Posthuman Ethics Research Articles

Posthuman Ethics and Distributed Agency in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun

This article discusses posthuman ethics in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun by employing the concept of distributed agency. By examining the AI protagonist Klara, the study argues that Ishiguro redefines agency as a networked phenomenon involving both human and non-human actors, challenging traditional anthropocentric ethical frameworks. The novel suggests that ethical considerations in a posthuman world must account for this distributed agency, where human and AI entities co-create ethical dynamics. This study concludes that Ishiguro’s work not only critiques the limitations of human-centered ethics but also prompts a reevaluation of moral responsibility in a technologically mediated world. By positioning Klara and the Sun within the discourse of posthuman ethics, the article contributes to contemporary discussions on the ethical implications of AI and the evolving nature of agency.

Visions of posthumanity: a posthumanist narrative study on Rebuild of Evangelion

Rebuild of Evangelion, the tetralogy of animated films created by Hideaki Anno, envisions and discusses the form and attributes of the posthuman in the near future, showing the inherent vitality of as the core feature, as well as the dynamic relationality in terms of geography and technology. The films critique the “Human Instrumentality Project” as a transhumanist ideal for its disembodied inclination, anthropocentric nature, and predatory dichotomy. Through the characterization and narratives of the films, the posthumanist values and ethics advocated by Rosi Braidotti are presented as Anno’s key message, that is, in the era of posthumanism that has already come, we should establish a monistic materialistic attitude, highlight the inherent relationality, embeddedness, and transversality among all beings, and establish a posthuman ethics that advocates egalitarian care basing on universal vitality.

Human Cloning in the Posthuman Era: Critiquing Ethical Dilemmas in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go displays a dystopian society where the human clones exist solely as ‘carers’ and ‘organ donors’ to prolong the lives of their human counterparts. This advances profound ethical questions about human worth and the ethical implications of biotechnology. This paper explores the clones' defiance and resistance to identity within this ethically oppressive power structure in the posthuman condition. When the clones grapple with the otherness imposed upon them, they connect to the broader societal dynamics of control and freedom. Drawing on Rosi Braidotti's theoretical insights of subjectivity and posthuman ethics, and Homi K. Bhabha's hybridity, the paper analyzes the clones' acts of defiance through memory, subjectivity, artistic expression, and self-awareness. The clones' identities and their interaction within the human power structure reflect the ethical implications of social control that function as tools for the clones to navigate their imposed limitations. The analysis reveals that although the artistic creations of clones ranging from painting to literature to games develop the human-laden values in the clones, the artistic expressions like arts, literature, and paintings also awaken them to subvert and challenge the values imposed on their bodies and lives. The clones' rebellion through symbolic means in a posthuman context provides valuable insights into posthuman studies on scholarship and academic disciplines.

Natural Born Digitals? Multilingualism and Posthuman Ethics in Contemporary Romanian Poetry

Natural Born Digitals? Multilingualism and Posthuman Ethics in Contemporary Romanian Poetry

Entangled engagements: a posthumanist and affirmative ethics for tourism geographies

This review summarizes some key moments in the development of ethics in tourism research and practice where three main areas of concern are identified: socio-economic inequalities, cultural discriminations, and more-than-human speciesism. Following a brief historical review, the paper delves into some current trends and ethical concerns in tourism geographies, which trace back to the utilitarian ethics within which contemporary tourism emerged, after which, and with the growing concerns about tourism’s negative impacts, normative and moral approaches to ethics held sway. Then the paper addresses a critical gap in tourism ethics’ research and practice. With few exceptions, tourism environments are seen as something apart, things to be managed, developed or even protected, where the focus is instrumental on how these environments can be maintained or manipulated for human benefit. This modernization paradigm and its promise of progress through growth, together with a tourism industry that (re)produces colonial structures through neocolonial practices reinforced by neoliberal globalization has contributed to a host of present-day challenges and injustices. We argue that to address the injustices above and current existential crises like climate change, and other threats to socio-ecological well-being, a paradigm shift in tourism thinking is needed. Specifically, we propose embracing posthumanist ethics as a novel, experimental (as against normative or moral), situated (as against universal), and affirmative (as against oppositional) critique of structural injustices and structural power; epistemological pluralism (as against essentialism), acknowledging the relationality proper of indigenous cosmologies and other traditional knowledges (where more involvement from the Global South is needed); and a new materialist ontology that overcomes human exceptionalism and abandons oppositional binary thinking. In other words, what is needed, is an affirmative posthumanist ethics for tourism that is relational, plural and differential.

