between what he calls “technological devices” and“focal things.” What separates these types of technologiesis how they reveal the product they provide and the kindsof practices they tend to engender. Borgmann takesmodern central heating to be exemplary of technologicaldevices. It provides warmth in a way that is convenient,pleasant and on-demand. However, it conceals from theuser the means by which heat is produced and makes littledemands on the user to engage with it or other people.Central heating renders warmth as a commodity, an endunencumbered by its means. In contrast, the traditionalhearth or wood stove represents focal things. To providewarmth, the wood stove demands the skill and attention ofits user, engages them in the local environment through thecollection of fuel and serves as a social focus for thehousehold. In this case the user is active and engaged in theproduction of heat and the design of the technologyencourages engagement with other people in the home.Central heating may keep one equally cozy everywhere ina building but does not help one to remain physically active,mentally engaged and in the company of others as a woodstove tends to do. As well, in light of the psychologicalresearch that suggests an unconscious linking of physicaland interpersonal warmth, it would seem that the bringingtogether of bodies enacted by the wood stove is as affectiveas it is spatial.

Borgmann’s work suggests that technological devicesand focal things have the agency to direct the user intodifferent kinds of practices and patterns of living. As such, itis compatible with a performative understanding ofmateriality. His philosophy is a rejection of technologicalinstrumentalism, the idea that technologies can be neutralinstruments. Rather, they are means that shape their ends.The appeal of technological devices is the promise of thebetter life through personal liberation from material, bio-logical and social constraints; devices, as technologies-of-choice appear to provide that mythic neutral context andextension of the will necessary for the unencumberedpursuit of happiness. That is, the good life – via the device

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paradigm – is seen to occur only when the individual isfreed from any potentially burdensome external constrainton choice.

Borgmann, on the other hand, can be read as seeing thegood and meaningful life as not lying in the technologicalcasting off of every possible inconvenience of daily livingbut based in striving to become someone better able to riseto the challenge of many of those inconveniences. The focalpractices demanded by Borgmann's focal things are valu-able because they help shape people better able to deeplyengagewith the world around them. That is, focal things, astechnologies-of-commitment, do not offer anything resem-bling consumer choice or a pathway to unencumberedselfhood but rather the opportunity to develop and exerciseone’s phronetic judgment. Focal users find fulfillment inpractices inwhich things and theirworldmaydemand to berecognized and respected as a reality that remains stub-bornly out of reach of their more arbitrary whims anddesires for control. Practices, though burdensome, are oftendeeply satisfying in their own right.MatthewCrawford [48],for instance, has eloquently described the personal satis-faction brought by such engagement in the context of craftwork.

At any rate, discussions of wood stoves may be too farremoved from most people’s experiences when comparedto something like the Internet. By Borgmann’s classifica-tion, Internet communication technologies would appearto be devices rather than focal things. While one mayappropriate the Internet for a committed focal practice,such as when a couple uses video chat to maintain anintimate but geographically distant relationship, theInternet provides little substantive support for such prac-tices. Similarly, recall how central heatingmay better affordsocial dispersion than gathering within a house but doesnot prohibit gathering outright. Rather, as argued byManuel Castells [49], the Internet appears as materialsupport for the practice of networked individualism. Apractice characterized by people acting like entrepreneurs,“shopping around” [50] in a market of social ties. Thispractice appears predicated on the treating of others andsocial presence as a commodity; the feeling of socialconnection becomes a good obtained similarly to warmthin centrally heated home – simply turned on or off at will.The idea that networked individualism is essentially liber-ating would have to be motivated by the view that tradi-tional social ties are unnecessarily burdensome orconstraining, similar to contending with a finicky woodstove. Such a mindset would seem to assume from theoutset that the feeling of possessing choice about one’s tiesis ultimately more valuable than their experiential depth.Yet, the extent to which the practice of networked indi-vidualism is enabled, such a selfhood may more easilybecome taken-for-granted and naturalized. If one’s beliefsabout the nature of sociality are scaffolded by one’sperformative engagement with social worlds, then it isreasonable to suggest that new affordances for socializing –

which emphasize frictionless and relatively weak anddiffuse ties – can and will shift views of the self and socialnorms.

However, the above argument is not merely specula-tive. Decades of observation of people’s interactions over

networked communication technologies by Turkle ([51,p. 15]) suggest that such technologies do affect howpeople interact and think about sociality. She argues thatmodern communication technologies permit users to actlike modern day Goldilockses, able to increasingly titratetheir commitments and interactions to just the desiredamounts. Yet, she finds this new power not unquestion-ably enabling. These technologies permit the erecting ofelectronic barriers to social intimacy as much as theattempt to bridge physical distances. Turkle views thistendency to increasingly pursue and demand frictionlessrelationships with controllable levels of intimacy ascoming at the cost of increased anxiety and new forms ofsolitude.

