BIOCIDE OR SOLIDARITY: The Mutual Vulnerability Principle in Dan Wells's Partials (original) (raw)

In Defense of Posthuman Vulnerability

Scientia et Fides, 2021

Transhumanism is a challenging movement that invites us to rethink what defines humanity, including what we value and regret the most about our existence. Vulnerability is a key concept that require thorough philosophical scrutiny concerning transhumanist proposals. Vulnerability can refer to a universal condition of human life (ontological vulnerability) or, rather, to the specific exposure to certain harms due to particular situations (social vulnerability). Even if we are all vulnerable in the first sense, there are also different sources and levels of vulnerability depending on concrete social circumstances. Recently, Michael Hauskeller (2019) argued about a fundamental incompatibility between transhumanism and vulnerability. He understands vulnerability as an existential category, linked to woundability and mortality. This idea is akin to ontological vulnerability, but it does not notice some important features of social vulnerability. On the other side, transhumanism is a complex and non-homogeneous movement. Here we distinguish between a strong and a weak version of transhumanism. We will propose that the salience of vulnerability is only diminished In Defense of Posthuman Vulnerability BELÉN LIEDO, JON RUEDA 9(1)/2021 216 B E L É N L I E D O, J O N R U E DA in the radical one, while a moderate version can reconcile vulnerability with human enhancement. Thus, vulnerability, a concept that has recently gained much importance as an anthropological category in contemporary ethics, is not necessarily at odds with any transhumanist project.

Biopolitical Life and Its Milieu Between Self-Preservation and Self-Transgression

Materiali Foucaltiani, 2016

Biopolitical Life and Its Milieu. Between Self-Preservation and Self-Transgression Michel Foucault defines biopolitics, on the one hand, through its reference to life as its object but, on the other hand, he argues that the specificity of the biopoliti- cal techniques lies in the quality of the relation to life that is a positive and not a repressive one, and it is intrinsic and not exterior to its object: biopolitical tech- niques increase, protect and regulate life – in short, they “make live”. In order to avoid the “optimistic” misreading of Foucault’s biopower, this article proposes to concretize the meaning of this “positive” relationship between power and life through the notion of “mimesis” and by taking a closer look at the “dynamic” understanding of life, such as it has been developed by Georges Canguilhem, which unfolds in the polarity between a self-regulating (homeostatic) and a self- transgressive (creative) dynamic. The main hypothesis of this article is that, in order to govern life, the forms of biopower imitate or mimetize the very dynamic of life, that is, its polarity between life and death, or between auto-transgression and auto-conservation, the normal (one should read normative) and the pathologi- cal. The norms of biopower operate as if they were vital. Thus, the entanglement of the self-preservative and the self-transgressive dimensions of the biopolitical life permits to underline that the latter is as much a technique of biopolitics as the former – and much more so under current ultra-neoliberal conditions and the reign of the “entrepreneurial self”. Keywords: Biopolitics, Governmentality, Life, Mimesis, Milieu, Population, Organism.

In defence of posthuman vulnerability

Scientia et Fides, 2021

Transhumanism is a challenging movement that invites us to rethink what defines humanity, including what we value and regret the most about our existence. Vulnerability is a key concept that require thorough philosophical scrutiny concerning transhumanist proposals. Vulnerability can refer to a universal condition of human life (ontological vulnerability) or, rather, to the specific exposure to certain harms due to particular situations (social vulnerability). Even if we are all vulnerable in the first sense, there are also different sources and levels of vulnerability depending on concrete social circumstances. Recently, Michael Hauskeller (2019) argued about a fundamental incompatibility between transhumanism and vulnerability. He understands vulnerability as an existential category, linked to woundability and mortality. This idea is akin to ontological vulnerability, but it does not notice some important features of social vulnerability. On the other side, transhumanism is a complex and non-homogeneous movement. Here we distinguish between a strong and a weak version of transhumanism. We will propose that the salience of vulnerability is only diminished

Avoiding 'biopolitical catastrophe': Responses to the antinomical duality of biopolitical discourse in Agamben, Esposito and Arendt (Master's Dissertation)

In this dissertation I will analyse the responses of three political theorists, Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, and Hannah Arendt, to the antinomical duality of contemporary biopolitical discourse. In doing so I hope to demonstrate not only the existence of a thanatopolitical logic within biopolitical rationalities, but also examine how this paradox may be overcome. Following an in depth analysis of both Bios by Esposito and Agamben's revolutionary messianism, I will propose Arendt's concept of natality as a principle which effectively synthesis' the messianic with biopolitics; allowing us to reconnect biological life with freedom and politics, whilst also overcoming the violent duality of biopolitics, and thereby avoiding 'biopolitical catastrophe'.

Tracing the Ambiguity of the Posthuman Condition amid the Pandemic: A Biopolitical Rendition

Over the years, humans have evolved in par with rise of information technology and science into a being that has the capability of a machine or possess the power to enslave all the machines with the tip of the fingers, which eventually resulted in the subsequent breach between the humans and their commitment towards the nature due to the humongous exploitation of its resources by humans. With the outbreak of the corona virus, the centrality of human was deconstructed which resulted in the disintegration of the closed hegemonic hierarchal system. Even though humans became the part of the rhizomatic model, inclusive of all forms of life, the pandemic also called for the incorporation of every aspect of the society into its fold, including the power structures of the society. The focus of this paper is on the ambiguous nature of the posthuman condition during the pandemic by drawing the ambivalent aspect of Mikhail Bakhtin's carnivalism with its subtle yet dynamic associations with the concept of biopolitics of Michel Foucault. This paper further traces the relationship that exists between the posthuman state, the carnivalism, and the state of emergency during a pandemic.

