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Technoprogressive? BioConservative? Huh?
Quick overview of biopolitical points of view
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"Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian."
--Emma Goldman
TechEthics News
Also check out technoprogressive multimedia on Thoughtware.tv
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What is the IEET?
The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies was founded in 2004 by philosopher Nick Bostrom and bioethicist James J. Hughes. The IEET is incorporated as a nonprofit organization in the United States. The IEET’s Board of Directors currently come from Spain, Canada, the UK and the United States. By promoting and publicizing the work of thinkers who examine the social implications of scientific and technological progress, we seek to contribute to the understanding of the impact of emerging technologies on individuals and societies. We also want to help shape public policies that distribute the benefits and reduce the risks of technological advancement.
IEET's Mission
The IEET’s mission is to become a center for voices arguing for a responsible, constructive approach to emerging human enhancement technologies. We believe that technological progress can be a catalyst for positive human development so long as we ensure that technologies are safe and equitably distributed. We call this a "technoprogressive" orientation.
We aim to showcase technoprogressive ideas about how technological progress can increase freedom, happiness, and human flourishing in democratic societies. Focusing on emerging technologies that have the potential to positively transform social conditions and the quality of human lives - especially "human enhancement technologies" - the IEET seeks to encourage public policies for their safe and equitable use, and to cultivate academic, professional, and popular appreciation about their impacts.
The Debate Over Human Enhancement
In the next fifty years, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, genetic engineering and cognitive science will allow human beings to transcend the limitations of the human body. Life spans will extend well beyond a century. Our senses and cognition will be enhanced. We will have greater control over our emotions and memory. Our bodies and brains will be surrounded by and merged with computer power. We will use these technologies to redesign ourselves and our children in ways that push the boundaries of “humanness.”
The prospect of rapid change in the human condition understandably worries many people. Now a loose coalition of groups has emerged to forbid human enhancement - from genetic therapies and psychopharmaceuticals to prosthetic organs and nanomedical robotics. This "bioconservative" coalition is diverse, including some bioethicists, religious conservatives, disability rights and environmental activists, and leftist critics of biotechnology.
The IEET believes this debate desperately needs voices that avoid these extremes, voices that argue for the potential benefits of new technologies while proposing realistic policies to mitigate their risks.
Defending Rights while Taking Risks Seriously
Responding to the polarization of the debate between technophobes and anti-regulatory technophiles, an emerging global network of technoprogressive thinkers have begun to defend individuals’ rights to use human enhancement technologies, while taking seriously the need to regulate their safety and social consequences. Technoprogressives address questions such as peoples' right to use - and not use - cognitive enhancement technologies in an increasingly competitive society. How much clinical testing will be necessary to ensure the safety of genetic enhancements? How can we regulate psychoactive drugs in a way that respects cognitive liberty? When should parents be permitted to genetically enhance their children? How can we avoid exacerbating inequality as human enhancement technologies spread? Which enhancement therapies should be provided through the market and which as a right of citizenship through universal health plans?
As yet there has been no institutional home for the consideration of these ethical challenges of emerging technologies free from both technophobic red herrings, such as anxieties about transgressing the boundaries of humanness and human reason, and from anti-regulatory dogmas that reject democratic public policy as an avenue to address future risks. The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies intends to fill that gap.
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