The Nature of AI Ethics Education in the Posthuman Era

In light of the development and widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), ethical issues surrounding AI have garnered significant attention in both academia and society. Consequently, this paper explores the theoretical foundations of AI ethics based on posthumanism and seeks to outline directions for AI ethics education. The core research questions of this study are twofold: first, what are the theoretical foundations of posthuman ethics, and second, what are the practical considerations and educational directions for posthuman AI ethics? The key conclusions of this paper can be summarized as follows. Firstly, ethical challenges are increasingly important for AI developers, emphasizing the need to establish supervisory systems that highlight ethical elements and incorporate ethical considerations into algorithm design. Secondly, AI ethics education should encompass not only the ethical attitudes of human users but also the ethical roles of AI itself. Thirdly, fundamental ethical considerations related to societal changes in the posthuman era are essential now and in the future. This paper aims to stimulate discussions in academia and educational settings by providing essential directions for AI ethics and education in anticipation of a future posthuman society.

Buddhist Transformation in the Digital Age: AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Humanistic Buddhism

Humanistic Buddhism is one of the mainstreams of modern Buddhism, with special emphasis on the humanistic dimension. With the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Humanistic Buddhism is also at an important stage of modernization and transformation, thus facing a continuous negotiation between religious values and technological innovations. This paper first argues that AI is technically beneficial to the propagation of Buddhism by citing several cases in which AI technology has been used in Buddhism. Then, by comparing Master Hsing Yun’s Buddhist ethics to “Posthuman” ethics, it points out that the theories of Humanistic Buddhism share similarities with AI and Posthuman ethics. Among them, Master Hsing Yun’s theory of “the nature of insentient beings” provides an important theoretical reference for the question of “whether AI can become a Buddha”. From the technical and ethical dimensions, it points out that the interaction between Humanistic Buddhism and AI can promote original uses or implementations of AI technology. However, it should also be noted that compared to the cases of “Artificial Narrow Intelligence”discussed in the paper, the “Strong AI” could lead to much more ethical crises. It is also likely to cause the cult of science and technology, and thus subvert the humanistic tradition of Buddhism with a new instrumental rationality. In addition, there are some potential pitfalls that Humanistic Buddhism may encounter when using AI. Hence, while it is necessary to encourage the use of technologies such as AI in contemporary Buddhism, it is also important for Buddhism to keep a critical distance from digital technologies.

Gothic Mycology and Posthuman Ethics in Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher"

ABSTRACT: In light of the recent popularity of fungi in ecohorror literature and film, this essay coins the term "Gothic mycology" to describe instances of human-fungal hybridity that suggest posthuman entanglement and symbiosis, using Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" as an early and exemplary illustration. Gothic mycology is frightening due to the very nature of fungi themselves: they resist categories, being more closely related to animals than plant life; they proliferate at seemingly unnatural rates; they grow in darkness; they are agents of decomposition; they are mysterious, chthonic, and Other. However, Gothic mycology is also inherently hopeful, offering a glimpse of how we might reimagine our entanglement with the nonhuman that goes beyond mere posthuman hybridity and embraces instead a novel becoming. Poe's tale undermines anthropocentric individualism and prioritizes human entanglement through the fungal colonization of both house and human. In doing so, Poe's tale transgresses the boundary of what defines the human and suggests the necessity, or, perhaps more accurately, the current reality of our hybrid, dependent, and symbiotic relationship with the more-than-human.

Transhumanističko doba – novi posthuman, nove mogućnosti, novi moral

The paper about the transhumanistic era evaluates the new postulates of the philosophical concept of transhumanism and the new possibilities it offers by creating a new posthuman being with a newly constructed moral system. Through three thematic units, the work reflects on transhumanistic ideas and the new paradigm of man, which is realized by means of technological and scientific achievements.The first thematic unit discusses the philosophical idea of transhumanism and the philosophical shift made by transhumanist anthropology, especially those proclaimed in transhumanist manifestos. The second part provides an understanding of the means used by technological transhumanism starting by cyborgization and mind uploading. The third part looks at the new moral system brought by the new paradigm of posthuman ethics, which opposes the moral values of Christian anthropology.

생태학적 생기력과 포스트휴먼 윤리 비전

This paper aims to reexamine anthropocentric attitudes toward the non-human world and the commodification of nature driven by human self-centeredness. It also seeks to propose an affirmative posthuman ethics in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. This novel illustrates how the castaway Pi undergoes a transformation, acquiring posthuman subjectivity as he escapes the grip of anthropocentrism and moves toward interconnectedness with both humans and non-humans while surviving in the Pacific Ocean with the Bengal tiger, Richard Parker. Pi’s experience of unity with nature signifies his growing understanding of the interdependent realities involving nature, the environment and animals. From the perspective of vitalist materialism, Pi comes to realize that he is an integral part of coexistence and coevolution within his relationship with nature and the non-human world. His subjectivity is oriented toward a sense of belonging to the universe. This novel not only prompts a shift in humanity’s environmental consciousness toward a postanthropocentric perspective but also encourages a harmonious balances between humans and non-humans. It suggests a vitalist posthuman ethics for a sustainable future. The relationality between humans and non-humans does not entail a return to exclusive privilege but rather points toward the interconnected facets of vitalist materialism. Pi’s transformation into a relational self with the non-human world invites readers to participate in the process of ‘becoming’ within generative environments and to pursue coevolution within vitalistic self-organizing assemblages.

