Mythologies of Transhumanism

Hauskeller, Michael

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-39741-2

Cited by 52 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Moreover, even when they give us pleasure and happiness… this pleasure can always be taken away ….' (Hauskeller, p196) 29 In contrast to utilitarian arguments, a capability approach evaluates sex robots in terms of what they enable people to do and be. These doings and beings are regarded as ultimate ends, on November 25, 2020 by guest.…”

Section: Ethical Argument For Sex Robots For Older People With Disabimentioning

confidence: 99%

Nothing to be ashamed of: sex robots for older adults with disabilities

Jecker

2020

J Med Ethics

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This paper spotlights ways in which sexual capacities relate to central human capabilities, such as the ability to generate a personally meaningful story of one’s life; be physically, mentally and emotionally healthy; experience bodily integrity; affiliate and bond with others; feel and express a range of human emotions; and choose a plan of life. It sets forth a dignity-based argument for affording older people access to sex robots as part of reasonable efforts to support their central human capabilities at a floor level. The argument develops stepwise: (1) first, I dispel ageism and negative stereotypes about later-life sexuality, showing their deep historical roots in medicine and science; (2) second, I set forth a positive argument, grounded in capability accounts of justice, for deploying sex robots for older people with disabilities; (3) finally, after responding to objections, I conclude that sex robots are a reasonable way to support later-life sexuality for persons with disabilities. While often depicted as a product for younger, able-bodied people, this paper is a bid for reimagining sex robots as a product for older, disabled people.

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Section: Ethical Argument For Sex Robots For Older People With Disabimentioning

confidence: 99%

Nothing to be ashamed of: sex robots for older adults with disabilities

Jecker

2020

J Med Ethics

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“…Emotional and sexual intimacy depends upon mutuality in relationships. We will want to feel not only that we love sexbots but also that they love us, and love us for ourselves [19,22,23,[29][30][31]. This implies that, like us, they will possess the autonomy to choose whether to love us or not, self-awareness and subjectivity.…”

Section: Questions Arising From Ethical and Legal Tensions Provoked Bmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Men and women will be able to purchase male and female sexbots who are at ease with a wide range of lawful sexual preferences, including Bondage, Domination and Sado-Masochism (BDSM) and same-sex partnerships. Concurrent demand for animated robotic sex dolls capable of assuming sexual positions, simulating affection, and engaging in rudimentary conversation is likely to continue, both for their convenience as sex aids [21] and as "automatic sweethearts", post-persons who enable transhumanists to maximize their independence from other humans [22]. Indeed, the range of options involving sexual pleasures with robotic sex dolls will undoubtedly expand [23,24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexbots: Customizing Them to Suit Us versus an Ethical Duty to Created Sentient Beings to Minimize Suffering

Mackenzie

2018

Robotics

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Sex robot scholarship typically focuses on customizable simulacra, lacking sentience and self-awareness but able to simulate and stimulate human affection. This paper argues that future humans will want more: sex robots customized to possess sentience and self-awareness [henceforth, sexbots], capable of mutuality in sexual and intimate relationships. Adopting a transdisciplinary critical methodology focused on the legal, ethical and design implications of sexbots, it assesses implications of sexbots' non-mammalian subjectivity, balancing designed-in autonomy and control, decision-making capacity and consent, sexual preferences and desire, legal and moral status, vulnerability and contrasts between mammalian and non-mammalian moral decision-making. It explores theoretical, ethical, and pragmatic aspects of the tensions involved in creating sentient beings for utilitarian purposes, concluding that sexbots, customized manufactured humanlike entities with the capacity for thought and suffering, have a consequent claim to be considered moral and legal persons, and may become the first conscious robots. Customizing sexbots thus exemplifies many profound ethical, legal and design issues. The contradictions inherent in their inconsistent ethical and legal status as both manufactured things and sentient, self-aware entities who are customized to be our intimate partners augments existing human/animal scholars' call for a new theoretical framework which supersedes current person/thing dichotomies governing human responsibilities to other sentient beings. The paper concludes that the ethical limits and legal implications of customizable humanlike robots must be addressed urgently, proposing a duty on humans as creators to safeguard the interests and minimize the suffering of created sentient beings before technological advances pre-empt this possibility.

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“…The contentions concerning such innate human divinity as well as the insensitivity of Fuller and Lipinska to the potential wrongdoings and evils arising out of a proactionary attitude have somewhat naturally provoked criticism (Hauskeller, 2016: 168–71). As it is not my intention to debate the feasibility of particular views on transhumanism here, what I wish to point out is only that such politically motivated transhumanism claims the very same historical inheritance as the more philosophically oriented transhumanism of Bostrom.…”

Section: The Challenge Of Posthumanitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The story of humanity and the challenge of posthumanity

Simon

2018

History of the Human Sciences

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Today’s technological-scientific prospect of posthumanity simultaneously evokes and defies historical understanding. On the one hand, it implies a historical claim of an epochal transformation concerning posthumanity as a new era. On the other, by postulating the birth of a novel, better-than-human subject for this new era, it eliminates the human subject of modern Western historical understanding. In this article, I attempt to understand posthumanity as measured against the story of humanity as the story of history itself. I examine the fate of humanity as the central subject of history in three consecutive steps: first, by exploring how classical philosophies of history achieved the integrity of the greatest historical narrative of history itself through the very invention of humanity as its subject; second, by recounting how this central subject came under heavy criticism by postcolonial and gender studies in the last half-century, targeting the universalism of the story of humanity as the greatest historical narrative of history; and third, by conceptualizing the challenge of posthumanity against both the story of humanity and its criticism. Whereas criticism fragmented history but retained the possibility of smaller-scale narratives, posthumanity does not doubt the feasibility of the story of humanity. Instead, it necessarily invokes humanity, if only in order to be able to claim its supersession by a better-than-human subject. In that, it represents a fundamental challenge to the modern Western historical condition and the very possibility of historical narratives – small-scale or large-scale, fragmented or universal.

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Mythologies of Transhumanism

Cited by 52 publications

References 3 publications

Nothing to be ashamed of: sex robots for older adults with disabilities

Nothing to be ashamed of: sex robots for older adults with disabilities

Sexbots: Customizing Them to Suit Us versus an Ethical Duty to Created Sentient Beings to Minimize Suffering

The story of humanity and the challenge of posthumanity

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