Humanity's End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement - Couverture souple

Livre 3 sur 14: Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology

Agar, Nicholas

 
9780262525176: Humanity's End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement
Couverture souple
ISBN 10 : 0262525178 ISBN 13 : 9780262525176
Editeur : MIT Press, 2013

Synopsis

An argument that achieving millennial life spans or monumental intellects will destroy values that give meaning to human lives.

Proposals to make us smarter than the greatest geniuses or to add thousands of years to our life spans seem fit only for the spam folder or trash can. And yet this is what contemporary advocates of radical enhancement offer in all seriousness. They present a variety of technologies and therapies that will expand our capacities far beyond what is currently possible for human beings. In Humanity's End, Nicholas Agar argues against radical enhancement, describing its destructive consequences.

Agar examines the proposals of four prominent radical enhancers: Ray Kurzweil, who argues that technology will enable our escape from human biology; Aubrey de Grey, who calls for anti-aging therapies that will achieve “longevity escape velocity”; Nick Bostrom, who defends the morality and rationality of enhancement; and James Hughes, who envisions a harmonious democracy of the enhanced and the unenhanced. Agar argues that the outcomes of radical enhancement could be darker than the rosy futures described by these thinkers. The most dramatic means of enhancing our cognitive powers could in fact kill us; the radical extension of our life span could eliminate experiences of great value from our lives; and a situation in which some humans are radically enhanced and others are not could lead to tyranny of posthumans over humans.

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À propos de l?auteur

Nicholas Agar is Professor of Ethics at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is the author of Humanity's End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement and Truly Human Enhancement: A Philosophical Defense of Limits, both published by the MIT Press.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
MIT Press
Date d'édition
2013
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
0262525178
ISBN 13 
9780262525176
Reliure
Broché
Nombre de pages
228
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780262014625: Humanity's End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0262014629 ISBN 13 :  9780262014625
Editeur : Bradford Books, 2010
Couverture rigide