Science, Virtue, and the Future of Humanity
Beschreibung:
Science, Virtue, and the Future of Humanity addresses each of the key public policy issues of our techno-future from the perspective of deeply informed and philosophically inclined public intellectuals. Among the issues addressed are the detachment of our idea of justice from any credible foundation; Tocqueville's prescience on how a "cognitive elite" might be the aristocracy to be most feared in our time; robotization and the possibility of being ruled by morally challenged robots; organ markets; the degradation of liberal education by obsessive techno-enthusiasm; biotechnology and biological determinism; the birth dearth and the inevitable erosion of our entitlements; the possibility that our techno-domination is basically an unfolding of the Lockean logic of our foundation; and the future of the free exercise of religion in an aggressively libertarian time. All in all, this book should provoke widespread discussion about the relationship between scientific/technological progress and the one true moral/spiritual progress that takes place over the course of every particular human life.
This book is an accessible and profound introduction to the key issues facing our country in our biotechnological age. Leading public intellectuals bring to bear a wide and deep learning on particular issues of public policy and discuss the relationship between technological and moral progress that takes place over the course of a human life.
Introduction. Observations on American Liberty: My Report from the Front, Peter Augustine LawlerChapter 1. Pensions and Health Care in an Aging Society, James C. CaptrettaChapter 2. The Demographic Challenge to Entitlements: A Comment, Criticism, and Caveat, William EnglishChapter 3. An Earned Humility: Reflections on Professional Obligations to the Living Kidney Donor, Benjamin HippenChapter 4. The Science of Politics and the Conquest of Nature, Patrick J. DeneenChapter 5. The Problem with 'Friendly' Artificial Intelligence, Adam Keiper and Ari N. SchulmanChapter 6. The Case for Enhancing People, Ronald BaileyChapter 7. Justice without Foundations, Robert P. KraynakChapter 8. Blame It on My Genotype (if Not My Criminal Brain): Materialist Metaphysics and the Loss of Human Dignity, J. Daryl CharlesChapter 9. Libertarians vs. Liberal Learning, Peter Augustine LawlerChapter 10. Machine Morality and Human Responsibility, Charles T. RubinChapter 11. Tocqueville on Technology, Benjamin StoreyChapter 12. The Place of Liberal Education in Contemporary Higher Education, Marc D. Guerra