Capitalism, War and Biopolitics in the Pandemic Era. What are our lives worth to a neoliberal government?

VIRTUAL SEMINAR 18-19 NOVEMBER, 2020

What are our lives worth to a neoliberal government? As Michel Foucault taught us, neoliberalism is an "art of governing". Based on the "regime of truth " of the market, this governmentality normalizes and moralizes subjectivities under the horizon of capital accumulation (economic, social, cultural, symbolic). Neoliberalism has shaped a biopolitical "way of the world" which, through the logic of a radical utilitarianism based on competition, individual responsibility, economic inequalities and the universal empire of value, downgrade the value of human lives in favor of profit opportunities. In the neoliberal order, the value of human life has always been a critical issue; with the COVID-19 pandemics, this issue is even more relevant and needs to be addressed urgently. More recently, neoliberal governments have deployed authoritarian neoconservative political agendas that promote a policy of destruction of the Commons, that is also combined with a policy of death (necropolitics) towards the populations or social groups considered as useless (or surplus) under the neoliberal processes of normalization and moralization. This is the reason why we are witnessing today, in the political field, clashes that radically oppose identities, nationalities, religions, and ways of life. These clashes embody a somehow "global civil war", where violence is felt everywhere and by everyone, and where hegemonic groups intend to neutralize the lives of those who represent obstacles for the implementation of their political agenda. The aim of this scientific colloquium is therefore to put into perspective critical interdisciplinary reflections on the issue of the value of the human being under a neoliberal and bio-necro-political capitalist order. Que valent nos vies pour un gouvernement néolibéral ? Capitalisme, Guerre et Biopolitique dans l'ère pandémique Que valent nos vies pour un gouvernement néolibéral ? Comme nous l'a enseigné Michel Foucault, le néolibéralisme est un « art de gouverner ». Fondé sur le « régime de vérité » du marché, cette gouvernementalité nous incite à normaliser et moraliser nos vies et nos actions pour les consacrer à l'accumulation d'un capital (économique, social, culturel, symbolique). Le néolibéralisme nous a imposé une « raison du monde » biopolitique qui, par les logiques d'un utilitarisme radical fondées sur la compétition, la responsabilité individuelle, les inégalités économiques et l'empire universel de la valeur, n'hésite pas à mettre en balance des vies humaines et des opportunités de profit. Dans l'ordre néolibéral, la question de la valeur de la vie humaine se posait déjà avant la pandémie du Covid-19 ; elle se pose aujourd'hui avec d'autant plus d'acuité. Plus récemment, les gouvernements néolibéraux ont volontiers recouru à des programmes politiques néo-conservateurs autoritaires qui promeuvent une politique de destruction des Communs assortie d'une politique de mort (nécropolitique) eu égard aux populations ou groupes sociaux jugés inutiles ou excédentaires dans le projet néolibéral, normalisateur et moral. C'est pourquoi nous assistons aujourd'hui, dans le champ politique, à des affrontements qui opposent radicalement les identités, les nations, les religions, et les modes de vie. Ces affrontements mettent en scène une véritable « guerre civile mondiale », dont la violence est ressentie partout et par tous, et dans le cadre de laquelle les groupes hégémoniques proposent que soient neutralisées ou éliminées les vies de ceux et celles qui constituent des obstacles pour la mise en oeuvre de leur projet politique. L'objectif de ce colloque scientifique est donc de

Biowarfare as a biopolitical icon

Poiesis & Praxis, 2005

Nuclear warfare threat has been one of the main drive for cultural, political, economical and social changes in the late twentieth century, biological warfare threat is about to take it over. However, while nuclear warfare was a concrete possibility, biological warfare is just an elusive risk. This paper will explore some reasons for this apparent inconsistency by discussing biowarfare from a symbolic point of view, looking for its inner meanings and philosophical implications.

Toxic Nature : Narratives of Biocultural Precarity

Nature and Literary Studies, 2022

All biological precarity is biocultural precarity. “Precarity” here signals the nature of existence of biological forms embedded in contexts inimical – toxic – to life. Precarity induced by toxins and toxicity alters the form of life adversely. The toxic nature of human nature (which is my concern here, rather than toxicity in rivers, soil, and nonhuman lifeforms), so to speak, may have its origins in exogenous causal factors such as industrial (Bhopal’s methyl isocyanate) or agricultural pollutants (such as Endosulfan sprayed as pesticide in Kerala, southern India), pharmacological interven- tions (numerous mutagens), or internal and inherited factors (genetically inherited conditions such as Huntington’s disease). The scope and degree of toxic human nature – de!ned as a toxicity embedded in the material unit of the human that produces alterations, diseases, conditions that adversely a"ect corporeal, intellectual, psychological, emotional behaviors – may be somatic or genetic, that is, restricted to an individual and non- reproducible (somatic), or transmissible across generations (genetic). In all cases, this chapter suggests, changes in human nature – by which I mean anatomical, physiological, behavioral – are biocultural, with both somatic and genetic toxicity being embedded in cultural systems and processes, from family to biomedicine, care-giving apparatuses to insurance.