The online dating application has in recent years become a major avenue for meeting potential partners.
But while the digital public sphere has gained the attention of political philosophers, a systematic normative
evaluation of issues arising in the ‘digital sexual sphere’ is lacking. I provide a philosophical framework for
assessing dating app corporation conduct, capturing why people use these apps and their experience
so often is unsatisfactory. Identifying dating apps as agents intervening …
Read moreThe online dating application has in recent years become a major avenue for meeting potential partners.
But while the digital public sphere has gained the attention of political philosophers, a systematic normative
evaluation of issues arising in the ‘digital sexual sphere’ is lacking. I provide a philosophical framework for
assessing dating app corporation conduct, capturing why people use these apps and their experience
so often is unsatisfactory. Identifying dating apps as agents intervening in a social institution necessary for
the reproduction of society, with immense power over people's lives, I ask if they exercise their power in
line with individuals’ interests. Acknowledging that people have claims to non-interference, equal standing,
and choice improvement relating to intimacy, I find that the traditional, non-digital, sexual sphere poses
problems to their realisation, especially for sexual minorities. In this context, apps’ potential for justice in
the sexual sphere is immense, but unfulfilled.