초생명성(Epivitality) 시대를 위한 포스트휴먼 윤리 - 천선란 장편소설 『무너진 다리』를 중심으로 -

초생명성(Epivitality) 시대를 위한 포스트휴먼 윤리 - 천선란 장편소설 『무너진 다리』를 중심으로 -

Obscene Activity: Rethinking Agency and Desire in Early Medieval England

ABSTRACT The Exeter Book, a tenth-century collection of Old English poetry, contains ninety-odd riddles describing human interactions with objects, abstract concepts, and the natural world. Significant recent criticism has focused on how these riddles attribute agency, movement, or power to the nonhuman entities they describe, thus apparently decentering the human in accordance with twenty-first-century posthuman ethics. Yet this article, focusing on the obscene riddles of the collection, argues that although these poems do indeed attribute agency to nonhuman actors, this attribution does not always elevate these nonhuman actors so much as devalue “agency” as we understand it today. After exploring the pitfalls of reading for agency in Riddle 12 (Ox), I turn to an alternative method of attributing intention used in six of the collection’s other obscene riddles: “willa.” This concept, best translated here as “desire,” is a quality that works—like agency or animacy today—to draw and redraw the lines of the human in these double entendre poems. Using the work of Mel Y. Chen and Eunjung Kim, this article argues that by contextualizing agency and its historical equivalents in our analysis, we are better able to track violent power dynamics at work in early medieval English texts.

Practicing for Death in the Anthropocene

This article analyzes the theme of practicing for death as it has emerged in recent environmental discourse. In the first part, it situates Roy Scranton’s Learning to Die in the Anthropocene (2015) in the context of new critical approaches to death and asceticism, especially Peter Sloterdijk’s You Must Change Your Life: On Anthropotechnics (2013). In the second part, it offers an environmental reading of the “remembrance of death” as it appears in John Climacus’s influential seventh-century manual, The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Here, the authors build on Sloterdijk’s remarks on Climacus while developing Sloterdijk’s analysis substantially, drawing (in part three) on ecotheological readings of Byzantine asceticism to elucidate Climacus’s environmental practice. The authors argue that what is at stake in the remembrance of death is the death not of the self but of a perception of the self that valorizes the self-possessed subject. In the final part, they compare the death of specific self-images in Christian asceticism to the death of the human qua self-possessed subject in the posthumanist ethics of Rosi Braidotti. At the same time, the authors see Climacus as deepening positions sketched out in Braidotti’s posthumanism and providing a critical perspective on the idea of resigning from care.

The problem of personalism in Karol Wojtyła’s debate with Max Scheler

The article shows that already in his habilitation dissertation on Max Scheler’s ethics Karol Wojtyła defended the consistent ethical personalism, distorted by the German phenomenologist. However, the pertinent tying of moral values to the supreme, supra-instrumental value of the human person, involved its subjectivization, as a result of which Scheler’s claims to ethical objectivism are unfounded. Besides, in a completely unfounded manner he considered spontaneous emotionality as the centre of the person, thereby losing the person’s causative agency towards moral values, i.e. the central role of the human reason and free will in moral life, thus negating man’s moral responsibility for his actions. This assessment of Scheler’s ethics has relevance for discernment in contemporary posthumanist ethics, which – following Scheler’s lead – attributes the guiding role in moral life to spontaneous emotions.

포스트휴먼 사회의 도덕적 출산과 감정의 정치학

This paper delves into the investigation of an expanded definition of subjectivity within posthuman society and its implications for the discourse on procreation. In the posthuman era, characterized by technological advancements and environmental shifts, the landscape of social reproduction is influenced. As humans undergo a transformative process, assuming a state that is both more and less than human, as posited by Rosi Braidotti, the ethical underpinnings of posthuman society necessitate an inclusive perspective that encompasses not only posthumans in the traditional sense of emerging technologies but also politically, socially, and environmentally vulnerable humans. Scrutinizing the moral dimensions of childbirth, this paper examines both conventional practices and those facilitated by posthuman technologies. Drawing upon Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments and Angela Chadwick’s XX, it elucidates how the discourse surrounding childbirth is shaped by social ideologies that curtail reproductive rights, regardless of technological progress. Emotions emerge as a crucial political mechanism, wherein moral judgments surrounding childbirth instigate social and individual tensions. Through an analysis of individual responses to the emotional politics portrayed in two novels, this paper explores the posthuman ethics associated with the discourse of childbirth, providing insights into the ideals that a new society should strive to embrace.

