Humanism, Transhumanism and Posthumanism The Humanist and the transhumanist propose different methods for cultivating human capacities. The transhumanists claims that traditional techniques favoured by the humanist run up against the limits of our biology. She believes that prospective technologies could further the humanist cause by improving our nature. However, the transhumanist faces a difficulty. Her policies could produce posthumans. Evaluating posthuman lives might be impossible for us. But discounting them is not an option because she will share responsibility for their creation. I argue that one way through this impasse is for the transhumanist to produce posthumans or to become posthuman.

1. Humanism,
Transhumanism and
Posthumanism

2. Humanism (H)
• Human powers are importantly distinct from those of
nonhumans.
• Reason, Autonomy, Virtues, Culture, Technology, etc.
• Human powers confer exceptional moral status.
• Improving Human lives requires extending Human powers.
• Extending Human powers has priority over other ethical
goals.

3. Humanist Biopolitics
Human Nature
Education
Politics
Reason
Autonomy
Virtues
Culture

4. Transhumanist Biopolitics (H+)
Human Nature
Education
Politics
NBIC
TECH
Reason
Autonomy
Virtues
Culture

5. NBIC Technologies
• Nanotechnology – very fast and precise atom-scale manufacturing,
programmable matter (New Materials, Post-Scarcity Economics).
• Biotechnology – manipulating life and living systems at the genetic/sub-
cellular level, synthetic life (Genetic Enhancement, Ageing Cures)
• Information Technology – computing, cybernetics (Artificial Intelligence,
Brain Machine Interfaces)
• Cognitive Science – understanding the architecture and implementation
details of human and nonhuman minds (Cognitive Enhancement, Mind-
Uploading)

6. Bad Borgs

10. Cyborg Humanism ?
• The promise, or perhaps threatened, transition to a world of wired
humans and semi-intelligent gadgets is just one more move in an
ancient game. . . We are already masters at incorporating
nonbiological stuff and structure deep into our physical and
cognitive routines. To appreciate this is to cease to believe in any
post-human future and to resist the temptation to define ourselves
in brutal opposition to the very worlds in which so many of us now
live, love and work (Andy Clark, Natural Born Cyborgs. Oxford OUP:
2003, 142).

11. The Technological Singularity
“an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual
activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual
activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then
unquestionably be an "intelligence explosion“ I J Good, cited in Vernor Vinge, “The Coming
Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era”
And what happens a month or two (or a day or two) after that? I have only analogies to
point to: The rise of humankind. We will be in the Post-Human era. And for all my rampant
technological optimism, sometimes I think I'd be more comfortable if I were regarding
these transcendental events from one thousand years remove... instead of twenty. Vernor
Vinge, “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era”

12. (Speculative) Posthumanism
SP: Descendants of current humans could cease to be
human as a consequence of technical alteration.

13. Key features of SP
• Value Neutrality – not an ethical position (unlike H/H+)
• Descent is wide not just biological
• Human-Posthuman difference (arguably) consists in a relation
between historical individuals not concepts or abstract kinds.

14. The Posthuman Impasse
Discounting (i.e. hoping for the best) seems irresponsible.
Accounting for posthumans, then, seems obligatory…
….but maybe impossible.

15. Solving the Impasse
1. Understanding posthumans is not possible only if there is a human cognitive essence.
2. There is no human cognitive essence (assumption).
3. Understanding posthumans is possible (1, 2)
4. Given their dated non-existence, the best conditions for understanding posthumans
involve us making posthumans or becoming posthuman (True for any non-existent
technological artefact).
5. We are obliged to attempt to understand posthumans (Accounting).
6. If we are obliged to understand something, we are obliged to bring about the best
conditions for understanding it (Strong Epistemic Obligation Principle).
7. We are obliged to bring about the best conditions for understanding posthumans (5,
6)
Conclusion: We are obliged to make posthumans or become posthuman (5, 8)

16. Further thoughts…
Suppose posthuman natures are diachronically emergent. Where
A diachronically emergent behaviour or property occurs as a result of a temporally extended
process, but cannot be inferred from the initial state of that process. It can only be derived
by allowing the process to run its course.
4 could be substituted with: 4’) Given their dated non-existence, the only conditions for
understanding posthumans involve us making posthumans or becoming posthuman (True for any
non-existent technological artefact).
This means we can get by with a more moderate Epistemic Obligation Principle:
6’) If we are obliged to understand something, we are obliged to bring about the necessary (only)
conditions for understanding it (Moderate Epistemic obligation).