Since it is now broadly acknowledged that ethics should receive early consideration in discourse on emerging technologies, ethical debates tend to flourish even while new fields of technology are still in their infancy. Such debates often liberally mix existing applications with technologies in the pipeline and far-reaching visions. This paper analyses the problems associated with this use of ethics as “preparatory” research, taking discourse on human enhancement in general and on pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement in particular as an example. The paper (...) will outline and discuss the gap between the scientific and technological state of the art and the ethical debates, pointing out epistemic problems in this context. Furthermore, it will discuss the future role of genuine ethical reflection in discourse on human enhancement, arguing also that such discourse needs to include a technology assessment—in the broad sense of the term—which encompasses, inter alia, anthropological perspectives and aspects of social theory. (shrink)

Mental state reasoning or theory-of-mind has been the subject of a rich body of imaging research. Although such investigations routinely tap a common set of regions, the precise function of each area remains a contentious matter. With the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we sought to determine which areas are involved when processing mental state or intentional metarepresentations by focusing on the relational aspect of such representations. Using non-intentional relational representations such as spatial relations between persons and between (...) objects as a contrast, the results ascertained the involvement of the precuneus, the temporal poles, and the medial prefrontal cortex in the processing of intentional representations. In contrast, the anterior superior temporal sulcus and the left temporo-parietal junction were implicated when processing representations that refer to the presence of persons in relational contexts in general. The right temporo-parietal junction, however, was specifically activated for persons entering spatial relations. The level of representational complexity, a previously unexplored factor, was also found to modulate the neural response in some brain regions, such as the medial prefrontal cortex and the right temporo-parietal junction. These findings highlight the need to take into account the critical roles played by an extensive network of neural regions during mental state reasoning. (shrink)

This article is both an elaborated critique on the one-sided analysis of the misogynist nature of ballet as a cultural practice, and a contribution to a more embodied feminist theory. Based on empirical material, that was brought together by observing the body practices in ballet and listening to the life stories of dancers, the author explores the contradictions that the body in ballet provokes. In describing the embodied experiences ofprofessional ballet dancers she shows that ballet offers women the possibility to (...) transcend the discontinuity of body, mind and emotions. (shrink)

Due primarily to technological advances over the last decade, quantum research has become a key priority area for science and technology policy all over the world. With this manifesto, we wish to prevent quantum technology from running into fiascos of implementation at the interface of science and society. To this end, we identify key stumbling blocks and propose recommendations.

We are currently witnessing the emergence of a discourse on responsible research and innovation in the field of quantum technology. Working on the assumption that the initial stage of discourse is of particular importance with regard to the ascription of meaning to an emerging field, our point of departure is a small corpus of prominent policy-oriented reports on quantum technology recently published in Europe. With a view to these publications, the article analyses various approaches to RRI and discusses lessons learned (...) in nanotechnology discourse as these may impact on emerging discourse on quantum technology and its stance towards RRI. On the basis of our analyses, we outline a strategy for fostering RRI in this promising field of science and technology. We propose implementing a “strong” RRI approach which entails linking parliamentary or other core policy processes to stakeholder dialogues, decision-supporting public engagement and a wide variety of other public communication activities. At the same time, taking our cue from lessons learned in nanotechnology discourse, we argue that a strong RRI approach to quantum technology should be modest and focused in terms of thematic and societal scope. (shrink)

Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.

Human enhancement issues are not merely academic: the technologies and trends involved give rise to new needs and social demands, provide opportunities for individuals and society, and present new risks. They also challenge crucial cultural notions, social concepts and views of the human condition, and may cause new forms of social pressure and social exclusion. This chapter reports on a systematic attempt by the European Technology Assessment Group (ETAG), conducted on behalf of the Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) panel (...) of the European Parliament, to suggest policy options on the issue of human enhancement. It outlines and discusses a number of strategies for dealing with the issue in a European policy context, identifying a reasoned pro‐enhancement approach, a reasoned restrictive approach, and a systematic case‐by‐case approach as viable options. (shrink)

Julia Annas offers a new account of virtue and happiness as central ethical ideas. She argues that exercising a virtue involves practical reasoning of the kind we find in someone exercising an everyday practical skill, such as farming, building, or playing the piano. This helps us to see virtue as part of an agent's happiness or flourishing.

