E-patients are increasingly using the Internet to gain knowledge about medical conditions, thereby problematizing the biomedical assumption that patients are ‘lay’. The present paper addresses this development by investigating the epistemic identities of patients participating on an online health forum. Using poststructuralist discourse analysis to analyze a corpus of cardiology-related threads on an ‘Ask a Doctor’ forum, we compare how patients are discursively constructed by online professionals as ‘knowing’ or ‘not knowing’ with the online knowledge identities patients choose for themselves. (...) Analysis reveals a complex picture, with patients positioning themselves and being constructed as biomedical novices, as well as claiming the subject positions of experts challenging medical expertise. This paper provides a snapshot of an important social identity in transition, illustrates a procedure for comparing language use around imposed and self-appropriated identities, and considers discursive choice in relation to the metapragmatic matter of “sayability”. (shrink)

How have online communities affected the ways their users construct, view, and define their identity? In this paper, we will approach this issue by considering two philosophical sets of problems related to personal identity: the “Characterization Question” and the “Self-Other Relations Question.” Since these queries have traditionally brought out different problems around the concept of identity, here we aim at rethinking them in the framework of online communities. To do so, we will adopt an externalist and cognitive point of view (...) on online communities, describing them as virtual cognitive niches. We will evaluate and agree with the Attachment Theory of Identity, arguing that there is continuity between offline and online identity and that usually the latter contributes to the alteration of the former. Finally, we will discuss ways users can enact self-reflection on online frameworks, considering the impact of the Filter Bubble and the condition of Bad Faith. (shrink)

A central feature of being a celebrity is experiencing a divide between one's public image and private life. By appealing to the phenomenology of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, we analyze this experience as paradoxically involving both a disconnection and alienation from one's public persona and a sense of close connection with it. This ‘uncanny’ experience presents a psychological conflict for celebrities: they may have a public persona they feel alienated from and that is at the same time closely connected to them (...) and shapes many of their personal interactions. We offer three ways in which a celebrity might approach this conflict: (i) eradicating the divide between their public and private selves, (ii) splitting or separating their private and public selves, or (iii) embracing the arising tension. We argue that it is only this third approach that successfully mitigates the negative effects of the alienation felt by many celebrities. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to present a first list of ethical concerns that may arise from research and personal use of virtual reality (VR) and related technology, and to offer concrete recommendations for minimizing those risks. Many of the recommendations call for focused research initiatives. In the first part of the article, we discuss the relevant evidence from psychology that motivates our concerns. In Section “Plasticity in the Human Mind,” we cover some of the main results suggesting that (...) one’s environment can influence one’s psychological states, as well as recent work on inducing illusions of embodiment. Then, in Section “Illusions of Embodiment and Their Lasting Effect,” we go on to discuss recent evidence indicating that immersion in VR can have psychological effects that last after leaving the virtual environment. In the second part of the article, we turn to the risks and recommendations. We begin, in Section “The Research Ethics of VR,” with the research ethics of VR, covering six main topics: the limits of experimental environments, informed consent, clinical risks, dual-use, online research, and a general point about the limitations of a code of conduct for research. Then, in Section “Risks for Individuals and Society,” we turn to the risks of VR for the general public, covering four main topics: long-term immersion, neglect of the social and physical environment, risky content, and privacy. We offer concrete recommendations for each of these 10 topics, summarized in Table 1. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the reasons for, and consequences of, expanding our notions of human embodiment to virtual worlds. Increasingly, it is within virtual environments that we seek to extend, and enhance, who we are. Yet, philosophical worries persist about what sorts of selves count as moral agents, and the extent to which self-enhancements affect personal identity and agency. This paper critiques and expands the discourse on embodiment and personal identity by locating it within the virtual environments of Second Life, (...) challenging the prevailing limitations of what counts as identity-constituting embodiment. I argue that more inclusive notions of embodiment make possible a deeper understanding of its moral and epistemic force that constitutes and locates our identities in a universe of shared moral understandings. Thus, by including enhanced virtual embodiments alongside the non-virtual, not only do we expand our ideas of what it might mean to be embodied, but we also deepen our moral vocabularies of the self. (shrink)