The Moral Importance of the iPhone
John Pattison:
In a 2007 interview with Arthur Boers, the philosopher Albert Borgmann makes the case that television is of moral importance. Borgmann says: "When I teach my ethics course I tell these relatively young people that the most important decision that they'll make about their household is first whether they're going to get a television and then second where they're going to put it."I think for my generation and for the generation coming after mine, the questions could probably be amended to (a) “Are you going to get a smartphone?” and (b) “If so, what limits are you going to place on its use?”
These are good questions. One of the struggles I’m going to face is finding appropriate limits to set for my son and his interaction with technology. We have a good idea about limits on television because it’s been around longer than we have. Smartphones and the always-connected network we’ve build is still quite new.
