Human enhancement technologies offer prospects for improving the mental capacities that are typic... more Human enhancement technologies offer prospects for improving the mental capacities that are typically considered to ground moral status. Bioethicists, posthumanists and transhumanists have raised the worry that the radical enhancement of our moral status-relevant capacities is open to the possibility of creating supra-persons. The worry is that supra-persons would further reduce the moral inviolability of mere persons. If the possibility is plausible, then radical enhancement would put mere persons at risk. In order to assess the plausibility of possibility claims, epistemologists have investigated the role of imagination in justifying our beliefs about what is possible. Philosophy has abounded with imaginability arguments for various entities like zombies, experience machines, super-spartans, and perfect actors. The aim of this paper is to investigate a newcomer in the bestiary of bioethics, the supra-person, using the utensils of imaginability-based modal epistemology. We will argue for an epistemic claim: that no imaginative act is sufficient to justify the belief that supra-persons are possible. In order to support our thesis, we will employ two influential accounts of the relation between imaginative acts and acquiring justification for beliefs about what is possible.
Research Articles
Dionysis CHRISTIAS, A Critical Examination of BonJour’s, Haack’s, and Dancy’s... more Research Articles
Dionysis CHRISTIAS, A Critical Examination of BonJour’s, Haack’s, and Dancy’s Theory of Empirical Justification
Robert HUDSON, Defending Standards Contextualism
Kevin McCAIN, Interventionism Defended
Mihai RUSU, On the Epistemology of Modal Rationalism: The Main Problems and Their Significance
Ju WANG, Davidsonian Response to Radical Scepticism
Discussion Notes/Debate
Brent ABLES, Disagreement and Philosophical Progress
Muralidharan ANANTHARAMAN, Defending the Uniqueness Thesis: A Reply to Luis Rosa
Erik J. WIELENBERG, Difference-Making and Easy Knowledge: Reply to Comesaña and Sartorio
Human enhancement technologies offer prospects for improving the mental capacities that are typic... more Human enhancement technologies offer prospects for improving the mental capacities that are typically considered to ground moral status. Bioethicists, posthumanists and transhumanists have raised the worry that the radical enhancement of our moral status-relevant capacities is open to the possibility of creating supra-persons. The worry is that supra-persons would further reduce the moral inviolability of mere persons. If the possibility is plausible, then radical enhancement would put mere persons at risk. In order to assess the plausibility of possibility claims, epistemologists have investigated the role of imagination in justifying our beliefs about what is possible. Philosophy has abounded with imaginability arguments for various entities like zombies, experience machines, super-spartans, and perfect actors. The aim of this paper is to investigate a newcomer in the bestiary of bioethics, the supra-person, using the utensils of imaginability-based modal epistemology. We will argue for an epistemic claim: that no imaginative act is sufficient to justify the belief that supra-persons are possible. In order to support our thesis, we will employ two influential accounts of the relation between imaginative acts and acquiring justification for beliefs about what is possible.
Research Articles
Dionysis CHRISTIAS, A Critical Examination of BonJour’s, Haack’s, and Dancy’s... more Research Articles
Dionysis CHRISTIAS, A Critical Examination of BonJour’s, Haack’s, and Dancy’s Theory of Empirical Justification
Robert HUDSON, Defending Standards Contextualism
Kevin McCAIN, Interventionism Defended
Mihai RUSU, On the Epistemology of Modal Rationalism: The Main Problems and Their Significance
Ju WANG, Davidsonian Response to Radical Scepticism
Discussion Notes/Debate
Brent ABLES, Disagreement and Philosophical Progress
Muralidharan ANANTHARAMAN, Defending the Uniqueness Thesis: A Reply to Luis Rosa
Erik J. WIELENBERG, Difference-Making and Easy Knowledge: Reply to Comesaña and Sartorio
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Papers by Mihai Rusu
Dionysis CHRISTIAS, A Critical Examination of BonJour’s, Haack’s, and Dancy’s Theory of Empirical Justification
Robert HUDSON, Defending Standards Contextualism
Kevin McCAIN, Interventionism Defended
Mihai RUSU, On the Epistemology of Modal Rationalism: The Main Problems and Their Significance
Ju WANG, Davidsonian Response to Radical Scepticism
Discussion Notes/Debate
Brent ABLES, Disagreement and Philosophical Progress
Muralidharan ANANTHARAMAN, Defending the Uniqueness Thesis: A Reply to Luis Rosa
Erik J. WIELENBERG, Difference-Making and Easy Knowledge: Reply to Comesaña and Sartorio
Dionysis CHRISTIAS, A Critical Examination of BonJour’s, Haack’s, and Dancy’s Theory of Empirical Justification
Robert HUDSON, Defending Standards Contextualism
Kevin McCAIN, Interventionism Defended
Mihai RUSU, On the Epistemology of Modal Rationalism: The Main Problems and Their Significance
Ju WANG, Davidsonian Response to Radical Scepticism
Discussion Notes/Debate
Brent ABLES, Disagreement and Philosophical Progress
Muralidharan ANANTHARAMAN, Defending the Uniqueness Thesis: A Reply to Luis Rosa
Erik J. WIELENBERG, Difference-Making and Easy Knowledge: Reply to Comesaña and Sartorio