On April 16 I spoke in Tempe Arizona at a seminar on “Transhumanism and the Concept of Human Nature,” which is part of a four year exploration of Transhumanism and Religion there funded by the Templeton Foundation. My paper got a little out of hand and became a short book: “The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future” (PDF), and has now been published by the Global Spiral, the Templeton-funded Metanexus Institute journal. Any comments welcome.
Abstract: Transhumanism – the proposition that human beings should use technology to transcend the limitations of the body and brain – is a product of the Enlightenment humanist tradition. As a consequence most avowed transhumanists are secular, and many religious are skeptical or hostile towards the transhumanist project. However there are also many religious transhumanists who find the project of human enhancement at least consistent with, and sometimes a fulfillment of, their metaphysics, soteriologies and eschatologies. Transhumanism appears to be especially compatible with religious traditions that emphasize human agency and evolution to a transcendent state, such as Buddhism, or that have incorporated Enlightenment values, such as liberal Christianity. But elements of the transhumanist worldview and enhancement technologies are compatible with one element or another of most world faiths, even the most fundamentalist. We can thus expect that human enhancement technologies will be adopted creatively into the theologies of groups within all the world’s faiths, producing many flavors of “trans-spirituality.”
Download the PDF
James Hughes Ph.D., the IEET Executive Director, is a bioethicist and sociologist at
Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut USA. He is author of
Citizen Cyborg and is working on a second book tentatively titled
Cyborg Buddha. He produces a syndicated weekly radio program,
Changesurfer Radio.
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