26.8. REPAIR Scholarly Talk by Tamar Sharon

Welcome to REPAIR Scholarly Talk! Professor Tamar Sharon (Radboud University) will give a  talk entitled The moral limits of digitalization: Protecting the autonomy, integrity and plurality of spheres in digital society. The event takes place August 26 at 10:00 at the Main Building of the University of Helsinki, room F3005 (Fabianinkatu 33, 3rd floor). Karoliina Snell (University of Helsinki), Laura Savolainen (University of Helsinki), and Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen (Tampere University) will serve as discussants.

The moral limits of digitalization: Protecting the autonomy, integrity and plurality of spheres in digital society

As we transition to digital society, the key societal spheres that make up society are being transformed. In the process, we may relinquish democratic control over spheres which increasingly rely on privately owned digital infrastructure for their proper functioning, while the values, forms of expertise and ends that these spheres have traditionally embodied and sought to realize are at risk of getting lost. Yet, dominant approaches for addressing digitalization risks – focusing on either data protection or competitive markets – do not seek to protect spheres. In this talk I propose a novel, sphere-centric framework for the moral evaluation of digitalization, which seeks to protect the autonomy, integrity and plurality of spheres in digital society.

Tamar Sharon is Professor of Philosophy, Digitalization and Society at Radboud University in the Netherlands. She co-directs the Interdisciplinary Hub for Digitalization and Society (iHub) and chairs the Department for Ethics and Political Philosophy. She researches how digitalization destabilizes public values and how best to protect them. She is a member of the European Commission’s European Group on Ethics.