Transhumanism and Domination: An Argument for Limits on Human Enhancement

• In Event: Contrasting Theoretical Perspectives on AI, Enhancement, and Transhumanism (Virtual Session)

Abstract

Drawing on the civic republican concept of liberty as non-domination, the Aristotelian distinction between artifacts and things that exist by nature, and the Arendtian distinction between work and action, I offer a critique of the emerging Transhumanist movement and human biological and cybernetic enhancement in general. I argue that Transhumanism and other efforts at human enhancement are fundamentally instrumentalizing of human and nonhuman life, that their collective societal impact takes them out of the realm of individual choice, and that their implicit rejection of natural limits opens the way to domination and authoritarianism, especially under conditions of capitalism. The paper concludes with a call for a progressive politics that embraces limits and subjects human enhancement technology to a combination of legal restrictions and democratic assessment.

Author

• Peter F. Cannavo, Hamilton College