The stimuli that induce sexual arousal between men and women differ. Men are far more sexually aroused by visual erotic stimuli than are women. Functional MRI studies were conducted on twenty men and twenty women to compare their sexual arousal while they were viewing excerpts from neutral films and from erotic films. The level of sexual arousal was much higher in the males during the viewing of the erotic films. In both males and females the erotic films induced increased activation of several parts of the brain, most particularly the anterior cingulate, medial prefrontal, insular, occipitotemporal and orbitofrontal cortices, along with the amygdala and ventral striatum.

But something additional happened in the male brains. Activation occurred in both the thalamus and the hypothalamus, but in the latter it was much more intense. The hypothalamus is known to have a critical role in sexual behavior and physiological arousal. The researchers found that in males the intensity of sexual arousal was positively correlated with the degree of activation of the hypothalamus.

This study was confirmed by other studies that showed that sexual arousal from erotic film excerpts was associated with increased activity in the right amygdala, right anterior temporal pole, and the hypothalamus. The right superior frontal gyrus and right anterior cingulate gyrus were activated by attempts to inhibit the sexual arousal from the erotic films. The researchers concluded that humans implement self-regulation through a neural circuit involving some prefrontal regions and limbic structures. Studies have also shown the relationship between brain activation of specific areas and sexual response. One such study involved exposing healthy young heterosexual males to two sequences of video material.

Neuroscience advances during the past few decades have been nothing short of astounding. Our notions about how the brain works and the relationship between mind and brain have been radically changed as we have come to understand how parts of the brain function to provide a wide range of human functions – from shortand long-term memory to the production of fear when certain areas of the brain (most particularly, the amygdala) are activated, and to how the brain's cognitive centers influence and are influenced by regions of the brain that produce emotions.

Many traditional notions of the “mind” as it reflects a dichotomy between mind and body are being revised. Evidence that the brain “makes” the mind is strengthening with indications that brain and mind are not two entirely different realms, but rather that the physical brain has the major role in creating and shaping our emotions and thinking.

With these ideas in mind, I began wondering about the impact of the brain on moral thinking. Because the brain is basic to decision making, it must play a powerful role in our thinking regarding moral issues, and consequently in the way we treat each other in our society to maintain order and uphold fairness, individual rights, and equity. Through my research on these issues as they involve a wide range of behavior, I learned that much thinking and some research have already gone into the impact of neuroscience on morality. Our view of morality has already been altered by new understanding of brain biology, and at the rate that new discoveries are being made, that view will change even more in the future.

In the election of a century from now, legislative reformists promoting The New Society take over the government. They are convinced that the brain directs the mind, that it is hardwired, that genetics creates the foundation of this wiring, and that the tuning-up process involves a delicate exchange between environment and brain biology.

Imagine now that headway has been made in the many ways that biological mistakes can be corrected or counterbalanced so that the brain operates according to the biology now known to underlie “mainstream” morality.

But during their campaign, our future legislators are questioned hard about time-honored notions of free will, individual responsibility, and the ability of human beings to change their behavior just by learning and accepting basic precepts of social morality. The reformists face the fact that the public's supposedly sophisticated understanding of brain science did not discard the notion that our species basically has control over its thoughts and intentions and, therefore, should be held individually responsible for immoral and illegal actions.

Despite that difficulty, the reformist candidates manage to convince most voters that they understand such concerns but are on top of the scientific knowledge about the brain.

One of the most astonishing things in the history of the brain is the seesawing between mentalism (focus on the mind as separate from the brain) and physicalism (emphasis on the primacy of the physical brain). As early as 400 BC, Hippocrates acknowledged the brain as the center of human emotions and thinking. During the ensuing centuries this viewpoint moved like a pendulum from that position to one espousing the dynamics of mental processes. Now, it appears, we are returning to a belief in the primacy of the brain.

When I began my practice in the late 1970s, psychiatry was in transition. A different model was replacing psychoanalytical explanations for mental and emotional illnesses, which had focused on the impact of infant and childhood development, particularly interactions with parents and siblings, for creating adult neuroses and psychoses. Research on behavioral genetics and brain neurotransmitters was bearing fruit, so that by the 1990s there was increasing acceptance of the notion that serious mental illness had its origins in biological dysfunction.

Let's assume you've just had a windfall and inherited a million dollars from a distant relative. The local real estate market has just undergone a major run-up, reaching higher levels than ever. Interest rates are very low; stocks have declined at least 42% from their high a few years ago, but all the indicators suggest they may rally in the near future. You are facing a very difficult decision: Should you keep the money in interest-bearing notes at a low 3%, invest in some solid Dow Jones stocks, put some of the money in high-risk securities, or consider buying a condominium?

Ask your brain: At least three areas of the brain affect monetary decisions – the amygdala and hippocampus; the frontal lobe, especially the prefrontal cortex; and the anterior cingulate cortex (along with the dorsolateral [top–side] area of the prefrontal cortex).