“Technology,” as Turkle argues ([51, p. 1]), “is highlyseductive when what it offers to meet our human vulner-abilities.” Too often, modern communication devices mayend up being more enabling of people’s worst and mostirrational proclivities than their best, affording their fearfulflight from potentially threatening levels of commitmentand intimacy. The ostensible increase in agency, at thesame time, is highly alluring. It would seem odd to arguethat the isolation and anxiety suffered by Turkle’s inter-locutors are freely chosen, a result of what they haverationally decided to be constitutive of the good life.Rather, given the performative nature of choice-making,they may simply be people who are enabled by tech-nology to be increasingly governed by their fears andimpulses in the pursuit of independence, even if they mayfeel that they have been empowered in other ways. Socialintimacy may be like the essay or book many peoplestruggle to focus on when on their computers, hinderedmore than helped by all the affordances and new abilitiesenabled by the technology.

What Ray Oldenberg [52] called “third spaces” wouldappear to be the focal opposite of such devices. Built spacessuch as coffee shops and the local tavern do more thansimply satiate the individual desire for social support; theypromote the focal skilled practice and habit of publicsocializing. However, functional third spaces are in decline;a commons tragedy wrought in part by the virtual penningin of public social spaces. Think of the scene of digitalcocooning in a typical Starbucks. Though gaining the abilityto have loved one’s or entertainment always available, theallure of wrapping oneself within a web of “safe” andtechnologically mediated ties may lead to a decliningvibrancy of public interaction. Of course, some may seeonline spaces as potentially providing something similar toa third space. However, the voluntarism and disem-bodiedness of online spaces suggests that, while they doenable social interaction, they are different in kind; part ofwhat defined the character of the local tavern was that itwas the local tavern as well as situated in a community thatwas at once social and material. As well, those argumentsfail to recognize that, due to the erecting of virtual barriersto physical public socializing, this development is notsimply an expansion of choice. Rather, it can be viewed asanother of Illich’s radical monopolies. The choice isbetween adapting to the new context or facing socialisolation rather than between two equally vibrantalternatives.

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6. Underdetermination of technology and the limitsof appropriation

However, the agency of technologies in shaping humandecision-making is not absolute. Indeed, one of the mainfindings of STS research is that technologies are under-determined by their technical components; they are sociallyconstructed. For example, it would be imprudent to thinkthat focal practices are absolutely impossible with devices.As Diane Michelfelder [53] has pointed out, telephones –

for example – are often used as means to support focalpractices like care-giving. However, why it is that somegroups succeed in using a particular device more focallywhile others use it primarily to obtain goods as unen-cumbered commodities, merits investigation. There may besome countervailing contextual agency, empowerment orstill present sociocultural norm at work that strengthensthe individual or collective capacity to make such a choice.Nevertheless, a fruitful comparison could bemade betweendevices/things and the opt-in/opt-out systems for organdonation mentioned above. Focal practices may be some-thing one must opt into when using devices while focalthings alternatively arrange the decision as an opt-out.With devices, non-engagement may be the default optiontaken bymany – if not most – users because it is cognitivelyeasier, regardless of what they may prefer upon reflection.

Nevertheless, technologies are often appropriated fornew uses. The argument here is not that they are absolutelydeterminative or inflexible. Rather, appropriation isfrequently too weak of a response because it may requireenough extra effort or expertise that too many people donot bother to make an attempt. The influence of a tech-nology on human behavior need not be absolute to beeffective. Furthermore, the ability to appropriate is stronglycontingent or serendipitous itself. Whether one is turninga vintage automobile into a “low rider” or hacking theFrench Minitel into an electronic singles’ bar, appropriationoften requires resources available to only an elite minorityof users. This is especially true as devices become increas-ingly complex, opaque and sealed shut by rivets or epoxy.Often, one must already be empowered in some relevantway in order to appropriate. As far as the majority of thepublic is concerned, the top-down relationship remainsunchanged in moving from consumer products to tech-nologies appropriated by some ostensibly “subaltern”contingent of experts. For example, social networkingtechnology is often credited with increasing grass rootspolitical power at the bottom of the hierarchy. Yet, such anargument may hold true only if the “bottom” is seen asexisting in the educated middle class. The “poll tax” for thisnew form of political power consists of the means to obtaina computer and Internet access as well as the time to learnto use the programs, including potentially ever higherlevels expertise – programming skills – if the users them-selves are to have a more substantive level of control overthe technology.

