Wong Pak Hang

Well-being in Contemporary Society
International Conference on the Philosophy and Science of Well-being and their Practical Importance

Location:             University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands
Date:                  July 26-27, 2012

Program Chair:
Philip Brey (University of Twente)

Organising committee:
Johnny Hartz Søraker (University of Twente)
Pak-Hang Wong (University of Twente)
Jan-Willem van der Rijt (University of Amsterdam)
Jelle de Boer (University of Amsterdam)

About the Conference
In recent years, well-being has enjoyed a renaissance in philosophical discussions, as well as in fields like psychology, economics, development studies and sociology. Although these approaches share a common goal – to better understand what well-being is and how it can be enhanced – these developments have led to a great diversity in philosophical and scientific approaches to the analysis of well-being. Despite the increasing amount of research, most of the work on well-being is also performed at a highly abstract level. This is especially true in philosophy, but relatively little work has been devoted to the application of theories of well-being also in other fields, in particular when it comes to an understanding of life in contemporary society. Developments such as globalization, consumerism, and the rapid innovation and use of new and emerging technologies, all exert significant impact on the well-being of people living today, and we need a better understanding of their consequences for well-being.

Contemporary society requires that well-being researchers examine these problems – and, if possible, propose solutions to address them. This international conference aims to bring together researchers from various disciplines, including, but not limited to, psychology, economics, sociology, philosophy and development studies, in order to examine the practical role of well-being in contemporary society.

Potential Topics
We are looking for contributions that examine the notion of well-being in the context of contemporary society. The conference particularly welcomes papers that employ a notion of well-being to address social, political and ethical issues in present-day society. Suggested topics for the workshop include, but are not limited to:

• Theoretical developments and approaches in the philosophy and science of well-being in relation to contemporary society, culture and life.
• Well-being in social and political philosophy and/or in policy studies
• Positive psychology (and related research fields) and its practical applicability
• New and emerging technologies and well-being
• Intercultural and interpersonal comparisons of well-being
• Reliability, validity and applicability of well-being measures
• Other specific practical issues pertaining to well-being in contemporary society

The workshop will include both invited papers and an open call for papers. For the open call, we invite extended abstracts (1500-2000 words).  Please anonymise the abstract, and include title, name and address in the accompanying email. The abstract, and any questions you may have about the conference, should be sent to wics2012@utwente.nl. Your abstract should be submitted before February 15^th 2012, and will be subject to blind peer review.

Publication
Following the conference we aim to publish the papers, subject to a blind review process, in either an edited volume or a special issue of a relevant journal. We did so successfully with our previous conference, Good Life In a Technological Age, from which select papers were published as book in the prestigious Routledge Studies in Science, Technology and Society series, and will be available in February 2012.

Important Dates
Abstract Submission Deadline:   February 15. 2012
Notification of Acceptance:         March 1, 2012
Conference Dates:                     July 26-27, 2012

Work in progress – Please do not cite, quote or summarise or circulate without permission.

Extended Abstract submitted to

The 4th ICTs and Society Conference, Uppsala University, Sweden

There is never a shortage of celebratory and condemnatory popular discourse on the Internet and the Web even in its early days. Although the hopes and dreams of the Internet and the Web have faded with the burst of dot-com bubble in 1990s and the rise of control and surveillance over and through information technology after September 11, 2003, the advent of Web 2.0, with its newly proclaimed potential and promise, has rejuvenated the hopes and dreams of the enthusiasts and renewed the popular discourse on the Internet and the Web. I shall argue that researchers should not take lightly the popular discourse on the Internet and Web 2.0, as it can deepen our understanding of the axiological foundation(s) of our judgements towards them.

Looking at some of the most representative examples available (e.g. Andrew Keen’s Cult of Amateur, Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody and Cognitive Surplus, Nicholas Carr’s The Shallow, Jaron Lanier’s You are Not a Gadget and Nick Bilton’s I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works), I examine this (new) wave of popular discourse, focusing on the (new) worries and doubts voiced by the alarmists and the (new) hopes and dreams portrayed by the enthusiasts. More specifically, I will examine the problem representation (i.e. what problems are being represented and how they are represented) and axiologisation (i.e. what benefits and harms are being foregrounded and how they are foregrounded) of the Internet and Web 2.0 in popular discourse. I shall illustrate that the popular discourse on the Internet and Web 2.0 are ultimately rested on different notions of the self, i.e. the disengaged self of the Enlightenment, the expressive self of Romanticism and the reflexive self of the late modernity. This conclusion has a significant implication to practising the critique of the Internet and Web 2.0, namely it entails that our critique of the Internet and Web 2.0 cannot be done without referring to a notion of the self. Hence, a critical enquiry of the Internet and Web 2.0 should not only be about the moral and/or prudential goodness or badness of the Internet and Web 2.0 per se, instead it should be about whom we should be online, or which notion(s) of the self we should strive for.

I shall end my paper with a tentative answer to the question of “Who Should We be Online?” by drawing from Ess’s analysis of the human condition of the information society, and propose an account the art-of-digital-life, i.e. the art of living in information society.

