Guest Editors’ Introduction: New Challenges to the Enlightenment: How Twenty-First-Century Sociotechnological Systems Facilitate Organized Immaturity and How to Counteract It

Business Ethics Quarterly 33 (3):409-439 (2023)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Organized immaturity, the reduction of individual capacities for public use of reason constrained by sociotechnological systems, constitutes a significant pushback against the project of Enlightenment. Forms of immaturity have long been a concern for philosophers and social theorists, such as Kant, Arendt, Fromm, Marcuse, and Foucault. Recently, Zuboff’s concept of “surveillance capitalism” describes how advancements in digital technologies lead to new, increasingly sophisticated forms of organized immaturity in democratic societies. We discuss how sociotechnological systems initially designed to meet human needs can inhibit the multidimensional development of individuals as mature citizens. To counteract these trends, we suggest two mechanisms: disorganizing immaturity as a way to safeguard individuals’ and collectives’ negative freedoms (freedoms from), and organizing maturity as a way to strengthen positive freedoms (freedoms to). Finally, we provide an outlook on the five further articles that constitute the Business Ethics Quarterly Special Issue “Sociotechnological Conditions of Organized Immaturity in the Twenty-First Century.”

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 97,377

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Kant on Enlightenment.Ian Proops - 2024 - In Andrew Stephenson & Anil Gomes (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Kant. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
What Is an Immature Science?Ruth Hibbert - 2016 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 30 (1):1-17.
Paternalism, Individualism, and the Politics of Maturity.Steven Bilakovics - 2020 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 32 (4):381-406.
Adorno, Kant and Enlightenment.Deborah Cook - 2020 - Kantian Review 25 (4):541-557.

Analytics

Added to PP
2023-07-30

Downloads
15 (#1,104,559)

6 months
10 (#567,741)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?