Posthuman dignity

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511979033.038

33 - Posthuman dignity

from Part III - Systematic conceptualization

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2015

Edited by

Roger Brownsword and

Martin G. Weiss: Affiliation:
Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt
Marcus Düwell: Affiliation:
Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
Jens Braarvig: Affiliation:
Universitetet i Oslo
Roger Brownsword: Affiliation:
King's College London
Dietmar Mieth: Affiliation:
Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Germany

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Summary

The notion of ‘posthuman dignity’ first appeared in a paper entitled ‘In Defense of Posthuman Dignity’, which Nick Bostrom published in 2005 in the Journal Bioethics. In this paper, he stresses that neither means nor ends of enhancement technologies advocated by the exponents of the transhumanist or posthumanist movement endanger human dignity or the fundamental human rights derived from it (Bostrom 2005).

As the concept of ‘human dignity’ as well as that of ‘enhancement’ are controversial and the answer to the question of whether radically enhancing human nature violates human dignity depends on the definition of these two notions, in the following I will try to clarify these key concepts in the context of the enhancement debate. Whereas the notion of enhancement is relatively well defined by its proponents, the different argumentations put forward to explain human dignity will lead us to the question of human nature and its moral status.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity
Interdisciplinary Perspectives
, pp. 319 - 331

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511979033.038 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2014

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