Technological ambivalence and degrowth

Abstract

This article analyses technological ambivalence and its implications for degrowth scholarship and practice. We critically examine and reject the assumption of ontological ambivalence, in which technologies are understood as indeterminate with respect to their socio-ecological conditions and consequences. We distinguish this from epistemological ambivalence, in which ambivalence refers to indecisiveness in human interpretations, experiences and valuations of technology. We show that parts of contemporary degrowth scholarship implicitly rely on an ontological reading of technological ambivalence in discussions of technological solutions, such as lower-carbon energy systems. Drawing on critical realism and philosophical materialism, we argue that technologies are materially and biophysically real and have determinate conditions of existence, including unavoidable environmental impacts and socially uneven conditions of production. On this basis, we contend that ambivalence should be understood as a feature of human interpretation and valuation rather than an intrinsic property of technological objects. We suggest that degrowth scholarship reject ontological accounts of technological ambivalence in favour of epistemological ones and adopt a more critical stance toward the assumption that advanced modern technologies can be made environmentally sustainable.

Keywords

Ambivalence technological ambivalence human ambivalence degrowth transformation Ivan Illich

Introduction

Scholarship within ecological economics and political ecology has shown how the development of modern technologies is inexorably linked to globally uneven relations of production, substantial ecological impacts and environmental conflicts (e.g., Dunlap and Laratte, 2022; Hornborg, 2022). This stream of literature challenges technological optimism as part of the grand narrative of progress, as well as its contemporary expressions in the form of ecological modernisation theory (Huesemann and Huesemann, 2011). For those endorsing the progress narrative, pessimism about technology is often represented as a call for austerity or as an attempt to ‘regress to a more primitive way of life’ (Feenberg, 2002: 8). Contrary to these views, environmental philosophers have for decades argued for a recognition of limits to growth that is antithetical to the progress narrative, while nevertheless supporting human wellbeing and a fairer distribution of resources (e.g., Meadows, 2004).

The legacy of ecologically informed thinking continues under the umbrella term degrowth, a growth-critical scholarly field seeking a society-wide reduction of matter-energy throughput (Heikkurinen, 2024; Kallis et al., 2020; Schmelzer et al., 2022; Toikka et al., 2026). While still marginal, the critique of growth has gained some acceptance within mainstream academia and policy in recent years (Blanco et al., 2022), a victory sullied by the need to confront hegemonic conceptions of technological progress now present within the degrowth movement (Bartkowski, 2017; Gomiero, 2018). As Kerschner et al. (2018: 1632) note, ‘while the early intellectual roots of degrowth clearly tended towards technological scepticism, the “reformist hopes” of some of the relevant authors, in particular Illich and Gorz, have sparked enthusiasm for technology’. Consistent with this shift, Schmelzer and Eversberg (2017) found that many degrowth proponents now see modern technology as necessary, a position that contrasts with founding scholars such as Georgescu-Roegen (1971; 1975) and related scholarship (Daly, 1996; Heikkurinen, 2018; Hornborg, 1998, 2001; Latouche, 2010). The tension between a foundational scepticism toward technological modernity and an emerging embrace of its transformative potential signals a deeper ambivalence within degrowth scholarship.

This article offers a conceptual and argumentative intervention for degrowth scholarship to engage (more) with the theory of technological ambivalence and with ambivalence as a lived, subjective experience and valuation. The theory of technological ambivalence holds that technologies are ambivalent objects that can be configured to fit a variety of social-ecological arrangements (Feenberg, 1990, 1991, 2002). Rather than adopting this premise, the article critically examines whether ambivalent experiences and feelings about technology are sufficient grounds for claiming that technological objects themselves are ambivalent. How this question is answered clarifies whether ambivalence within degrowth scholarship signals a growing potential to reconfigure modern technologies for a degrowth transformation or whether it signals a growing tension generated from the inherent difficulty of making modern technologies fit degrowth aspirations. To answer this, we aim to (1) clarify the concept of ambivalence in relation to technology, (2) provide an analysis of how the theory of technological ambivalence is currently expressed in degrowth scholarship and (3) articulate a biophysically grounded perspective on technology that refutes the theory of technological ambivalence and advances a research base focusing on ambivalence as a subjective experience. Our aim is not to provide a comprehensive account of ambivalence across the history of philosophy, but rather to develop its role within the intersection of philosophy of technology and degrowth scholarship.

The article is structured as follows: In the ‘Ambivalence’ section, we identify relevant definitions of ambivalence. In the ‘Technological ambivalence’ section, we provide a short review of different philosophers of technology and the theory of technological ambivalence. In the ‘Materiality, biophysical realism and technological ambivalence: Implications for degrowth’ section, we analyse underlying positionalities on the theory of technological ambivalence within degrowth scholarship. In the ‘Conclusion’ section, we present our biophysically grounded perspective on modern technology to refute the theory of technological ambivalence and discuss its wider implications for ambivalence in degrowth theory and practice.

