H+: Transhumans in Cyberspace

Abstract

This paper examines some issues with transhumanist philosophies as dramatized in the ground-breaking web series H+. Specifically developed to take advantage of new media’s interactive potential, H+ nonetheless portrays a pessimistic approach to technological progress and posthumanism. This critique is related to two problems for the transhumanist movement. First, both the narrative and the financing of the web series indicate some of the issues associated with corporate financing of transformative technologies, an issue to which proponents of transhumanism pay remarkably little attention. Second, the claim that posthuman society should be better because posthumans may be morally superior to us is critically examined, and the paper argues that morality cannot be advanced through biotechnology, as moral codes are social in nature and are distinct from moral dispositions. Rather, enhancement technologies are likely to throw up new ethical dilemmas that cannot be solved simply through posthuman enhancement.