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Enhancing a Person, Enhancing a Civilization: A Research Program at the Intersection of Bioethics, Future Studies, and Astrobiology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2017

MILAN M. ĆIRKOVIĆ
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Abstract:

There are manifold intriguing issues located within largely unexplored borderlands of bioethics, future studies (including global risk analysis), and astrobiology. Human enhancement has for quite some time been among the foci of bioethical debates, but the same cannot be said about its global, transgenerational, and even cosmological consequences. In recent years, discussions of posthuman and, in general terms, postbiological civilization(s) have slowly gained a measure of academic respect, in parallel with the renewed interest in the entire field of future studies and the great strides made in understanding of the origin and evolution of life and intelligence in their widest, cosmic context. These developments promise much deeper synergic answers to questions regarding the long-term future of enhancement: how far can it go? Is human enhancement a further step toward building a true postbiological civilization? Should we actively participate and help shape this process? Is the future of humanity “typical” in the same Copernican sense as our location in space and time is typical in the galaxy, and if so, can we derive important insights about the evolutionary pathways of postbiological evolution from astrobiological and Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) studies? These and similar questions could be understood as parts of a possible unifying research program attempting to connect cultural and moral evolution with what we know and understand about their cosmological and biological counterparts.

Keywords

cognitive enhancementfuture studiesrisk analysisposthumanitySETImoral enhancement
Type
Special Section: Enhancement and Goodness
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 459 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

The author thanks Vojin Rakić for his support and encouragement, as well as his overarching vision of modern, future-oriented bioethics, which has been a constant and enormous inspiration. The kind help of Jelena Dimitrijević, Dušan Pavlović, Anders Sandberg, and Slobodan Popović Bagi has been invaluable in the course of the work on this article. Support of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia through grant ON176021 is hereby acknowledged.

References

Notes

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