010103 SE New Technologies, Transhumanism and Theological Ethics (2021S)

Theological ethics is a discipline that analyses and evaluates ethical issues from the point of view of (Christian) faith. Due to the faith's reliance of revelation and tradition, one might argue that theological ethics is ill equipped to address any ethical issues set by new technologies, or to offer anything else except blank condemnation. In that regard, transhumanism - a philosophical outlook that advocates for the transformation of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies able to greatly modify or enhance human intellect and physiology - offers a clear alternative, marked by professed openness to new technologies as a concrete embodiedness of hope for better future.
While both of these accounts (of theological ethics and transhumanism) are too simplistic to allow drawing out any conclusions, they certainly echo a wide public sentiment that is, perhaps, a remnant of the Enlightenment belief in the endless progress (and its opposition to tradition). Thus, the main task of this seminar will be to detect in which ways are the two accounts, sketched above, simplistic by analysing selected ethical issues posed by new technologies from the perspective of theological ethics and transhumanism, respectively. While a part of this analysis and discussion will certainly revolve around ethical acceptability of specific technologies understood as tools that are used within certain fields, the more profound issues emerge as technology is not seen anymore as a tool used to achieve various goals, but as a way of defining ourselves as human beings. While on that level of discussion theological ethics and transhumanism hold very different visions of what a human being is/can become, new technologies remind us that none of these visions can be considered definitive, which also opens up a space for dialogue between proponents of the two visions.