Guest Editors' Introduction: New Challenges to the Enlightenment: How Twenty-First-Century Sociotechnological Systems Facilitate Organized Immaturity and How to Counteract It
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In: Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 3, 25.07.2023, p. 409-439.
Research output: Journal contributions › Scientific review articles › Research
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Guest Editors' Introduction
T2 - New Challenges to the Enlightenment: How Twenty-First-Century Sociotechnological Systems Facilitate Organized Immaturity and How to Counteract It
AU - Scherer, Andreas Georg
AU - Neesham, Cristina
AU - Schoeneborn, Dennis
AU - Scholz, Markus
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Business Ethics.
PY - 2023/7/25
Y1 - 2023/7/25
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - control
KW - Enlightenment
KW - freedom
KW - Organized immaturity
KW - surveillance
KW - technology
KW - Management studies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85167352120&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/36b0b7ac-9794-318d-b5ed-b9f731ef4814/
U2 - 10.1017/beq.2023.7
DO - 10.1017/beq.2023.7
M3 - Scientific review articles
AN - SCOPUS:85167352120
VL - 33
SP - 409
EP - 439
JO - Business Ethics Quarterly
JF - Business Ethics Quarterly
SN - 1052-150X
IS - 3
ER -