Smart Moral Technologies and Anti-Intellectualism about Abilities

Gloria Andrada and Adam J. Carter—“Mind-Technology Problem s for Know-How Anti- Intellectualism,” 2025—use the Mind-Technology problem (MTP) framework (Clowes, Gärtner, and Hipólito 2021) as a basis for theorizing about skills and know-how. More specifically, they focus on anti-intellectualism about know-how, so the view that S knows how to do X in virtue of S having the ability to intentionally X. Anti-intellectualism is contrasted with intellectualism about know-how, so the view that S knows how to do X in virtue of knowing that something is the case or knowing some fact (Stanley and Williamson 2011; Bengson and Moffett 2007). Here, I set MTP aside to focus on Andrada and Carter’s theorizing itself, which does an excellent job highlighting what is and is not at stake when smart technologies aim to improve humans from a moral perspective. First, they list a number of generic questions about an ability and the technology related to it, which can be used to interrogate the ontological, normative, and epistemological features of that relationship. Second, their paper implicitly raises questions about the role of socio-cultural context in our theorizing about technologically-enabled abilities. Thirdly, they bring the debate about intellectualism and anti-intellectualism about abilities to bear directly on important current topics in the philosophy of technology.