Ambivalence

The word ambivalence refers to the combination of two (ambi) opposing forces (valence). Rothman et al. (2017: 33) define ambivalence as ‘the simultaneous experience of positive and negative emotional or cognitive orientation toward a person, situation, object, task or goal’. Most people have experienced the sensation of being torn between two opposing forces or potential courses of action. For example, a person might experience ambivalence when confronted by the choice of supporting climate action through the mass installation of wind power and supporting the protection of environments threatened by new mines opened for the sake of producing wind turbines. Or they might feel ambivalence about attending conventions on global climate change mitigation by means of fossil-fuelled air travel.

It is tempting to think that ambivalence can also emerge in more mundane scenarios, for example, when confronted with the choice of having tea or coffee for breakfast. However, with the aim to precisely demarcate the phenomenon of ambivalence, Coates (2017: 422) argues that ambivalence is not mere uncertainty but entails a more ‘deep and significant’ form of indecisiveness, uncertainty or volitional conflict bearing relevance for one's deeper sense of value, identity or sense of purpose. Following Frankfurt's (2009) definition, ambivalence must consist of both (i) an inherent and unavoidable opposition, and (ii) a deep-seated division in a person's will. Ambivalence implicates actions to move in a certain direction while simultaneously refraining from doing so.

Ambivalence is frequently associated with unease or frustration and, therefore, often framed as something to be avoided. Coates (2017) shows how Western philosophers, including ancient philosophers such as Plato (c.375 BCE/2010) and Augustine (c.397–400 CE/2019), early modern philosophers such as Descartes (1641/1996) and Spinoza (1677/2000) and contemporary action theorists, consider ambivalence as a form of pathology of the mind and soul, or as a defect of agency (Frankfurt, 2009; Korsgaard, 2009). For example, according to Frankfurt (2009, 98–100) ambivalence is pathological because it prevents individuals from settling upon a ‘motivational identity’ guiding their life and actions, which is necessary for ‘effectively pursuing and satisfactorily attaining [their] goals’. But recent literature suggests that ambivalence can lead to both positive and negative outcomes depending on how it is translated into action (Rothman et al., 2017). In a critique of anti-ambivalence (so-called ‘unificationists’), Coates (2017, 441) articulates a sophisticated counter-position asserting that ‘a properly functioning will is an ambivalent one’.

Coates (2017) position on ambivalence resonates with some Eastern schools of thought, including Chinese Zen teacher Boshan's (1575–1630/2016) praise of ‘great doubt’ arising ‘as a problem of will or volition, a sense that, no matter what, I can’t seem to get free, as if I’m banging up against the wall of my own self; however much I try to do what is good and right, I fail’ (1575–1630/2016: 8). In the Zen Buddhist tradition, the natural arousal of great doubt is a precondition for deeper insight (or ‘great faith’), even while clinging to such great doubt or seeking it out leads to suffering (Boshan, 1575–1630/2016).

The scholarship on the dialectics of Hegel and Marx similarly considers the opposition of dual forces as inherent and foundational to the world (Foster, 2000; Ollman, 2003). Within a world moved by forces in opposition, the experience of ambivalence could be an accurate sensation of contradictory events and processes. Thinking of events as ambivalent is already a significant leap from standard definitions focusing on ambivalence as a subjective experience, ‘emotional or cognitive orientation’ or valuation (Rothman et al., 2017, 33). It paves the way for attributing ambivalence to objects. Modern philosophers of technology have developed this position as part of a broader critique of technological determinism and its pessimistic conception of technology (see e.g., Bijker et al., 1987; Feenberg, 1990, 1991). This is most clearly expressed in critical philosopher Feenberg's (1991, 14) definition of technology as ‘an “ambivalent” process of development suspended between different possibilities’, which was explicitly developed to support the thesis that industrial technologies developed under capitalism can be made to work (better) within a socialist world order. To this day, the theory of technological ambivalence – that technologies can be transformed to fit a variety of different social-ecological arrangements – is an important assumption which allows for hopeful techno-utopian imaginaries beyond capitalism.

Technological ambivalence

A central question for this article is whether technological objects can be ambivalent or whether ambivalence is purely a subjective human experience. Our inspiration for this question comes from critical realist philosopher Bhaskar's (2016: 23) differentiation between ontology and epistemology:

if I ask you how far London is from New York and you tell me that it is about 3500 miles, and I then ask you whether that is a statement about your knowledge or about the world, you might, understandably, be taken aback. For your statement would not have been so much about one or the other, but about both: about the known world. Indeed in the normal course of things, in what I call the natural attitude, we do not disambiguate or differentiate knowledge from being, what we know from what there is. … whenever there is a doubt about our knowledge, or there are competing claims to knowledge, we will need to make a distinction between knowledge and being; and accordingly between epistemology, or the philosophical study of knowledge, and ontology, or the philosophical study of being.

