The power and precision that our technological knowledge makes possible has been accompanied by an increasing interest in the use of ‘design’ as an instrument for promoting social policy goals. This development is unsurprising, given that the benefits which such technological applications offer are considerable: holding out the prospect of improved health, longevity, safety, security, efficiency and productivity. Why bother with human station attendants to ensure that passengers hold valid tickets when a computer can sell tickets and authorise entry onto station platforms efficiently, without error, or the need to break for lunch? Yet across a wide and varied range of social contexts, commentators from a range of disciplinary orientations (including criminology, bioethics and ICT law) have raised concerns about the legitimacy of employing technological means for promoting specific social purposes.
What unites these apparently disparate critiques is a concern that deliberate attempts to shape social outcomes through technological means (whether by individuals, the state or commercial actors) could seriously destabilise our moral and social foundations. Hence an important challenge for any society committed to maintaining the freedom of individuals to pursue their own view of the right and the good (subject to appropriate constraints) is to identify whether (and if so, on what conditions) technological measures may be legitimately employed in pursuit of social goals. This paper makes small steps towards meeting this challenge by examining the use of ‘design’ as an instrument of regulation. It seeks to provoke reflection on whether it is possible for an autonomy-respecting society to reap the benefits of design-based forms of regulation without destroying the social foundations upon which moral freedom and responsibility rests.