The amygdala is the brain's hot spot for emotions. Through its linkages with the sensory cortex and the frontal lobes, the amygdala quickly inspects and looks for dangers and attractions in the outside world. Once it has characterized the environment, it attaches an emotional importance to the stimulus, and then notifies the mind to act upon our emotions for our survival.

Fear and anger are two of the most powerful emotions generated by the amygdala, which plays a major role in conditioned fear, that is, fear derived from exposure to a fear-inducing or frightening object or situation. Confronting a frightening event, the amygdala will induce the secretion of adrenaline – which intensifies panic and is capable of causing the event to be embedded in memory.

My intention in writing this book has been to generate discussion about the findings of neuroscience research over the past few decades and their possible effect on our understanding of humankind's moral precepts. Extraordinary advances in neuroscience have accelerated the breakdown of the idea that a dichotomy exists between mind and body. This erosion of a long-standing belief has many implications for the medical treatment of neurological and psychiatric illnesses. Not least, it forces us to reexamine basic notions concerning the human condition and our construct of morality.

Our focus is shifting from an emphasis on mental processes – particularly the strong emphasis on free will and intentionality – to recognition of the very important role of the physical brain on human thought and behavior. We are learning that social morality begins in the brain, for without the brain, there would be no concept of morality; the brain allows for interaction among individuals within the community, and this interaction leads to the construction of a framework for moral order. Individual responsibility, therefore, must be reconsidered in the light of biological brain processes, which may under certain conditions exert a deterministic influence.

The events of 9/11, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, the uncontrollable sexual desires and greed of some members of society who infract the rights and personhood of others – these are among the many examples of “moral” or “immoral” behaviors that have captured the attention of the public over the past decade.

Among the factors that most undermine human relationships is “lying,” and particularly as it involves betrayal. We have all been taught that since early childhood. Most of us have also been told we will be punished if we are caught in a lie. Yet children lie frequently. They often exaggerate what happens to them or hide the facts to make them look better in the eyes of their parents. They may make up stories – some fanciful, others with a semblance of what would seem to be a reasonable pattern of facts. Or, they may twist the truth to their advantage, or just plain deny their involvement in some disallowed activity.

What is fascinating about children lying is that they don't need to be taught how to do it, nor do they need to be encouraged by others. Lying seems to come about naturally, as if something innate in a child enables him or her to deny what is even obvious or construct complicated stories to avoid an unpleasant or punishing reaction from parents, teachers, or friends. To a large extent lying is both self-protecting and exciting. It is similar to the thrill we experience from getting a bargain at a sale. Similarly, lying offers the excitement of manipulating a situation to our benefit and getting away with it. For the most part, young children lie about actions – something they have or have not done. They are not sophisticated enough to lie about how they feel until they get older – at least nine or ten years of age.

Only one letter distinguishes “bad” from “mad,” but these notions have been considered to be at opposite ends of a spectrum of extreme and unacceptable social behaviors. Both of them reveal the power of abnormal human forces that affect personal controls. “Madness,” we feel, means the afflicted person's behavior is beyond his or her control. When we think of “badness,” we see the person as having free will and motivated by malevolent, self-serving interests.

But the perception of “madness” and “badness” are changing with the revolution in neuroscience. We are learning that many of the distinctions we are accustomed to making are not so clear; significant overlaps appear to exist. Understanding how parts of the brain work to affect our thinking and behavior may eventually transform our formerly sacrosanct beliefs about personal identity and free will.

Nevertheless, madness and badness will likely remain as two distinct entities – although much more closely linked than we once believed possible. The underlying factors, such as mental control over intentions and behavior, that have persuaded society to treat madness and badness differently may no longer stand up in the vast majority of circumstances. This is not to say that “bad” individuals who have personal control over their actions do not exist, but rather that those who have full control are likely to represent a very small percentage of those we now label as bad. Excellent illustrations of changing notions of behaviors thought of as “bad,” but increasingly seen as due to brain biology, are the conditions of addiction and alcoholism. They are no longer perceived as resulting from character defects.

Throughout the ages, medical scholars and clinicians have been intrigued by rare syndromes that express one or more human qualities to an exaggerated degree and that are neither readily understood by the scientific knowledge of the time nor, seemingly, within the control of the individual afflicted. Most medical scientists today believe that these statistically highly improbable conditions, if understood, could create major “paradigm shifts” in our thinking about human biology, thereby leading to new, rich avenues for medical research into questions of brain function, individual control and “free will.”

In psychiatry some of these phenomena, like the “idiot savant,” are still very mysterious – as, for that matter, are geniuses like Mozart, who started composing music at three years of age. I remember attending a meeting several years ago when an idiot savant – he was essentially illiterate and scored very low on intelligence tests – listened to a recorded Bach composition by Glenn Gould and proceeded, with no training, to sit down and play it flawlessly on the piano. I was amazed, and remember wondering at the time whether this capacity for imitating music might be hardwired in the savant's brain.

