As Sandel argues, liberalism presupposes an "unencumbered self" that doesn't really accord with reality. On the contrary, as Carter Snead observes, humans live lives of vulnerability, dependence, and natural limitation. If we had laws, innovations, and bioethics that acknowledged that true anthropology, we'd be a in a better place to promote flourishing.
But it wouldn't fix things. Because modern liberal societies don't presuppose any version of the good, we fall back on making means more efficient. The machine takes over. Offering robot companions for older adults is an efficient solution, but it isn't humane. Human companions are inefficient. The system doesn't tolerate inefficiency. There is a subtle form of technological authoritarianism here (as Dan Callahan warned), as the tail wags the dog: technology sets the limits of imagination, sets the terms of our engagement, frames our questions. Callahan also recognized that modern liberalism is ill equipped to manage this threat because it offers no thick conception of the good to resist technology's allure.
In a pluralistic society, it seems like an intractable dilemma. One thing we could try doing is a form of open pluralism. This requires baseline virtues of civility, humility, respect and so on to engage in conversations and deliberations with others who are vastly different from you, but you don't try to hide your conceptions of the good or water them down for the public sphere. Rather, you show all your cards and negotiate in good faith toward something that might be acceptable to everyone. Because even among people who share your views (e.g., in a church), not everyone is going to see eye-to-eye and negotiation about common activities is still needed. All the more so in the broader society!
But maybe that's too naive a hope in today's political environment.
You're no doubt correct to point out the few writers who have been thinking about this issue. I hadn't read Callahan, but his arguments remind me of Darin Barney's in "Prometheus Wired." It's just a shame that such people are far and few in between in the academy. I remember during my PhD that just saying the phrase "the good life," made my professors stiffen up. They reacted as if nothing good could have come from talking about the life well lived, and this was a Science and Technology Studies program!
I'm with you that pluralism needs a rethink. But the pathway remains unclear. It's hard to imagine the kind of pluralism being discussed here without a far more decentralized or federated model of governance, one's that permitted locales or regions with more communitarian policy. But it's tough. I think technological liberalism functions as an ideology. As as Jason Blakely has pointed out, that means that it's as much about world-making as understanding reality. Even if the "unencumbered self" doesn't really exist, something evident as soon as a person become disabled or severely ill, that doesn't stop the imaginary of a technologically enabled unencumberance from nonetheless powerfully shaping our lives and politics.
As Sandel argues, liberalism presupposes an "unencumbered self" that doesn't really accord with reality. On the contrary, as Carter Snead observes, humans live lives of vulnerability, dependence, and natural limitation. If we had laws, innovations, and bioethics that acknowledged that true anthropology, we'd be a in a better place to promote flourishing.
But it wouldn't fix things. Because modern liberal societies don't presuppose any version of the good, we fall back on making means more efficient. The machine takes over. Offering robot companions for older adults is an efficient solution, but it isn't humane. Human companions are inefficient. The system doesn't tolerate inefficiency. There is a subtle form of technological authoritarianism here (as Dan Callahan warned), as the tail wags the dog: technology sets the limits of imagination, sets the terms of our engagement, frames our questions. Callahan also recognized that modern liberalism is ill equipped to manage this threat because it offers no thick conception of the good to resist technology's allure.
In a pluralistic society, it seems like an intractable dilemma. One thing we could try doing is a form of open pluralism. This requires baseline virtues of civility, humility, respect and so on to engage in conversations and deliberations with others who are vastly different from you, but you don't try to hide your conceptions of the good or water them down for the public sphere. Rather, you show all your cards and negotiate in good faith toward something that might be acceptable to everyone. Because even among people who share your views (e.g., in a church), not everyone is going to see eye-to-eye and negotiation about common activities is still needed. All the more so in the broader society!
But maybe that's too naive a hope in today's political environment.
Hi Josh,
You're no doubt correct to point out the few writers who have been thinking about this issue. I hadn't read Callahan, but his arguments remind me of Darin Barney's in "Prometheus Wired." It's just a shame that such people are far and few in between in the academy. I remember during my PhD that just saying the phrase "the good life," made my professors stiffen up. They reacted as if nothing good could have come from talking about the life well lived, and this was a Science and Technology Studies program!
I'm with you that pluralism needs a rethink. But the pathway remains unclear. It's hard to imagine the kind of pluralism being discussed here without a far more decentralized or federated model of governance, one's that permitted locales or regions with more communitarian policy. But it's tough. I think technological liberalism functions as an ideology. As as Jason Blakely has pointed out, that means that it's as much about world-making as understanding reality. Even if the "unencumbered self" doesn't really exist, something evident as soon as a person become disabled or severely ill, that doesn't stop the imaginary of a technologically enabled unencumberance from nonetheless powerfully shaping our lives and politics.
Thanks for the comment!
Taylor