We must similarly be aware of whether ambivalence is a statement about our knowledge of technology or about technology itself. Are technological objects ontologically ambivalent in the sense of containing the potential to fit a variety of different social-ecological arrangements.¹ Or is it more correct to say ambivalence is a subjective experience generated in confrontations with difficult decisions and problems, that is, epistemological ambivalence. With the exception of the French philosopher Jacques Ellul, contemporary philosophers of technology have tended to confuse these two types of ambivalence and largely come to understand technology as ontologically ambivalent.

Feenberg: Technology as a social relation

Perhaps the most well-known contribution to the scholarship on technological ambivalence is critical theorist and philosopher Feenberg's (1990) article entitled ‘The ambivalence of technology’, published in Sociological Perspectives. This work articulates what we call the theory of technological ambivalence, which holds that technologies are ambivalent objects capable of being transformed to fit different social-ecological arrangements. Feenberg (1990: 35) asks,

Must human beings submit to the harsh logic of machinery, or can technology be fundamentally redesigned to better serve its creators? This is the ultimate question on which the future of industrial civilization depends.

Feenberg's perspective on ambivalence is directly related to the historical grand narratives of capitalism contra socialism as it provides the necessary foundation for the position that ‘there can be at least two different modern civilizations [capitalism and socialism] based on different paths of technical development’ (2002: 15). Feenberg (1990, 2002) essentially argues that technology can be fundamentally redesigned to avoid many of the social and environmental problems it has hitherto been associated with. Feenberg articulates a so-called design critique based upon the notion that the social relations encouraged by any technological artefact are dictated by how the technology is designed, and that the consequence of any technology is dictated by the values of the particular social class in control of the design process. Following Marx and Marcuse, Feenberg argues that seizing the ‘technical code’, the design of the means of production, allows technologies to be reimagined to better serve ‘its creators’ (Feenberg, 1990: 35). Technologies can, according to Feenberg, be altered at will, if class struggle leads to a shift in the control of the design process.

At its core, Feenberg treats technology as ontologically ambivalent: ‘not a thing in the ordinary sense of the term, but an “ambivalent” process of development suspended between different possibilities’ (Feenberg, 1991: 14). Technology, in this account, exists in an idealised space of latent possibilities, largely independent of environments or biophysical processes. The upshot of omitting the environment is that technological ambivalence can be presented as a hopeful feature allowing for the reimagination of existing capitalist technologies. The question remains, however, whether any modern technology (e.g., electric car, wind turbine, smartphone, chainsaw) can truly be decoupled from its material and ecological embeddedness. From a biophysical perspective, this seems highly unlikely.

Woolgar and Cooper: Technology as representation

Previous research on technological ambivalence is mainly associated with the rise of perspectives on the social construction of technology that formed the basis of Science and Technology Studies (STS) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. For the present inquiry, the most salient work on technological ambivalence within the STS literature can be found in Woolgar and Cooper's (1999) paper ‘Do artefacts have ambivalence?’ (for a more critical engagement in the STS on technology and degrowth, see for example, Likavčan and Scholz-Wäckele, 2018). Woolgar and Cooper's article is a response to Joerges's critique of Winner's (1980) iconic analysis of Moses's bridges on Long Island, which were purportedly designed and built with low overpasses, making it impossible for buses from low-income and marginalised communities to access certain areas of the region.

Joerges's critique revolves around the fact that the overpasses were, contrary to Winner's narrative, actually high enough for buses to pass under them. Woolgar and Cooper (1999: 434–435) attack Joerges's ‘distinction between words and things’ and his materialist standpoint in which he ‘assigns ontological priority to things over words’, and point out that even Joerges's paper, as well as the bus tables to which he refers, can be classified as texts. Drawing on Derrida (1974) and Latour (1987), they then suggest to ‘extend the notion of “text” to encompass both words and things’, including technology (Woolgar and Cooper, 1999: 435).

