Russell Blackford

As described elsewhere on this journal’s website, The Journal of Evolution and Technology was founded in 1998 as The Journal of Transhumanism, and was originally published by the World Transhumanist Association. In November 2004, JET moved under the umbrella of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, an organization that seeks to contribute to our understanding of the impact of emerging technologies on individuals and societies. Prior to my appointment, in January 2008, as JET’s editor-in-chief, I’d had four distinguished predecessors – Nick Bostrom, Robin Hanson, Mark Walker, and James Hughes – who had established the journal as a leading forum for discussion of the future of the human species and whatever might come after it. Articles that they'd published in JET were – and are – frequently cited in discussions of the human or posthuman future. With a decade of history behind the journal as I commenced my watch this year, and with JET’s fifth year with IEET now underway, we have much to celebrate. I'm personally delighted to have taken up my position with a journal of ideas that has such a rich history and so much promise. JET is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal. The material that it publishes may or may not be submitted by scholars and scientists currently working within the academy, but it must certainly meet the standards of well-established academic journals. Most submissions received are rejected because they don’t reach the required standard, but we are always looking for appropriate articles and reviews. We require only that they be relevant to the human or posthuman future and that they meet our high standards of scholarship, originality, and intellectual rigor. We welcome submissions on a wide range of relevant topics and from almost any academic discipline or interdisciplinary standpoint. Central to our thinking at JET is the idea – increasingly familiar and plausible – that the human species is about to commence, or has already commenced, a new form of evolution. This is something quite different from the slow Darwinian processes of survival, reproduction, and adaptation. It is powered, rather, by new technologies that increasingly work their way inwards, transforming human bodies and minds. According to this idea, technology can do more than merely giving us tools to manipulate the world around us; it can alter us far more comprehensively than by shaping our neurological pathways when we learn to handle new tools. This idea of a technologically-mediated process of evolution remains controversial, of course, and even if we grant it broad acceptance there is still much to debate. Just how the process might be manifested in the years to come, and just where it might take us or our successors, are both unclear. Nonetheless, the idea merits careful study from many viewpoints, whether scientific, philosophical, historical, sociological, anthropological, legal, artistic … or even theological.

We commonly identify something seriously defective in a human life that is lived in ignorance of important but unpalatable truths. At the same time, some degree of misapprehension of reality may be necessary for individual health and success. Morally speaking, it is unclear just how insistent we should be about seeking the truth. Robert Sparrow has considered such issues in discussing the manufacture and marketing of robot ‘pets’, such as Sony’s doglike ‘AIBO’ toy and whatever more advanced devices may supersede it. Though it is not his only concern, Sparrow particularly criticizes such robot pets for their illusory appearance of being living things. He fears that some individuals will subconsciously buy into the illusion, and come to sentimentalize interactions that fail to constitute genuine relationships. In replying to Sparrow, I emphasize that this would be continuous with much of the minor sentimentality that we already indulge in from day to day. Although a disposition to seek the truth is morally virtuous, the virtue concerned must allow for at least some categories of exceptions. Despite Sparrow’s concerns about robot pets (and robotics more generally), we should be lenient about familiar, relatively benign, kinds of self-indulgence in forming beliefs about reality. Sentimentality about robot pets seems to fall within these categories. Such limited self-indulgence can co-exist with ordinary honesty and commitment to truth.

Philosophy’s Future: The Problem of Philosophical Progress diagnoses the state of philosophy as an academic discipline and calls it to account, inviting further reflection and dialogue on its cultural value and capacity for future evolution. Offers the most up-to-date treatment of the intellectual and cultural value of contemporary philosophy from a wide range of perspectives Features contributions from distinguished philosophers such as Frank Jackson, Karen Green, Timothy Williamson, Jessica Wilson, and many others Explores the ways philosophical investigations of logic, world, mind, and moral responsibility continue to shape the empirical and theoretical sciences Considers the role of contemporary philosophy in political issues such as women’s rights, the discrimination of minorities, and public health.

The prospect of radical human enhancement challenges us with how we can even think about the choice to enhance or not enhance. Whether as individuals or as citizens of liberal democracies, we already recognize the prospect of a future that is defined by technology, without being able to predict or imagine what it will be like or how we should try to influence it. We can also be sure that radical enhancement of ourselves as individuals, or of a large proportion of our fellow citizens, will alter the very standards and values by which we, as individuals or polities, later evaluate decisions to enhance – this is one version of the more general problem of transformative choice. In response to these challenges, it is plausible that we have no alternative to choosing and acting on our current desires and values, rather than our expected future values or some set of values that is objectively authoritative for us. On the other hand, our current value-outlooks include a degree of openness to our desires and values themselves changing, and for this reason we can often finesse the problem of transformative choice when it arises in everyday situations. On the gripping hand, this does not entirely solve the problem when it comes to something as dramatic and unprecedented as radical enhancement. There is some reason for an incremental, rather than apocalyptic, approach, even if we are sympathetic to a human future shaped by radical enhancement initiatives.