Problem: Visions of technology, future scenarios, guiding visions represent imaginations of future states of affairs that play a functional role in processes of technological research, development and innovation—e.g. as a means to create attention, communication, coordination, or for the strategic exertion of influence. Since a couple of years there is a growing attention for such imaginations of futures in politics, the economy, research and the civil society. This trend concerns technology assessment as an observer of these processes and a consultant (...) on the implications of technology and innovation. TA faces increasing demands to assess imaginations of futures that circulate in the present and to participate in shaping these through scenarios or foresights. More than ever, this raises the question, which propositions can be made based on these imaginations by TA and how this can be used in advisory practices. Imaginations of futures are relevant for TA not as predictions but in their significance and effectiveness in the present, which need to be understood and assessed.Contents: This discussion paper outlines how present significance and effects of imagined futures in technological research and innovation processes can be conceived and analyzed. In this paper, all forms of imaginations of technology futures will be called “socio-technical futures” because within them technological developments and social changes are interwoven and inseparably interrelated. In this paper, we discuss why TA should analyze socio-technical futures, how such analyses can grasp the societal conditions that are expressed in the imagined futures and how these become effective in processes of technology development, communication, decision making etc. We raise the question which self-reflexive positioning or possible realignment of TA is needed as a response to its increased concern with assessing and even co-producing socio-technical futures. The latter is often demanded regarding the growing attention by politics and publics to imaginations of futures with wide temporal and spatial reach.Addressee of this paper is the TA community in a broader sense. The aim is to sensitize colleagues for the topic and its challenges, to consolidate discussions and to provide theoretical and methodical suggestions for research in TA and related advisory practices with respect to socio-technical futures. This paper has been originally initiated during the workshop “The present of technological futures-theoretical and methodical challenges for Technology Assessment”, in which all of the paper’s authors participated. The contents of this discussion paper are preliminary results that shall initiate and guide further discussions. (shrink)

Le progrès de la sociologie est inséparable d'une symbiose entre le travail de terrain, la théorie de la vie sociale et la réflexion sur le sens des activités humaines. Pour les sociologues, la condition primordiale d'une authentique accumulation de connaissances est de rester fidèle à des concepts restés prometteurs tout en se méfiant des modes intellectuelles passagères. Le social comme processus, la société comme système et les formes sociales comme constantes, mettent en évidence l'idée-force de l'interpénétration de l'individuel et du (...) collectif. La persistance de l'opposition entre l'individualisme méthodologique et le holisme méthodologique entrave tout progrès réel de la connaissance sociologique. Ni les méthodes individualistes ni les méthodes holistes ne fournissent des explications entièrement satisfaisantes du comportement humain. Seule une combinaison de ces approches peut faire progresser la théorie générale, tout en assurant l'indispensable contact avec la recherche empirique. Cette combinaison présuppose une conception relationnelle de la sociologie. (shrink)

The neuroanatomical substrates controlling and regulating sleeping and waking, and thus consciousness, are located in the brain stem. Most crucial for bringing the brain into a state conducive for consciousness and information processing is the mesencephalic part of the brain stem. This part controls the state of waking, which is generally associated with a high degree of consciousness. Wakefulness is accompanied by a low-amplitude, high-frequency electroencephalogram, due to the fact that thalamocortical neurons fire in a state of tonic depolarization. Information (...) can easily pass the low-level threshold of these neurons, leading to a high transfer ratio. The complexity of the electroencephalogram during conscious waking is high, as expressed in a high correlation dimension. Accordingly, the level of information processing is high. Spindles, and alpha waves in humans, mark the transition from wakefulness to sleep. These phenomena are related to drowsiness, associated with a reduction in consciousness. Drowsiness occurs when cells undergo moderate hyperpolarizations. Increased inhibitions result in a reduction of afferent information, with a lowered transfer ratio. Information processing subsides, which is also expressed in a diminished correlation dimension. Consciousness is further decreased at the onset of slow wave sleep. This sleep is controlled by the medullar reticular formation and is characterized by a high-voltage, low-frequency electroencephalogram. Slow wave sleep becomes manifest when neurons undergo a further hyperpolarization. Inhibitory activities are so strong that the transfer ratio further drops, as does the correlation dimension. Thus, sensory information is largely blocked and information processing is on a low level. Finally, rapid eye movement sleep is regulated by the pontine reticular formation and is associated with a ''wake-like'' electroencephalographic pattern. Just as during wakefulness, this is the expression of a depolarization of thalamocortical neurons. The transfer ratio of rapid eye movement sleep has not yet been determined, but seems to vary. Evidence exists that this type of sleep, associated with dreaming, with some kind of perception and consciousness, is involved in processing of ''internal'' information. In line with this, rapid eye movement sleep has higher correlation dimensions than slow-wave sleep and sometimes even higher than wakefulness. It is assumed that the ''near-the-threshold'' depolarized state of neurons in the thalamus and cerebral cortex is a necessary condition for perceptual processes and consciousness, such as occurs during waking and in an altered form during rapid eye movement sleep. (shrink)