By extending the notion of text in this way, technology is conceptualised as ontologically ambivalent. This is a view, according to which the same technology can be many different things because it can be narrated, or discoursed, or socially constructed, in different ways. Woolgar and Cooper (1999: 435) state so explicitly when suggesting that ‘any artefact, has an essentially ambivalent status. It is, after all, no less a representation [of an artefact] than this Response [text]’. Thus, technology is essentially a representation articulated in ambivalent ways. For Woolgar and Cooper (1999: 438) there is no point in investigating material states of affairs because ‘aspects of the story are always (and will always be) essentially out of reach’. They charge Joerges's ambition to investigate such material states of affairs as pointless because they ignore the ‘essentially ambivalent quality of artefacts’ (ibid. 438). This is a position emerging from the scholarship on the social construction of technology (Bijker et al., 1987). Rather than conceding that the role of science is to align material states of affairs with representations (Bhaskar, 1975/2008, 2016), Woolgar and Cooper (1999: 438) argue that narratives (which in this case are technologies) do not become popular because of their ‘referential adequacy’, that is, how well they describe reality. Technologies do not develop from scientific discoveries, but rather from the stories we tell about them.

Woolgar and Cooper (1999) continue to argue that the popularity of any representation depends on the ‘upshot of their usage’, which is to say that the popularity of an idea depends on its utility. Their conception of technological artefacts as ontologically ambivalent rests fundamentally on their ambition to tell powerful and significant stories, irrespective of the truth. They take this position because they are convinced that ‘the properties of the artefact are the outcome, not the cause, of their reception’ (ibid. 439). For example, the properties of solar panels are consequences of how people narrate them. To understand such properties as the impetus – the data – for different narratives is a mistake, according to Woolgar and Cooper.

In this account, the ontological status of a technology is ambivalent until essences are revealed through narration (epistemology). This is a philosophy that collapses being into knowing, which is to commit what critical realist philosopher Bhaskar (1975/2008) calls the epistemic fallacy. Like Feenberg's ambivalence, this conceptualisation exiles technology into an ideal realm of multiple possibilities and a priori discourses, completely decoupled from any biophysical properties or flows of matter-energy. A difficulty shunned by these STS scholars is whether anything like social acceptance or modern discourses on technology could exist without metabolic interaction between humans and their environments. From a biophysical point of view, again, this is hardly possible.

Ellul: Technique as contradictory evolution

The French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul is most famous for his book The Technological Society (1954) in which he articulates a critique of ‘Technique’. Ellul describes Technique as an autonomous and omnipresent force influencing and dictating the livelihood and institutions of modern humans. He defines it as ‘the totality of method rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency’ (Ellul, 1964: xxv). In a paper published after the original French version of the book, Ellul (1962) includes an extensive note on the theme of technological ambiguity (Ellul, 1962: 412–421). While ambiguity is distinct from ambivalence,² it appears that Ellul is largely concerned with what we here have defined as technological ambivalence.

Ellul frames his note on technical ambiguity as ‘contradictory elements … indissolubly connected’ in the ‘evolution of Technique’ (Ellul, 1962: 412). The primary theme in the note is the treatment of technological progress as inherently a zero-sum game. On the one hand, ‘technical progress adds something’, and on the other hand, ‘it inevitably subtracts something’ (Ellul, 1962, 412–413). In Ellul's analysis, this something is value in the broadest sense of the term. Ellul also asserts that solving problems with technological progress always generates new problems. With the two-fold assumption that technological progress both adds value and destroys value, both solves and creates problems, technological progress cannot be understood as wholly ‘absolute progress’ or ‘absolute regress’ (Ellul, 1962: 413).

The question remains: Is Ellul's zero-sum view on technology an expression of ontological or epistemological ambivalence? To answer this question, we must draw attention to what the two (ambi) opposite forces (valence), of which Ellul speaks about, are. Here it appears that his position on technological ambivalence is first and foremost discussed in terms of vaguely specified and often incommensurable types of values. Ellul uses a range of examples pitting the creation and destruction of different types of values against each other. For instance, he considers technology-induced automatisation a way to both save labour and create unemployment (Ellul, 1962: 415–418); he considers technical progress in medicine both increasing longevity and decreasing the quality of life (Ellul, 1962: 413); and he considers the mass cultivation of agricultural produce in the global periphery both economically profitable and ecologically ruinous (Ellul, 1962: 421).

The question of whether Ellul's view of technology is ontologically or epistemologically ambivalent, therefore, depends on the status that Ellul ascribes to the values as either real or socially constructed. This is difficult to discern in Ellul's writing. However, we might add clarity on this issue in this passage when he writes that:

we could contest the value of this development if we had a clear and adequate concept of what good-in-itself is. But such judgements are impossible on the basis of our general morality […] what we are getting is merely a substitution of a new technological morality for a traditional one which Technique has rendered obsolete (Ellul, 1962, 396).

