Welcome to the InfoSci Platform
Human Enhancement Technologies and Democratic Citizenship

Human Enhancement Technologies and Democratic Citizenship

Jean-Paul Gagnon
Copyright: © 2016 |Pages: 15
ISBN13: 9781466694613|ISBN10: 1466694610|EISBN13: 9781466694620
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9461-3.ch029
Cite Chapter Cite Chapter

MLA

Gagnon, Jean-Paul. "Human Enhancement Technologies and Democratic Citizenship." Politics and Social Activism: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, edited by Information Resources Management Association, IGI Global, 2016, pp. 572-586. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-9461-3.ch029

APA

Gagnon, J. (2016). Human Enhancement Technologies and Democratic Citizenship. In I. Management Association (Ed.), Politics and Social Activism: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 572-586). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-9461-3.ch029

Chicago

Gagnon, Jean-Paul. "Human Enhancement Technologies and Democratic Citizenship." In Politics and Social Activism: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, edited by Information Resources Management Association, 572-586. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2016. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-9461-3.ch029

Export Reference

Mendeley
Favorite

Abstract

This chapter articulates that scholars write about Human Enhancement Technologies (HET) in two ways. This is not a reflection of a reality in the literature but rather a heuristic designed to contextualize democratic citizenship within contemporary HET discussions. The first way is to write about HET as possible realities far off into the future. The second way is to write about HET that can be realised seemingly as soon as tomorrow. For democratic citizenship, writing in the first case is either utopian or dystopian. It is either the projection of democracy's total triumph or its utter collapse caused by the type of rots that lead to democide. But writing in the second case is stimulating and vibrant. There are, for example, numerous calls for HET-led reforms in the literature. These reforms are needed to help answer the crisis of the citizen's august discontent (the growing and increasingly legitimized political apathy and political abstention observed in, and performed by, the citizenry). The purpose of this chapter is to focus on this second case—this more developed body of literature—and to theorise the interface between democratic citizenship and HET.

Request Access

You do not own this content. Please login to recommend this title to your institution's librarian or purchase it from the IGI Global bookstore.