Merker suggests that the thalamocortical system is not an essential system for consciousness, but, instead, that the midbrain reticular system is responsible for consciousness. Indeed, the latter is a crucial system for consciousness, when consciousness is regarded as the waking state. However, when consciousness is regarded as phenomenal consciousness, for which experience and perception are essential elements, the thalamocortical system seems to be indispensable. (Published Online May 1 2007).

This book surveys research in quantification starting with the foundational work in the 1970s. It paints a vivid picture of generalized quantifiers and Boolean semantics. It explains how the discovery of diverse scope behavior in the 1990s transformed the view of quantification, and how the study of the internal composition of quantifiers has become central in recent years. It presents different approaches to the same problems, and links modern logic and formal semantics to advances in generative syntax. A unique feature (...) of the book is that it systematically brings cross-linguistic data to bear on the theoretical issues, discussing French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Telugu (Dravidian), and Shupamem (Grassfield Bantu), and pointing to formal semantic literature involving quantification in around thirty languages. -- -/- 1. What this book is about and how to use it; 2. Generalized quantifiers and their elements: operators and their scopes; 3. Generalized quantifiers in non-nominal domains; 4. Some empirically significant properties of quantifiers and determiners; 5. Potential challenges for generalized quantifiers; 6. Scope is not uniform and not a primitive; 7. Existential scope versus distributive scope; 8. Distributivity and scope; 9. Bare numeral indefinites; 10. Modified numerals; 11. Clause-internal scopal diversity; 12. Towards a compositional semantics of quantifier words. (shrink)

The book provides a commentary on Plato's Republic which encourages the reader to be stimulated to philosophical thinking by Plato's wide-ranging discussions.

The rapid evolution that has taken place since the state reform of 1980 has made the need felt that some options of this state reform must be adjusted. In spite of this need, the core question is whether or not one should, in the first place, adapt the structures of the national government so it can carry out its national tasks. The clear establishment of communities and regions, the structuring of the political parties on the basis of these entities, the (...) socio-economic substratum that is based on the duality, of the country, are indexes that show that the regions have numerous policy supporting structures while they are virtually absent on the national level. The political decision making on the national level is very restricted in this perspective. The state reform of 1980 has established three levels of equal standing between which the division is total. However, the probem immediately arises of a common parliament and a socio-economic substratum on which a national parliament and a national government should be able to rest if the Belgian state is to survive with its substructures. The solution here is twofold : either the substructures wilt have to create organs of the central state or the organs of the central state wilt have to be assembled on the basis of a national political election free of the substructures. (shrink)

It is now a year and a half since I started to take over from John Weckert as Editor-in-Chief of this journal. The excellent issues that came out in 2013 were still very much John’s work, and I am deeply indebted both to him and to Springer for giving me the opportunity to learn on the job, while providing help and advice as and when necessary. In consequence, it is fair to say that looking back over the first seven years (...) of NanoEthics means acknowledging what John has accomplished in creating a forum for research and well informed discussion on nanoscience, nanotechnologies, and other fields of new or emerging science and technology.It was truly a great honour and a great pleasure when he invited me to become his successor as Editor-in-Chief because, since its early days, NanoEthics has been the most important journal for my work. Many of the articles published and discussions initiated in the journal have done much to mould my understanding of ethical, societal, epistemological, and .. (shrink)

