Taking Care of the Symbolic Order. How Converging Technologies Challenge our Concepts
Tóm tắt
In this article we briefly summarize how converging technologies challenge elements of the existing symbolic order, as shown in the contributions to this special issue. We then identify the vision of ‘life as a do it yourself kit’ as a common denominator in the various forms of convergence and proceed to show how this vision provokes unrest and debate about existing moral frameworks and taboos. We conclude that, just as the problems of the industrial revolution sparked off the now broadly established ideal of sustainability the converging technologies should be governed by the ideal of ‘human sustainability’. The essence of this ideal is formed by the ongoing discussion about the extent to which we may, or should want to, ‘make’ our environment and ourselves, and when it is better to simply accept what is given and what happens to us.
Tài liệu tham khảo
Arendt H (1958) The Human Condition. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Borup Mads, Nik Brown, Kornelia Konrad, Harro Van Lente (2006) The sociology of expectations in science and technology. Technol Anal Strateg Manag 18(3/4):285–298
Brooks R (2002) The Merger of Flesh and Machines. In: Brockman J (ed) The next fifty years: science in the first half of the twenty-first century. Vintage Books, New York
Bostrom N (2005) A history of transhumanist thought. Journal of Evolution and Technology 14(1):1–25
Dekker W (2009) De affaire Buikhuisen: het ontstaan en de achtergronden van de rel rondom zijn biosociale onderzoek. Doctoraalscriptie. Erasmus Universiteit, Rotterdam
Douglas M (1966) Purity and danger. An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London
Dupuy JP (2007) Some pitfalls in the philosophical foundations of nanoethics. J Med Philos 32(3):237
Fukuyama F (2002) Our posthuman future. Profile Books
Grunwald A (2007) Converging Technologies: visions, increased contingencies of the conditio humana, and search for orientation. Futures 39(4):380–392
Habermas J (1981) Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Suhrkamp Frankfurt
Hughes J (2004) Citizen cyborg: Why democratic societies must respond to the redesigned human of the future. Westview Press, Boulder
Kant I., J. Timmermann (2004) Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Kass, L. R. 2002. Life, liberty, and the defense of dignity: The challenge for bioethics. Encounter books.
Kearnes M (2009) Informationalising Matter: Systems Understandings of the Nanoscale. Spontaneous Generations. A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science 2(1):99
Keulartz J, Schermer M, Korthals M, T. Swierstra (2004) Ethics in technological culture: A programmatic proposal for a pragmatist approach. Science, Technology & Human Values 29, no. 1:3
Maienschein J (2009) Controlling Life: From Jacques Loeb to Regenerative Medicine. J Hist Biol 42:215–230
McEuen P, Dekker C (2008) Synthesizing the Future. ACS Chem Biol 3:10–12
Merelman RM (2000) “Technological cultures and liberal democracy in the United States”, Science. Technology & Human Values 25(2):167–194
Nordmann Alfred (2007) If and Then: A Critique of Speculative NanoEthics. NanoEthics 1, no. 1 (March 7): 31–46. doi:10.1007/s11569-007-0007-6
Nordmann Alfred, Arie Rip (2009) Mind the gap revisited. Nat Nano 4, no. 5 (May): 273–274. doi:10.1038/nnano.2009.26
The PAGANINI project (2007) Participatory governance and institutional innovation: The new governance of life. Department of Political Science, University of Vienna, A summary report of the PAGANINI project. Austria
Roco MC, Bainbridge WS (eds) (2002) Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, National Science Foundation. Arlington, VA
Sandel M (2007) J. Ethics in the age of genetic engineering. belknap Press, The case against perfection
Smit A (2007) “Bouwen aan de blauwprint van het leven”. Intermediair 3 October 2007, to be found at www.intermediair.nl/artikel.jsp?id=1010099
Smits Martijntje (2006) Taming monsters: The cultural domestication of new technology. Technology in Society 28, no. 4 (November): 489–504. doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2006.09.008
Taylor C (1994) Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity. Harvard University Press
Toffler A (1980) The third wave. Bantam Books, New York
Van Est R, Enzing C, van Lieshout M, Versleijen A (2006) Welcome to the 21st century: Heaven, hell or down to earth? A historical, public debate and technological perspective on the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and the cognitive sciences. European Parliament / STOA, Brussels
Van Est R, Klaassen P, Schuiff M, Smits M (2008) Future man — No future man: Connecting the technological, cultural and political dots of human enhancement. The Hague, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)
de Vriend H (2006) Constructing Life: early social reflections on the emerging field of synthetic biology. Rathenau Institute, The Hague