Dignity and Freedom in Humanism, Transhumanism and Posthumanism – Philosophical and Ethical Foundations for Legal Regulation
Dignity and Freedom in Humanism, Transhumanism and Posthumanism – Philosophical and Ethical Foundations for Legal Regulation

Summary/Abstract: The paper critically examines the philosophical foundations of neurorights, morphological freedom based on the concept of body ownership and boundless freedom for selfdetermination, including cyborgs. The origins of modern transhumanism (Huxley, Bostrom, More) can be found in Renaissance humanism with an explicit reference to the concept of dignity and freedom in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. By analyzing Pico’s work De dignitate hominis we find a misinterpretation. Posthumanism warns against the loss of human dignity and points to its widespread instrumentalization, which could be a subsequent risk of bodily improvements (Ferrando, Braidotti). Even the Renaissance addressed the question of man’s position in relation to nature and animals, the so-called scala naturae. The concept of divine nature is a manifestation of Pantheism in Neoplatonism and is not materialist (Böhme, Comenius, Ficino). Can ego-centrality be a reason for the limitation of morphological freedom, i.e. for the limits of the right to bodily integrity? So far, transhumanist enhancements take place within the framework of the right to bodily integrity and freedom to deal with one’s body, i.e. the autonomous space of the individual, closely related to the right to direct one’s life towards personal happiness. If human rights and their basis are more moral in nature, this can accept the use of proportionality to measure rights, principles, values and interests in law also taking into account environmental protection and the rights of marginalized entities, including non-human rights (Balzer, Rippe, Schaber).

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