Citizen Cyborg - Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future

Argues that technologies pushing the boundaries of humanness can radically improve our quality of life - IF they are controlled democratically and made equally available in a liberal society. A provocative work by medical ethicist James Hughes, Cyborg Democracy argues that technologies pushing the boundaries of humanness can radically improve our quality of life if they are controlled democratically. Hughes challenges both the technophobia of Leon Kass and Francis Fukuyama and the unchecked enthusiasm of others for limitless human enhancement. He argues instead for a third way, democratic transhumanism, by asking the question destined to become a fundamental issue of the twenty-first century: how can we use new cybernetic and biomedical technologies to make life better for everyone? These technologies hold great promise, but they also pose profound challenges to our health, our culture, and our liberal democratic political system. By allowing humans to become more than human - posthuman or transhuman - the new technologies will require new answers for the enduring issues of liberty and the common good. What limits should we place on the freedom of people to control their own...