It would be natural to begin a book dedicated to ācyborg persons ā with broad references to post and transhumanism. This of course will happen in the following pages, because it is impossible to discuss issues regarding the redefinition of āhuman person ā without the perspective developed by these branches of contemporary reflection in humanities, understood as interdisciplinary field within cultural studies. Yet I do not consider them as a necessary departing point, because the topic in question is of greater significance and should also be approached philosophically.
Technological enhancementādevelopments in genetic engineering, artificial intelligence and robotics, and so forthāare processes that are currently happening changing the environment, urban spaces, modes of functioning, making choices, and satisfying oneās needs. These processes are not alien to human nature , as it is stressed by, for example, Pierre Levy, because technology together with language defines Homo Sapiens individuals as humansāso that āthe human world is technological to its coreā (Levy 1997, pp. 3ā4). However, at the same time technology ceases to be manipulated externally, outside of human body , and starts to permeate it, operating from the inside connected to the world around. In this way there appear various DIY bodyhackers technologically extending their senses, like Neil Harbisson and Moon Ribas, hybridsālike āthe daughterā of Educardo Kac and flower Petunia: Eduniaāor androids like Sophie, produced by Hanson Robotics Company from Hong Kong, recognized as an official citizen of Saudi Arabia in 2017.
In such a situation, it should be considered: how should we refer to the new entities starting to appear among purely biologically humans, and what is the significance of redefining of our relationship with them? Trying to approach that subject we encounter philosophical, sociological, and legal understandings of what it means to be a personādefining what have never been before needed to be specifiedāa āhuman person ā in relation to other persons that might not be human in biological sense. This entails reconsideration of what does it mean to be human, and what is the basis of human rights granting people rights and obligations in society due to their species affiliation, as it is inscribed in the United Nationsā Universal Declaration from 1948.
Therefore, in order to rethink the notion of a person in such a way that it may include non-humansāespecially cyborg persons , on whom I will focus my considerationsāI propose to turn to Joseph Margolis, a contemporary American philosopher, whose extensive work on culture, language, and human persons offers an interesting post-Darwinian, non-canonical pragmatist view that allows us to understand the changes in culture and persons in evolutionary, non-reductionist perspective. Particularly helpful in this reasoning is his idea of a human person or self as an artefactual individual emergent from the process of hybrid evolution of intertwined nature and culture, due to invention and mastery of language, and everything that this entails with developments of culture and technology (Margolis 2017a, pp. 39ā62).
The stripping of a human person from his assumed, probably ādivineā (or āof divine provenanceā) nature or essence, as Margolis does, is bold but brightānot reducing the human world to mere matter, nor blindly accepting neo-Darwinism, but also not accepting religious or transcendental demands. The way Margolis presents human persons āas artefactual, enlanguaged, and hybrid, having no natural environment and therefore no natural source for any set of norms and rules other than that which is collectively invented, shared, and transformed historically (what he calls sittlich)āopens up for the inclusion of cyborgs into the classification of persons. It also opens for consideration of the possibilities of different kinds of ethics, possibly cyborgean ethics too, if cyborgs are to be recognized as socially defined persons, because normativityāas Margolis explainsāis not rooted in any transcendental setting but rather always contingent and relational. Contemporary discussions on cyborgs and the ethical, social, and political issues that accompany themācurrently happening in various places across the worldācould benefit from turning to Margolisā philosophy in the process of redefining our ideas of a person, his/her/its/their autonomy, responsibility, and freedom, as well as for imagining their possible practical applications in science and politics.
Approaching the subject of new kind of persons emerging in contemporary world, I cannot address all kinds of new entities appearing in conjunction with rapidly developing technology, then I decide to limit myself predominantly to the idea of the ācyborg.ā By cyborg I understand an individual being embodied in a technologically enhanced human form, who by means of (often) online technology implemented in the body has different kinds of perception, cognition, practices, patterns, habits, and/or methods of communicating in comparison to someone embodied in an unaltered human form, and who should be recognized as a cyborg person , analogically to a human person . Cyborgs are not science fiction, neither they are completely artificial entities as Sophia; they are those on the spectrum between humans and robots, having implanted technology operating from within their body and influencing their way of life.
These are such persons as Neil Harbisson, whose antenna implanted into his brain allows him to āhearā colors via bone conduction, and Moon Ribas, whose implanted sensors allow her to āfeelā earthquakes over 1.0 on the Richter scale and movements of the Earthās moon. There are many other DIY bodyhackers tooāHarbisson and Ribas are not the first ones to implant themselves with connectivity-enabled technology in order to change their perception and communication. Eduardo Kac implanted his leg with digital memory (in radio-frequency identification (RFID)) chip form) within the art project āTime Capsuleā in 1997, and Kevin Warwick also implanted himself with multiple chips for sensory perception and online communication. Because these transformations may be taken as not radical enough, there is no questioning if Harbisson, Ribas, Kac, or Warwick should be granted the status of persons, although the laws are being moved, bended with the allowance of passport photo with antenna that Harbisson has. However it may be helpful to differentiate between the relatively āweakā cyborg status of Kac and Warwick, and the relatively āstrongā status of Harbisson and Ribas (what may have implications also on a legal level).1 Harbissonās and Ribasā synergy of technology and senses stays for strong cyborg status, because the technology merges with the organism in the intent to alter regular performance. This is not the case of Kac and Warwick, in whose cases either the technology does not alter profoundly forms of perception and/or communication (Kac ) or its engagement is just for them time being of experiments.
Contemplating the changing conditions of personhood nowadays, there...