Technological Humanism
To improve sight, we created the spectacle/eyeglasses, binoculars and telescope. To improve mobility and shorten distances, we created vehicles with wheels and because we also wanted to fly, we created airplanes, to mention a few. But those are just the jump-off point to what is unfolding…
The world is undergoing tremendous metamorphosis. One of the spheres in which the paradigm shift faced by society and the revolutionary impact in terms of side effects may be observed is precisely the space where techno-sciences, biotechnology and genetics applied to engineering and medicine converge.This is the very realm of techno-scientific experimentation where the so-called emerging technologies known as “NBIC” (acronym for the fields of Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information technology and Cognitive science), artificial intelligence and robotics, meet. This neo-technological field is experiencing the stunningly fast development of revolutionary techniques, such as genome editing techniques (e.g. CRISPR/Cas), preimplantation genetic diagnosis (also known as embryo screening, an innovative technique of assisted reproduction that leaves the door open for eugenics according to many critics) and the application of artificial intelligence, cybernetics and bionics in medicine or high-performance sports.
In this new biotechnological and digital era, the humanist paradigm (bioconservative approach), which considers the individual as an end in itself and defends the sacred character of the human condition and the dignity of people as moral subjects (whose liberty is inviolable and inalienable), is being gradually replaced by a posthumanist paradigm (bioprogressive approach) which, in its most utilitarian version, proposes overcoming our natural limits by artificial means in search of the organic and intellectual perfection of the human species, going as far as to situate the omnipotent homo excelsior above the fallible homo patiens and even above the imperfect homo sapiens. This very idea that the human being is perfectible, shared by some classic philosophers raging from Rousseau, Hegel, Schopenhauer, to Unamuno, Heidegger and Ortega y Gasset, stands as the grounding principle of the transhumanist movement.
Even if it may seem sheer fiction, the posthuman condition , in reality, to a fact that might credibly occur in the future: the possibility to turn human beings into a bio-improved species. Genetic evolution would render transhumans highly gifted, eternally young, infallible, practically perfect and immortal. In this hypothetical future brave new world dominated by technoscience, built upon the pillars of the posthumanist revolution, singular, vulnerable and imperfect humans would live alongside generic, infallible and perfect posthumans, as well as with cyborgs, men fused with machines. This would undoubtedly be a twilight for the human species, demoted to a situation of prostration and servitude due to their physical and intellectual inferiority before the other two species — transhumans and robot — men.
Even though fiction has not yet been superseded by reality, many scholars have warned us against the potential risk of segregation that the human race might have to face, as depicted in Aldous Huxley’s famous novel in which a dystopian society is presented as torn into two groups; seemingly happy and perfect human beings –in fact, transhumans that have been artificially harvested by means of reproductive technology, genetically selected and designed, on the one hand; and savages that live confined in a reservation and reproduce randomly according to natural law, on the other.
Are we ready for the Homo Excelsior? Homo excelsior, a posthuman species which is superior to ours, composed by exceptionally gifted beings that have been genetically selected, designed and improved and which — according to the transhumanist imaginary — will dominate the posthuman future and will be happier, more virtuous, long-lived and intelligent than us.
There may be a middle way between the bioconservative approaches’ “back to nature” philosophy, and the bioprogressive approach defending the benefits of biogenetics within the most radical transhumanism — It is technological humanism, that is best represented by José Ortega y Gasset. According to the Spanish philosopher, technology is not just something we use to obtain certain goals, but it is what makes us what we are since the beginning of our species. Conceiving a pre-technology man would be to misread the history of man and that of his vital condition. Technology would be a part of his essence up to the point it could be said that this scholar considers a natural human being is such an impossible entity as an artificial human.
Technology is man’s creation. It is not only an extension of him but it is part of him. Anything that you can create, you can regulate and if you can not regulate it, then you can destroy.