Furthermore, one must not confuse the part with thewhole – that is, the appropriation with the device. Sucha move may motivate a great deal more techno-optimismthan is merited. The fact that “Freedom” can help peoplefocus on their given task whenworking on computers does

not immediately mean that computers help people tofocus; they generally do not. The urge to generalize fromminority uses may be similarly misleading. For instance,Feenberg ([54, p. 192]) lists the example of an onlinesupport group for those with a chronic disease as demon-strating the potential of the Internet for interpersonalengagement. Of course, such forums are good things butthey are at odds with much of the social behavior else-where online. An activity that comprises an infinitesimallysmall percentage of online happenings does not immedi-ately justify the form of the technology in which itcurrently exists. One can imagine alternative Internets,which better support engagement with local communitiesand the kind of relating that takes place on such forumswhile being far less enabling of the aimless distraction,misinformation, antisocial behavior and hedonisticconsumption that is predominant. Nevertheless, suchalternatives have yet to materialize.

Of course, scholars like Feenberg [54] view technolog-ical appropriations as suggestive of the potential for the“deep democratization” of technology. Most, the authorincluded, would rightly view technology assessment orparticipatory design as laudable ideas and ultimatelydesirable – especially when compared to contemporarytechnocracy. Furthermore, Feenberg’s vision of the goodlife as something more than merely the ability “obtainmore goods in the prevailing socioeconomic system” (p.225) is quite similar to Borgmannian conception. Never-theless, the practical agency of most citizens in regards totheir technologies has yet to catch up to its theoreticalpotential. While there are fruitful alternatives currently inpractice on a small-scale as well as on the horizon, there aresignificant barriers to their implementation that ought tobe taken more seriously.

7. Alternatives and barriers

The purpose of this essay has been neither to maintaina simple nostalgia for some idealized past that pre-datesthe technological device nor to argue that all devicesought be eliminated. As well, there are likely some tech-nologies that the above perspective does not distinguishbetween. For instance, the difference between an auto-matic and a manual transmission in a car is likely negligiblefor the good life, though the automobile itself is ripe forcritique. Nevertheless, since most people do not yet havemuch say over which technologies make up the context ofdaily life and often struggle to put their values into actionwithin those contexts, technological devices already act aslegislations on the good life; devices are radical monopo-lies, scripts and affective technologies that can crowd outfocal practices. Yet, the paradigm of technological liber-alism dominates. Rather than designing under theassumption that the good life lies in increasingly permit-ting individuals to detach from their local physical andsocial ecologies, in order to enable consumer-like choices,why not design technologies that can enable people tomore thoughtfully act within and commit to thoseecologies?

An example of just such a progressive focal technologyis described by Pollan [55]. Joel Salatin, the owner of

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Polyface Farms, has developed the means to practice a kindof focal farming. Rather than dousing his fields in chemicalsor embracing monoculture, Salatin farms according toa sophisticated and empirically based understanding of theecology where he is situated and a feeling for the animalshe raises; they are not seen as mere inputs to an industrialprocess. He does not simply eschew technology but ratherinvents and implements new kinds of technology, such asmobile hen houses and portable electric fences. Salatinstrives for a standard of “good farming” different than thatof narrow industrial efficiency. His work is based on exer-cising phronetic judgment in working with the naturaltendencies of the plants and animals on his farm ratherthan aiming to assert his technological mastery over them.The characteristics of the farm demand that he workcooperatively with other beings instead of commanding anarmy of devices. Though his work is more mentally andphysically taxing, the technological context of his farmpromotes practices of committed engagement with theenvironment, the animals, his family and the localcommunity, better conforming to the Borgmannian notionof the good life than typical industrial farm practices.

Admittedly, it is not only the Borgmannian good life thatthis case exemplifies. Borgmann shares with Franklin [56]and Pacey [2] a practice based conception of technology.Franklin would likely classify Salatin’s farming asa “holistic” technology rather than a “prescriptive” onebecause of how its craft-like character contrasts from thenarrow, divided and rigid demands of a modern industrialprocess. The example also reflects Pacey’s distinctionbetween “people-centered” and “object-centered” tech-nologies. A people-centered approach considers theconnections between the person building the technologyand the people who benefit from or use it as well as theenvironmental impact, highlighting the importance ofmoving beyond a narrow and strict compartmentalizationof technical and ethical thinking. Pacey also distinguishesbetween the modes of decision making afforded bydifferent technological regimes that parallels the distinc-tion made herein between making choices and exercisingjudgment. He frames the issue as the decision “betweeneither imposing our own purposes without any compro-mise, or of understanding and working along with nature’sown purposiveness” (p. 145).

