December 6-8, 2013

Yale University, New Haven, CT USA
 
http://nonhumanrights.net

Sponsors:  Nonhuman Rights Project, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale Animal Ethics Group, Yale Technology and Ethics Working Group

A growing body of research shows that many nonhuman animals, especially great apes, dolphins and whales, and elephants, have self-awareness, intentionality, creativity, symbolic communication, and the other characteristics of “personhood.”  If at least some animals are psychological persons isn’t it time to extend the legal protection of ‘human rights’ from our species to all beings with those characteristics? Given pending advances in genetic engineering and computing having a clear agenda for what criteria are necessary for personhood, and what we owe persons, may soon become even more complicated.

The Personhood Beyond the Human conference will tackle these questions and take a hard look at our evolving notions of personhood by analyzing them through the frameworks of neuroscience, behavioral science, philosophy, ethics, and law. Special consideration will be given to discussions of nonhuman animal personhood, both in terms of understanding the science and philosophy behind personhood, and ways to protect animal interests through the establishment of legal precedents and by increasing public awareness.

The conference will be co-sponsored by the Nonhuman Rights Project and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) in collaboration with the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, the Yale Animal Ethics Group, and the Yale Technology and Ethics Working Group.  The first day of the conference will focus on the philosophical and public policy issues around nonhuman personhood. The second day will focus on the legal cases the Nonhuman Rights Project will be filing in 2013 on behalf of animals, and the legal arguments they will be using.

By the close of the conference, attendees will have gained an enhanced understanding of the neurological, cognitive, and behavioral underpinnings of personhood and those traits required for such consideration; personhood theory; the history of personhood consideration and status (both in terms of philosophical and legal conceptions); and the legal hurdles and requirements for granting personhood status outside of the human species.

SPEAKERS INCLUDE (in formation)

-    Peter Singer, Princeton University
- Steve Wise, President of the Nonhuman Rights Project
- Joel Marks Ph.D., Philosophy, U of New Haven
- George Dvorsky, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET)
- James Hughes Ph.D., Executive Director IEET & Public Policy, Trinity College
- Dr. Lori Marino, The Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy, Center for Ethics, Emory University
- Steven Tauber, Dept of Government & International Affairs, U. of S. Florida

REGISTRATION

Until November 1 conference pre-registration will be $100. Click here to register.

After November 1 registration will be $150.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

James J. Hughes Ph.D.
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
director@ieet.org
860-297-2376

Natalie Prosin
Nonhuman Rights Project
nprosin@nonhumanrights.org
202-505-0890

Click Here to download or listen to the recorded audio.

To paraphrase Dr. Hughes in the first half of our interview: “Life-extension technologies and body alterations are relatively ethically trivial, issues of reproduction get a little bit more dicey, but where things get the most interesting – I think – is what we are going to be able to do to our brain, our personality, our consciousness.”

Transhumanism Meets Design - http://humanityplus.org/conferences/p… http://humanityplus.org
On May 14-15 2011, Humanity+ International is partnered with Parsons The New School for Design in New York City to produce Transhumanism Meets Design. The conference was co-chaired by Ed Keller, Associate Dean of Distributed Learning at Parsons and Natasha Vita-More, Chairperson of Humanity+. The aim was to explore emerging technology, transdisciplinary design, culture and media theory, and biotech.

The conference brings together futurists, cyberneticists, life extensionists, singularity advocates, A[G]I and robotics experts, human enhancement specialists, inventors, ethicists, philosophers, and theorists to meet with the creativity and rigorous scholarship of design at Parsons.

Technological innovation permeates all aspects of society—from tiny water purification packets and portable LifeStraw filters, to GPS tracking devices, wearable Timex iPods and Gel-Kinsei high-tech running shoes. Because technology and society evolve together, it has become increasingly important to develop a greater understanding of how technology is shaping the course of our lives. We are faced with a need to continuously become more innovative in harnessing and controlling technology’s acceleration. Nevertheless, innovation develops in stages. When it speeds up, we are faced with an urge to become ever more resourceful. When it slows down there is an impending impatience to compete with the exuberance of China. There is no doubt that even the most conservative thinkers agree that we have stepped into an era of a massive change. The good news is that our human diversity continues to spawn inventiveness and novelty.

Humanity+ @ Parsons NYC explores how society can establish innovative thinking through design to harness this adventurous ride into the future where Transhumanism Meets Design!

Sponsors: Nonhuman Rights Project, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale Animal Ethics Group, Yale Technology and Ethics Working Group

A growing body of research shows that many nonhuman animals, especially great apes, dolphins and whales, and elephants, have self-awareness, intentionality, creativity, symbolic communication, and the other characteristics of “personhood.” If at least some animals are psychological persons isn’t it time to extend the legal protection of ‘human rights’ from our species to all beings with those characteristics? Given pending advances in genetic engineering and computing having a clear agenda for what criteria are necessary for personhood, and what we owe persons, may soon become even more complicated.

James Hughes Ph.D., the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, is a bioethicist and sociologist at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut where he teaches health policy and serves as Director of Institutional Research and Planning. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he also taught bioethics at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Dr. Hughes is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future , and is working on a second book tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha. Since 1999 he has produced a syndicated weekly radio program, Changesurfer Radio.

- Ray Villard @cosmic_ray (Baltimore, MD) Discovery Space Blogger; News Director For The Hubble Space Telescope; Writer, Author
- Nick Bostrom (Oxford, England) Professor, Faculty of Philosophy & Oxford Martin School; Director, Future of Humanity Institute
- James Hughes @citizencyborg (Hartford, CT) Executive Director At Institute For Ethics & Emerging Technologies
- George Dvorsky @dvorsky (Toronto, Canada) Producer of The Sentient Developments Blog

Politics and economics have yet to face the fact that an increasingly automated economy will mean the decline of human employment, and the establishment of a basic income guarantee. Instead we have hand-wringing about reining in “entitlements” and calls for austerity to facilitate private sector job growth. Expansions of longevity are greeted with calls for pushing up the retirement age, ignoring the shrinking availability of jobs. In order to avoid a neo-feudal future with a mass of unemployed poor dominated by a super-wealthy elite we partisans are a radically better future need to join the fight against austerity economics, and put forward a path to a world in which all share in the growth of wealth from technological innovation.