Transhumanism, Biopolitics and the New Rights Paradigm

Day: Friday, April 22   Hour: 3:15 - 4:00 pm

By: James Hughes

Issues driving the biopolitical polarization of "bioconservatives" and "transhumanists" are disagreement about (a) "humanness" vs. "personhood" as a basis for rights, (b) the value of the "natural", (c) the limits of human reason, and (d) the grounds for restricting individual bodily autonomy. In other words transhumanism is the humanist position in the emerging biopolitics. One of the ironies of transhumanism-as-humanist-bioethics however, is that it poses a profound challenge to existing "human rights" frameworks.

The transhumanist notion of "technological self-determination" challenges human rights discourse to incorporate access to technology as a requisite for the fuller development of human capabilities, connecting rights movements as disparate as reproductive rights, transgender rights and cognitive liberty. Transhumanism also joins a specific wing of animal rights in rejecting speciesism; human rights can't just be for humans. The emerging transhumanist movement can also learn a good deal from humanism and human rights discourse.

The rejection of techno-utopian narratives of progress by political progressives since World War Two have left libertarians and advocates of radical individualism as the most transhumanists. Part of the challenge of a global transhumanist bioethics is to re-connect with the progressive democratic tradition. As transhumanists struggle to become relevant to a world of radical inequality and glaring market failures, transhumanists need to learn from the humanist movement the importance of the democratic process, andthe democratic values of solidarity and equality. <<Back to Conference program