Posthumanism: A critical history (original) (raw)

Encounters between Bioethics and the Posthumanities

Bioethics and the Posthumanities , 2022

This chapter tracks the histories of the posthumanities and bioethics in order to outline potential areas of dialogue between them. It contends that a normative, universality morality rooted in personhood cannot elucidate the rapidly changing account of the human necessitated by the contemporary biosciences, and argues that the posthumanities can and should inform the conversations around life, subjectivity, human nature, responsibility, and interspecies relations that underpin bioethical decision-making. Finally, it outlines a bioethics informed by the posthumanities, which would simultaneously operate within existing bioethical discourse whilst rethinking the formulation of bioethical questions.

An Ethical Appraisal of Posthumanism

Technology has already been part of our way of life. It is being used in the social world for social innovation and communication. It has become significant in human world for creation, but has also become an instrument for destruction. It challenges human reason for it becomes the reason itself. Such human reason is the essence of humanity, hence, humanism is equated to human reason. Likewise, it claims the ending of humanism for it enters in the discourse of posthumanism in the technological realm. In this case, there is a need to clarify the idea of posthumanism that at same time uphold and will robust the sense of humanity. The study aims to articulate ethical concepts based on the idea of posthumanism as the study argues posthumanism as the synthesis of man and technology relation. The research design is qualitative in nature specifically a philosophical research employing two levels of analysis; synthesis and constructivism. The former is used to explicate and consolidate ideas on posthumanism and the latter is used to form concepts and principles on the ethical valuations. The study then presented threefold principles based on the ethical valuations on posthumanism vested in neutral position.

Introducing Post- and Transhumanism

Scientific and technological advances have questioned predominant doctrines concerning the human condition. Transhumanism and posthumanism are among the most recent and prominent manifestations of this phenomenon. Debates on trans- and posthumanism have not only gained a considerable amount of academic and popular attention recently, but have also created a widespread conceptual confusion. This is no surprise, considering their recent dates of origin, their conceptual similarities, and their engagements with similar questions, topics, and motifs. Furthermore, trans- as well as posthumanism frequently question their relationship to humanism and reconsider what it means to be human. In this regard both movements are streaming beyond humanism. What this means, however, is far from clear and shall be subject of discussion in this volume.

Humanism, Transhumanism and Posthumanism

The Humanist and the transhumanist propose different methods for cultivating human capacities. The transhumanist claims that traditional techniques favoured by the humanist run up against the limits of our biology. She believes that prospective technologies could further the humanist cause by improving our nature. However, the transhumanist faces a difficulty. Her policies could produce posthumans. Evaluating posthuman lives might be impossible for us. But discounting them is not an option because she will share responsibility for their creation. I argue that one way through this impasse is for the transhumanist to produce posthumans or to become posthuman.

Book review of Post- and Transhumanism: An Introduction

Journal of Evolution and Technology (JET), 2015

As post- and transhumanism have become ever-hotter topics over the past decade or so, their boundaries have become muddled by misappropriations and misunderstandings of what defines them, and especially what distinguishes them from each other. This edition of essays by various experts, edited by Robert Ranisch and Stefan Sorgner, goes a long way to resolve these issues. The introductory essay by the two editors – both of whom are philosophers – is alone worth the book’s purchase price. They give a very straightforward and understandable synopsis of what defines posthumanism, transhumanism, and the posthuman; and they also give thumbnail sketches of the major differences between them. Basically, transhumanists believe in improving the human species by using any and every form of emerging technology. Technology is meant in the broad sense here: it includes everything from pharmaceuticals to digital technology, genetic modification to nanotechnology. The posthuman is the state that transhumans aspire to: a state in which our species is both morally and physically improved, and maybe immortal – a species improved to the point where we perhaps become a different (and thus “posthuman”) species altogether.

Wolfe, Cary. What is Posthumanism? University of Minnesota Press, 2010. Paperback: $24.95

Spectra, 2020

Hannah Glasson's review of Cary Wolfe's What is Posthumanism? outlines the theoretical tensions in Wolfe's formulation of posthumanism. Glasson acknowledges the potential for Wolfe's systems theory approach to create more theoretically rigorous approaches to posthumanist ecological ethics. However, the reductive connection between animal studies and disability studies has the potential to marginalize voices of disabled humans in the aim to decenter the human. The human remains central to Wolfe's notion of posthumanism with the effect of lessening the rhetorical force of the argument. Wolfe provokes a theoretical conversation that could make way for rethinking the anthropocentric location of critical discourse by creating space for recognition of the nonhuman. This conversation can potentially open possibilities broader than simply using posthumanism as a theoretical tool to reimagine existing human undertakings, disciplines, and knowledges.