Humanity 2.0: what it means to be human past, present and future

274 Pages·2011·0.766 MB·English

by  Fuller, Steve

Humanity 2.0
What it Means to be Human
Past, Present and Future
Steve Fuller
Humanity 2.0
Also by Steve Fuller
SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND ITS DISCONTENTS
PHILOSOPHY, RHETORIC AND THE END OF KNOWLEDGE
The Coming of Science and Technology Studies (2nd Edition) (co-authored)
SCIENCE (CONCEPTS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES)
THE GOVERNANCE OF SCIENCE
Ideology and the Future of the Open Society
THOMAS KUHN
A Philosophical History for Our Times
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FOUNDATIONS
KUHN VS POPPER
The Struggle for the Soul of Science
THE INTELLECTUAL
The Positive Power of Negative Thinking
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES
THE NEW SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
THE KNOWLEDGE BOOK
Key Concepts in Philosophy, Science and Culture
NEW FRONTIERS IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES
SCIENCE VS RELIGION?
Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution
DISSENT OVER DESCENT
Intelligent Design’s Challenge to Darwinism
THE SOCIOLOGY OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE
The Career of the Mind In and Around the Academy
SCIENCE (THE ART OF LIVING)
Humanity 2.0
What it Means to be Human Past, Present
and Future
Steve Fuller
University of Warwick, UK
© Steve Fuller 2011
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First published 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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ISBN 978-0-230-23342-3 hardback
ISBN 978-0-230-23343-0 paperback
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
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country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fuller, Steve, 1959–
Humanity 2.0 : what it means to be human past, present and future /
Steve Fuller.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-230-23343-0 (pbk.)
1. Social sciences–Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Social ethics. I. Title.
H61.F848 2011
301.01–dc23 2011016894
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
Contents
List of Tables vii
Introduction: What is Humanity 2.0? 1
Chapter 1 Humanity Poised Between Biology and Ideology 7
1 Science’s twin taboos: Race and religion 8
2 Sociology’s official anti-biologism and unofficial 16
soft racism
3 Alternative biological foundations of the modern 21
welfare state: Germany and Scandinavia
4 Britain’s curious erasure of both biology and 27
sociology: 1907 and all that
5 Methodological interlude: Towards a normative 41
historiography of science
6 Memes vs.genes: Humanity’s perennial need to 45
decouple ideology from biology
7 One step back to Weimar: The New Left’s 51
retrenchment of human embodiment
8 Two steps beyond Darwin: Disembodying 60
humanity in the search for extraterrestrial life
Chapter 2 Defining the Human: The Always Already – or 69
Never to be – Object of the Social Sciences?
1 Does the success of the social sciences depend 69
on our humanity?
2 The precariousness of the human: Why Foucault 72
is (unfortunately) correct
3 Humanity as a bipolar disorder and the legacy 78
of John Duns Scotus
4 Renaturalisation as dehumanisation: The long 86
march back to Scotland
5 Recapitulating humanity’s bipolar disorder: 95
Towards a theory of mendicant modernities
6 The fugitive essence of ‘The Human’: Towards 97
Humanity 2.0?
Chapter 3 A Policy Blueprint for Humanity 2.0: 110
The Converging Technologies Agenda
1 Converging technologies as public relations 111
for science
v
vi Contents
2 The transatlantic stakes in the CT agenda 115
3 Defining ‘convergence’ in converging 124
technologies: Ontological levelling
4 CT’s fixation on nanotechnology: 132
The resurgence of the chemical worldview
5 Better living through biology: A hidden 139
theme in the history of social science
6 The transhumanist challenge: Can CT 150
‘enhance evolution’?
7 Conclusions: The prospects for the CT agenda 160
Chapter 4 A Theology 2.0 for Humanity 2.0: Thinking 163
Outside the Neo-Darwinian Box
1 Theology at its worst: Philosophy of science 164
as neo-Darwinian apologetics
2 Theology at its best: Intelligent design as 173
heuristic for scientific discovery
3 Theology as a source of empowerment in 184
science education
4 Joseph Priestley’s Theology 2.0: The completion 196
of Newton’s Unitarian project
5 Teilhard de Chardin’s Theology 2.0: 201
The completion of divine creation itself
Chapter 5 Conclusion: In Search of Humanity 2.0’s Moral 209
Horizon – Or, How to Suffer Smart in the
21stCentury
1 Divine suffering and its human remediation, 210
aka distributive justice
2 The human simulation of divine legislation, 216
aka justified suffering
3 How might suffering be justified in the days 222
to come?
4 Can either wisdom or prophecy justify suffering 231
in a secular age?
5 The dawn of suffering smart: Recycling evil in 241
the name of good
Bibliography 248
Index 263
List of Tables
2.1 Humanity as a Bipolar Disorder: Paris vs.Oxford 80
3.1 The Physical vs. the Chemical Worldviews 135
3.2 The Metaphysical History of Genetics 138
3.3 ‘Converging Technologies’ Before and After the 146
20thCentury
3.4 Genetics Before and After the DNA Revolution 149
vii
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Introduction:
What is Humanity 2.0?
This book is about Humanity 2.0, the emerging object of both social
science and social policy in the 21stcentury. A good way to understand
this new entity is to consider a deep ambiguity in what ‘humane’
means in perennial calls for the ‘humane treatment of animals’. If it
means that animals should be treated as humans are normallytreated,
then the charge is not very demanding. Aside from close friends and
family members, we regard most people with an attitude of benign
neglect, what Norman Geras (1998) rather precisely calls ‘the contract
of mutual indifference’. Such an attitude works well in a society of self-
motivated individuals with reasonable resources at their disposal to
achieve their ends, as envisaged by, say, Adam Smith. However, in a
society lacking such initial endowments, all sorts of misery and depriv-
ation would end up being tolerated as long as the victims remained
out of sight. Notwithstanding significant pockets of welfare states
and socialist regimes, today the world as a whole approximates such a
state of benign neglect. If one takes this sociological fact seriously, then
one may easily conclude that those who call for the humane treatment
of animals are engaged in special pleading – in effect advocating better
treatment for animals than humans, say, in terms of the scrupulousness
with which suffering would be monitored and addressed.
Now of course, there is a more charitable spin to calls for the humane
treatment of animals. It might be meant to recall levels of concern and
care that we have yet to reach even in our own species. In that case,
our treatment of animals is designed to hold up a mirror to our souls:
We treat animals poorly because we treat humans poorly. While this argu-
ment may be rhetorically effective in gaining our attention, the lessons to
be learned are far from clear. After all, a concerted policy effort to relieve
all human suffering would be enormously time- and energy-intensive.
1