Overview
- Addresses the contemporary crisis of autonomy in the era of addictive technology
- Draws on the deep well of Kantian ethics
- Claims that avoiding the problematic use of technology is a moral duty to ourselves and others
- This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access
Buy print copy
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Table of contents (8 chapters)
-
Front Matter
-
Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
In this open access book, Timothy Aylsworth and Clinton Castro draw on the deep well of Kantian ethics to argue that we have moral duties, both to ourselves and to others, to protect our autonomy from the threat posed by the problematic use of technology. The problematic use of technologies like smartphones threatens our autonomy in a variety of ways, and critics have only begun to appreciate the vast scope of this problem. In the last decade, we have seen a flurry of books making “self-help” arguments about how we could live happier, more fulfilling lives if we were less addicted to our phones. But none of these authors see this issue as one involving a moral duty to protect our autonomy.
Reviews
“One of the few works of moral philosophy that will actually change your life. Deeply researched and elegantly executed, Kantian Ethics and the Attention Economy shows how smartphones manipulate us into making choices that aren’t truly ours. From there, Aylsworth and Castro show us what’s at stake when we get lost in our screens: not just our happiness and democracy, but our very humanity. Put down your phone, and pick up this book.” (Daniel Muñoz, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Core Faculty in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Timothy Aylsworth is an assistant professor of philosophy at Florida International University. He completed his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he wrote a dissertation on Kant’s concept of freedom. He also works on issues in applied and normative ethics, especially topics involving autonomy, manipulation, technology, and collective harm.
Clinton Castro is an assistant professor in The Information School at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His primary areas of study are information ethics, fair machine learning, and epistemology. His recently published book, Algorithms and Autonomy (co-authored with Adam Pham and Alan Rubel), examines how algorithms in criminal justice, education, housing, elections, and beyond affect autonomy, freedom, and democracy.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Kantian Ethics and the Attention Economy
Book Subtitle: Duty and Distraction
Authors: Timothy Aylsworth, Clinton Castro
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45638-1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2024
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-45637-4Published: 22 February 2024
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-45640-4Published: 23 March 2024
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-45638-1Published: 21 February 2024
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIX, 275
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations
Topics: Engineering Ethics, Philosophy of Technology, Artificial Intelligence