Russell Blackford
I am a philosopher, legal scholar, literary critic - and a widely published author and editor - based at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales.
My qualifications include first class honours degrees in Arts (University of Newcastle) and Law (University of Melbourne) and separate PhDs in English Literature (University of Newcastle) and Philosophy (Monash University).
My most recent books are:
* 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009; co-edited with Udo Schuklenk).
* Freedom of Religion and the Secular State (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).
* 50 Great Myths About Atheism (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013; co-authored with Udo Schuklenk).
* Humanity Enhanced: Genetic Choice and the Challenge for Liberal Democracies (MIT Press, 2014).
* Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014; co-edited with Damien Broderick).
* The Mystery of Moral Authority (Palgrave Pivot, 2016).
* Philosophy's Future: The Problem of Philosophical Progress (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017; co-edited with Damien Broderick).
* Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination: Visions, Minds, Ethics (Springer, 2017).
* The Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism (Bloomsbury, 2019).
* At the Dawn of a Great Transition: The Question of Radical Enhancement (Schwabe Verlag, 2021).
I am a prolific, widely published essayist and commentator with interests including legal, political, and moral philosophy; philosophical bioethics; philosophy of religion; and debates involving visions of the human future.
I have also had some success as a science fiction and fantasy author, including my fantasy story "The Sword of God" (which won both a Ditmar Award and Aurealis Award in 1997) and an original trilogy of novels (Terminator 2: The New John Connor Chronicles) written for the Terminator franchise. I have won the William Atheling, Jr., Award for Criticism and Review (in the fantasy and science fiction field) on three occasions, including for my co-authored book Strange Constellations: A History of Australian Science Fiction (Greenwood Press, 1999; co-authored with Van Ikin and Sean McMullen).
Supervisors: Professor Justin Oakley
My qualifications include first class honours degrees in Arts (University of Newcastle) and Law (University of Melbourne) and separate PhDs in English Literature (University of Newcastle) and Philosophy (Monash University).
My most recent books are:
* 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009; co-edited with Udo Schuklenk).
* Freedom of Religion and the Secular State (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).
* 50 Great Myths About Atheism (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013; co-authored with Udo Schuklenk).
* Humanity Enhanced: Genetic Choice and the Challenge for Liberal Democracies (MIT Press, 2014).
* Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014; co-edited with Damien Broderick).
* The Mystery of Moral Authority (Palgrave Pivot, 2016).
* Philosophy's Future: The Problem of Philosophical Progress (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017; co-edited with Damien Broderick).
* Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination: Visions, Minds, Ethics (Springer, 2017).
* The Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism (Bloomsbury, 2019).
* At the Dawn of a Great Transition: The Question of Radical Enhancement (Schwabe Verlag, 2021).
I am a prolific, widely published essayist and commentator with interests including legal, political, and moral philosophy; philosophical bioethics; philosophy of religion; and debates involving visions of the human future.
I have also had some success as a science fiction and fantasy author, including my fantasy story "The Sword of God" (which won both a Ditmar Award and Aurealis Award in 1997) and an original trilogy of novels (Terminator 2: The New John Connor Chronicles) written for the Terminator franchise. I have won the William Atheling, Jr., Award for Criticism and Review (in the fantasy and science fiction field) on three occasions, including for my co-authored book Strange Constellations: A History of Australian Science Fiction (Greenwood Press, 1999; co-authored with Van Ikin and Sean McMullen).
Supervisors: Professor Justin Oakley
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This paper considers Martha Nussbaum's attempts to ground a conception of ethical and political philosophy in an Aristotelian account of what it means to be human. Nussbaum appeals to mythology, particularly to accounts of the anthropomorphic but non-human beings in Homeric myth, to distinguish humans from beasts and gods. She consistently argues that a godlike life is not an appropriate life for us. However, both ancient myth and the contemporary “mythology” of superheroes and villains display our fascination with the possibility of beings who stand between us and transcendent godlike beings, as we may be said to stand between the latter and non-human animals. Research in such fields as genetic engineering and psychopharmacology offers the prospect that we or (more likely) our descendants may actually come to possess capabilities beyond any historical level of human functioning.
I argue that we should not be disturbed by the prospect that changes to ourselves and/or our descendants might ultimately lead to a society of transcendent, godlike beings whose values would be radically different from our own. It is not clear that such an eventual outcome would be morally repugnant or even morally salient. Nor should we necessarily be disturbed by the more plausible prospect of a society of enhanced humans or of less-than-godlike superbeings. The danger is that a lack of political vigilance could lead to a technologically-supported two-tier society, such as imagined by Lee Silver (e.g. in his Beyond Eden). It is difficult to see how unenhanced humans could flourish in such a society, even if they were subjectively “happy” like the citizens of Huxley's Brave New World. Accordingly, we should attempt to avoid such a society coming into existence, preferably not by suppressing enhancements of our capabilities but by ensuring that they become widely available, rather than restricted to a privileged economic class.
This paper considers Martha Nussbaum's attempts to ground a conception of ethical and political philosophy in an Aristotelian account of what it means to be human. Nussbaum appeals to mythology, particularly to accounts of the anthropomorphic but non-human beings in Homeric myth, to distinguish humans from beasts and gods. She consistently argues that a godlike life is not an appropriate life for us. However, both ancient myth and the contemporary “mythology” of superheroes and villains display our fascination with the possibility of beings who stand between us and transcendent godlike beings, as we may be said to stand between the latter and non-human animals. Research in such fields as genetic engineering and psychopharmacology offers the prospect that we or (more likely) our descendants may actually come to possess capabilities beyond any historical level of human functioning.
I argue that we should not be disturbed by the prospect that changes to ourselves and/or our descendants might ultimately lead to a society of transcendent, godlike beings whose values would be radically different from our own. It is not clear that such an eventual outcome would be morally repugnant or even morally salient. Nor should we necessarily be disturbed by the more plausible prospect of a society of enhanced humans or of less-than-godlike superbeings. The danger is that a lack of political vigilance could lead to a technologically-supported two-tier society, such as imagined by Lee Silver (e.g. in his Beyond Eden). It is difficult to see how unenhanced humans could flourish in such a society, even if they were subjectively “happy” like the citizens of Huxley's Brave New World. Accordingly, we should attempt to avoid such a society coming into existence, preferably not by suppressing enhancements of our capabilities but by ensuring that they become widely available, rather than restricted to a privileged economic class.