The dissolution of human nature

Defined as animal rationale, or rationabile as Kant puts it, the human being is considered as the animal, which is not yet what it is, but has to become what it is. Up to now this process was limited to the ratio, whereas the natural side remained untouched. The human being was manipulable, but never producible; and this because the human nature remained untouchable. But with the upraising of biotechnology, also this last constant term is no more something fixed. In the age of biotechnology the expression "human nature" has lost its meaning. What consequences has this lost of "essence" for the human self-conception? When the difference between grooving and producing becomes unclear, than it`s impossible to consider the human nature as something given. Is this the beginning of posthumanity? Concerning this question, the actual philosophical discourse offers two different approaches. The first could be discribed as "conservative", driven by the fear of loosing the "essence" of what is human. The exponents of this approach try to maintain the concept of human nature as some sort of unchangeable norm. This concept is very similar to the old-fashioned metaphysics of substance and is therefore not very satisfying. The "progressive" position instead embraces the dissolution of the human nature as ultimate liberation and emancipation from nature. Both positions are problematic. The first one because it tries to maintain a concept, which risks to be overruled by the developments of biotechnologies; the other because its concept, standing in the tradition of Descartes and the enlightenment, is subject to the "dialectics of enlightenment", insofar as the pretended liberation from nature results in manipulability. This contradictions make it necessary to rethink the unity of man in front of the possibilities opened by biotechnology.

Defined as animal rationale, or rationabile as Kant puts it, the human being is considered as the animal, which is not yet what it is, but has to become what it is. Up to now this process was limited to the ratio, whereas the natural side remained untouched. The human being was manipulable, but never producible; and this because the human nature remained untouchable. But with the upraising of biotechnology, also this last constant term is no more something fixed. In the age of biotechnology the expression "human nature" has lost its meaning. What consequences has this lost of "essence" for the human self-conception? When the difference between grooving and producing becomes unclear, than it`s impossible to consider the human nature as something given. Is this the beginning of posthumanity? Concerning this question, the actual philosophical discourse offers two different approaches. The first could be discribed as "conservative", driven by the fear of loosing the "essence" of what is human. The exponents of this approach try to maintain the concept of human nature as some sort of unchangeable norm. This concept is very similar to the old-fashioned metaphysics of substance and is therefore not very satisfying. The "progressive" position instead embraces the dissolution of the human nature as ultimate liberation and emancipation from nature. Both positions are problematic. The first one because it tries to maintain a concept, which risks to be overruled by the developments of biotechnologies; the other because its concept, standing in the tradition of Descartes and the enlightenment, is subject to the "dialectics of enlightenment", insofar as the pretended liberation from nature results in manipulability. This contradictions make it necessary to rethink the unity of man in front of the possibilities opened by biotechnology.