Transhumanism and Society: The Social Debate Over Human Enhancement by Stephen Lilley

Transhumanism and Society: The Social Debate Over Human Enhancement by Stephen Lilley

Author:Stephen Lilley [Lilley, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Technology & Engineering, Social Aspects, Philosophy, General, Science, Life Sciences, Genetics & Genomics
ISBN: 9789400749818
Google: ukoKH9xOiWkC
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2012-07-31T14:24:31+00:00


collapse of Western civilization. They claimed that a growing dependence on

technologies was replacing worship of God and eroding a Christian culture based

on faith, community, and simplicity of life. Anticipating a crisis in technological

society as a prelude to God’s intervention, a Y2K disaster was imagined as an

appropriate ‘‘punishment from a jealous God.’’ (495).

We find this preoccupation with culture war and the expectation of an epic

struggle between religion and the ‘‘techno-secular’’ world in this excerpt from

Alan Padgett’s article, ‘‘God Versus Technology? Science, Secularity, and the

Theology of Technology’’:

Whether in energy riots or anti-robot revolution, biotechnic warfare or worldwide pol-

lution, or some terrible disaster we cannot now envisage, a totally techno-secular world

will eventually destroy itself. Yet, even in this pessimistic scenario, religious faith could

provide a small counterculture with an alternative vision that could provide humanity with

hope for a future beyond the self-extinction of homo technicus (2005).

William Bainbridge (2006:25) envisions a clash between those pursuing ‘‘cyber

immortality’’ and religious fundamentalists as a ‘‘crucial battle in the long-

standing conflict between science and religion.’’

Convergenists advocate aggressive research in cognitive science, including computational

neuroscience, to understand how the human brain actually creates the mind, and thus how

to emulate it…The Convergenists’ agenda is aimed at improving human performance

without limit, and many of the anticipated technological spin-offs would be useful for

recording, preserving, and reanimating human personalities—ultimately creating cyber

immortality. Meanwhile, the broad range of valuable new technologies promised by

convergence will make the unification of science extremely salient for the ordinary person,

thus aggravating the conflict between science and religion. So religion may feel a need to

destroy science in order to save itself (28).

Risk Narratives

45

Whereas Padgett portrays transhumanity risks in terms of technological disas-

ters, Bainbridge warns that technological success will precipitate civil war. Nev-

ertheless, they both primarily characterize transhumanity risk in terms of social

conflict.

Market Exploitation Narrative

Secular conservationists portray transtechnologies within an exploitation narrative

that vilifies capitalism and technoscience. Following Martin Heidegger and Jac-

ques Ellu, Leon Kass (2002:35) defines technology as ‘‘the disposition to rational

mastery.’’ He asserts that commercial interests drive research and development

and ‘‘soft dehumanization’’ will occur ‘‘unless we redeem ourselves by nontech-

nological ideas and practices, today both increasingly beleaguered.’’ (22).

Critics of global capitalism, such as Jeremy Rifkin, see transtechnologies

extending corporate influence:

In less than ten years, the global life science companies will hold patents on many of the

30,000 or so genes that make up the human race as well as patents on the cell lines, tissues,

and organs of our species, giving them unprecedented power to dictate the terms by which

we and future generations live our lives. The concentration of power in the global phar-

maceutical industry has already reached staggering proportions. The implications of a new

market-driven eugenics are enormous and far reaching. Indeed, commercial eugenics

could become the defining social dynamic of the new century (2005:44).

He predicts many negative consequences of a market-driven eugenics including

social pressure on families to relent to genetic intervention, a narrowing of the

human gene pool, intolerance of those individuals with disabilities, and a de-

emphasis on environmental remediation. Mervyn Bendle criticizes Kurzweil’s

brand of transhumanism:

Indeed, it is possible to see Kurzweil’s futurism as a parable—or indeed



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