1. Posthumanism and Transhumanism
J. Hughes
Ewha Institute for the Humanities/Korea Culture Research Institute
Mapping Trans- and Posthumanism as Fields of Discourses
28-29 May 2014
Posthumanism and Transhumanism

2. Ancient Aspirations
Abstract thought -> imagining radically improvement to human condition
Medicines and magical practices to improve health and grant wisdom
Myths of times and places without toil, conflict, or injustice, a more perfect world
Radically improved social and corporeal life possible in the immediate future

3. The Enlightenment 1. Autonomy of reason from faith and authority
2. Human perfectibility and social progress
3. Empirical optimism: sapere aude!
4. Legitimacy of government based on free association
5. Tolerance of diversity, freedom of thought
6. Ethical universalism – beyond nationalism, racism, sexism
Descartes, Locke, Pascal, Bayle, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet, Rousseau

4. Condorcet’s Transhumanism
"Nature has set no term to the perfection of human faculties; the perfectibility of man is truly indefinite; and the progress of this perfectibility, from now onwards independent of any power that might wish to halt it, has no other limit than the duration of the globe upon which nature has cast us."

5. Other Proto-Transhumanists
HG Wells and Olaf Stapledon – portrayed future evolution of humanity
JBS Haldane, 1923, "Daedalus: Science and the Future“ – in vitro fertilization, genetic engineering
JD Bernal, 1929, "The World, the Flesh and the Devil” – first projection of cybernetic implants
JBS Haldane

6. Emerging Technologies
Tech that will radically change the human brain:
Psychopharmacology
Genetic engineering
Nanotechnology
Artificial intelligence
Cognitive science
The accelerating convergence of all these
“for improving human performance”

7. Human Enhancement Curing disabilities Health Longevity Intelligence
Emotional control
Heightened senses
Spiritual experience
Moral sentiment and cognition

8. “Trans-humanism” and “Transhuman-ism”
Julian Huxley first director of UNESCO "Transhumanism“ "the human species can transcend itself."
“FM-2030” (FM Esfandiary) popularized term “transhuman” in the 1970s

9. Biopolitical Battlefronts
Who is a citizen with a right to life?: abortion, stem cells, great ape rights, brain death, chimeras
Control of Reproduction: contraception, abortion, fertility treatments, genetic testing, germline gene therapies, cloning
Fixing Disabilities to “Human Enhancement”: cochlear implants, prosthetics, eye and brain chips, gene therapies, cosmetic procedures
Extending Life: from treatments for aging-related diseases, to anti-aging drugs and therapies
Control of the Brain: Ritalin and Prozac, psychoactive drugs, brain chips

10. 90s: Libertarian H+ & Extropians
Extropy Institute
Extropian Principles
Ron Bailey
Max More

11. 2002-3: BioPolitical Landmark
Leon Kass appointed Chair of President’s Council on Bioethics
Fukuyama’s Our Posthuman Future (2002)
Greg Stock’s Redesigning Humans (2002)
Christian Right’s Manifesto on Biotechnology and Human Dignity (2002)
Vatican’s "Human Persons Created in the Image of God“ (2002)
Bill McKibben Enough (2003)
PCB’s Beyond Therapy (2003)
Leon Kass
Chair, President’s Council on Bioethics

12. BioConservatives Religious Right Deep Ecologists, Romantic Luddites
Left-wing/Feminist Critics of Biotech
Human-Exceptionalists
Pro-Disability Extremists

13. Central Biopolitical Disputes
Transhumanists
BioConservatives
Personhood, cyborg citizenship
Human-Exceptionalism: Humanness more important than personhood
Humanism, reason, individual liberty, progress, limits are just status quo bias
Sacred taboos, obvious red lines, “the natural”, yuck factor, romanticism
Risks are manageable
Risks are unknowable; Punishment for hubris inevitable; Tech should be banned

14. Technoprogressives
Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies ieet.org
Technoprog! (French Transhumanist Association)
Themes
Technology needs public investment, robust regulation and universal access
Transnational governance to prevent global catastrophic risks
Basic income guarantee to redress structural unemployment
Rights for non-human persons
Opposition to IP overreach, e.g. gene patenting

15. Hegemony of Conservative H+
Singularity University
Peter Diamandis Abundance
Entrepreneurs’ summer camp
Peter Thiel
Christian conservative
Paypal, Facebook, Clarium
Dominance in H+: SIAI, SENS, Seasteading
Ron & Rand Paul, Hoover
Tea Party

16. Cyborgology Posthumanism with transhumanist tendencies
Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto
Socialist-feminist intervention to reject gender and nature/culture binaries of eco-feminism by embracing transgressive cyborg

17. Cyborg Citizen Chris Hables Gray’s Cyborg Bill of Rights
Cognitive liberty
Morphological freedom
Family/sex/gender freedom

18. How We Became Posthuman
Katherine Hayles
mind and body are translated into information
H+: Patternism as personal identity, substrate-independent

19. Anti-Humanism Posthumanism as a critique of humanist discourses
Beyond dualisms of nature/culture etc.
Specifically of the valorization of human reason and agency

20. Unresolved Contradictions
Arguments within H+ and between H+ and other Enlightenment movements, such as posthumanism
A four hundred year-old churn where Enlightenment rationality, skepticism or respect for difference undermines other Enlightenment values and concepts such as ethical universalism, the self or progress.

21. Reason Isn’t Enough Reason is not self- validating
Reason undermines itself

22. Progress vs. Uncertainty
Faith in the inevitability of progress vs. radical uncertainty
Existential risks
Optimism of the will and pessimism of the intellect

23. Respect for Difference
Respect for difference, critique of hegemonic discourse, an Enlightenment value
Posthumanists turn it against Enlightenment values

24. Shared Concerns Co-evolution of humanity with technology
Creating a non- anthropocentric basis for ethics
Beyond binary gender
The decentered self

25. Body & Human/Tech Co-Evolution
Re-conceptualizing bio- socio-technical co- evolution
Latour: We are formed by technology, not enabled
Power and intention are built into technology
Prosthetics, cosmetic surgery

26. Posthumanist Ethics
Meta-ethics challenge: How we can assert ethics while aware of its ungrounded, historically-bounded limitation?
How can a posthuman ethics incorporate neuroscience and evolution without committing the naturalistic fallacy?
Animal uplift debate
Ethics for machine minds
Moral enhancement debate

27. Beyond Gender Binary Firestone’s Dialectic of Sex
Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto
Post-genderism
Martine Rothblatt
Anne Balsamo
Judith Butler

28. Decentered Self
Andy Clark, Robert Pepperell: Extended Mind: Consciousness is not just in the brain
Building the “Exocortex”
Self in social media
Cognitive liberty beyond the Myth of Self
Beyond authenticity: moral enhancement, memory modification

29. Need for Dialogue
Transhumanists have a revolutionary project rooted in the Enlightenment.
Posthumanists are deconstructing that project’s categories and agendas so that the revolution will be truly liberatory.
Transhumanists ground the posthumanists in biopolitics.
The posthumanists deepen and challenge the transhumanists.
The two communities have much to gain from dialogue.

30. Discuss Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies ieet.org