Psychopharmacological substances play a significant role in both Brave New World and in Island. In this article I will discuss Huxley’s novels from this perspective, focussing especially on the role of psychopharmacological substances in both books. In this sense, they can be considered as heuristic ‘tools’ to help us think about the possible worlds that technology could bring about. In this article I claim that these two novels can be understood as a kind of elaborate thought experiments of what the world could look like if certain powers and technologies became available to us.
Whereas Brave New World vividly depicts a world in which humans have become less-thanhuman by means of biotechnological and socioscientific techniques, Island sketches an idyllic community in which scientific knowledge is carefully employed for the enhancement of the quality of human lives. It is less well known that Huxley has also written a utopian novel, Island (1962), published about 30 years after Brave New World. It is claimed that the debate should not get stuck in an opposition of dystopian and utopian views, but should address important issues that demand attention in our real world: those of evaluation and governance of enhancing psychopharmacological substances in democratic, pluralistic societies.Īldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) is a famous and widely known dystopia, frequently called upon in public discussions about biotechnological developments. The second part of the paper draws some further conclusions for the ethical debate on psychopharmacology and human enhancement, by comparing the novels not only with each other, but also with our present reality. This is illustrated by a discussion of the issue of psychopharmacology and authenticity. If we see fiction as a way of imagining what the world could look like, then what can we learn from Huxley’s novels about psychopharmacology and how does that relate to the discussion in the ethical and philosophical literature on this subject? The paper argues that in the current ethical discussion the dystopian vision on psychopharmacology is dominant, but that a comparison between Brave New World and Island shows that a more utopian view is possible as well. This paper will discuss both novels focussing especially on the role of psychopharmacological substances. It is less well known that 30 years later Huxley also wrote a utopian novel, called Island. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a famous dystopia, frequently called upon in public discussions about new biotechnology.
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