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Nootropics in Postmodernity: journal article free

What the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze Can Tell Us About the Relationship Between Smart Drugs, Authenticity, Control and Fairness

Sean Blanchet, Sean Devine

Delphi - Interdisciplinary Review of Emerging Technologies, Volume 1 (2018), Issue 1, Page 26 - 30

Pharmaceutical products aimed at enhancing cognitive performance – smart drugs, nootropics, etc – have garnered considerable attention. Many ethical questions accompany their growth in popularity. Three of these questions will be addressed in this paper: Do nootropics preclude authenticity? Are nootropics a good thing for society? And, is it fair to use nootropics? We argue that these questions can be answered by appealing to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concepts of individuation, Society of Control, and dividuation. On the one hand, drawing on the concept of extrinsic individuation, we posit that nootropics have the potential to expand horizons, disrupt traditional human-object interactions, and allow users to experience their surroundings in novel, more authentic, ways. On the other, it also risks concentrating success in the hands of a minority of individuals and reinforce the normative power of the Society of Control. Ultimately, we suggest that whether it is fair, indeed ethical, to use nootropics depends on the control the user has over herself and her cognition within the Society of Control.


Self-Driving Cars: journal article free

Risk Constellation and Acceptance Issues

Armin Grunwald

Delphi - Interdisciplinary Review of Emerging Technologies, Volume 1 (2018), Issue 1, Page 8 - 13

Self-driving cars have become a challenging and discussed mobility option in Western societies in recent years. Technology is advancing quickly while simultaneously posing many ethical, legal, and social questions to the reflective scientific disciplines and to society as a whole. This paper focuses on the risk constellation of self-driving cars and draws some conclusions of their social acceptance. The final thesis is that an overly hasty introduction of self-driving cars motivated by economic competition might not only increase risk to road users but may also undermine the social acceptance of this technology. Hence, an ethical and legally responsible introduction should happen step by step in order to allow problems to be resolved as they emerge. Interdisciplinary cooperation between engineering, information technology, legal science, ethics, and the social sciences is needed to develop sound solutions to the many challenges of coping with risks and ethical issues of automated driving in a pro-active manner.

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