The Labor of the Inhuman

Abstract

The article justifies the project of inhumanism as a practical elaboration of an enlightened humanism. The author consistently distinguishes his inhumanism from anti-humanism, contemporary humanism and so-called kitsch Marxism. Starting from the thesis that the concept of the human is an epistemological one, inhumanism continuously revises what it means to be human. This eradicates what are presumed to be its self-evident characteristics and preserves reliable invariants. Inhumanism is therefore a requirement to engage in construction: it requires that we define what it means to be human and regard it as a constructible and productive hypothesis, as a space for navigation and intervention, while also considering current circumstances. The concept of the human is a commitment to humanity. To make a commitment means asking “What else? ” and being attentive to what other commitments it brings forth and to how such derivative commitments demand new modes of action and understanding, new abilities and special acts. Therefore, a stance of construction and revision in relation to the human is necessary in order to understand and commit to humanity, that is, one must begin practicing inhumanism. The condition for that revision is the autonomy of reason (sapience), which is functionally distinct from sensibility (sentience) in its capacity to engage in discursive practices, to give and ask for reasons. Without such a capacity, being human is merely a biological fact. And this implies an imperative for creating norms rather than only consuming them. Nevertheless, the program for revising reason that inhumanism activates is autonomous: the human does not control it. Inhumanism is the labor of rational agency on the human; hence, one must be a slave to reason in order to be free. Paraphrasing Michel Foucault, the author maintains that every self-portrait of the human is washed away by the revisionary power of reason, each one giving way to more subtle portraits with so few canonical traits remaining that it becomes reasonable whether it makes sense to call what is left “human”. This is what functionally distinguishes sapience from sentience.