However, there are significant economic barriers to thewider embrace of more focal technologies and their prac-tices. In the move between a wood stove and centralheating, focal “externalities” become served by their ownhighly profitable and highly specialized devices: outdoorphysical exertion is replaced by a Bowflex or gymmembership, the social gathering of the hearth issubstituted by a television or computer, mental stimulationof a focal practice is found through video games or elec-tronic puzzles and so on. Some may not even have thismuch, opting for blood pressure and diabetes medicines aswell as trips to the family therapist and recreational druguse in order to adapt physically and mentally with modernliving. It is a situation justified by an increased measure ofeconomic activity, a narrow definition of “efficiency” andthe ostensible increase of choice resulting from the isola-tion and specialization of formerly interdependent

activities. This is similar to the case in farming wherea more industrially efficient monoculture entails pesticides,artificial fertilizers, mechanical planting and harvesting aswell as innumerable other capital investments that argu-ably serve corporate bottom lines and add to the nationalGDP more than they may serve the interests of farmers,consumer health or the environment. Thus, the samecharacteristics of western economics which may causenon-market goods such as well-functioning ecosystems,cleanwater supplies and healthy food to be undervalued orbracketed out entirely would also seem to be at work forgoods such as healthy bodies, engaging labor and cohesivehouseholds. That is, people getting their exercise, mentalstimulation and social support outside of or as an exter-nality of market products is viewed as an economic losseven if it is a humanistic gain. Similarly, Salatin’s utilizationof the wastes produced on his farm as a replacement forcommercial fertilizer can also be measured as an economicloss, though it is an ecological gain.

It seems that moving to a good life not dominated by thepattern of technological devices will depend on theembrace of a more humanistic and ecological kind ofeconomics that values intangibles like communal andecological solidarity, things not easily commodified. Toborrow Borgmann’s ([3, p. 223]) vocabulary, moderneconomics more easily measures the “affluence ofconsumption” brought by devices than the “wealth ofengagement” enabled by focal things. A wealth focusedeconomics would see the value in a traditional or NewUrbanist style neighborhood over suburban sprawl, ofextended families or communities living close to eachother, of skilled craft labor and of environmental engage-ment for human flourishing. The issue with technologicaldevices may be that they simply reflect and reinforce theeconomic system they come from, a problem compoundedby the fact that much modern public policy – such asindustrial farm subsidy – supports the continued deploy-ment of devices in spite of their pathological consequences.

Jesse Tatum’s [5,57] examination of the Home Powermovement, another case of how technologies couldpotentially better afford focal practices and alternativevalues, illustrates other barriers and problematics. First,while Home Power may work for those able to study andpurchase the requisite technology as well as move out torural areas where small-scale wind or water turbines canbe erected, it is not an option for most of the population.Without other significant changes, one ends up back at thesame problem faced by technological appropriation. AsPower ([42, p. 292]) argues, substantive technologicalreformwould likely require the restructuring of institutionsso that embracing focal things and practices is morestraightforward and affordable for most people, not just the“heroic and the saintly.” Second, efforts to get “off-the-grid”of modernity may very easily become imbued with a desirefor a problematic kind of rugged individualism. Avenues ofreform often risk being co-opted by the same mentality oftechnological liberalism, even if they enable greaterengagement with the world of things.

Yet another barrier is recognizable in the degree ofincommensurability between liberal and more communi-tarian forms of technology. The former may actively

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undermine the latter, while the latter may be seen asoppressive by supporters of the former. This is apparent inheated public debates when the possibilities for pedestrianzones, bike lanes or public transit are explored, which couldresult in a slight negative impact on automobile traffic. Yet,the recognition that every technological context enablesonly a particular range of good lives can open up space forbetter public policy and the possibility of genuinely prac-ticing technological pluralism as a society. Clearly, thereremains much to be done to begin outlining how technol-ogies more compatible with focal practices can be practi-cally developed and deployed in an equitable and pro-social manner.

8. Conclusion

The recognition of the performative aspects of tech-nology in relation to human choice-making supports theview that technologies are non-neutral with respect tohuman strivings toward the good life. Technologies do notsimply enhance one’s volition, as is assumed in the para-digm of technological liberalism, but rather generallysupport only some conceptions of human flourishing.Technologies-of-choice – Borgmann’s devices – constitutea cognitive ecology that, ironically, often frustratesattempts to put certain visions of the good life into action atthe same time that they promise to extend the humanwill.Rather than primarily designing according to the techno-logical liberalist vision of the good life and helping tosustain the arguably illusory belief that one can become anunencumbered self who makes “free choices,” why cannotsocieties develop technologies better compatible with focaland communitarian practices, along with the developmentof practical judgment? Movements such as Slow Food, DIY,critical making, Home Power, organic farming, participa-tory design, technology assessment and calls for changedliving arrangement – like a 21 h work week [58] – are allalready aimed at increasingly enabling kinds of good livespremised on something other than technological liber-alism. Yet, they remain at the margins and are not only inneed of good arguments in their favor but also effortsdirected toward diminishing the barriers that prevent theirwider and more efficacious implementations.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Edward J. Woodhousefor providing guidance in preparing this manuscript.

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