Exec. Dir., Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

James Hughes teaches Health Policy at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut, and serves as Trinity’s Associate Director of Institutional Research and Planning. Dr. Hughes also serves as the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and its affiliated World Transhumanist Association. Dr. Hughes produces the weekly syndicated public affairs talk show Changesurfer Radio, writes the Change Surfing column for Betterhumans.com, and contributes to the democratic transhumanist Cyborg Democracy blog. Dr. Hughes is the author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future. Dr. Hughes lives in rural eastern Connecticut with his wife, the artist Monica Bock, and their two children.

In the near future we will have many technologies that will allow us to modify and assist our emotions and reasoning. One of the purposes we will put these technologies to is to assist our adherence to self-chosen moral codes and citizenship obligations. For instance we will be able to suppress unwelcome desires, enhance compassion and empathy, and expand our understanding our social world and the consequences of actions. So, contrary to the bioconservative accusation that neurological self-determination and human enhancement will encourage more selfishness in society, it will probably permit people to be even more moral and responsible than they currently are.