This interdisciplinary volume explores how posthumanist approaches can illuminate current issues in bioethics and considers the relevance of these issues for the humanities, including questions of autonomy and authorship, and notions of ethical and juridical responsibility in the context of a changing understanding of subjectivity.
With contributions from a variety of areas, including literature, philosophy, media, and policy-making, the book outlines the historical and philosophical development of posthumanism, and current key questions in bioethics. It generates a dialogue between bioethical approaches and the posthumanities, identifying ways in which posthumanist scholarship might be used to inform bioethical policy.
The book also looks more speculatively at the future, and the potential implications of technological developments which are only beginning to emerge. It uses posthumanism to look critically at the humanism underpinning de-extinction science, considers the ways in which technology is re-framing our social and political imaginaries, and asks about the identification of future posthumans.
Introduction: Encounters between Bioethics and the Posthumanities
Danielle Sands
PART I: Bioethical Challenges
- Therapy, Enhancement, and the Social Model of Disability
- Rethinking the Posthuman in Bioethics
- Gen-ethics, Policy and the Posthumanities
- Questioning the Politics of Human Enhancement Technologies
- Biohumanities
- Autonomous: Bioethics and/as Intellectual Property
- A Posthumanist Critique of De-Extinction Science
- Posthumanism and the Bioethics of Moral Responsibility
Matt Hayler - The Filter Problem for Posthuman Bioethics: The Case of Hyperagency
Michael Wee
David Boden and Sarah Chan
Ruth Chadwick
PART II: Bioethics and Posthumanism in Dialogue
Tom Hobson and Anna Roessing
Stefan Herbrechter
Megen de Bruin-Molé
PART III: Exploring Posthuman Futures
Sarah Bezan
David Roden
Biography
Danielle Sands is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London.
‘The turn of the twenty-first century and the subsequent continuous emergence of the implications of technological advancement have brought a crisis into the heart of the humanities. . . . Beyond merely philosophizing, Danielle Sands seeks to explore the practical applications of posthuman theory by connecting it with the field of bioethics. . . . The ultimate goal is not simply to revolutionize health studies but to facilitate social justice and equality; now and in our posthuman future.’
Stavroula Anastasia Katsorchi, Journal of Posthumanism
