Beyond Prometheus, Strawmen, and Science Fiction: Ethicists and the Moral Debate Over Enhancements to Human Performance

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gleaves
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Performance Enhancement ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Human Enhancement ◽  
Language Of Science ◽  
Moral Debate

Human performance enhancement is one of kinesiology’s many vibrant topics for inquiry. Though philosophers in kinesiology departments have offered some contribution to this topic, this paper argues that philosophers could improve their relevance by better engaging the existing scientific research. Rather than simply defending their place at the table, this paper proposes that philosophers build upon existing contributions to the ethics of human enhancement by increasing their scientific literacy. At the same time, this paper argues that certain patterns in philosophical discussions of human enhancement do not connect with scientific researchers. The paper concludes that ultimately philosophers must become more conversant with the language of science if they are going to continue contributing to central questions within the field of kinesiology.

scholarly journals Being More than You Can Be: Enhancement of Warfighters and the Law of Armed Conflict

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rain Liivoja
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Performance Enhancement ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Human Enhancement ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Living Organism ◽  
Law Of Armed Conflict ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Military

[Law and the Future of War Research Paper No 1] Technologically advanced armed forces have begun exploring ways to improve the warfighter as a living organism. The relevant practices could be called “biomedical human performance enhancement,” which sets them apart from more conventional ways of improving performance, such as training and equipment. Human enhancement raises a range of ethical, legal and social issues – both in the military context and in society more broadly. In the military context, issues arise under the law of armed conflict (LOAC). After providing a brief conceptual and technical background to human enhancement, this paper considers a set of LOAC issues relating to human enhancement by asking two broad questions: First, does LOAC prohibit or restrict the enhancement of warfighters? Second, if warfighters are enhanced in some way, what consequences does that have under LOAC?

Tools for Human Performance Enhancement in Aviation Maintenance

1995 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-60
Author(s):  
William B. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Human Factors ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Performance Enhancement ◽  
Federal Aviation Administration ◽  
Cd Rom ◽  
Aviation Maintenance ◽  
Multi Media ◽  
Maintenance And Inspection ◽  
The Right

Human Factors and ergonomics professionals are often asked to “show” how their research has affected on-the-job human performance. They are asked to show measurable changes in human effectiveness and efficiency at work. There is always the demand for HF&E researchers to create procedures and tools that can guide non-human factors personnel to make the “right” human-centered decisions. This symposium will show and distribute such tools that have been designed and tested in an aviation maintenance environment. For over six years now, the Federal Aviation Administration Office of Aviation Medicine has conducted an extensive research program centered on human factors in aviation maintenance and inspection. The research program has earned a reputation of demonstrating a “hands-on” understanding of aviation maintenance and maintaining a close working relationship with all segments of the industry. The symposium will begin with an overview of FAA-sponsored research results applied to aviation maintenance and safety over the past six years. In the second paper the Human Factors Guide for Aviation Maintenance, completed in 1995, will be described. The third presentation will demonstrate a CD-ROM version of the Guide. The presentation shall also discuss human-computer interface issues pertinent to developing interactive multi-media information systems. The final presentation will show a multi-media software package to conduct ergonomics audits in a variety of industrial environments. The system has evolved from three years of ergonomics audit research in aviation maintenance workplaces. Each of the session presentations will demonstrate and distribute HF&E tools to session attendees.

Human Performance Optimization

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Performance Optimization ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Performance Enhancement ◽  
High Stress ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Improve Performance ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Desirable Outcome ◽  
Near Future

Advances in cognitive neuroscience, engineering, and related fields suggest new ways of optimizing human performance. Especially for organizations that operate in high-stakes, high-stress, and competitive settings, helping individual workers and teams improve and sustain performance represents a desirable outcome. Moreover, to the extent that strategies to improve performance allow individuals to grow and flourish, enhancing performance is also a desirable outcome for workers. This volume addresses state-of-the-art scientifically grounded approaches to optimizing human performance. Collectively, the topics addressed integrate performance optimization strategies across several disciplines that speak to performance enhancement. A common theme is the need to include ethical considerations in any decision to implement human performance optimization strategies. The book concludes with a summary and synthesis of currently attainable approaches to performance enhancement and approaches that may emerge in the near future based on further research and development.

A Story of the Days to Come: H.G. Wells and the Language of Science Fiction

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
New World ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Time Machine ◽  
World Language ◽  
Language Of Science ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Individual Citizen ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Individual

This article argues that, unlike most other science fiction writers, H.G. Wells gives considerable attention to language and language change in his futuristic writing; this is because he was, from the beginning of his career, fascinated by the ways in which language had shaped human lives and cultures. In many of the early scientific romances, particularly The Time Machine and The Island of Dr Moreau, failures in communication play an important part in the events of the story. In the later utopias such as The World Set Free and The Shape of Things to Come, Wells makes English the basis of a new world language, which plays an essential part in establishing social cohesion and extending the cognitive powers of the individual citizen.

Roy Weintraub's Studies in Appraisal: Lakatosian Consolations or Something Else?

1991 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Salanti
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
General Equilibrium ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Empirical Content ◽  
Research Programs ◽  
Points Of View

As made manifest by Clower's (1975) comments on their “science fiction” nature, general equilibrium theories (GET) present such peculiar and puzzling features that the methodologist must perforce seek some specific methodological accommodation for this part of economic theory. The role played by such theories in contemporary economics is so fundamental (in the sense of Green, 1981) that the impossibility of appraising them by means of any version of falsificationism, and their patent lack of (excess) empirical content if approached with the conceptual devices of the methodology of scientific research programs (MSRP), have prompted several scholars interested in the methodology of economics (although from different points of view and for even more different purposes) to search for a reasonable way out.

scholarly journals WHAT IS GOOD SCIENCE AND HOW FAR CAN IT GO?

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-26
Author(s):  
Luis Fernando Aragón-Vargas
Keyword(s):  
Nature Of Science ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Good Science

I have seized this opportunity to share with our readers a topic, seldom discussed among human movement professionals, which is nevertheless fundamental for our scientific endeavors:  philosophy of science.In this editorial I present a few introductory topics, namely, the nature of science, what are its limits, and if and how they should be managed. An attempt is also made to prepare a well-supported list of good scientific research practices. As a researcher who has done most of his work in health and human performance, my focus is on the natural sciences and, more specifically, on human movement science.

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