Here, Ellul seems to be taking a position of moral relativism, asserting that the process of transforming human values into the values of technology ultimately cannot be judged as good or bad. By extension, he considers the values in question as socially conditioned, meaning that Ellul's ambivalence is in the register of epistemology rather than of ontology. He also asserts that there is nothing ambivalent about technology as an unstoppable force transforming the values of social life. This would indeed suggest that technology is not ontologically ambivalent. There is only epistemological ambivalence in how humans understand and interpret this transformation. This interpretation is supported by Ellul's five conditions before something like a solution to Technique can even be considered, including: (1) making ‘a correct diagnosis and an effort to achieve a genuine consciousness of the problem’ (Ellul, 1962, 409) (2) ‘ruthlessly destroying the “myth” of Technique’ (Ellul, 1962: 410), (3) teaching a detachment of Techniques in everyday life (Ellul, 1962: 411), (4) engaging in ‘truly philosophic reflection’ (Ellul, 1962: 411–412) and (5) encouraging confrontation between ‘the technicians and those who try to pose the technical problem’ (Ellul, 1962: 412). This speaks to the degrowth-related literature calling for a liberation from modern myths concerning technological progress (e.g., Hohenthal and Ruuska, 2024; Hornborg, 2001, 2022; Huesemann and Huesemann, 2011).³

Illich: Technology as convivial or manipulative

Austrian philosopher, the ologian and social critic Ivan Illich is often cited in degrowth theory's treatment of technology, especially his book Tools for Conviviality (1973/2021). In this work, he articulates a view on the type of technology, or tools, compatible with a good life. Illich's conceptualisation of convivial tools does not explicitly discuss ambivalence, but his articulation is relevant to the present inquiry by making a distinction between convivial tools and manipulative tools, which reveals his position on technology as ontologically ambivalent (Illich, 1973/2021, 1–9, 23–33, 84–85, 42–43).⁴

To comprehend his ontological ambivalence we first need to recollect Illich's broader work critiquing industrial societies, including modern education and transportation. His critique centres around the notion that continued development at some point reaches a crucial watershed moment at which further development create effects opposite to the original intentions. Illich's notion of convivial tools contains the same type of argument focusing on how early-stage simple, easily used and individually liberating tools (i.e., convivial tools) gradually become more suppressive, restrictive and controlling with their continued development (i.e., manipulative tools). The argument embraces the theory of technological ambivalence, that is, that the same technology can fit a variety of different social-ecological arrangements. Compared to Feenberg, however, the key to liberating tools from their industrial (capitalist) shackle lies not in the political struggle of ownership but in limiting industrial growth.

Illich's position presumes that the same technology can be understood as both convivial or manipulative depending on its phase of development. It is possible to understand, for example, the early-stage developments and visions of distributed solar power as convivial, but the industrialisation of solar power has now led to a global solar industry associated with globally uneven distribution of resources and a massive ecological footprint (Roos, 2022, 2023). It may be surprising to learn that Illich thought of telephones as convivial, whereas we today are arguably more inclined to think of smartphones as manipulative. This, however, remains true to Illich's observation that convivial tools tend to grow into manipulative tools in contemporary economic growth-driven societies. Illich's view that the same technology can undergo this transformation is evidence that he thought of technologies as ontologically ambivalent. That is to say, what technology is – convivial or manipulative – is subjected to changes determined by the degree of industrialisation and growth.

This shows how Illich, much like Feenberg, thought of technology as ‘an “ambivalent” process of development suspended between different possibilities’ (Feenberg, 1991: 14). However, two questions remain. First, did Illich understand some tools as inherently convivial or manipulative? The answer to this question is yes. For him, some tools are inevitably, or by their very nature, manipulative (Illich, 1973/2021, 42–43).⁵ Samerski (2018) shows, for example, how Illich thought of digital technologies as inherent drivers of growth and a disembodied human self-image. Illich's stance, however, clearly requires some technologies to be ontologically ambivalent, otherwise there would be no possibility for a convivial tool to develop into a manipulative tool (Illich, 1973/2021, 1–9, 33, 84–85). This leads to the conclusion that Illich thought of only certain technologies as ontologically ambivalent.

Second, we must ask, can manipulative tools be transformed back into convivial tools after being turned manipulative? For example, can the development of solar power or telephones, given their presumed earlier-stage conviviality, be inversed to reclaim their status as convivial? This crucial question remains unanswered in Illich's Tools for Conviviality, but we do get some hints as to what his position might have been. Illich argues that even in an overwhelmingly convivial society, we will have to accept that there will be some manipulative tools and that every society should ‘define the style and level of its conviviality’ (Illich, 1973/2021, 24). From this we interpret that Illich wants us to accept the status of manipulative tools as manipulative.⁶ In other words, it could be deduced that a manipulative tool cannot be transformed into a convivial tool, even if Illich does not explicitly exclude such a possibility. More importantly, this question was not central to Illich because he was not absolutely opposed to manipulative technologies with the potential for ‘greater affluence at the cost of some restrictions on creativity’ (Illich, 1973/2021, 23).

