The enhanced medication: The use of medicine in transhumanistic discourses and its social meanings

Abstract

Though NBICs and their overlap are at the heart of transhumanist claims in favour of human enhancement, medication also occupies a central place. In many of the movement's writings and lectures, it is one of the primary means systematically considered to extend human biological boundaries and improve physical, intellectual and emotional performance. Taking a sociological perspective, this article aims to explore the role and meaning medication holds in transhumanist discourse. Declared the tool for true human emancipation, the non-therapeutic use of medication for which transhumanists advocate is actually carried out against a heightened biomedicalization of many contemporary social issues. After having explored this ambivalence, our article demonstrates that, hardly specific to this fringe movement, transhumanists' aspirations of pharmacologically reaching ?better than well? fits more broadly into contemporary biomedical pretentions, of which transhumanism is just one extreme example.