Should posthuman be (human)-enhancement based? The posthuman project in the age of climate change and space travelling
Author(s)
Date Issued
2023
Type
article
Issue
1
Start Page
273
End Page
294
Journal
Abstract
Trans-humanism and post-humanism converge on the importance of promoting the birth of the
post-human, an individual with capacities “greatly exceeding the maximum attainable by any current human being without recourse to new technological means”. A project of this type indeed
has nothing therapeutic about it, so it does not concern the field of medicine. However, this does
not mean it cannot be a morally acceptable project. If we consider the use of biotechnologies
approvable when their purposes are therapeutic, then we should all the more accept (or see as
mandatory) the use of these technologies for the purposes of improvement, in that at times only
enhancement allows the quality of life to be improved. Even if we agree with Stefan Lorenz
Sorgner that plans for human enhancement cannot be considered intrinsically immoral, we intend
to demonstrate that enhancing human skills is not the only reason that can justify a programme
to replan human nature and promote the ‘posthuman’. In our opinion, a more coherent
posthuman plan should take into account the possibility of overcoming the traditional conception
of the human more radically than we have thus far done.
Subjects