Technological ambivalence in degrowth

Degrowth scholarship is characterised by polarisation and a mix of optimism and pessimism concerning technology (Kerschner et al., 2018; Schmelzer et al., 2022; Vetter, 2018). Many prominent entries in degrowth hold critical positions and remain cautious concerning complex and resource-intensive technologies (Hornborg, 2022; Kallis et al., 2020; Schmelzer et al., 2022). This position can be traced back to scholarship in the field of ecological economics, and perhaps most notably to the works of Georgescu-Roegen (1971, 1975). However, as identified by Kerschner et al. (2018), degrowth critique of technology has also emerged from humanist philosophers of technology who focused their critique on inherent hierarchies and social-political relations (see Mitcham, 1994).

Despite critical reflections on technology in degrowth scholarship (e.g., Hornborg, 2001; Heikkurinen, 2018; Samerski, 2018; Heikkurinen, 2024; Takkinen and Heikkurinen, 2024), it has become increasingly common to find studies exploring and encouraging the future potentiality of advanced technologies (e.g., Hickel, 2023; Likavčan and Scholz-Wäckerle, 2018; Lizarralde and Tyl, 2018). Kerschner et al. (2018, 1623) identify this newfound ‘reformist’ enthusiasm as linked to the perspectives of Ivan Illich and André Gorz, reflecting a growing technological optimism focusing on potential benefits of innovation. In degrowth theory, a whole sub-set of literature exists to understand how design and innovation contribute to the development of convivial tools for degrowth (e.g., Lizarralde and Tyl, 2018; Pansera and Owen, 2018), including the transformation of what Illich identified as inherently manipulative tools, such as cars (Wells, 2018).

This scholarship inadvertently agrees with the theory of technological ambivalence, such as it is expressed in the works of Illich, albeit with the crucial difference that some contemporary degrowth scholars assume that even manipulative tools can be transformed into convivial tools. To be clear, Illich never argued that such a transformation was possible, feasible or desirable. Illich's position was more inclined towards acceptance of manipulative tools as manipulative, without speculations about what they may become in future.⁷

The perhaps most pressing issue related to the theory of technological ambivalence in degrowth scholarship concerns the role and potential of lower-carbon energy technologies, such as solar power, wind power and other ‘green’ technologies such as electric vehicles, in the transformation of industrial capitalism. Although many degrowth scholars question the conviviality and environmental feasibility of lower-carbon energy technologies, many are tentatively optimistic (e.g., Likavčan and Scholz-Wäckerle, 2018; Mastini et al., 2021). For example, Mastini et al. (2021) think about the option of a European Green Deal (EGD) containing further development of lower-carbon energy technologies. They write:

climate justice and degrowth activists should neither accept it acritically nor reject it [the EGD], but rather hijack it towards more radical positions … climate justice and degrowth activists need to hold two contradictory thoughts at once. First, that “as the most promising piece of social and environmental legislation the GND is worth fighting for” … Second, that if it were to be watered down … it might just result in new rounds of primitive accumulation and commodification of nature (Mastini et al., 2021, 8).

A central assumption necessary for this argument is that the EGD is not inherently a process of (as they say) primitive accumulation and commodification of nature. While this may be true, it is a leap of faith to assume that it is true (Heikkurinen, 2018; Roos, 2021; Samerski, 2018). To make this assumption is to align with Feenberg's notion that the ontology of technology is determined by the social class currently in power. This grants too much weight to the social determination of technology and pays too little attention to how biophysical requirements determine technological systems. It inadvertently spurs on the socially and environmentally harmful development of technologies based on an unsubstantiated assumption that the biophysical requirements could be radically transformed once someone else is in charge or once the technology is democratised (for an overview of this idea within degrowth, see Kerschner et al., 2018).

Our intention is not to single out the EGD as a target of critique but rather to illustrate a hazardous pattern of reasoning found in many other degrowth studies on technological development (see also Bartkowski, 2017; Hickel, 2023; Pueyo, 2018; Wells, 2018). We argue that this line of reasoning contributes to an indefinite suspension of judgement on the question of technology in degrowth, all while the social inequality deepens and the ecological destruction continues. While it includes a component of critique, it remains practically apologetic to the social-ecological conditions and effects of modern technologies. This is a position that is both pessimistic and optimistic at the same time, that is, ambivalent. The situation may manifest on the surface as ‘romantic uneasiness’ (Kerschner and Ehlers, 2016, 145; Mitcham, 1994), but in the light of our analysis, it is a symptom of an uncritical acceptance of the theory of technological ambivalence.

