Critique of objectivity (PHOSITA) – reinforces gender hierarches AND promotes patriarchy that destroys the environment, social disparity, materialism, and alienation

On a different level, the critique of objectivity might raise the concern that the patent system fosters a certain type of intrinsic deception about the characteristics of the subject matter that it encompasses. I have suggested in previous work that the patent system in fact encompasses a highly stylized view of nature and the natural, a dualist view that is readily exposed by the critical tools of feminist analysis.122 MacKinnon might suggest that such objective distortion creates a kind of self-serving delusion regarding technology, that the epistemic structure of the patent systems attributes to machines, manufactures, processes, and compositions of matter a nature that comports to the needs and desires of those innovators who hope to exploit such inventions.123 Thus, it may be that the criteria for patentability, and the process for vetting those criteria, recognize only those aspects of materiality that lend themselves to technological exploitation and control, effectively projecting onto patentable subject matter the attributes necessary for domination by means of a patent. In this case, the patent system may not only be overlooking “feminine” technologies, but also actively promoting technologies that facilitate and reinforce current social hierarchies, including gender hierarchies.

At a heightened level of concern, the critique of objectivity could lead us to question the current purposes of the patent system itself. The patent system is generally justified as intended in some fashion to promote technological innovation, but it may be that the desire to do so reflects an unhealthy patriarchal drive toward domination of resources, both material and social.124 The patent system might be working well, or it might be working poorly in promoting innovation,125 but we might be concerned that even if it is working “well” in the sense of promoting technological innovation, it is in a different sense working poorly because technological innovation is simply a bad idea. To the extent that technological innovation translates into accelerated and expanded means of consumption, we might be concerned that promoting technological innovation effectively means promoting environmental disaster, social disparity, materialism, and personal alienation. Certainly much, perhaps most, of the innovation found in the history of the industrialized world seems to entail these kinds of harms.