From Günther Anders to Transhumanism: Outdatedness of Human Beings and Moral Enhancement
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/isegoria.2020.063.01Keywords:
moral blindness, promethean gap, neurobiology, human enhancementAbstract
This paper critically compares the philosophy of Günther Anders and the contemporary transhumanists, like Julian Savulescu, Ingmar Persson, or Thomas Douglas. The Andersian concepts of moral blindness, promethean gap, and promethean shame will be discussed in order to understand human beings’ outdatedness; parallel to this, we will also expose the transhumanist analysis on the unfitness of human beings in evolutive and cognitive terms. We will show that much of the transhumanist analysis is a reformulation of the Andersian thesis, now under scientific terminology. Finally, we will approach the transhumanist proposal of moral enhancement, explaining and confronting some critics raised on the grounds of freedom and moral responsibility.
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