The Posthuman Condition: Ethics, Aesthetics and Politics of Biotechnological Challenges

229 Pages·2012·2.46 MB·English

by  Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen

If biotechnology can be used to “upgrade” humans physically and mentally, T Edited by Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen,
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should it be used at all? And, if so, to what extent? How will biotechnology e Mads Rosendahl Thomsen and Jacob Wamberg

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affect societal cohesion? Can the development be controlled, or is this a o
s The Posthuman
Pandora’s box that should remain closed? t
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These are but a few of the perplex questions facing scientists as a result of m Condition
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the increasing ability of technology to change biology and, in turn, pro­ n

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foundly change human living conditions. This development has created a o Ethics, Aesthetics and Politics of
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new posthuman horizon that will influence contemporary life and politics
d Biotechnological Challenges
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in a number of ways. t
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The Posthuman Condition addresses the challenges of:
• Imagining a society where the properties of humans have shifted radically
• Assessing the scope of deploying technologies that are already underway
• Basing decisions on an ethical foundation that does not entail a concept
of human nature
• Ascertaining the types of political action that can and should be taken in
the face of this situation
The anthology brings together researchers from a wide range of disciplines:
biotechnology, medicine, ethics, politics, and aesthetics, and among con­
tributors are Francis Fukuyama, Julian Savulescu, Maxwell J. Mehlman,
John Harris and Chris Hables Gray.
aarhus university press
iIsSbBnN 997788- 8877- 77993344-5 57700-6 6
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9 788779345706
Posthuman_omslag.indd 1 26/04/12 11.16
The Posthuman Condition
The Posthuman Condition

