The ethics of discourse and liberal eugenics
Jürgen Habermas and the future of human nature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18617/liinc.v4i1.250Keywords:
Jürgen Habermas, Genetic culture, Paradigm information, Science and lifeworld, Discourse ethicsAbstract
In The Future of Human Nature, Jürgen Habermas recognizes that current advances in biotechnology are challenging discourse ethics in Social Sciences. Behind his fear of the possibility of liberal eugenics, lies the recognition that pre-implanted genetic diagnosis
potentially puts into question the role played by communicative reason in the constitution of the
individual’s ethics of self-understanding. The ethics of species proposed by Habermas sounds morally reactive, insofar as his critique does not manage to encompass the metaphysical features which are at the core of liberal eugenics discourse. This paper is divided into two moments: the current echoing in Habermas’ work of the motif of the alleged colonization of the lifeworld by
technological reason, and a demonstration of how his conception of technique which underlies such a perspective prevents him of envisaging the critique of the metaphysical aspects of contemporary genetic culture.
References
ADORNO, Theodor. Minima Moralia. Reflections on a damaged life. London and New York: Verso, 2005.
_________ The Stars Down to Earth and Other Essays on the Irrational in Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
AGAMBEN, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
AMARAL, Aécio. Ciberespaço, exposição da intimidade e reauratização da experiência In: Política & Trabalho n. 25. João Pessoa, 2006.
ARENDT, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.
BENHABIB, Seyla. Critique, Norm, and Utopia. A Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986
CAYGILL, Howard. Drafts for a Metaphysics of the Gene, Tekhnema, (3), Spring,1996.
DEVENNEY, Mark. Ethics and Politics in Contemporary Theory. Between critical theory and post-Marxism. New York and London: Routledge, 2004.
FEENBERG, Andrew. Heidegger, Habermas, and the Essence of Technology. Paper presented at the International Institute for Advanced Study, Kyoto, 1996.
GANDESHA, Samir. Marcuse, Habermas, and the Critique of Technology. In: ABROMEIT, John; COBB, W. Mark (Ed). Herbert Marcuse. A critical reader. New York and London: Routledge, 2004
HABERMAS, Jürgen. The Future of Human Nature. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003.
__________ Technics and Science as Ideology. In: Toward a Rational Society. Student Protest, Science, and Politics. London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1980.
HEIDEGGER, Martin. Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) To the Task of Thinking. New York: HapperCollins Publishers, 1964.
JAY, Martin. Adorno. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984.
LACLAU, Ernesto and MOUFFE, Chantal. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso, 1985.
LAFONTAINE, Céline. The Cybernetic Matrix of “French Theory”. Theory, Culture and Society, 24: 27-46, 2007
MARCUSE, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966.
MILLS, Catherine. Biopolitics, Liberal Eugenics and Nihilism. In: CALARCO, Matthew Calarco and DECAROLI, Steven (Ed) Giorgio Agamben: Sovereignty and Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.
ROCO, M. C; BAINBRIDGE, William Sims. Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003.
ROSE, Gillian. The Melancholy Science: an introduction to the thought of Theodor W. Adorno. London: MacMillan, 1978.
STIEGLER, Bernard. Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
STOCK, Gregory. Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.
ŽIŽEK, Slavoj. Beyond Discourse Analysis. In LACLAU, Ernesto. New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso, 1990.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Aécio Amaral
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
Authors retain copyright and grant Liinc em Revista the right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The authors have permission and are encouraged to deposit their manuscripts and versios of record (VoR) in their personal web pages or institutional repositories, generic repositories etc., before (pre-print) or after (post-print) the publication in Liinc em Revista, according to its open access depositing policy registered in the Directory of Editorial Policies of Brazilian Journals (DIADORIM), kindly providing a link to the article published on Liinc's website.
Liinc em Revista, published by Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License – CC BY 4.0 
