PAUL B. THOMPSON BORGMANN ON COMMODIFICATION: A COMMENT ON REAL AMERICAN ETHICS (Accepted in revised form June 10, 2007) Abert BorgmannÕs Real American Ethics is a doubly ambitious work that advances an important thesis in philosophy of technology while also engaging a non-academic audience with a broader project of moral and cultural renewal. The latter ambition attempts to move beyond current left- right dichotomies in American moral and political discourse in order to focus public attention on forms of moral decay and cultural decline that Borgmann associates with material practice and the built environment. The problem is devilishly difficult to articulate, and Borgmann makes wise use of extended examples, as well as a fine quote from Winston Churchill: ‘‘We shape our buildings and then our buildings shape us.’’ The inchoate nature of our debility is, in BorgmannÕs view, a function both of an attenuated moral vocabulary and of a longstanding failure in our moral perception, specifically in our ability to see the gradual impact that the plethora of technical devices we use to navigate daily life has had upon our quality of life. Philosophy of technology has struggled to articulate the basis and moral importance of such impacts for several decades, at least, and there are at least as many arguing against the very idea of technologically driven decline as there are trying to make sense of it. Hence the necessity of duality in BorgmannÕs project. A broad rehabilitation of lay discourse requires that we all come to terms with one of the key contested issues in philosophy of technology. Perhaps two thirds of the text in Real American Ethics is strategically oriented toward bringing a naı¨ve reader to the point of considering the central philosophical question. By ‘‘naı¨ve’’ here I mean all readers lacking familiarity with basic theoretical orientations in ethics and political philos- ophy, as well as the themes that have occupied Borgmann through his three previous books. These portions of Real American Ethics cover much of the moral and political landscape in early 21st century American culture in exceedingly succinct fashion. We are treated to discussions of abortion, distributive justice, and the environmental movement. The reaction to September 11 terrorist attacks are discussed. A summary treatment of the strengths and weaknesses of utilitarian and neo-Kantian ethical theory is Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics (2008) 21:75–84 DOI 10.1007/s10806-007-9065-6 Ó Springer 2007