Eric Dietrich looks forward to the extinction of humanity. Recently on the History Channel, artificial intelligence (AI) was singled out, with much wringing of hands, as one of the seven possible causes of the end of human life. I will argue that this wringing of hands is quite inappropriate: the best thing that could happen …
Brenda Almond on why the gay adoption debate isn’t really about sexual morality. Politicians and others would reach sounder conclusions if they could bring themselves to see the current debate about gay adoption and discrimination as part of a broader debate about the family. This debate is as much philosophical and sociological as it is …
Russell Powell says it’s not easy using genes to enhance humanity, even in theory. On display in the National Portrait Gallery of London is a ‘DNA portrait’ of geneticist Sir John Sulston. The work is billed by the artist as “the most realistic portrait in the gallery” because it “carries the actual instructions that led …
Brian D. Earp explains how chemical enhancement could save your marriage. What do you do when your marriage lasts less than two months? That was the predicament faced by Natasha Nelson, a thirty-five-year-old public relations executive, after she found out that her brand-new husband had been carrying on a relationship with his ex-girlfriend: throughout their …
Michael Selgelid offers a cautionary perspective on genetic enhancement. Revolutionary developments in biomedical science, particularly in genetics, may lead to new cures or preventative therapies for a wide variety of human diseases. Just about everyone agrees that this would be a good thing. However, the very same kinds of developments that may be used to combat …
Bennett Foddy proposes a strategy for extending our youthfulness. In England during the 1850s one in six people died before their first birthday, mostly from infectious diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis and diphtheria. The average life lasted only forty-two years – but if you made it to fifty you could reasonably expect to live another twenty …
Julian Savulescu and Ingmar Persson argue that artificial moral enhancement is now essential if humanity is to avoid catastrophe. For the vast majority of our 150,000 years or so on the planet, we lived in small, close-knit groups, working hard with primitive tools to scratch sufficient food and shelter from the land. Sometimes we competed with other small …
Ge Hong was an eclectic philosopher who dedicated his life to searching for physical immortality, which he thought was attainable through alchemy. He lived during China’s tumultuous Period of Disunity (220-589 C.E.), a time in which alien conqueror regimes ruled northern China, the cradle of Chinese civilization, while a series of weak, transplanted Chinese states …
Alexandre Kojève was responsible for the serious introduction of Hegel into 20th Century French philosophy, influencing many leading French intellectuals who attended his seminar on The Phenomenology of Spirit in Paris in the 30s. He focused on Hegel’s philosophy of history and is best known for his theory of ‘the end of history’ and for …
Victor Kraft was an Austrian philosopher and librarian. He was, as he himself emphasized, a “non-orthodox” member of the Vienna Circle and tried to reintroduce scientific philosophy in Austria after the Second World War. Beginning in 1903, Kraft argued for epistemology based on ontological realism. He did not claim that realism can be proven logically …