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With the progress of artificial intelligence, the digitalization of the lifeworld, and the reduction of the mind to neuronal processes, the human being increasingly appears to be just a product of data and algorithms. That is, we conceive ourselves in the image of our machines, and conversely, we elevate our machines and our brains to new subjects. At the same time, demands for an enhancement of human nature culminate in transhumanist visions of taking human evolution to a new stage. Against this self-reification of the human being, this book defends a humanism of embodiment: our corporeality, vitality, embodied freedom are the foundations of a self-determined existence, which uses these new technologies only as a means, instead of letting them rule us. In Defence of the Human Being offers an array of interventions directed against a reductionist naturalism or transhumanism in various areas of science and society. As alternative it offers an embodied and enactive account of the human person: we are neither pure minds nor brains, but primarily embodied, living beings in relation with others. Fuchs applied this concept to issues such as artificial intelligence, transhumanism and enhancement, virtual reality, neuroscience, embodied freedom, psychiatry, and finally to the accelerating dynamics of current society which lead to an increasing disembodiment of our everyday conduct of life. Cutting across neuroscience, philosophy, and psychiatry, this important new book applies cutting-edge concepts of embodiment and enactivism to the current scientific, technological and cultural tendencies that will crucially influence our society's development in the 21st century.
Recoge: Murder among nations -- How to talk about self-defense -- A theory of legitimate defense -- The six elements of legitimate defense -- Excusing international aggression -- Humanitarian intervention -- Preemptive and preventitive wars -- The collective dimension of war.
Religious faith is under assault. In books and movies and on television, militant secular critics attack religion with a renewed vigor. These “new atheists” repeat a two-part mantra: that religious faith is hopelessly irrational and that those possessed of such faith are responsible for the hatred and bloodshed that has plagued humanity. Abandon religion, they urge us, and the world will at last live in peace. In Defense of Faith examines this proposition in the context of Western civilization and the Judeo-Christian tradition and asserts that, far from encouraging hatred and violence, the Judeo-Christian tradition has easily been the most effective curb upon the dark defects of human nature and our best tool in the struggle for humanity. From the Christian activists who fought to stop the genocide of Indians in South America and their ethnic cleansing in North America, to the abolition of African slavery on both sides of the Atlantic, and on to modern human rights activists from Martin Luther King Jr. to the rock star Bono—In Defense of Faith rebuts the fashionable arguments against religion and presents the strong and lasting record of the Judeo-Christian idea. History has not been as kind to the atheist model: every time it is put to the test, we have reverted to the most base, violent instincts of our selfish genes.
Robert Kraynak And Glenn Tinder Contend that the major challenge of our time is to recover a true and authentic understanding of human dignity and to defend it against threats from modern civilization. In Defense of Human Dignity wrestles with the dilemma that contemporary society has developed a heightened sensitivity to the demands of human dignity while creating radically new dangers to humanity in the form of the totalitarian state, modern technology, genetic engineering, the practical ethics movement, and radical environmentalism. The inspiration for this volume is the publication twenty years ago of the Covey Lectures by Glenn Tinder under the title Against Fate, in which Tinder argued that the sanctity of every individual is the central moral intuition of the Western tradition.
How can higher education today create a community of critical thinkers and searchers for truth that transcends the boundaries of class, gender, and nation? Martha C. Nussbaum, philosopher and classicist, argues that contemporary curricular reform is already producing such “citizens of the world” in its advocacy of diverse forms of cross-cultural studies. Her vigorous defense of “the new education” is rooted in Seneca’s ideal of the citizen who scrutinizes tradition critically and who respects the ability to reason wherever it is found—in rich or poor, native or foreigner, female or male. Drawing on Socrates and the Stoics, Nussbaum establishes three core values of liberal education: critical self-examination, the ideal of the world citizen, and the development of the narrative imagination. Then, taking us into classrooms and campuses across the nation, including prominent research universities, small independent colleges, and religious institutions, she shows how these values are (and in some instances are not) being embodied in particular courses. She defends such burgeoning subject areas as gender, minority, and gay studies against charges of moral relativism and low standards, and underscores their dynamic and fundamental contribution to critical reasoning and world citizenship. For Nussbaum, liberal education is alive and well on American campuses in the late twentieth century. It is not only viable, promising, and constructive, but it is essential to a democratic society. Taking up the challenge of conservative critics of academe, she argues persuasively that sustained reform in the aim and content of liberal education is the most vital and invigorating force in higher education today.
At the onset of Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, Leon Kass gives us a status report on where we stand today: “Human nature itself lies on the operating table, ready for alteration, for eugenic and psychic ‘enhancement,’ for wholesale redesign. In leading laboratories, academic and industrial, new creators are confidently amassing their powers and quietly honing their skills. For anyone who cares about preserving our humanity, the time has come for paying attention.” Trained as a medical doctor and biochemist, Dr. Kass has become one of our most provocative thinkers on bioethical issues. In Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity, he has written a book that grapples with the moral meaning of the new biomedical technologies now threatening to take us back to the future envisioned by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. In a series of mediations on cloning, embryo research, the sale of organs, and the assault on mortality itself, Kass questions the wisdom of trying to break down the natural boundaries given us and to remake the human body into an instrument of our will. He also attempts to chart a course by which we might avoid the dehumanization of biotechnical “recreationism” without rejecting modern science or rejecting its genuine contributions to human welfare. Leon Kass writes profoundly about the limits of science and the limits of life, about what makes us human and gives us human dignity. Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity.
A passionate defence of humanity and a work of radical optimism from the international bestselling author of Postcapitalism How do we preserve what makes us human in an age of uncertainty? Are we now just consumers shaped by market forces? A sequence of DNA? A collection of base instincts? Or will we soon be supplanted by algorithms and A.I. anyway? In Clear Bright Future, Paul Mason calls for a radical, impassioned defence of the human being, our universal rights and freedoms and our power to change the world around us. Ranging from economics to Big Data, from neuroscience to the culture wars, he draws from his on-the-ground reporting from mass protests in Istanbul to riots in Washington, as well as his own childhood in an English mining community, to show how the notion of humanity has become eroded as never before. In this book Paul Mason argues that we are still capable - through language, innovation and co-operation - of shaping our future. He offers a vision of humans as more than puppets, customers or cogs in a machine. This work of radical optimism asks: Do you want to be controlled? Or do you want something better?
A study detailing the historical, cultural and philosophical origins of French security policy since 1919. Chuter (Ministry of Defence, London) explains how and why security policy has developed since that time, arguing that the origins of current policy lie even further back in history and, through a cultural network of myths and symbolisms, continues to influence how the French perceive contemporary events--often to the bewilderment of Anglo-Saxon countries with a vastly different set of experiences. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Official U.S. edition with full color illustrations throughout. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods. Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style—thorough, yet riveting—famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda. What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus. With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future.