Overview

Full Product Details

9780190051495

Table of Contents

Reviews

Global pandemics, climate change, looming geopolitical conflicts over fresh water and food-it seems the more we should learn how to change the behavior of humans in nature, the more we recoil and try to find a way out by changing nature in humans instead. One such recoil is transhumanism. Posthuman Bliss? offers a searching critique of biotechnical fabrication of human thought and emotion on the molecular level. Welcome to bioethical thinking that is critical, not apologetic. Welcome to classical philosopher Susan B. Levin's interdisciplinary perspective on the limits of biopower. * Bruce Jennings, Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society Vanderbilt University * Rooted in an optimistic view about human capacities and wielding strong philosophical and scientific arguments, Susan Levin's insightful and welcome book reveals transhumanists' tempting but ultimately failing promises. * Inmaculada de Melo-Martin, Weill Cornell Medicine * Susan Levin's critique of the philosophical literature defending radical forms of cognitive and moral enhancement is closely reasoned, thoroughly researched, and deliciously peppery. In offering sustained challenges to both the scientific and the philosophical assumptions of her interlocutors, she effectively sets the agenda for the next chapter in scholarship about our obligations to future humans. * Eric T. Juengst, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill * Transhumanists argue that for human beings to survive in the future, much less to flourish, we need to technologically overhaul our evolved natures. In her vigorous, erudite, clear, and penetrating critique, Susan Levin shows the transhumanist argument to rest on a superficial philosophical understanding of what it means to be human and on an equally superficial scientific understanding of what it is to be an organism. Beyond critique, she offers an alternative vision of flourishing that is rooted in Aristotle's understanding, is improved upon by the American Founders, and is embodied in the life of Martin Luther King. This book will be of enormous interest to anyone who cares to think about what it means to be human in an age when the problems of our shared existence can seem so dire that the only solutions left are technological. * Erik Parens, Hastings Center Initiative in Bioethics and the Humanities *

Author Information

Susan B. Levin is Roe/Straut Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Smith College. In addition to her numerous publications in bioethics, she has authored two books and many articles in Greek philosophy.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available