Materiality, biophysical realism and technological ambivalence: Implications for degrowth

Our position emerges from reflections on materialism within Marxism and the philosophy of critical realism, which is increasingly regarded as a philosophical underlabourer of degrowth (Spash, 2026). For Bhaskar (1991, 369), ontological materialism asserts ‘the unilateral dependence of social upon biological (and more generally physical) being and the emergence of the former from the latter’. Following this assertion, technological objects are social phenomena unilaterally dependent upon biological and physical (i.e., biophysical) processes (Hornborg, 2022; Roos, 2021). It is a remarkable fact that the major strands of contemporary philosophy of technology still do not understand technologies as ontologically material, preferring to conceptualise them as existing primarily as ideas, values, information, narrations or designs (Roos, 2021). This idealism is largely incompatible with the natural scientific notion that the Earth is constituted by material biogeochemical processes operating under natural laws supporting a myriad of lifeforms. By sidelining, obscuring or rejecting philosophical materialism,⁸ many contemporary philosophies of technology have rendered their philosophical conceptions of technology incompatible with scientific reports and studies showing how the biosphere is being degraded through the ever-increasing and uneven distribution of resources in the world economy (Dorninger et al., 2021). Perhaps the most important task of 21st-century philosophy of technology is therefore to recognise how technologies are ontologically material artefacts of consequence for human–environment relations.

It is possible to argue that technological idealism – the assertion that technology is primarily constituted by ideas – is logically necessary for the theory of technological ambivalence.⁹ That is to say, a technology must be thought of as existing in an ideal realm of latent possibilities, that is, as transcendental, to have the potential to develop along different future pathways (see Feenberg, 1990). Transcendental idealism allows for the ontological differentiation between technologies and the social-ecological arrangements from which they emerge. Any technological object – which exists more primarily as an idea – can thereby be transformed to fit other social-ecological arrangements. However, if we recognise technologies as biophysically real, the differentiation between a technology and its requisite social-ecological relations are only analytical (or, epistemic) because there is no such thing as a technology without materials and energy and, by extension, a social orchestration to access and process those materials. According to the materialist view, a given technology presupposes a set of biophysical requirements without which it could not exist (e.g., Foster, 2000; Georgescu-Roegen, 1971; Heikkurinen and Ruuska, 2021; Hornborg, 1998, 2001; Roos, 2021).¹⁰ These biophysical requirements could be, for example, raw materials such as silver or boron for a solar photovoltaic module. Such materials can only be found in limited quantities and in select places on Earth, which means that they require social relations of exchange to become available to people who live in environments where these materials do not exist or where there is not enough of these materials. Thus, biophysical requirements have determinative consequences for the social form of technologies (Hornborg, 2022; Roos, 2021, 2023).

Let us now revisit the four reviewed philosophies of technology above to see what could be revealed about technological ambivalence. First, Feenberg's theory of technological ambivalence is rooted in ontological idealism and does not at all account for biophysical processes. The assumption that modern technologies such as electric cars, solar power, geothermal energy systems, smartphones or chainsaws can be decoupled from their requisite biophysical processes is both apolitical and likely an expression of alienation (Roos, 2023, 2024). Since technologies unavoidably require matter-energy to exist, and that specific matter-energy requisites can only be obtained through certain social-ecological relations (e.g., mining, global supply chains and market exchange), it is unreasonable to assume that technologies could exist without inherent requisite social-ecological relations and impacts. Technology cannot, therefore, be ‘an “ambivalent” process of development suspended between different possibilities’ (Feenberg, 1991: 14). It is more accurate to say that technologies necessitate specific social-ecological relations without which they would not exist (Hornborg, 2001).

Second, Woolgar and Cooper's (1999) endorsement of the theory of technological ambivalence is grounded in ontological idealism. The notion that ‘the properties of the artefact are the outcome, not the cause, of their reception’ (Woolgar and Cooper, 1999: 439) implies that solar modules require silver and boron only insofar as they are constituted through narrative and representation. This position treats material properties as a derivative of interpretive practices. From this perspective, technological artefacts are primarily understood through discursive construction rather than through their material and biophysical conditions of existence, including environmental degradation and globally uneven distribution of resources. This approach involves a version of what Bhaskar (2016) terms the epistemic fallacy, insofar as it collapses ontological questions into questions of representation. This sits uneasily with degrowth scholarship grounded in the concept of social metabolism (the sine qua non of any ‘text’) and its socio-political commitment to reducing matter-energy throughput.

