This page uses content from the James Hughes biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
James J. Hughes Ph.D. is a bioethicist and sociologist teaching health policy at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
Hughes holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he served as the assistant director of research for the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Before graduate school he was ordained as a Buddhist monk while working in Sri Lanka for the development organization Sarvodaya.
Hughes serves as the executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He also produces the syndicated weekly public affairs radio talk show program Changesurfer Radio and contributes to the democratic transhumanist Cyborg Democracy blog. Hughes' book Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future was published by Westview Press in November 2004.
The term "radical", which appears several times in Hughes' work, (from Latin rÄ?dÄ«x, rÄ?dÄ«c-, root) is used as an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the root or going to the root. His central thesis is that technology and democracy can help citizens overcome some of the root causes of inequalities of power.
Quote
- "The emergence of biotechnological controversies, however, is giving rise to a new axis, not entirely orthogonal to the previous dimensions but certainly distinct and independent of them. I call this new axis biopolitics, and the ends of its spectrum are transhumanists (the progressives) and, at the other end, the bio-Luddites or bio-fundamentalists. Transhumanists welcome the new biotechnologies, and the choices and challenges they offer, believing the benefits can outweigh the costs. In particular, they believe that human beings can and should take control of their own biological destiny, individually and collectively enhancing our abilities and expanding the diversity of intelligent life. Bio-fundamentalists, however, reject genetic choice technologies and â??designer babies,â?? â??unnaturalâ?? extensions of the life span, genetically modified animals and food, and other forms of hubristic violations of the natural order. While transhumanists assert that all intelligent â??personsâ?? are deserving of rights, whether they are human or not, the biofundamentalists insist that only â??humanness,â?? the possession of human DNA and a beating heart, is a marker of citizenship and rights." April 28, 2002
Bibliography
See also
- Code 46
- Cryonics
- Gattaca
- Gattaca argument
- Nick Bostrom
- Reprogenetics
- Techno-progressivism
- Techno-utopia
- Techno-utopianism
- Wisdom of repugnance
External links
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