Realist Responses to Post-Human Society: Ex Machina

This volume focuses on the slow process of ‘human enhancement’, starting from pastoralism through to modern transplant, genetic and bio-engineering interventions. Examining the ways in which recent advances in technology threaten to blur and displace the boundaries constitutive of our shared humanity, Realist Responses to Post-Human Society explores the philosophical and ethical questions raised by these developments, and discusses – and meets – the dangers posed by the combination of transhumanism with post-humanist social theories and antihumanist practices, institutions and ideologies.

This volume is the first of a trilogy which investigates, from a broadly realist perspective, the place, and challenges, of the human in contemporary social orders. The authors, all members of the Centre for Social Ontology, ask what is specific about humanity’s nature and worth, and what are their main challenges in contemporary societies?

Examining the ways in which recent advances in technology threaten to blur and displace the boundaries constitutive of our shared humanity, Realist Responses to Post-Human Society: Ex Machina explores the philosophical and ethical questions raised by these developments, and discusses the dangers posed by the combination of transhumanism with post-humanist social theories and antihumanist practices, institutions and ideologies.