Socrate ed il demiurgo: alcune riflessioni su umano e postumano

This chapter analyzes how at least two anthropological conceptions coexist in biotechnology. The first one considers the human as an object and, in general, pursues the goal of identifying/preserving the specific characteristics of the human. The second conception, on the other hand, considers the human as a project and is divided into two directions. The first one, older, is the statist one that created, at the beginning of the 20th century, those eugenic projects aimed at improving the human species. The second line of development, which we can instead define as liberalist, is specific in the satisfaction of ever new needs for biotechnological modification, inspired not only by therapeutic reasons. Many supporters of this approach recognise themselves in the so-called trans-humanism, which, theorising the mass diffusion of new biotechnologies, hopes for a humanity that chooses to improve itself by assuming the risks of a self-directed evolution, and no longer submitting to the whims of fate or nature. In the final part of the essay, the author presents the most widespread criticisms and the most fascinating Socratic challenges that this thought provokes.