The validity of dream recall is discussed. What is the relation between the actual dream and its later reflection? Nielsen proposes differential sleep mentation, which is probably determined by dream accessibility. Solms argues that REM sleep and dreaming are double dissociable states. Dreaming occurs outside REM sleep when cerebral activation is high enough. That various active sleep states correlate with vivid dream reports implies that REM sleep and dreaming are single dissociable states. Vertes & Eastman reject that REM sleep is (...) involved in memory consolidation. Considerable evidence for this was obtained by REM deprivation studies with the dubious water tank technique. [Nielsen; Solms; Vertes & Eastman]. (shrink)

The Studiengruppe für Systemforschung was dissolved in 1974. Several members of the group moved to the Research Centre Karlsruhe. There, despite their new institutional surroundings, they remained faithful to the Studiengruppe’s conceptual foundations, and developed a new Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis. This has since become the leading technology assessment group in Germany.

Half by choice, half by chance, the present December issue of NanoEthics: Studies of New and Emerging Technologies has a focus on narratives. While it starts with an informative analysis of a social science course on globalisation at a US technological university that included a module on nanotechnology, ethics and policy, the narrative focus comes to the fore in the following two blocks of articles.As planned, the special section on Body Hacking: Self-Made Cyborgs and Visions of Transhuman Corporeality, guest-edited by (...) Bárbara Nascimento Duarte and Enno Park , covers academic attempts to start engaging with the new cyborgism movement, as well as first-hand accounts and reflections by individuals who identify themselves as ‘cyborgs’. It is thus not only testament to the journal’s ambition to report on and stimulate discussions on emerging developments in our technoscientific culture at a very early stage, but also an example of NanoEthics opening its pages .. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive overview of the influence of Platonism on the English literary tradition, showing how English writers, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Wordsworth, Yeats, Pound and Iris Murdoch, used Platonic themes and images within their own imaginative work.

The current issue of our journal features a special section on technoscientific developments and animals, an extremely sensitive and highly politicized issue. There is widespread unease and even outrage, at least in many Western societies, over the use and treatment of animals in various sectors, particularly in food production, in technoscience, and in entertainment. The spectrum of opponents to certain uses and treatments of animals extends from those who wish to see better protection of animals to proponents of far-reaching animal (...) rights. On a political level, recent decades have for example seen animal protection included in the German constitution [1] and the use of great apes in animal testing banned in several countries. Such activities are often based on animals being perceived as fellow beings and categorically different from objects. If we look at German history in particular, however, we are reminded that such appreciation of animals often goes hand in hand with a depreciati .. (shrink)

This article aims to develop a social theory of violence that emphasizes the role of the third party as well as the communication between the involved subjects. For this Teresa Koloma Beck’s essay ‘The Eye of the Beholder: Violence as a Social Process’ is taken as a starting point, which adopts a social-constructivist perspective. On the one hand, the basic concepts and the benefits of this approach are presented. On the other hand, social-theoretical problems of this approach are revealed. These (...) deficits are counteracted by expanding Koloma Beck’s approach with a communicative-constructivist framework. Thus, the role of communicative action and the ‘objectification of violence’ is emphasized. These aspects impact the perception, judgement and (de-)legitimation of violence phenomena and the emergence of a ‘knowledge of violence’. Communicative actions and objectifications form a key to understanding violent interactions and the link between the micro and macro levels. Finally, the methodological consequences for the research of violence and Communicative Constructivism are discussed. Furthermore, possible research fields are outlined, which open up by looking at communicative action and the objectifications within the ‘triads of violence’. (shrink)

El discurso sobre la biología sintética, altamente visionario y marcado por el enfoque de ‘investigación e innovación responsable’ puede interpretarse como un terreno para confrontar perspectivas sobre el futuro de nuestras sociedades en su conjunto. En un momento en el que, con el final de la confrontación de sistemas entre capitalismo y socialismo, los debates sociales amplios sobre cuestiones políticas y socioeconómicas fundamentales se han vuelto infrecuentes, los discursos sobre las ciencias naturales y la tecnología parecen poder ayudar a tematizar (...) estas cuestiones de manera indirecta. Esta función del discurso sobre la biología sintética puede clarificarse mediante una contextualización histórica del mismo, en la que se analizan aproximaciones anteriores sobre la relevancia social de la biología y sus aplicaciones tecnológicas. (shrink)