December 17, 2024

Driving

58 minutes

Have you ever wanted to go on a road trip with the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan? After listening to this episode, you certainly won’t! In episode 119 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about the experience of driving and the moral and social dilemmas involved with it. How does driving alter our relationship with time and space? What is the “long distance truck driver problem”, and what does it have to do with animal consciousness? And how should we respond to the rise in self-driving cars? Buckle in and get ready for this ride into the philosophy of driving. Plus, in the bonus they dive deeper into the ethics of self-driving cars, exploring the repercussions hacking could have on self-driving cars. What moral philosophy should be programmed into the self-driving vehicles of the future? And who gets to decide?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed:
David Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of The Mind
Kenneth Jackson, The Crabgrass Frontier
Stamatis Karnouskos, “Self-Driving Car Acceptance and the Rule of Ethics”
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception
Catherine Millot, Life with Lacan
Lynne Pearce, Drivetime
William Ratoff, “Self-driving Cars and the Right to Drive”
Mark Rowlands, Animal Rights: Moral Theory and Practice
Paul Virilio, Speed and Politics: An Essay on Dromology
Jamieson Webster, “Riding in Cars with Jacques Lacan”
Andreas Wolkenstein, “What has the Trolley Dilemma ever done for us (and what will it do in the future)? On some recent debates about the ethics of self- driving cars”