Abstract
In this piece, I consider various problematic themes of the transhumanist literature that carry significant ethical import, to point out that traditional utilitarian approaches, the ones standardly preferred by transhumanism, reveal some grave conundrums and are thus unable to satisfactorily address several pressing issues that afflict the movement. Instead of aiming at solving each one of them, I propose rethinking the novel ethical problems triggered by transhumanism via a consideration of divergent ethical frameworks, as opposed to the utilitarian one used by default. I advance that alternative ethical positions, such as duty and virtue ethics, deserve to be seriously examined as viable systems of moral reasoning for this pervasive phenomenon. In this vein, I jump-start the articulation of deontological and aretaic narratives applied to transhumanism. I conclude by urging further investigation on alternative ethical outlooks applied to the movement, suggesting further scholarship on the intersection of these with the shared aim of human flourishing.
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Notes
Perhaps the most radical utilitarian stance in this context is Pearce (1995). Hughes (1996) developed a political version of an envisaged transhumanist democratic society based upon utilitarianism. Levin (2020: Ch. 4) criticizes transhumanism in general precisely due to its alleged over-reliance on utility ethics.
While Max More, Natasha Vita-More, Zoltan Istvan, James Hughes and Ray Kurzweil are perhaps the most vocal advocates of transhumanism these days, neither of them holds academic posts.
Nick Bostrom, founding director at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, and Anders Sanders, senior research fellow at the same institute, are both academicians, but Bostrom’s position as of late is increasingly critical of transhumanism to a point that his endorsement is now put into question (Fuller 2019: 72–80). Stefan Sorgner is a late promoter coming from the Nietzschean scholarship. Although he is criticized by Fuller for conflating both transhumanism and posthumanism (Fuller and Sorgner 2019), he might be the other one, next to Fuller, advocating for transhumanism from within their academic positions.
A legal framework devised by Fuller and Lipinska, where the citizen, aware of its genetic makeup, exercises property rights, backed by the state, to whatever may come out of using its genetic information—by profit or non-profit entities (Fuller and Lipinska 2014: 111–128).
A silver lining might be that, since someone healthier would retire at, say, 85 instead of 65, younger generations would not have to for 40, but 20 years in pensions for the elderly via taxation.
A mild (and for some, not so mild) taste of these new moral challenges already obtain while navigating through a social-media structured world—ignorance of which usually resulting in socially painful consequences. ‘One shall not post on social media personal information that may come back to hunt you’ could arguably be a sufficiently novel maxim (a virtual variation of ‘discretion’) that may one day qualify, after we know more about the nature and social future of these online sharing milieus, as a categorical imperative.
It was preceded by President Bill Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission and succeded by President Barack Obama’s Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
‘The fruits of the Spirit are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory. The tradition of the Church lists twelve of them: ‘charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity.’ (Catholic Church 1993).
The Gospel of St. Mathew reads: ‘So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ (Mt 5:28—NAB) The Second Vatican Council affirms that ‘all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity.’ (Lumen Gentium: 40).
The issue of behavior versus structure as the source of an entity’s identity is still very much present in philosophy and science—dismissal of which sometimes resulting in devastating consequences. For the contribution of this issue to the downfall of classical cybernetics, see Malapi-Nelson (2017: Chs. 6 & 7).
‘Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.’ (Lk 12:48—NAB)
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Malapi-Nelson, A. Is Transhumanism Necessarily Utilitarian? Recasting Alternative Ethical Systems Towards a Future Human Flourishing. Postdigit Sci Educ 3, 893–909 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-021-00246-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-021-00246-4