David Lewin
ABSTRACT
Philosophers continue to raise the question of the nature of the good life. Educational philosophers in particular seek to define the nature of well-being in order to direct educational endeavors appropriately, and much has been said about the different conceptions of well-being that educators look towards. In this paper we consider how transhumanists or posthumanists have attempted to think beyond well-being. Our purpose here is not to suggest that we have arrived at a meaning of being or well-being and that it is now time move on towards a transhuman future. On the contrary, the transhuman vision beyond the present tells us more, we argue, about the limitations of our understanding of the depth of well-being. What might seem like rather fantastical and fictional presentations of the goal of education are not as distant as they seem; the practical implications of modern technology increasingly require us to face the projection of humanity in our own image. It is argued that a theological conception of human nature will provide some insight into transcendence that transhumanism does not consider.
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Index Terms
- Better than well-being: the scope of transhumanism in the context of educational philosophy
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