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Habermas and Public Reason in the Digital Age: Technology and Deliberative Democracy Asaf Bar-Tura Loyola University Chicago

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Habermas and Public Reason in the Digital Age: Technology and Deliberative Democracy Asaf Bar-Tura Loyola University Chicago Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2016 Habermas and Public Reason in the Digital Age: Technology and Deliberative Democracy Asaf Bar-Tura Loyola University Chicago Recommended Citation Bar-Tura, Asaf, "Habermas and Public Reason in the Digital Age: Technology and Deliberative Democracy" (2016). Dissertations. 1935. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/1935 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2014 Asaf Bar-Tura LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO HABERMAS AND PUBLIC REASON IN THE DIGITAL AGE: TECHNOLOGY AND DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN PHILOSOPHY BY ASAF BAR-TURA CHICAGO, IL MAY 2016 Copyright by Asaf Bar-Tura, 2016 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In his essay titled “What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?” Immanuel Kant famously wrote: Of course it is said that the freedom to speak or to write could be taken from us by a superior power, but the freedom to think cannot be. Yet how much and how correctly would we think if we did not think as it were in community with others, to whom we communicate our thoughts, and who communicate theirs with us! Indeed, this dissertation has evolved over a number of years, and thus has benefited from the input and critique of many audiences, readers, and conversational partners. I am indebted to those who have generously given their time and energy to think with me in community. First, I wish to thank the participants of the nearly two-dozen conferences in which preliminary versions of some sections of the dissertation were presented. I am also indebted to the editors and anonymous referees of the publications that have given light to some of these ideas along the way for their close reading and feedback. I have been especially lucky to have benefited from the colleagues and mentors I gained at the Philosophy Department at Loyola University Chicago. I thank David Schweickart and Andrew Cutrofello, who have been always encouraging, and sparked many of the ideas embedded in this dissertation in seminars, through feedback to drafts of this dissertation, and in many informal conversations. I thank Ardis Collins, from whom I have learned much as her teaching and research assistant – especially with regards to her interpretation of Hegel and Marx, figures who no doubt lurk at the end of every chapter, iii even if not always mentioned. I thank Adriaan Peperzak for his penetrating seminars and his encouragement in informal conversation throughout my years at Loyola. I am also indebted to my fellow graduate students – especially Bryan Kibbe, Allan Breedlove and Giancarlo Tarantino – for their thoughtful comments and conversations throughout the period in which this dissertation was written. Above all, I thank David Ingram for his thoughtful suggestions and guidance, his patience and encouragement, his generosity with his time and relationships, his mentorship and his rare kindness. Finally, I thank my wife and partner – Noah. During my time in graduate school and completing this dissertation, not only has she shown me the way by completing her own doctorate, but together we have also brought two children into the world. I continue to benefit from Noah’s sharp insights, loving encouragement and much needed support. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii INTRODUCTION 1 The Lacuna in Current Discussions in the Field of Critical Theory of Technology 2 Habermas’s Discourse-Theoretic Paradigm as a Framework for a Critical Theory of Technology 4 Habermas and Public Reason in the Digital Age: Technology and Deliberative Democracy 6 CHAPTER ONE: ESSENTIALIST THEORIES OF TECHNOLOGY 10 Introduction 10 Heidegger on Technology 12 Adorno and Horkheimer on Technology 17 Marcuse on Technology 29 Habermas on Technology 39 Conclusion 43 CHAPTER TWO: FEENBERG’S CRITICAL THEORY OF TECHNOLOGY AND ITS PROBLEMS 46 Introduction 46 Anti-Essentialist Appropriations of Heidegger 48 Feenberg’s Critical Theory of Technology 51 Democratizing Technology and the Question of Agency 63 An Insufficient Response to the Concern for Agency 71 Conclusion 74 CHAPTER THREE: SITUATING THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF TECHNOLOGY IN HABERMAS’S DISCOURSE ETHICS 76 Introduction 76 The Roots of Habermas’s Discourse-Ethical Framework 77 Habermas’s Discourse Ethics 87 Objections to Discourse Ethics 91 Discourse Ethics and the Democratization of Technology 96 The Dialectic