Social media, interpersonal relations and the objective attitude
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Social media, interpersonal relations and the objective attitude Michael‑John Turp1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract How do social media affect interpersonal relationships? Adopting a Strawsonian framework, I argue that social media make us more likely to adopt the objective attitude towards persons. Technologically mediated communication tends to inhibit interpersonal emotions and other reactive attitudes. This is due to a relative lack of the social cues that typically enable us to read minds and react to them. Adopting the objective attitude can be harmful for two reasons. First, it tends to undermine the basis of interpersonal relationships. In particular, I argue that friendship is a relationship between persons that requires the participant stance. Second, it is a morally risky attitude that makes us more likely to treat persons in problematic, thinglike ways. Some philosophers have rightly urged that social media are compatible with virtuous, Aristotelian friendship. Notwithstanding, I argue that the harms associated with the objective attitude are more pressing than they might appear if we restrict our focus to relatively virtuous people with the social competence to flourish in morally risky online environments. Keywords Social media · Friendship · Reactive attitudes · P. F. Strawson · Objectification · Virtue “The Machine is much, but it is not everything. I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you. That is why I want you to come. Pay me a visit, so that we can meet face to face, and talk about the hopes that are in my mind.” (E. M. Forster, The Machine Stops)
Introduction Philosophers interested in the effects of social media on interpersonal relationships have been drawn to the question of online friendship. According to the Aristotelian accounts that are prevalent in the literature, friendship is partially constitutive of human flourishing. On almost any account, friendship is an important good that typically contributes to wellbeing. It is far harder for most people to do well without friends. Social media users frequently have hundreds * Michael‑John Turp michael‑[email protected] 1
Department of Philosophy, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
of virtual “friends” on platforms such as Facebook. Some of these virtual friends are also offline friends and much social media use is about the maintenance of existing offline friendships. However, it is the relatively new phenomenon of purely virtual friendships that has attracted most philosophical attention. Can there by friendships that are sustained entirely through social media? Are purely virtual friends authentic or ersatz? Taking this literature as a point of departure, I shall argue that there is a more fundamental issue. Reciprocal friendships are composed of persons not things. We relate to persons as persons by adopting what P. F. Strawson called the “participant” attitude, which is partly constituted b
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