Tackling a host of myths and prejudices commonly leveled at atheism, this captivating volume bursts with sparkling, eloquent arguments on every page. The authors rebut claims that range from atheism being just another religion to the alleged atrocities committed in its name. An accessible yet scholarly commentary on hot-button issues in the debate over religious belief Teaches critical thinking skills through detailed, rational argument Objectively considers each myth on its merits Includes a history of atheism and its advocates, an appendix detailing atheist organizations, and an extensive bibliography Explains the differences between atheism and related concepts such as agnosticism and naturalism.

_Philosophy’s Future: The Problem of Philosophical Progress_ diagnoses the state of philosophy as an academic discipline and calls it to account, inviting further reflection and dialogue on its cultural value and capacity for future evolution. Offers the most up-to-date treatment of the intellectual and cultural value of contemporary philosophy from a wide range of perspectives Features contributions from distinguished philosophers such as Frank Jackson, Karen Green, Timothy Williamson, Jessica Wilson, and many others Explores the ways philosophical investigations of logic, world, mind, and moral responsibility continue to shape the empirical and theoretical sciences Considers the role of contemporary philosophy in political issues such as women’s rights, the discrimination of minorities, and public health.

Philosophy proceeds, supposedly, by way of rational inquiry and argument, yet, as Jonathan Glover has written, “philosophers persistently disagree” to such an extent that the “apparent lack of clear progress or of a body of established results is an embarrassment”. To outside observers, this may appear puzzling. Even professional philosophers sometimes worry about their discipline’s lack of consensus, continuing disagreement on standards and methods, and increasingly fragmented, hyperspecialized state of play. Though philosophy hesitates to speak with one voice, it can endorse and teach values to do with intellectual rigor and honesty, charity to opponents, and openness to evidence. If these are passed down effectively from teachers to students, we might hope that philosophers will bring their characteristic skills and values to some of the great practical questions of our age, not least those relating to global injustice and risks to humanity’s future. All too often, the debates that surround these questions are dominated by tribalism, dogma, and emotional manipulation. With dedication, and perhaps a bit of good luck, philosophical training might provide something of a corrective. If philosophy fails in that respect by not living up to its ideals, that’s a situation we can identify and try to alter.

Since early 1997, when the creation of Dolly the sheep by somatic cell nuclear transfer was announced in Nature, numerous government reports, essays, articles and books have considered the ethical problems and policy issues surrounding human reproductive cloning. In this article, I consider what response a modern liberal society should give to the prospect of human cloning, if it became safe and practical. Some opponents of human cloning have argued that permitting it would place us on a slippery slope to a repugnant future society, comparable to that portrayed in Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World.I conclude that, leaving aside concerns about safety, none of the psychological or social considerations discussed in this article provides an adequate policy justification for invoking the state’s coercive powers to prevent human cloning.

In issue 20 of The Journal of Evolution and Technology, we published “Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism” by Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. In this intriguing article, Sorgner argues that there are significant similarities between the concept of the posthuman and Nietzsche’s celebrated notion of the overhuman. Sorgner does not claim that late twentieth-century and contemporary transhumanist thinkers were knowingly influenced by Nietzsche: this is a question that he explicitly leaves open. Nor does he depict transhumanism as monolithic, or the concept of the posthuman as unambiguous. For all that, he suggests that the similarity between the two concepts – overhuman and posthuman – is not merely superficial: it lies at a fundamental level.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the content discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. Machine or artificial intelligence (AI), might well have the ability to understand, modify, and improve its own source code, carrying it by great leaps into domains of ability that unaided flesh can never hope to reach. AI uses engineered electronic or photonic neural nets operating a million times faster. Uploading need not imply a world of bloated grubs lying in the dark with their brains wired to spreadsheets and simulated worlds. The initial goal of uploaders would be to emulate and enhance the brain, and that requires rich connections to external reality. The artificial system is not merely simulating but actually emulating or replicating the relevant functioning of a human brain. The book shows enthusiasm about the prospects of machine intelligence and mind uploading, and expresses skepticism or concern.

Mario Bunge has provided a useful analysis of the phenomenon of ideology, dividing ideologies into religions and sociopolitical ideologies and showing how both can be analyzed into very similar elements. This approach illuminates why sociopolitical ideologies so often bear the trappings of religion, and how they can play a similar role in their adherents’ lives. Importantly, both contain cognitive content that includes one or another view of human nature. Science can threaten religions and sociopolitical ideologies by undermining their credibility and their specific claims, though science can also inform sociopolitical ideologies in ways that are potentially beneficial. Unfortunately, ideologues often insist on an arrow of causation that goes from ideology to science, rather than from science to ideology. That is, ideologues make judgments about science by using their own partisan beliefs, procedures, and epistemic standards, rather than allowing scientific findings to inform the emergence of an ideology grounded in reason. In this respect, ideologies of all kinds can become enemies of free scientific inquiry.

A puzzle - possibly a scandal - for modern academic philosophy is the inability of philosophers to reach agreement on the answers to big, persistent questions that worry ordinary people. We can't even agree on the right methodology. Thus, philosophical disagreement is fundamental, pervasive, and perhaps permanent, and this might suggest that philosophy's questions are (as often claimed) intractable. But are they really? Might it rather be the case that these questions do have answers that are not out of reach of philosophical investigation and that there are other explanations for their seeming intractability?