Attachment to things, artifacts, devices, commodities: an inconvenient ethics of the ordinary

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20th conferenceof the

Society for Philosophy and Technology

Attachment to things, artifacts, devices, commodities: an inconvenient ethics of the ordinary

made on a PC with LibreOffice

mich el.pu ech @

pa ris-s orbo nne .fr

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summary

what am I talking about?

ethical considerability

attachment theory

virtue ethics

wisdom

why inconvenient

focus(most innovative, most inconvenient)

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1) "things, artifacts, devices, commodities"

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2) attachment?

a test online, New York Times, April 2017 "Are you in love with your phone?" https://nyti.ms/2psvbYX

https://nyti.ms/2psvbYX

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ethical considerabilityextending ethical considerability

self → family → tribe (gang) → village, state →

gender, race, culture → non-human animals → vegetal life →

ecosystems → non-living things (minerals, artifacts) →

extending philosophical/ethical considerability to objects: Bogost 2012; Turkle 2007, 2008; Verbeek 2005

where we stand

where this paper stands

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non-living things can be ethically considerable

all living things → non-living things → non-material "things"

recapitulation (not here) of the arguments for the ethical considerability of non-whites, non-males, non-human entities +

the attachment bonds between humans and thingsWE take care of them, care about them, care for them

"Rethinking Repair", Steven J. Jackson, in Gillespie, Boczkowski, and Foot 2014, chap. 11; Pirsig 1974

THEY take care of us and care about us (?)tamagotchi in the 1990s → Picard 1997, 101: "agents that learn your preferences"the booming robot and AI ethics literature, for instance "Do You Want a Robot Lover? The Ethics of Caring Technologies", Blay Whitby, in Lin, Abney, and Bekey 2014, chap. 15

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reciprocal but asymmetrical care?"The Inherent Dangers of Unidirectional Emotional Bonds between Humans and Social Robots", Matthias Scheutz, in Lin, Abney, and Bekey 2014, chap. 13

the dangers of unidirectional care, the other way around (not caring for objects that care for us): tsukumogami 付喪神 in Japanese culture

abandoned tools, utensils, artifacts turn into spirits (yōkai 妖怪 ) after 100 years, pulling pranks on humans

ordinary things engage human existence in a clearly ethical way

= behaviors connected to values

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attachment theory

a theory born (mid-20th century) as interpretative psychology

please don't resist looking it up on Wikipedia

else: Cassidy and Shaver 2002

now an evidence-based medical science and a soaring therapy practice

please note: my philosophical approach does not meet the requirements of this science and this practice

bears on the (human) child's relation with a (parental) caregiver, the "attachment figure"

my problem: "attachment objects" (non human)

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attachment theory model

an untimely limit in attachment theory: it is a humans-only approach

Harlow's untenable prejudice in a seminal article (Harlow 1958):the behavior of baby monkeys in comparative experiments with their real mothers and some “surrogate mothers” made of diverse materialsmost successful surrogate mother: “a block of wood, covered with sponge rubber, and sheathed in tan cotton terry cloth”

attachment theory quotes this experiment over and over but no one (as far as I know) never addressed the artifact dimension of this animal model experiment: conclusions bear on humans-only relationships

most relevant artifacts for case studies, as "surrogate" attachment figures – or as attachment objects

personal computer and smartphone, cars, kitchen tools, software ("local" and online), home comfort commodities(for food, sleep, body hygiene, distraction, etc.)

attachment theory

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attachment theory

attachment theory key theoretical inputs, for interpersonal relationship

1. interacting with a caregiver, to regulate feelings, in particular to manage situations of "alarm", danger, discomfort, stress

2. the caregiver (1) provides protection and emotional support

3. proximity to the caregiver is identified as a stable resource for existential support (2)

4. this "secure base" (3) encourages to explore the world

→ self-construction in a "goal-corrected partnership" with attachment figures

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attachment theory

ordinary things and artifacts as attachment-related objects

1. providing "care": the home is the first and best caregiving resource

for the sick and elderly person as well as for every human being

domestic appliances (coffee machine)

Google Maps when one is lost: it really and aptly cares, operationally

phone in cases of accident, sadness, any existential alarm

2. providing reassurance and emotional support:

Winnicott's transitional objects

some familiar or special clothes

some familiar food when one is abroad

one's car/motorcycle

radio or TV news channels

every "thing" involved in (1)

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attachment theory

ordinary things and artifacts as attachment-related objects

3. their proximity is a "secure base": being at home

Facebook "friends"?

smartphone in one's pocket, bag, at one's bedside: within arm's reach

one's intimate infosphere, a real proximity

4. this secure base incites to explore: more Facebook "friends" and groups and events and sponsored futilities?

the Web, from one's familiar computer at home

suitable clothes to dive into foreign social circles

running shoes inciting to run (attachment to one's sport gears)

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attachment theory

attachment styles (oversimplified)behavior patterns for coping with life problems, particularly in social and personal (human) relations

securethe caregiver is reliable, there is a stable secure base

this secure base (its available proximity) incites to actively explore the world

the attachment system (biologically) operates efficiently and remains in the background

insecure the caregiver is not competent enough, not available enough, or non existing at all

exploration capacities, emotional and communicative capacities are impaired

the instability of reassurance resources leads to various anxiety, ambivalence, and "avoidant" attitudes: a perpetual alarm of the attachment system

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attachment theory

attachment disorders

a non-simplistic theory: insecure attachment is an existential style, not a disorder in itself

but some existential disorders are attachment-related

particularly with the attachment style called "insecure disorganized"

a re-description of some poorly defined and poorly understood relationships with objects

