Differential Disruption and Human Flourishing: Towards a Capability-Based Approach for Assessing Socially Disruptive Technologies

While the concept of differential disruption has attracted growing attention in the ethics of technology, its normative dimensions remain underexplored. Current literature primarily uses differential disruption as a descriptive concept to highlight how Socially Disruptive Technologies (SDTs) impact diversely situated groups differentially, but rarely interrogates the normative implications of these differential impacts. Building on recent calls to bring to the fore the normative potential of differential disruption, this paper argues that assessments of SDTs must move beyond analyses of epistemic injustice alone, and consider how epistemic injustices are deeply entangled with concerns of wellbeing and human flourishing. The paper shows that epistemic injustices generated by SDTs may constrain people’s access to resources and opportunities necessary for flourishing. It further argues that SDT development and assessment practices often rely on generalised assumptions about wellbeing that risk epistemically excluding marginalised modes of flourishing. Consequently, it argues that ethical assessments of SDTs require a heterogeneous and context-sensitive evaluative framework. To this end, the paper argues for a capability-based approach to the ethical assessment of SDTs. By centring what people are actually able to be and do, as well as attending to people’s diverse conversion factors that shape whether SDTs can be converted into valuable capabilities and functionings, a capability-based framework equips ethicists of technology with the conceptual tools to critically assess when, how, and for whom SDTs may be disruptive, while being sensitive to heterogeneous interpretations and experiences of flourishing.