This paper examines ethical issues surrounding technical practices. My contention is that t... more This paper examines ethical issues surrounding technical practices. My contention is that the question of bioethics is ultimately a question about how to technically engage organic life ethically, but this question, on my estimation, is too often framed in terms, and approached with practices, that maximize short-term human benefit at the expense of considering whether these benefits are practical and sustainable. I will look at how the issue of technical practice is framed in art installations by Chicago artist, Eduardo Kac—specifically in his piece, Genesis. I argue that while Kac does well to highlight how technical practices have ethical implications that are not always easily worked out, other approaches (such as those devised by Bonnie Bassler’s research team on quorum-sensing antibiotics, and Janine Benyus’ work on biomimicry) are devising ways to utilize technicity towards maximizing symbiotic relations, and thus, long-term benefits. I will conclude the paper by advocating for the adoption of virtue ethics into technical practices, constituting a new, Living Organism Virtue Ethics (L.O.V.E.), which also constitutes technical responsibility.
This essay will present recent cross-cultural psychological experiments that shed light on c... more This essay will present recent cross-cultural psychological experiments that shed light on certain East-West cognitive distinctions, and will then analyze our earlier question on how these distinctions arise, and what implications they might have for us. Notably, we are already faced with the issue of generalizing cultures within the East (i.e., Chinese, Korean, Indian, Japanese) as Eastern and cultures within the West (i.e., American, Western European) as Western. But this point should not be initially belabored. The studies we shall consider are not wholly isolated to a specific culture; however, they suggest consistent themes between subjects geographically grouped in international regions. Therefore, our task and discussion will be much less burdensome if we allow this generalization.
This essay will examine Freud's cases of the Uncanny and situate them in the broader scheme of Fr... more This essay will examine Freud's cases of the Uncanny and situate them in the broader scheme of Freudian theory. The slippages and contradictions elicit in Freud’s etymological analysis of the “uncanny” repeat themselves in his theory. In many ways, the theme of the uncanny as the reappearance of an intimate object concealed as something it is not frames the larger implications of Freudian theory. As such, one can easily dub Freud as the Uncanny Thinker par excellence. But to do so would overlook the glaring anticipations of an earlier thinker, Friedrich Nietzsche.
This paper examines ethical issues surrounding technical practices. My contention is that t... more This paper examines ethical issues surrounding technical practices. My contention is that the question of bioethics is ultimately a question about how to technically engage organic life ethically, but this question, on my estimation, is too often framed in terms, and approached with practices, that maximize short-term human benefit at the expense of considering whether these benefits are practical and sustainable. I will look at how the issue of technical practice is framed in art installations by Chicago artist, Eduardo Kac—specifically in his piece, Genesis. I argue that while Kac does well to highlight how technical practices have ethical implications that are not always easily worked out, other approaches (such as those devised by Bonnie Bassler’s research team on quorum-sensing antibiotics, and Janine Benyus’ work on biomimicry) are devising ways to utilize technicity towards maximizing symbiotic relations, and thus, long-term benefits. I will conclude the paper by advocating for the adoption of virtue ethics into technical practices, constituting a new, Living Organism Virtue Ethics (L.O.V.E.), which also constitutes technical responsibility.
This essay will present recent cross-cultural psychological experiments that shed light on c... more This essay will present recent cross-cultural psychological experiments that shed light on certain East-West cognitive distinctions, and will then analyze our earlier question on how these distinctions arise, and what implications they might have for us. Notably, we are already faced with the issue of generalizing cultures within the East (i.e., Chinese, Korean, Indian, Japanese) as Eastern and cultures within the West (i.e., American, Western European) as Western. But this point should not be initially belabored. The studies we shall consider are not wholly isolated to a specific culture; however, they suggest consistent themes between subjects geographically grouped in international regions. Therefore, our task and discussion will be much less burdensome if we allow this generalization.
This essay will examine Freud's cases of the Uncanny and situate them in the broader scheme of Fr... more This essay will examine Freud's cases of the Uncanny and situate them in the broader scheme of Freudian theory. The slippages and contradictions elicit in Freud’s etymological analysis of the “uncanny” repeat themselves in his theory. In many ways, the theme of the uncanny as the reappearance of an intimate object concealed as something it is not frames the larger implications of Freudian theory. As such, one can easily dub Freud as the Uncanny Thinker par excellence. But to do so would overlook the glaring anticipations of an earlier thinker, Friedrich Nietzsche.
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