Is There a Future for Humanism? The Fate of the Human in Our Post-Humanistic World

This new historical context points further to a long-standing recognition about humanism, namely the limits of individual agency in shaping history—personal, social, and global. The rational authority of the individual subject is especially in jeopardy and not just in theoretical terms (e.g., post-structuralism) but by real technological developments and circumstances. To continue with the relationship between science and 5 ethics—since Vico’s critique of Cartesian Rationalism a continuing theme of humanism in modern thought—the possibility (and soon technological power) of human cloning has transformed the classical-humanist idea of humanity as comprised of naturally free and individual existing human beings. This poses a serious challenge to what may be called the “fiction of humanity,” which I will discuss more below, and the often taken for granted belief that individuals and humankind have originated and evolved by anirreducible dynamic between naturalistic organization (genetic-hereditary encoding) and the cultural contingencies of socialization (socio-political institutions).

http://www.4shared.com/document/8L_2dP3l/Is_There_a_Future_for_Humanism.html

Other Download  : Stem cell research in Germany - Ethics of healing vs. human dignity
                             Arendt, Hannah on Human Dignity and the Politics of Human Rights
                             Self-creation - on the dignity of human beings
                             Human Cloning - Category, Dignity, and the Role of Bioethics