Better Medicine: Shared Suffering and Chronic Vulnerability in Brian Teare's The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven.

A posthumanist understanding of the body does not view "illness" and "health" as properties of the individual body, but as emergent features of the relationships between bodies. As such, a relational view of health opens up avenues for the betterment of both human bodies and their social and physical environments. Drawing on posthumanism and the ethics of vulnerability, this article demonstrates how Brian Teare's The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven (2015) provides a different way of thinking (and doing) illness, death, and vulnerability. With his acceptance and promotion of the body's dynamic materiality and chronic vulnerability, Teare advances a posthuman ethics based on our shared embodied condition.

God dwells in Flesh: Decolonial Ecojustice and Planetary Ethics in the “Anthropocene”

This article provides a preliminary cartography of the intersections of theories, approaches and challenges associated with the “decolonisation” of ecojustice in the Anthropocene. It correlates post- and decolonial theories which for long time have remained environmentally blind with posthuman theories, and confronts the theory of the Anthropocene with its blindness towards non-Western knowledge. Decolonial theory is called upon to put its human-centred presuppositions to the test, to adopt post-anthropocentric perspectives, and to include non-human nature in its critique of epistemic violence and “Western reason.” Ecojustice is a task that links the central post-/decolonial commitment to justice and liberation with ecological challenges. The article is embedded in the field of intercultural theology and liberation theology, which provides some “material” that highlights the challenges at hand. The post-/decolonial and intercultural-theological reflection of ecojustice stimulates an incarnational theology that starts with the enfleshment and queering of God. Overall, the article suggests a decolonial reading of the Anthropocene and an unmasking of the persistent anthropocentric as well as Euro- and North American-centric perspective it holds, which continues to marginalise other forms of knowledge. Keywords: Decolonial Epistemology, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Post-human Ethics, Relational Ecojustice, Postcolonial Ecocriticism, Creative Uncertainty

Катастрофизм и восстание природы: экологическая монструозность в нарративах популярной медиакультуры

This article examines the cinematic transformations of monstrosity within the context of a growing ecological awareness and the Anthropocene. The authors argue that these transformations reflect a posthumanist shift in popular culture ethics, suggesting that human nature is intertwined with the natural world, indigenous cultures should be protected, and our relationships with other beings should be nurtured. The blockbuster film franchise MonsterVerse illustrates similar shifts occurring in the portrayal of movie monsters. It creates new narratives for cinema’s most iconic monsters, the Japanese Godzilla and American King Kong. The authors analyze the types of monstrosities presented in the franchise, the narratives they are placed in, and whether the media franchise reflects posthumanist trends in contemporary culture by constructing images of monsters. In the MonsterVerse, Godzilla and American King Kong are reimagined as ecological monsters of the Anthropocene era that represent nature’s rebellion, the urgency to save the planet, and popular posthuman perspectives on ecology. MonsterVerse thus becomes one of the popular manifestations of posthuman ethics.

Enacting Posthuman Ethics to Do Academia Differently: Toward an Affirmative Peer Reviewing Practice

The authors created an affirmative peer-reviewing process for conducting rigorous journal article peer reviews that push back against damaging comments, to provide potential authors with a supportive experience that produces very different affects.

Body stakes: an existential ethics of care in living with biometrics and AI

AbstractThis article discusses the key existential stakes of implementing biometrics in human lifeworlds. In this pursuit, we offer a problematization and reinvention of central values often taken for granted within the “ethical turn” of AI development and discourse, such as autonomy, agency, privacy and integrity, as we revisit basic questions about what it means to be human and embodied. Within a framework of existential media studies, we introduce an existential ethics of care—through a conversation between existentialism, virtue ethics, a feminist ethics of care and post-humanist ethics—aiming to deepen and nuance our understanding of the human behind “human-centered” AI directives. The key argument is that biometrics implicates humans through unprecedented forms of objectification, through which the existential body—the relational, intimate and frail human being—is at risk. We interrogate these risks as they become visible at three sites where embodied humans are challenged by biometrics, and thus where the existential body is challenged by the biometric body. This occurs through reductionism (biometric passports nailing bodies to identities, removing human judgment and compromising agency at the AI border), enforced transparency (smart home assistants surveying human intimacies and invading intimate spaces in the bedroom) and the breaching of bodily integrity (chipping bodies to capture sensory data, challenging the very concept of bodily integrity through self-invasive biohacking). Our existential ethics of care is importantly not a solutionist list of principles or suggestions, but a manifesto for a way of thinking about the ethical challenges of living with biometrics in today’s world, by raising the right questions. We argue that a revitalized discussion of the basic existential stakes within human lived experience is needed and should serve as the foundation on which comprehensive frameworks can be built to address the complexities and prospects for ethical machines, responsible biometrics and AI.