FOMO, "fear of missing out" (compulsive message checking): the fear of loss in insecure attachment, original ground in attachment theory (Bowlby 1969)

addiction: to videogames, or to online porn looking for a reassurance that the caregiving object is not able to provide, then compensating the frustration with obsessional excess, plus withdrawal symptoms and an impairment of one's openness to the world

technophobia and resistance to technological change difficulties in investing new attachment objects, in extending and adapting one's secure base (of attachment objects), then rejection posture and passive-aggressive stance

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virtue ethics

virtue ethics model for the attachment to ordinary things

from attachment → the virtues linked to caregiving: availability, responsivity, emotional competence, practical competence, patience, reliability, possibly affection and love

+ "technoethical/technomoral virtues": honesty, self-control, humility, justice, courage, empathy, care, civility, flexibility, perspective, magnanimity, wisdom (Vallor 2016), awareness, autonomy, harmony, humility, benevolence, courage (Puech 2016)

→ which ones of them can be applied to the human subject in an attachment-related interaction with an object, thing, artifact, device?

the attachment object itself?

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virtue ethics

the role of emotions: functional and ethical

attachment → we have feelings, we need them for self-construction and self-reliance

innovative analytic methods → listening to our emotions, facing them, endorsing them, monitoring them, educating them (Tiberius 2015; Hursthouse 1999; Slote 2010)

evolving our attachments into detached-attachments → wisdom and particularly Zen (Puech 2016)

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wisdom

wisdom approach

ontological, functional, and ethical awarenesscorrecting ethical blindness to things and artifacts

including material/digital non-objects, "fluid assemblages" (Wiltse in this panel; Redström and Wiltse 2015), "post objects" (Coeckelbergh 2017, 199)

correcting ethical blindness to the ordinary

correcting prejudices against material things, useful things, abundant things...

correcting anthropocentrism and biocentrism, obstacles to the extension of ethical considerability

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why inconvenient

concluding remarks

1) intellectual discomfort

resisting moral correctness in common sense and in the humanitiesreal-world designers and makers of technology do not despise the attachment to objects but they "capitalize" on it (Kleine and Baker 2004)

≠ public opinion and academic preconception of a "EITHER humans OR objects" ontological and ethical divide: the "human factor" / every "thing" else

inadequate to the ongoing expansion of ethical considerabilitydespite all our efforts as philosophers of technology

promoting phenomena under the radar of human and social sciences(when they still run the 1970s intellectual software)which targets economic and political "top-down" determinism

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why inconvenient

2) ethical and political discomfort

the importance of microactions in the ordinary sphere→ a disturbing accountability on a political, economic and environmental global scale

we do not exactly want to inquire deep into our attachment to our phones, cars, clothes...

the poverty of our skills (including educational skills) concerning the emotional and ethical relationship to ordinary contemporary "things"

both things and skills lacking ethical considerability in spite of their utmost importance (Dreyfus 2014; Coeckelbergh 2015)

we do not exactly know how to endorse and improve our micro-behaviors in the ordinary technosphere and infosphere

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referencesBogost, Ian. 2012. Alien Phenomenology, Or, What It’s like to Be a Thing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Bowlby, John. 1969. Attachment and Loss. 3 Volumes. London: The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.Cassidy, Jude, and Phillip R. Shaver. 2002. Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications. New York: Guilford

Press. Coeckelbergh, Mark. 2015. Environmental Skill: Motivation, Knowledge, and the Possibility of a Non-Romantic Environmental Ethics.

Routledge.———. 2017. New Romantic Cyborgs: Romanticism, Information Technology, and the End of the Machine. MIT Press.Dreyfus, Hubert L. 2014. Skillful Coping: Essays on the Phenomenology of Everyday Perception and Action. Edited by Mark A

Wrathall. Oxford University Press.Gillespie, Tarleton, Pablo J Boczkowski, and Kirsten A Foot. 2014. Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and

Society. MIT Press.Harlow, Harry F. 1958. “The Nature of Love.” American Psychologist 13: 673–85.Hursthouse, Rosalind. 1999. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford University Press.Kleine, Susan Schultz, and Stacey Menzel Baker. 2004. “An Integrative Review of Material Possession Attachment.” Academy of

Marketing Science Review 1. Lin, Patrick, Keith Abney, and George A. Bekey, eds. 2014. Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics. Cambridge,

Mass.: MIT Press.Picard, Rosalind W. 1997. Affective Computing. MIT Press.Pirsig, Robert M. 1974. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. William Morrow.Puech, Michel. 2016. The Ethics of Ordinary Technology. New York: Routledge.Redström, Johan, and Heather Wiltse. 2015. “Press Play: Acts of Defining (in) Fluid Assemblages.” Proceedings of Nordes 2015:

Design Ecologies. http://www.nordes.org/opj/index.php/n13/article/view/432/407.Slote, Michael A. 2010. Moral Sentimentalism. Oxford University Press.Tiberius, Valerie. 2015. Moral Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction. New York; London: Routledge.Turkle, Sherry, ed. 2007. Evocative Objects: Things We Think with. MIT Press.———. , ed. 2008. The Inner History of Devices. MIT Press.Vallor, Shannon. 2016. Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting. New York: OUP USA.Verbeek, Peter-Paul. 2005. What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design. Pennsylvania State

University Press.

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more

this presentation + a lot of "things": http://michel.puech.free.fr

more conversation: [email protected]

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