Third, Ellul's (1962, 412–413) zero-sum notion that ‘technical progress adds something’ while it also ‘inevitably subtracts something’ is strikingly similar to Hornborg's (2001, 2022) notion of technology as implicated in a zero-sum game within international trade. The crucial difference is that Ellul thinks of this something as ideational values, as opposed to ecologically realist low-entropy matter-energy and embodied resources. Ellul's epistemological ambivalence thereby remains normative, even while he argues that there is no way to discern whether the transformation of human values into technological values is good or bad. In contrast, the materialist view is non-normative in its analytic focus on embodied resources and labour, even if it raises concerns about global environmental justice and sustainability (Hornborg, 2003). Ellul's account of Technique embraces the notion that humans can be epistemologically ambivalent about technologies. But whereas Ellul's ambivalence pertains to knowledge about the substitution of values, ambivalence in the materialist view we have presented pertains to knowledge granted through a person's positionality in the world economy.

Fourth, Illich's (1973/2021) commitment to the theory of technological ambivalence leaves much room for interpretation and discussion, especially concerning the role and potential of manipulative tools. Illich seems to emphasise the downside of manipulative tools as ‘restrictions on creativity’, freedom and conviviality (Illich, 1973/2021, 23). This emphasis in Illich demonstrates an inclination towards idealism, which is further supported by his interest in the social construction of energy (Illich, 1983).¹¹ However, from the biophysical perspective we propose, the active pursuit of manipulative tools is much more a question of whose creativity, freedom and conviviality are being considered. Thus, convivial tools must be defined by their capacity to exist without exploiting peoples or environments elsewhere.

A key insight from this exploration is that technological ambivalence is both central and overlooked in degrowth scholarship. Many degrowth scholars inadvertently adopt the theory of technological ambivalence, which ends up excusing ongoing social injustices and environmental harms carried out in the name of progress. By leaving open the possibility that advanced technologies can be transformed, technological ambivalence can be identified as a subspecies of technological optimism. It assumes that technology can develop differently under alternative social-ecological arrangements, including arrangements for technological democratisation (cf. Kerschner et al., 2018). But this optimism rests on a superficial critique. It treats global industries, economic growth, mining and low-waged labour as only temporary rather than as inherent to modern technologies themselves (Hornborg, 2001). In doing so, it mistakes technology as ontologically ambivalent and sustains belief in the progress narrative.

Consequently, the answer to the article's central question is no. Ambivalent experiences and valuations are not adequate for assuming that technologies are ambivalent objects. The theory of technological ambivalence grants technological objects an indeterminacy that is irreconcilable with the fact that technologies require biophysical resources to exist and social arrangements for acquiring those resources. Technologies currently contingent upon growth economies cannot be assumed to be ambivalent and thereby compatible with degrowth sometime in the future. This means that the growing ambivalence within degrowth scholarship is a sign of emerging tensions generated from attempting to make modern technologies fit degrowth aspirations.

We propose that ambivalence should be reserved as a word describing subjective experiences. Humans are ambivalent, not technologies. Human ambivalence pertains to feelings that may appear when living in a world where one's own benefits, granted through access to modern technologies, are inescapably associated with someone else's burden in the form of a polluted environment or slave-like working conditions. In such a situation, it may be more tempting to accept the theory of technological ambivalence than to admit that uneven distribution and negative environmental effects are inherent to technological progress. But this is an attempt to escape epistemological ambivalence, as if it were pathological. Ambivalence is surely an uncomfortable experience and feeling, but both contemporary scholarship (Coates, 2017; Rothman et al., 2017) and ancient wisdom (Boshan, c.1575-1630/2016) treat ambivalence as a reasonable psychological response in the face of existential concerns. Amid the ecological crisis, the social-ecological effect of industrial technology is precisely such an existential concern. We propose that degrowth scholars and practitioners adopt this perspective to better understand and navigate ambivalence as a subjective experience, all while resisting the temptation to assume that technologies are themselves ambivalent.

Conclusion

This article has shown that degrowth's uneasy relationship with technology is largely rooted in disagreements concerning the theory of technological ambivalence. More precisely, the polarisation within degrowth is a consequence of different ideas on whether technologies are objects that can fit a variety of social-ecological arrangements or not. Our analysis showed that degrowth scholars have largely accepted the theory of technological ambivalence, even if it is incompatible with the perspective of biophysical realism developed in the intellectual tradition of degrowth and ecological economics. From this perspective, modern technologies are dependent on large volumes of matter-energy, which necessitate the global social arrangements of industrial capitalism. To meet its objective of reducing matter-energy throughput, we propose that the degrowth movement comes to terms with modern technologies as contradictory to its ambitions and values. This includes learning more about how to navigate ambivalence as a subjective human experience and feeling.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments, which have significantly improved the manuscript. We are also grateful to the editor for careful guidance throughout the review process. We would further like to extend our thanks to colleagues in academic settings for valuable feedback and discussions on earlier versions of this work.

ORCID iDs

Andreas Roos

Toni Ruuska

Pasi Heikkurinen

Ethical considerations

Ethical approval was not required for this research article.

Consent to participate

Not applicable

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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