Digital behavioral technology, vulnerability and justice: towards an integrated approach

Abstract

The paper introduces the notion of 'digital behavioral technologies' and discusses them from the perspectives of vulnerability and justice, thereby integrating perspectives from bioethics or public health ethics and political philosophy. Digital behavioral technologies have seen a massive uptake in recent years, but the market for them is hardly regulated. We argue that understanding the impact of digital behavioral technologies requires understanding individuals not as abstract, atomized agents, but rather to take their embeddedness into social structures into account. This also allows extending the focus to groups, relationships and whole societies, which are often structurally unjust. This perspective provides a corrective to an overly individualistic consideration of digital behavioral technologies, which may suggest itself because of their focus on individual bodies. We point out some implications of this integrated approach with regard to the regulation of digital behavioral technologies. We conclude by describing some implications both for those who work on digital behavioral technologies and for those who work on questions of vulnerability and justice.