(Excl. Reference)

To be published in: Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce an interpretive approach to examining the relation between ICTs and the good life, based on Michael Walzer’s view of (connected) social criticism.

Design/methodology/approach – Through a discussion of Michael Walzer’s view of social criticism, an interpretive approach to normative analysis of ICTs and the good life is introduced. The paper also offers an additional argument for the indispensability of prudential appraisals of ICTs in normative analysis of ICTs and the good life, which in turn strengthens the basis for the Walzerian approach proposed in the paper.

Findings – It is argued that an interpretive approach to normative analysis of ICTs and the good life, i.e. the Walzerian approach, is as viable as – if not superior to – a theory-driven approach. It is also argued that actual appraisals of ICTs and the good life must be taken into account in the normative analysis.

Originality/value – It is only recently that “the good life” has become more visible in normative analysis of ICTs. This paper continues this relatively new line of research and proposes an alternative approach – as opposed to a theory-driven approach – to this research programme.

Full Text Available at: -

(This post also appears on Warp, Weft, and Way.)

As an on-going project (see also, Dao, Harmony and Personhood: Towards a Confucian Ethics of Technology), I have attempted to analyse new media (or, information technology) from a Confucian perspective. But, it is only until recently that I really started to examine the relation between (or, in fact, the compatibility of) social media and the Confucian way of life. And, I started with the hope that Confucian ethics/Confucian philosophy will have something positive to contribute to the existing philosophical discussion on the benefits and harms. Unfortunately, when I proceed with my analysis, it becomes apparent that the Confucian way of life seems to be rather incompatible with the design (and, depends on how one theorises the relations between design and use, use) of social media. So, the obvious question is: Is the Confucian way of life impractical and/or inadequate, if social media is here to stay?

Intuitively, my answer is no; but, at the moment, I have difficulties to articulate it. Anyhow, it might well due to my defected exposition of the Confucian way of life that leads to this negative conclusion.

Any comments and suggestions are welcome!

Confucian Ethics versus Facebook (or, social media in general): A Losing Battle? continued »

Work in progress – Please do not cite, quote or summarise or circulate without permission.

Abstract

International observers and critics often attacks the Chinese government’s Internet policy on the basis of liberal values, if China’s Internet is designed and built on a set of values that is prima facie incompatible with the liberal values, i.e. Confucian values, and that set of values is in itself a legitimate option, then the criticisms against Chinese government’s Internet policy ought to be reconsidered. Particularly, if the Internet only embodies liberal values that cannot be accommodated by a Confucian outlook, it seems that the Chinese government’s Internet policy is, at least, justified from a Confucian perspective. In a similar vein, the Chinese government has drawn from Confucian values and tried hard to promote the idea of “harmonious Internet”. However, to realise the idea of harmonious Internet, derived from Confucian values, requires the Internet and the values it embodies to be compatible with Confucian values. Both issues invite us to rethink if the Internet is indeed compatible with Confucian values.

While there is abundant research on the embedded values in the Internet, there is surprisingly little discussion on the compatibility of the Internet and Confucianism, and Mary Bockover’s (2003) “Confucian Values and the Internet: A Potential Conflict” appears to be the most direct attempt to address this issue. Yet, it has been some years since the publication of the article, and there are also developments of the Internet, e.g. Web 2.0, and new philosophical and ethical discussions of it. Hence, it is an appropriate time to (re)examine the issue now.

Bockover argued that the Internet promulgates values that threaten Confucian values. In other words, she claimed that the Internet is incompatible with Confucianism. Although I agree with Bockover’s conclusion, I think her argument is mistaken. In the paper, I will revisit her argument and show why it has failed. I will then offer an alternative argument to show why the Internet in its current state is indeed incompatible with Confucian values.

(Excl. Reference)

In: Studies in Philosophy of Science and Technology 科学技术哲学研究, 28 (5), 56-61.

摘要：伯雷及维尔贝克对技术哲学的未来发展进行了展望。他们认为当代技术哲学比二十世纪初的经典技术哲学有所改进，但是，当代技术哲学的规范性维度处理仍有不足,他们分别对当代技术哲学提出理论性与实践性修正，反映了特文特模式的技术哲学专注在价值化技术的改善层面的研究特色。

Full Text Available at: http://www.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?dbCode=cjfq&QueryID=5&CurRec=11&filename=KXBZ201105010&dbname=CJFDTEMP

To be published in: Philip Brey, Adam Briggle & Edward Spence (Eds.) The Good Life in a Technological Age. New York: Routledge.

Consumer society engenders a peculiar set of existential conditions, but it is often neglected in analyses of technology. The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate a way to examine technology through the set of existential conditions in consumer society, and, at the same time, argue for its importance in normative analyses of technology. Particularly, this chapter argues against a specific pattern of argument against technology to be inadequate in isolation of an analysis of consumer society. In this respect, philosophers and other researchers interested in normative issues on technology in consumer society can benefit enormously from social theory of consumption.