Transhumanism, Motion, and Human Perfection

Transhumanism’s ideology is marked by a commitment to the "progress" or "perfection" of the human species through technological means. What transhumanists are after is not just therapeutic intervention or optimization of current human capabilities, but an ontological change from...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mason, Jordan (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Oxford University Press 2022
In: Christian bioethics
Year: 2022, Volume: 28, Issue: 3, Pages: 185-196
IxTheo Classification:CF Christianity and Science
NBE Anthropology
NCJ Ethics of science
VA Philosophy
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Summary:Transhumanism’s ideology is marked by a commitment to the "progress" or "perfection" of the human species through technological means. What transhumanists are after is not just therapeutic intervention or optimization of current human capabilities, but an ontological change from human to posthuman. In this article, I critique transhumanist ideology on the grounds that it fundamentally misunderstands human moral perfection as resulting from forces acting upon us (i.e., technological interventions), rather than an internal change of character. This misunderstanding reflects an impoverished view of the concept of motion brought about by the rise of modern science, which entails certain ontological commitments that are not Christian in nature. I conclude transhumanism is untenable because it rests on a shaky foundation of Newtonian physics, and reduces the world to mere matter and forces. Furthermore, Christian transhumanism is especially flawed, because it is complicit in this severing of creation from its sacramental ontology, from the Being of God.
ISSN:1744-4195
Contains:Enthalten in: Christian bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/cb/cbac011