Unusual syndromes affecting an individual's control of his or her behavior are fascinating not only because we don't fully understand the scientific reasons for their development, but also, and perhaps more important, because they make it obvious that choice entails biology as well as intention and thinking in the abstract. These neurologically described conditions manifest complex, goal-directed actions that have been shown to lie beyond the will power of the individual.

Technological mediation

The relation between art and technology

Down through history, the relationship between art and technology has assumed many guises. With the present-day rise of new media and technologies, new art forms are appearing which are often situated outside the traditional circuit. The body and its prostheses are highlighted in performances, and the visual arts often link up with industrial design and ICT applications. The formerly sharp dividing line between autonomous and applied art is gradually disappearing. Despite the increasing influence of technology on art, one still speaks of the autonomy of art. The relationship between art and technology is not without friction in contemporary art, but has it ever been problem-free? Contrary to generally held views that ascribe to the artist an almost innate autonomous position over and against cultural processes in which new technologies are adopted, artists actually tend to be accomplices to these social developments. Artists have always played a leading role in appropriating the new ways of looking and hearing that innovative technologies have offered. Technologies that open up new forms of experience have been domesticated and made manageable by artists. It is not an entirely innocent process. In fact, it can best be characterised as a disciplinary process in which the senses are culturally disciplined and the body is conditioned to match. Through the role they play in the embodiment of technology, artists are an accessory to such disciplinary processes.

The central question in describing the relationship between art and technology is that involving the nature and scope of technological mediation, since this is where this relation is fleshed out. Mediation takes place as soon as an artifact articulates our sensory relations with the world around us. Initially, the current sensory disposition is tipped off balance. That event is enveloped in new images and metaphors until a new balance is attained, one that incorporates the technology that caused the disruption in the first place. When new technologies are introduced to the public for the first time, a period of decentring commences: a period in which the users do not know what to make of the technology and the world to which it gives access.

During a stay from 1998-2000 as research fellow at the University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands, I participated in the so-called “Mumford-program” – a project to stimulate and co-ordinate intellectual collaboration on the spot between various strands of Science and Technology Studies: from philosophy, sociology, and history of science and technology up to research policy and management studies. This volume, discussing the analytical and normative consequences of (conceiving) technology and technological artifacts as agents, is one of the project's principal results. Accordingly, the contributing authors are (or were) all engaged with the University of Twente.

Earlier versions of the contributions to this volume were extensively discussed in a commonworkshopwith Emilie Gomart andKnut Sørensen as external discussants. I would like to thank both of them for their stimulating comments and critical remarks. In addition, different chapterswere reviewed seperatelyby experts:DonaldMacKenzie (Back totheDrawing Board), David Hess (Artifacts as Social Agents), Adele Clarke (Diversity and Distributed Agency in the Design and Use of MedicalVideo-Communication Technologies), Annemarie Mol (Choices and Choosing in Cancer Genetics), Andrew Feenberg (Artifacts and Attachment), Sven Kesselring (Taking the Socio- Technical Seriously), Bryan Wynne (Trapped in the Duality of Structure), and John Law (The Cultural Politics of Prenatal Screening). We are grateful for their encouraging remarks and helpful criticisms, which improved the original drafts substantially. DickPels, Tsjalling Swierstra, andNilDisco commented on the earlier versions of the introduction and the epilogue. Their persistent support helped me overcome moments of hesitation.

Finally, I would like to thank George Hall and Nil Disco for their careful corrections of the English, and Maarten Zeehandelaar for his conscientious compilation of the index.

Introduction

One of the great lapses of the sociological imagination has surely been an appreciation of the role of technology in society. The “founding fathers” – if we may except Marx – paid it scant attention, and their intellectual descendents have done little better. Mark Shields says:

What is stunning is of course the lack of interest in aphenomenonwhichby all accounts has been one of the prime levers of change in modern societies. The classical mission of sociology, to offer a new reflexive self-understanding for post-feudal, industrial societies, would seem to encourage sociologists to position the study of technology at the very centre of their intellectual programme. Instead, they have marginalised and disdained technology, treating it as a trivial corollary of economic or scientific rationality, and of sociological relevance only insofar as it had effects on other societal patterns (Ogburn 1922; Gouldner and Peterson 1962). Technology has been taken seriously as a sociological phenomenon itself by only a very few sociologists (Gilfillan 1935; Noble 1984). For the most part, it has been left to renegade traditions like Marxism and labour-process theory (MacKenzie 1984), recently reinforced by the new social studies of technology (SST) to unpack the “black box” of technology and reposition it as an authentic societal phenomenon. However, these traditions have adopted more or less sectarian standpointswith respect to mainstream sociology and have reinforced, rather than weakened, sociological prejudices regarding the ontological and epistemological “otherness” of technology.

This is not the place to dwell on the many reasons for the suppression of technology in the sociological project. What we can do here is examine how, given the nature of technology and the deep structure of academic sociology, technology might be incorporated into the sociological program in a way commensurate with its societal importance.

As to the nature of technology, it is now clear that it is far from the straightforward means (or set of tools) that sociologists have generally taken it to be.