Sensorimotor habits of engagement: looking at the interplay between technological design and personal autonomy through the enactive lens
Marta Pérez Verdugo
University of the Basque Country
May 7, 2025, 9 a.m. UTC // May 7, 2025, 9 a.m. in UTC
To what extent can the design of our technological environment enhance or diminish personal autonomy? Addressing this question requires bridging two domains that are rarely integrated in a unified theoretical framework: personal autonomy and technological design. I argue that the enactive understanding of the sensorimotor realm as the dynamic basis of cognitive life provides precisely the conceptual grounding needed for this integration. I begin by proposing a situated account of autonomy that moves beyond models based on independence or rational choice, and towards one that acknowledges its relational nature while retaining a notion of asymmetry and authenticity in the stabilization of an agent’s sensorimotor habits. I then introduce an enactive account of technical behavior as a form of regulatory action that transforms the environment in ways that can become sedimented in its material structure, thereby potentially shaping the future behavior of other agents. This framework allows us to naturalize the influence of technological design on autonomy, not as an external interference but as a modulation of the very conditions under which sensorimotor habits stabilize. In the contemporary context of platform capitalism, it offers tools to analyze how interface design can be exploited to constrain users’ autonomy, while also opening space for imagining new forms of autonomy-enhancing design.
