Bioethics in the Age of New Media

ISBN-10: 0262265206
ISBN-13: 9780262265201
Category: Technology & Engineering
Pages: 248
Language: English
Published: 2009-03-20
Publisher: MIT Press
Author: Joanna Zylinska

Description

An examination of ethical challenges that technology presents to the allegedly sacrosanct idea of the human and a proposal for a new ethics of life rooted in the philosophy of alterity. Bioethical dilemmas—including those over genetic screening, compulsory vaccination, and abortion—have been the subject of ongoing debates in the media, among the public, and in professional and academic communities. But the paramount bioethical issue in an age of digital technology and new media, Joanna Zylinska argues, is the transformation of the very notion of life. In this provocative book, Zylinska examines many of the ethical challenges that technology poses to the allegedly sacrosanct idea of the human. In doing so, she goes beyond the traditional understanding of bioethics as a matter for moral philosophy and medicine to propose a new “ethics of life” rooted in the relationship between the human and the nonhuman (both animals and machines) that new technology prompts us to develop. After a detailed discussion of the classical theoretical perspectives on bioethics, Zylinska describes three cases of “bioethics in action,” through which the concepts of “the human,” “animal,” and “life” are being redefined: the reconfiguration of bodily identity by plastic surgery in a TV makeover show; the reduction of the body to two-dimensional genetic code; and the use of biological material in such examples of “bioart” as Eduardo Kac's infamous fluorescent green bunny. Zylinska addresses ethics from the interdisciplinary perspective of media and cultural studies, drawing on the writings of thinkers from Agamben and Foucault to Haraway and Hayles. Taking theoretical inspiration in particular from the philosophy of alterity as developed by Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, and Bernard Stiegler, Zylinska makes the case for a new nonsystemic, nonhierarchical bioethics that encompasses the kinship of humans, animals, and machines.

Get the book

Similar books

Animal Sciences: The Biology, Care, and Production of Domestic Animals, Fourth Edition
By John R. Campbell, M. Douglas Kenealy, Karen L. Campbell
Timberlake claimed in 1980 that a fundamental problem with Singer's work is the lack of an adequate definition of suffering ...
Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating Food Systems for a Changing Climate
By Laura Lengnick
3. D. Layne. 2013. Tree Fruit: Protecting Your Investment. American/Western Fruit Grower, September/October. 4. R. Snyder and J. Melu-Abreu. 2005. Frost ...
Biodesign: The Process of Innovating Medical Technologies
By Stefanos Zenios, Josh Makower, Paul Yock
At that time, these were in the low $10s of millions. ... be a good partner going forward, even though it takes longer to get the deal done," offered Chess.
Advanced Signal Processing: A Concise Guide
By Amir-Homayoon Najmi, Todd Moon
[ 59 ] S. Kotz , T. J. Kozubowski , and K. Podgorski , The Laplace ... valued signal processing : The proper way to deal with impropriety , ” IEEE Trans .
Resources for Technical Communication
By Pearson Education, Pearson Education Staff, David P Pearson Education
Some documents are annotated; some are left without annotations to provide more flexibility for instructors. This booklet can be packaged at no additional cost with any Longman title in technical communication.
Chemistry: An Introduction to General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry; Chemistry Study Pack Version 2.0 CD-ROM; The Chemistry of Life CD-ROM;...
By Karen C. Timberlake
Chemistry: An Introduction to General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry; Chemistry Study Pack Version 2.0 CD-ROM; The Chemistry of Life CD-ROM;...
Poultry Science: Fifth Edition
By Colin G. Scanes, Karen D. Christensen
The emission rates for ammonia (Casey et al., 2006): • Layers: 116 g NH3 per AU (AU or animal unit or 500 kg). • Broilers: 135 g NH3 per AU (AU or animal unit or 500 kg). Emission rates in different reports vary from less than either 10 ...
Solid State Materials Chemistry
By Patrick M. Woodward, Pavel Karen, John S. O. Evans
[45] B.F. Hoskins, R. Robson, “Design and construction of a new class of scaffolding-like materials comprising infinite polymeric frameworks of 3D-linked molecular rods. A reappraisal of the zinc cyanide and cadmium cyanide structures ...
Abbreviations Dictionary
By Dean A. Stahl, Karen Landen
... Tallest Mountain Mount Robson—12,972 feet or 3,954 meters—in the Canadian Rockies Canada's Westernmost City Dawson, Yukon Canada's Westernmost Point in Yukon Territory just east of Alaska's Demarcation Point Canary Islands' Largest ...
Agriculture: A Very Short Introduction
By Paul Brassley, Richard Soffe
ACCOUNTING Christopher Nobes ADVERTISING Winston Fletcher AFRICAN AMERICAN RELIGION Eddie S. Glaude Jr AFRICAN HISTORY ... Hugh Bowden ALGEBRA Peter M. Higgins AMERICAN HISTORY Paul S. Boyer AMERICAN IMMIGRATION David A. Gerber AMERICAN ...