Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T21:15:18.636Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Teaching drunk: Work, the online economy, and uncertainty in action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2021

Abstract

Technological developments have led to the digitization of certain sectors of the economy, and this has many authors looking ahead to the prospects of a post-work society. While it is valuable to theorize about this possibility, it is also important to take note of the present state of work. For better or worse, it is what we are currently stuck with, and as the COVID-19 pandemic has ensured, much of that work is now taking place online. Though a ‘return to normalcy’ is on the horizon, part of that normalcy involves online work, which is itself a significant change in the lives of many workers. Here I develop an account of work on which work is teleologically structured. This gives the result that working is something we can fail at doing, even when we try, and we can also be unsure of whether we've succeeded or failed. The shift of certain work from in-person to online modes generates a persistent uncertainty for workers in affected professions. Because our ability to work is something we typically value, this uncertainty has significant negative consequences for a worker's self-conception. Indeed, it is analogous to disorders of agency and generates a kind of alienation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This paper was the runner-up in the 2020 Philosophy essay prize.

References

Anderson, Elizabeth, Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It), (Princeton University Press, 2017).Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition, 2nd ed.; Canovan, M., Ed., (University of Chicago Press, 1998).10.7208/chicago/9780226924571.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arpaly, Nomy, Unprincipled Virtue, (Oxford University Press, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arpaly, Nomy and Schroeder, Timothy, In Praise of Desire, (Oxford University Press, 2013).10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199348169.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown-Iannuzzi, Jazmin L., Cooley, Erin, McKee, Stephanie E., and Hyden, Charly, ‘Wealthy Whites and poor Blacks: Implicit associations between racial groups and wealth predict explicit opposition toward helping the poor’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 82 (2019) 2634.10.1016/j.jesp.2018.11.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cholbi, Michael, ‘The desire for work as an adaptive preference’, Autonomy, 4 (2018) 117.Google Scholar
Christensen, David, ‘Epistemology of Disagreement: The Good News’, Philosophical Review, 116 (2007), 187217.10.1215/00318108-2006-035CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elga, Adam, ‘Reflection and Disagreement’, Noûs, 41 (2007), 478502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, Allan G. B., The clash of progress and security, (Macmillan, 1935).Google Scholar
Foley, Richard, Intellectual Trust in Oneself and Others, (Cambridge University Press, 2001).10.1017/CBO9780511498923CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilabert, Pablo, ‘Dignity at Work’, In Gilabert, Pablo (Ed.), Philosophical Foundations of Labour Law, (Oxford University Press, 2018) 6886.10.1093/oso/9780198825272.003.0004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, Peter A., ‘‘Ought’ and Ability’, Philosophical Review, 120 (2011), 337–82.10.1215/00318108-1263674CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder, Learning from My Daughter: The Value and Care of Disabled Minds, (Oxford University Press, 2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marx, Karl, Capital, Vol. 1; Fowkes, B., Trans., (Penguin Books, 1867).Google Scholar
Mele, Alfred R. and Moser, Paul K., ‘Intentional Action’, Noûs, 28 (1994), 3968.10.2307/2215919CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Dyne, Linn and Ellis, Jennifer, ‘Job creep: A reactance theory perspective on organizational citizenship behavior as over-fulfillment of obligations’, In Coyle-Shapiro, J., Shore, L., Taylor, M., & Tetrick, L. (Eds.), The Employment Relationship: Examining psychological and contextual perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2004) 181205.Google Scholar
Wedgwood, Ralph, ‘The Moral Evil Demons’, In Feldman, Richard & Warfield, Ted A. (Eds.), Disagreement (Oxford University Press, 2010), 216246.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199226078.003.0010CrossRefGoogle Scholar