Self-optimization: Goethe Lecture on 12.12.2017
On Tuesday, 12 December 2017, Dr. Greta Wagner, research associate at the Institute of Sociology and postdoctoral researcher at the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders" at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, spoke on the topic: Self-optimization. The practice and criticism of taking performance-enhancing psychotropic drugs.
Self-optimization. Practice and criticism of taking performance-enhancing psychotropic drugs.
'Becoming better' in today's society has become the goal of many areas of personal life - from education, career and relationships to the functioning of the brain, the shape of the body and one's own feelings.
In her lecture, Greta Wagner traced the social developments that have increased the importance of self-optimization and presented a particular case of self-optimization: Neuroenhancement as an attempt to optimize cognitive performance by taking psychotropic drugs that are approved for the treatment of attention deficit disorder. This practice not only raises justice-related questions as to whether the consumption of performance-enhancing drugs jeopardizes the fairness of a society, but also the individual ethical question of whether we are harming ourselves when we pursue self-optimization in an invasive way.
More about Dr. Greta Wagner
Dr. Greta Wagner studied sociology at the Free University of Berlin and at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. From 2009 to 2011, she was a scholarship holder and member of the junior research group "Crisis and Normative Order - Variations of 'Neoliberalism' and their Transformation" at the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders" at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.
In 2011, she became a research assistant at the Institute of Sociology with a focus on social inequality at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. In 2014, she received her doctorate (Dr. phil.) from Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.
Her work focuses on the sociology of morality, social inequality, sociology of emotions, sociological diagnoses of time and theories of social suffering.
In 2017, Dr. Greta Wagner published the monograph "Selbstoptimierung. Praxis und Kritik von Neuroenhancement" in the Campus series Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie und Sozialphilosophie.
Since November 2017, she has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders" at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.