The Posthuman Condition
Ethics, Aesthetics and Politics
of Biotech nological Challenges
Edited by
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Mads Rosendahl Thomsen
and Jacob Wamberg
AARHUS UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Posthuman Condition
MatchPoints 3
© the authors and Aarhus University Press
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ISBN 978 87 7124 069 6
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Contents
Posthuman Horizons and Realities: Introduction
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Mads Rosendahl Thomsen and Jacob Wamberg .......................... 7
Notes on contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
PART I · TECH NOLOGICAL SCENARIOS
Cyborging the Posthuman: Participatory Evolution
Chris Hables Gray .............................................................................. 25
How Close Are We to Being Able to Achieve the Transhumanist Vision?
Maxwell J. Mehlman ............................................................................ 38
Genetics – It Just Got Personal
Lone Frank .................................................................................... 48
The Medicine of the Future – Live Long and Prosper?
Søren Holm ................................................................................... 60
PART II · ETHICAL DILEMMAS
Post-What? (And Why Does It Matter?)
Sarah Chan and Joh n Harris ..................................................................... 75
Treating Symptoms Rather Than Causes? On “Enhancement” and Social Oppression
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
A Liberal View on Liberal Enhancement
Lene Bomann-Larsen ........................................................................... 103
PART III · ARTISTIC RESPONSES
Three Ways of Change: The New Human in Literature
Mads Rosendahl Thomsen ...................................................................... 117
Artistic Consequences of Tech nology Insinuating Itself into the Human Body
Gert Balling ................................................................................... 128
Dehumanizing Danto and Fukuyama: Towards a Post-Hegelian Role for Art in Evolution
Jacob Wamberg ................................................................................ 141
PART IV · POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES
Agency or Inevitability: Will Human Beings Control Their Tech nological Future?
Francis Fukuyama .............................................................................. 157
Biological Egalitarianism: A Defence
Torbjörn Tännsjö ............................................................................... 170
Enhancing Equality
Julian Savulescu ................................................................................ 184
Index........................................................................................ 205
Posthuman Horizons and Realities:
Introduction
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Mads Rosendahl Thomsen and Jacob Wamberg
Even though Homo sapiens during the last century and a half have, by and large,
come to terms with being the result of a long and amazing evolution, until recently
there has not been much speculation about the future prospects of humanity as we
know it. The pace of Charles Darwin’s evolution by natural selection is very slow
and what the successors to this most-advanced species may turn out to be has been
too speculative a question to really matter. However, in the past two decades, this
perspective has shifted as a number of astounding tech nological developments have
taken place. These developments have the power to completely overturn human
evolution from its dependency on unplanned mutations and natural selection to
an artificial evolution where conscious decisions and tech nological design matter
more – thus setting the direction for an array of minor and major changes in both
the human as well as other species. This shift promises a profound transformation
of humanity and society as a whole, indeed of the entire life of our planet, and thus
it has received a quite dramatic name: the posthuman.
The interdisciplinary field emerging around the idea of the posthuman had a
less radical forerunner in posthumanism, a movement already imploding the an-
thropocentric perspective of the humanities since the 1960s: either negatively as
an anti-humanistic deconstruction of the idea of the human subject, or positively
as an ecological orientation focusing on life in all its varieties (Badmington 2011:
374). The posthuman thus signifies a move from posthumanism’s agenda, which
was purely conceptual, to a mixed field of theory and practice where interventions
of biotech nology supposedly will change the human species to something clearly
separate from the human being we know. An intermediate step towards such a de-
velopment is often referred to as “transhuman” which signifies individuals that bear
strong non-human traits, as for example cyborgs or chimeras (Savulescu 2010: 214).
Although this notion concerns a passage in which the prosthetic enhancements
of the body have not yet dissolved the idea of the human subject altogether, the
transhuman is to an even greater degree than the posthuman permeated by utopian
expectations.
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 Contents
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Prior to 1990 the term “posthuman” was rarely used, and even though science
fiction and futuristic philosophies of tech nology have conjured up numerous visions
of new humans, the idea of a radical change in life conditions and essential traits
of the species did not set a broader agenda. In the past decade and a half, however,
it has become a thriving subject where very different approaches and visions in-
tersect and where science and medicine as well as philosophy, law, art, literature
and psychology all contribute with unique perspectives. It is a field that deals with
both imminent uses of new tech nologies and more long-term conjectures about
the human species. In both cases it produces scenarios that test the limits of what
is commonly considered ethical.
The posthuman essentially revolves around the key ethical dilemmas made
acute by tech nological advances. In spite of recurrent doubts in many parts of
societal debates as to whether tech nology actually improves civilization or not –
from the ancient myths of civilization’s tech nologically conditioned decadence to
Theodor W. Adorno, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger’s pessimistic
notions of rationalistic tech nology colonizing the life world – it is a widely held belief
in parliamentary politics, ‘third world’ development strategies and large parts of
popular culture that most of the options tech nology facilitates are beneficial: that
longer lives, better health, and accelerated actions are desirable. This confidence
in tech nological progress is a significant heritage of the Enlightenment thinking,
and in many ways it runs smoothly together with other aspects of the optimistic
view of humankind’s progressive evolution.
However, turning to the inherent rights for every human being expressed in the
UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the question is how progres-
sion towards a posthuman universalism can coexist with the idea of every human’s
value as expressed in the declaration. Are individuals with an even higher dignity
possible? Or is it so that human dignity is corrupted by biotech nological enhance-
ment of the human body? In a recurrent reference in this book, Our Posthuman Fu-
ture from 2002, Francis Fukuyama has no doubts. Drawing upon dystopian visions
such as those put forward in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), Fukuyama
insists that certain core values of the human subject are so complex and irreducible
to simple dogmas that a biotech nological attempt to alter their foundations could
lead to disastrous results (Fukuyama 2002: 218).
It seems reasonable to not only relate Fukuyama’s worries to a distant future,
but to keep the issue in mind even today. A number of biotech nologies have already
presented us with a range of bewildering ethical questions, and promise to do so
even more comprehensively in the future. The most important are the following
developments: The advanced diagnosis of genes, which will affect which foetuses will
be allowed to grow and enter the world as humans. Some selections will be seen
as generally permissible, whereas others will be seen as a step towards intolerance
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 Contents
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