Topic
Dystopia
About: Dystopia is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2146 publications have been published within this topic receiving 15163 citations. The topic is also known as: cacotopia.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
More filters
TL;DR: Utopia in the Anthropocene as discussed by the authors offers an expansive overview of the interrelated threats of environmental degradation and global wealth inequality, and depicts a stark, dystopian vision of the future.
Abstract: Utopia in the Anthropocene offers an expansive overview of the interrelated threats of environmental degradation and global wealth inequality. Michael Harvey paints a stark, dystopian vision of the...
1 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The authors discusses some well-knownutopian and dystopian literary writings and aims to highlight the development of some shared major and minor themes common for both forms of literature, arguing that the utopian is always interrelated with the actual.
Abstract: From Plato to Marx and beyond, human kind had a constant preoccupationfor bettering the world, strived for its improvement and, ultimately, aimed tocreate a perfect society, unaffected by change. This article discusses some well-knownutopian and dystopian literary writings and aims to highlight the developmentof some shared major and minor themes common for both forms. The paperforwards the argument that the utopian is always interrelated with the actual.
1 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss advances in neuroscience and pharmacology that extend the aim of medicine beyond the treatment of disease and the mitigation of pain and suffering to include "cosmetic neurology," that is, the enhancement of cognitive functioning in normal, healthy human beings.
Abstract: It’s not difficult to say what’s objectionable about soma in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World: the majority of the blissed-out, mindless denizens of this socially and biologically engineered dystopia are oblivious not only to their own manipulation but also to the fact that their lives have become empty and hollow; they no longer care or strive for anything greater than the ecstasy of their next drug-induced vacation. Francis Fukuyama argues in Our Posthuman Future that Huxley’s vision of the future was extremely prescient and that advances in biotechnology and neuropharmacology now threaten to alter human nature and thus undermine the very basis of human dignity.1 One such threat stems from developments he sees in neuropharmacology and the growing omnipresence in our lives of psychotropic drugs such as Prozac and Ritalin. The first section of this paper discusses advances in neuroscience and pharmacology that extend the aim of medicine beyond the treatment of disease and the mitigation of pain and suffering to include “cosmetic neurology,” that is, the enhancement of cognitive functioning in normal, healthy human beings. The second section challenges Fukuyama’s assertion that we can only escape a “posthuman” future as nightmarish as Huxley’s Brave New World if we anchor human dignity and values in an empirically defensible conception of human nature. Given the theoretical difficulty of identifying a normatively relevant conception of human nature, I propose that Alasdair Macintyre’s analysis of virtue, internal goods and practices in After Virtue offers the necessary conceptual apparatus and appropriate context of human activity–not human nature–that allows us to evaluate the ethical significance of neurochemical enhancements. In the third and final section, I draw upon the myth of Theuth from Plato’s Phaedrus to argue that the use of performance-enhancement drugs within the arena of Macintyre’s practices threatens the integrity of these special domains
1 citations