Transhumanism or the end of essences: (bio)conservatism and its aristotelian reminiscence

Abstract

Transhumanism or the movement in favor of human enhancement through technology is at its peak moment. Progress in Artificial Intelligence and genetic engineering allow us to dream of becoming beings who are able to defeat death and possess skills unknown until now. However, in this article we will see that not everyone agrees with these ideas and that there are people to whom transhumanist promises are more of a nightmare than a dream. These people are called (bio)conservatives. (Bio) conservatives consider that the enhancement promises made by transhumanist will carry us to the end of the human specie. Against transhumanist, (bio)conservatives defend conservation and protection of the essence and human nature. They also rebel against the unlimited tampering with human nature and defend the limitation of these kind of practices to the ones restrained by human essence. All these characteristics give (bio)conservatism certain aristotelian reminiscence in which many of them shelter and that is worth studying carefully.