Prophets of the Posthuman: American Fiction, Biotechnology, and the Ethics of Personhood

Index

Index 233 abortion, 41, 143 Absence of Mind (Robinson), 30, 186, 190n6 accidents, 37, 45, 158, 161, 214n7, 214n9 Adam and Eve, xii ADHD, 131–32 advantages (conferred from parents to children), 46, 59, 68 advertising, 66–70, 116 agape, 145 Age of Spiritual Machines, The (Kurzweil), 82 agnostic, 12, 132, 166 AIDS, 137 alcoholism, 157–58 alternative consciousness, 12, 18–20, 70, 154, 177 America, xiv, 12–13, 17–18, 46, 59, 112 Americans, xiii–xv, 1–4, 47, 66–68, 73, 104, 133, 155, 163, 173, 195n29 culture, 17, 47, 73, 132 society, 134, 155 American Idol (tv show), 63 American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 44 anger, 51, 94, 102, 154, 159–61, 215n21, 216n23 animal laborans, 109, 113, 155 anthropology, 144 antidepressants, 131 anxiety, 127, 147–49 apocalypse, 111, 118 appearance (physical), 56, 58, 70, 91 appetites, 109, 114, 128 Arendt, Hannah, xiv, 114, 191n8, 216n24. See also Human Condition, The Aristotle, 102, 179 conception of learning, 156 conception of the ethical as linked with teleology, 14 defining art, 70 notion of the virtues, 4 assumptions, 9, 29, 84, 88, 136, 153, 170 cultural, 12, 75 of the humanities, 193n31 of scientific naturalism, 31–34, 186, 197n10 234 Index atheist, 12 attitude, 8, 13, 21, 28, 41, 178 toward biotechnology, 43, 73, 132 one’s attitude toward another, 6–7, 20, 87, 93 toward one’s body, 98 attractiveness, 56, 94, 136 Atwood, Margaret, 20, 83, 188–89, 202n2, 217n2. See also Handmaid ’s Tale, The; Oryx and Crake Augustine, xv autism, 125 autonomous individual, 6, 127, 146 Baby Einstein, 68 Bacon, Francis, 16, 139. See also New Atlantis, The Bailey, Ronald, 137–38. See also Liberation Biology Bakerman, Jane, 206n21 Bakhtin, M. M., 177, 219n22 Bauman, Zygmunt, 18 beatitude, 176 beauty, 81, 144, 173, 179–82 defining, 101–2 essential, 99 industry, 19, 74, 77, 204n35, 204n44 standard of, 89 of the world, 85, 100, 177 beholder, 101–2 Bellamy, Edward, 168 Bernanos, Georges, 145 Berry, Wendell, 57, 118, 194n5, 201n22, 211n22 better life, 1, 52, 72, 199n6 Better Than Well (Elliott), 46 bioconservatives (biocons), 170–71 bioenhancements, 43 bioethics, xvi–xvii, 5, 9, 145, 177 biology, 85–87 biotechnology, 3, 35, 43, 82, 130, 170 biotechnological revolution, xvi, 2, 12–14, 17, 42, 78, 85, 110, 131, 137, 177 biotechnological solutions, 10, 82, 138 Birkerts, Sven, 124, 209n29 “Birth-mark, The” (Hawthorne), 19, 47, 50, 119n11, 200n20 black community, 90, 97 Bloom, Paul, 28 Bluest Eye, The (Morrison), xix, 19–20, 80, 88–92, 97–99 Booth, Wayne, xvi–xvii, 193n33 Bordo, Susan, 58, 201n28 Borgmann, Albert, 11, 16–17, 68, 76, 156, 158, 160–64, 214n5, 214n7, 216n23, 216nn27–28. See also Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life Bostrom, Nick, 169–72 Boyle, Susan, 63–64 brain, 32, 140 chemistry, 33 fragility of, 2, 31 research, 28 structure, 35, 75, 128, 136, 139 Brave New World (Huxley), xvi, 110 breast enhancements, 44, 47–48, 57 Britain’s Got Talent, 63 Brockman, John, 28, 30, 191n14, 197n10 Brooks, Gwendolyn, “The Lovers of the Poor,” 103 Brooks, Rodney, xiii Brueggemann, Walter, 12, 17–18, 78, 177 Calvary, 165 capacities, 12, 77, 112–13, 161 Carr, Nicholas, 121. See also Shallows, The Cartesian dualism, 14 Index 235 Carver, Raymond, works of “Bath, The,” 157–58, 215nn13–14 Cathedral, 154, 215n13 “Small, Good Thing, A,” 20, 153–54, 157–58, 162, 166 Catholicism, 9, 34, 39, 132, 135, 141, 145 celebrities, 64, 78 Challenging Nature (Silver), 34, 41 charity, 16 Christianity, 41, 143, 156, 158, 165–66, 181 Christian virtue, 148, 182, 213n40 church, 38, 40, 50–51 circus freak, 34, 37, 40 civil rights, 138 cogito ergo sum, 146, 149 Cohen, Eric, xii, 16, 41, 193n36, 199n6, 201n27 Colbert, Claudette, 91 collective consciousness, 17 comfort, 63, 117, 214n5 commodities, 66, 69, 70, 81, 163–64, 166 common morality, 134 communal justice, 5 communication, 67, 155, 166 communion, 145, 160, 161, 165–66, 185, 212n34 community, 9–10, 20, 58, 88–90, 97, 101, 105, 130, 144, 161, 163, 166, 173, 180, 185 compassion, 21–22, 31, 39, 52, 139, 159, 161, 186 completeness, 14, 149, 176, 195n20 computer, xii, 17, 155 conflation with humanity, 13, 140 facilitating independence/isolation, 125–26, 189 Configurations, 74 Congregationalist, 12 Conrad, Joseph, xviii consilience between science and culture, 27–30 consumption, 17, 64, 109, 113 consumer culture, xiii, 12, 17–19, 70, 73, 132, 163 consumer capitalism...