Religion and Human Enhancement

Death, Values, and Morality

Tracy J. Trothen, Calvin Mercer, Tracy J. Trothen, Calvin Mercer

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9783319624877
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319624884
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: History & Theory of Philosophy
• Index: Social Sciences

This collection vigorously addresses the religious implications of extreme human enhancement technology. Topics covered include cutting edge themes, such as moral enhancement, common ground to both transhumanism and religion, the meaning of death, desire and transcendence, and virtue ethics. Radical enhancement programs, advocated by transhumanists, could arguably have a more profound impact than any other development in human history.

Reflecting a range of opinion about the desirability of extreme enhancement, leading scholars in the field join with emerging scholars to foster enhanced conversation on these topics.

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Contents
• Editors and Contributors
• Part I Introduction
• Chapter 1 Coming into Focus: An Introduction to the Collection
• Part II “Common Ground” between Transhumanism and Religions
• Chapter 2 In Extropy We Trust: A Systems Theory Approach to Identifying Transhumanism’s Religious Philosophy
• Chapter 3 Christian Transhumanism
• Chapter 4 Mormonism Mandates Transhumanism
• Chapter 5 Technological Apocalypse: Transhumanism as an End-Time Religious Movement
• Chapter 6 A Theological Assessment of Whole Brain Emulation: On the Path to Superintelligence
• Part III Desires and Values
• Chapter 7 Is Transhumanism a Distraction? On the Good of Being Boring
• Chapter 8 What Exactly Are We Trying to Accomplish? The Role of Desire in Transhumanist Visions
• Chapter 9 Genesis 2.0: Transhumanism, Catholicism, and the Future of Creation
• Chapter 10 “Have You Believed Because You Have Seen?”: Human and Transhuman Desires for Alterations to the Visual Field and Religious Experience
• Part IV Moral Bioenhancement
• Chapter 11 The Myth of Moral Bio-Enhancement: An Evolutionary Anthropology and Theological Critique
• Chapter 12 Ancient Aspirations Meet the Enlightenment
• Chapter 13 A Transhumanist Moral Bioenhancement Program: A Critique from Barth and Bonhoeffer
• Chapter 14 Enhancing Moral Goodness: Toward a Virtue Ethics of Moral Bioenhancement
• Chapter 15 Moral Bioenhancement from the Margins: An Intersectional Christian Theological Reconsideration
• Part V Longing for Immortality: Meanings of Death
• Chapter 16 Technologizing Transcendence: A Critique of Transhumanism
• Chapter 17 Must We Die? Transhumanism, Religion, and the Fear of Death
• Chapter 18 Dining and Dunking the Dead: Postmortem Rituals in First-Century Hellenistic Society and What They Reveal About the Role of the Body in Christianity
• Part VI Conclusion
• Chapter 19 Making Us Better: Believe It or Not?
• Works Cited
• Index