The ethical subject in the university studies of education: humanism, posthumanism and democracy

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. New approaches to the human condition of the so-called NBIC technologies (nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technologies and cognitive sciences) pose an extraordinary challenge to the knowledge of education and the overall possibilities of human development. METHOD. A hermeneutic-interpretative and documentary perspective has been used in oder to assess the main current theses and contributions of the NBIC technologies in regards to their implications on the ideas of transhumanism and posthumanism that affect the way of thinking of educational processes have been analyzed in detail. RESULTS. The main results are centered in considering that the techno-scientific interventions on the human body urge us to think in a deeper way the bases of the human condition. That trans-humanism would be a transit period until arriving at the anthropological cusp of the post-human, through the technological improvement of human physical and cognitive capacities. Another result of the article is the replication of the so-called bioconservative positions that postulate the need for a respect for human nature and its consideration from an acceptable ethics. DISCUSSION. The article discusses several theses: that the possibilities of being more and better humans are not increased by emptying the conditions of that humanity; That we must be wary of the obvious gap that we currently have between the technical possibilities that we have and the knowledge of the long-term consequences that we often ignore; That the aspiration to an artificial perfection through drugs, implants and genetic modifications makes us forget the pedagogical importance of the particular experience and the individual efforts that each one makes in order to improve one’s own personal qualities as individuals and their repercussion in the community.