Human Enhancement and the Emergent Technopolitics of the 21st Century

Is it all about human nature? Ethical challenges of converging technologies beyond a polarized debate

“…14. Hughes (2006) represents the current political sphere and the ideological positions as a sort of cube, determined by two opposite attitudes (conservatives and progressives) in the three directions of technopolitics, economic politics and cultural politics (Hughes 2006, p. 293). 15.…”

“…For Hughes (2006), technopolitics is essentially a new dimension of political debate in the twenty-first century, which has to be seen as something positively challenging because it cuts across existing political lines (such as the division between left and right) and creates new alliances 14 on the basis of contrapositions already known in the bioethical debate. I profoundly disagree with this interpretation, not because I think that the creation of new alliances and the consequent increasing complexity of the debate are wrong, but because I, on the contrary, consider the division of technoprogressives and technopessimists to be an impoverishment of the debate.…”

We Are Super-Humans

“…To achieve such engagement, it is important to provide the tools to analyse this debate. It is the scholars' responsibility to raise awareness about the impact of the converging NIBCs; moreover, since it has been predicted that we are at a turning point, where these considerations will profoundly influence politics, this is also important to help people find a personal orientation in tomorrow's society [12]. We encourage experts to organise dissemination activities and public events in order to provide opportunities for education and reflection for citizens, in particular for the younger generations, who will be directly concerned by the decisions taken for the future regulations of the augmented humanity.…”

“…We can observe that the experts' opinions in the domain of HE can be coarsely classified in two main movements: transhumanists and bioconservatives [12]. Transhumanists approve HE and seek "to liberate the human race from its biological constraints" [12].…”

“…Transhumanists approve HE and seek "to liberate the human race from its biological constraints" [12]. Their opponents are the bioconservatives, who accept enhancements only for therapeutic purposes.…”