Moral Code: The Design and Social Values of the Internet

Abstract

In the field of philosophy, the study of the Internet has mainly focused on the social responses to the technology or offered contending visions of the future forms of the Internet with little or no regard for the import of the technical features that contribute to these possibilities. Philosophy lacks a sustained investigation of the implications of the basic design of the Internet technology. This dissertation lays out a philosophical framework for investigating the social and historical relations that result in the embodiment of specific interests in the technology of the Internet. Its philosophical basis, influenced by the thought of Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse, and Andrew Feenberg, supports a social constructivist approach that includes theorization of the oppressive embodiment of hegemonic and exclusive interests in technology while rejecting the technological determinisms influenced by Martin Heidegger's philosophy of technology. After establishing that three pervasive social-political interests - accessibility, openness, and decentralization - directed the design choices that produced the fundamental structure of the Internet, I consider how these embodied interests have interacted with interests arising through the commercial commodification and the globalization of the Internet since the 1990s. Critically evaluating and expanding upon theoretical work in philosophy and other disciplines, I argue that the interests of accessibility, openness, and decentralization, while potentially oppressive when appropriated to satisfy the needs of commercial advertising and dominant social relations, avert the technological hegemony and exclusivity that has concerned philosophers. The result of these embodied interests is an emancipatory ability to incorporate alternative interests and uses through dispersed collaboration and participation, which enables Internet technology to remain minimally coercive.