Resumen
Transhumanism and posthumanism have become influential frameworks within the biotechnological sciences, grounded in the presupposition that the human body is inherently imperfect and therefore open to technical improvement. This essay develops a philosophical and bioethical critique of these positions, arguing that their central difficulties are not technical but normative, epistemic, and anthropological. Drawing on debates in philosophy of technology, bioethics, and science studies, the analysis examines how key notions such as enhancement, perfection, and necessity are reconfigured within transhumanist discourse. Particular attention is given to the way biotechnological rationality reframes contingent features of human existence—vulnerability, aging, dependence, and finitude—as deficits requiring intervention and control. This redefinition signals a shift from ontological conceptions of necessity toward instrumental logics shaped by technological capability and governance practices. The essay further explores how scientific feasibility frequently advances without corresponding philosophical clarification, generating epistemic gaps concerning responsibility, consent, and the meaning of human flourishing. From this perspective, transhumanism and posthumanism are interpreted not as neutral scientific projects, but as normative frameworks that actively reshape anthropological self-understanding. The essay concludes by emphasizing the indispensability of sustained philosophical inquiry for assessing biotechnological innovation, warning that, in the absence of clear ethical and conceptual foundations, enhancement projects risk reinforcing inequality, dehumanization, and the reduction of human life to objects of technical management.
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