Great Essays

“Has Technology Abolished Mankind?”

with Dr. Charles Rubin

The power and promise of modern science and technology is increasingly allowing human beings to do—even to be—whatever we want. But is it morally right to do whatever we have the power to do? As we gain ever greater control over nature, what will guide our choices individually and collectively? This is the central ethical dilemma determining what the human future will look like, or even whether there will be a human future at all. 

In this four session course, we will first read a pair of essays that see the relationship between human intelligence and human embodiment in diametrically opposed ways. At stake is the question of whether it is coherent to imagine a future where intelligence is “liberated” from the body’s limits. After this we will read a seminal essay by a great Jewish thinker, Hans Jonas, that ruminates on the way Jews might think about the pros and cons of putting limits on the technological enterprise. Finally, we’ll have a discussion about the recent film Ex Machina, which will bring many of the courses themes to life, as only science fiction can. 

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