Religion and Human Enhancement: Death, Values, and Morality

ISBN-13: 9783319624877 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 377 str.

Tracy J. Trothen; Calvin Mercer

Opis

Radical enhancement programs, advocated by transhumanists, could arguably have a more profound impact than any other development in human history. Reflecting a range of opinion about the desirability of extreme enhancement, leading scholars in the field join with emerging scholars to foster enhanced conversation on these topics.

Spis treści

1. Coming into Focus: An Introduction to the Collection

Section 1: “Common Ground” between Transhumanism and Religions

2. In Extropy We Trust: A Systems Theory Approach to Identifying Transhumanism’s Religious Philosophy

3. Christian Transhumanism

4. Mormonism Mandates Transhumanism

5. Technological Apocalypse: Transhumanism as an End-Time Religious Movement

6. A Theological Assessment of Whole Brain Emulation: On the Path to Superintelligence

Section 2:  Desires and Values

7. Is Transhumanism a Distraction? On the Good of Being Boring

8. What Exactly Are We Trying to Accomplish? The Role of Desire and Aversion in Transhuman Visions

9. Genesis 2.0: Transhumanism, Catholicism, and the Future of Creation

10.  “Have You Believed Because You Have Seen?” Transhumanist Qualms about Enhancement of Religious Experience through Alterations to the Visual Field

Section 3: Moral Bioenhancement 

11. The Myth of Moral Bioenhancement: An Evolutionary Anthropology and Theological Critique

12. Ancient Aspirations Meet the Enlightenment

13. Unfit for the Future? Sin, Salvation, and Moral Bioenhancement in Christian Perspective

14. Enhancing Moral Goodness: Towards A Virtue Ethics of Moral Bioenhancement

15. Moral Bioenhancement From the Margins: A Feminist Christian Reconsideration

 

Section 4: Longing for Immortality: Meanings of Death

16. Technologizing Transcendence: A Critique of Transhumanism

17 Must We Die? Transhumanism, Religion and the Fear of Death

18. Dining and Dunking the Dead: Post-Mortem Rituals in First-Century Hellenistic

Society and What They Reveal about the Role of the Body in Christianity

 19.. Making Us Better: Believe It or Not?

O autorze

Tracy J. Trothen is Associate Professor of Religion at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She currently co-chairs the American Academy of Religion “Human Enhancement and Transhumanism” Group.

Calvin Mercer is Professor of Religious Studies, East Carolina University, USA. He is co-editor of Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and Its Successors and founding chair of the American Academy of Religion “Human Enhancement and Transhumanism” Group.

Blurb

This collection vigorously addresses the religious implications of extreme human enhancement technology. Topics covered include cutting edge themes, such as moral enhancement, common ground to both transhumanism and religion, the meaning of death, desire and transcendence, and virtue ethics. Radical enhancement programs, advocated by transhumanists, could arguably have a more profound impact than any other development in human history.

Reflecting a range of opinion about the desirability of extreme enhancement, leading scholars in the field join with emerging scholars to foster enhanced conversation on these topics.