Augmented Reality and the Limited Promise of ‘Ecstatic’ Technology Criticism

Abstract

The article evaluates the degree to which Catholic moral theology is currently prepared for an adequate confrontation with ‘augmented reality’ technologies (AR). AR layers information directly onto users’ perception of the world so that they may access it without directing their attention away from their immediate environment. One of the best forms of technology criticism used by recent Catholic theology (what I call the ‘ecstatic approach’) centers upon our need to go out of ourselves and be drawn into complex, demanding, and self-emptying engagements with realities outside of us (e.g., Pope Francis’s _Laudato Si’_). While this strategy is crucial in the face of modern technology, it remains particularly insufficient in this case because AR devices are themselves designed to pull us out into the world. This creates a new set of ambiguities that we can only negotiate through general cognitive self-responsibility, i.e., an informed attentiveness to, and ongoing cultivation of, the whole array of interior as well as exterior scaffolds necessary for prudent action. The ecstatic approach’s one-sided focus on outward motion, however, ignores and sometimes even eclipses the importance of general cognitive self-responsibility. The article closes with suggestions for where Catholic moral theology might turn to address this gap.