Symbolic Systems Forum - Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Professor of French and Political Science

"Philosophical Foundations of NanoEthics"

Jean-Pierre Dupuy

Professor of French and Political Science, Stanford University

Professor of Philosophy, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris

ABSTRACT:

NanoEthics is a new discipline that accompanies the rapid rise of the nanotechnology research program, both in the US and in Europe. It is still in its formative years, and the way it develops is very different in the US and in Europe. The lecture will confront two styles of approaching the ethics of science and technology in the case of a fledgling technology. Special emphasis will be given to the so-called "convergence" of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC Convergence).

BIO:

Jean-Pierre Dupuy is Professor of French and Political Science, Stanford, and Philosophy, École Polytechnique, Paris. His recent books include The Mechanization of the Mind--On the Origins of Cognitive Science, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2000, and Self-Deception and Paradoxes of Rationality, C.S.L.I. Publications, Stanford University, 1998. His current research program concerns the paradoxes of rationality; the ethics of nuclear deterrence and pre-emptive war; the philosophy of risk and uncertainty; the metaphysics of rational doomsaying.