Transhumanisme : entre augmentation, esthétique et éthique

Abstract

Body hacking and transhumanism are about to

change the way we see the body. If we used to consider it

as a site for our identity and the expression of our culture,

it now merely seems to be an architecture that we can

change at will. In the field of biohacking, body hackers

enhance the body using new technologies in order to

introduce new capacities, new potentialities. For them, the

body is « obsolete », which means it should no longer

stay as it currently is. In the same way, transhumanism,

particularly extropianism, allows us to think about the

design of our future body. By the Primo Posthuman

prototype, Natasha Vita-More wants to show us what we

can expect for the future: a new body, «more comfortable,

more performing, more beautiful», that would be

enhanced, updatable and environmentally friendly. In

other words, it seems that we are about to change our way

of being, with the use of technologies and art. Biodesign

and bioart are not only used to modify specific

characteristics of a species, but also to create a whole new

type of body for the « elevation of the human condition »,

a posthuman or a cyborg. Creating the design of our body

would be a way to be more connected to the world and

also more ourselves. Human enhancement seems to be the

promise of being « truly » human and of improving

ourselves physically and mentally. But the process of

cyborgisation is not as simple as trans-humanists and

body hackers consider it. It is a way to redefine what it is

to be human, to think about what it is for us to be. 

Can we really consider the body as «obsolete»? What does it

mean for us to be human? In other words, what are the

ethical and ontological issues that those projects are

revealing about personal and social identity? In this paper,

we will analyse the practices of the body hackers, and

then the way transhumanists imagine the posthuman.

Finally, we will examine the ethical issues that arise with

the process of hybridation between the body and new

technologies.