of Technology and Social Discourse 103 Conclusion 106 CHAPTER FOUR: HABERMAS’S PROCEDURAL PARADIGM OF POLITICS AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE 108 Introduction 108 From Ethics to Political Theory 110 The Legal Form 112 Habermas’s Procedural Paradigm of Law and Politics 125 Habermas’s Reconstruction of the Political Public Sphere 132 v CHAPTER FIVE: MEDIA POWER RECONSIDERED 141 Introduction 141 Digital Democracy Optimism 142 Digital Media Does Not Promise Democracy 145 The New Gatekeepers 148 Corporate Digital Gatekeeping: Legal Concerns 151 Corporate Digital Gatekeeping: Socioeconomic Concerns 156 CHAPTER SIX: WHAT MAKES THE BETTER ARGUMENT BETTER? ON ARGUMENTATION, PUBLIC REASON AND SOCIAL RESOURCES 169 Introduction 169 Argumentation and Rational Persuasion 171 Argumentation Beyond Rational Reason Giving 174 Epistemic and Semantic Reliance on Others 176 Argumentation, Persuasion and Social Resources 181 Conclusion 199 CHAPTER SEVEN: PUBLIC REASON IN THE DIGITAL AGE: TECHNOLOGY AND DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY 201 Introduction 201 Are Digital Technologies Closing Our Political Minds? 205 Technology Design for Deliberative Politics 214 A Note on Civil Disobedience in the Digital Age 228 Conclusion 231 BIBLIOGRAPHY 234 VITA 246 vi INTRODUCTION Critical theorists of recent decades have presented important contributions to our understanding of technology, challenging philosophical views of technology that have dominated most of the twentieth century. These scholars have not only delineated the political nature of technology, but also its malleability, and the possibility for a more democratic technological society. Indeed, some critical theorists of technology argue that resistance to technical domination is not only possible, but inherent to technology itself. For example, Andrew Feenberg has argued that users of technology ultimately appropriate and redefine technology according to their needs and desires. Thus, he announces the project of critical theory in a technological society as theorizing the democratization of technology. In this dissertation I examine some implications of the endeavor to think technology and its possibilities within a political philosophy of democracy. With the overwhelming development of digital technology and its consequences, we live in an age in which technology permeates not only scientific investigation, economic apparatuses, and bureaucratic administration, but also the lifeworld and communications in it. Between email, cell phones, instant messaging, online social networks, and so on, these technologies not only shape how we communicate, but also how we think, what we expect, and how we relate to others. Therefore, it is not enough to 1 2 examine the possibilities for society to shape technology. We must do so while dialectically addressing the ways in which technology is shaping society. My main thesis can be construed as advancing three main arguments that build one upon the other: (T1) Current discussions in critical theory of technology lack a comprehensive political-theoretical framework through which to critique technology and its role in a democratic society. (T2) Habermas’s procedural paradigm of law and democracy, grounded in a discourse- theoretic framework, offers the necessary framework through which to ground a critical theory of technology. (T3) The Habermasian framework must be reconsidered to account for developments in digital technology and for an expanded understanding of argumentation. Furthermore, relying on a Habermasian public use of reason in democratic deliberation to examine the designs of technologies insofar as they embody values and have political consequences requires examining the role digital technologies and their designs play in facilitating or hindering an open and inclusive democratic public sphere in which these questions can be discussed. I now turn to lay out the way in which this dissertation demonstrates (T1), (T2) and (T3) in seven chapters. The Lacuna in Current Discussions in the Field of Critical Theory of Technology (T1) argues that current discussions in critical theory of technology lack a comprehensive political-theoretical framework through which to critique technology and its role in a democratic society. I begin this discussion by surveying prominent theories of technology 3 in the last century (Chapter One). This chapter shows that philosophers of technology have suggested varying taxonomies of theories regarding technology. Roughly speaking, these taxonomies aim to identify theories according to answers they provide to certain questions about technology and human praxis. For our purposes here it is most helpful to identify a theoretical spectrum, with essentialist approaches to
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