Yunus Tuncel (Ed.) - Nietzsche and Transhumanism

Nietzsche and
Transhumanism
Nietzsche Now Series
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Editors:
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner and Yunus Tuncel
Editorial Board:
Keith Ansell-Pearson, Rebecca Bamford,
Nicholas Birns, David Kilpatrick,
Vanessa Lemm, Iain Thomson,
Paul van Tongeren, and Ashley Woodward
If you are interested in publishing in this series,

please send your inquiry to the editors Stefan
Lorenz Sorgner at ssorgner@johncabot.edu and
Yunus Tuncel at tuncely@nietzschecircle.com
Nietzsche and
Transhumanism:
Precursor or Enemy?
Edited by
Yunus Tuncel
Nietzsche and Transhumanism: Precursor or Enemy?
Series: Nietzsche Now
Edited by Yunus Tuncel
This book first published 2017
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2017 by Yunus Tuncel and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-7287-3

ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7287-4

CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
Yunus Tuncel
Part I
Chapter One ............................................................................................... 14

Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 27

The Overhuman in the Transhuman
Max More
Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 32

Nietzsche, the Overhuman and the Posthuman: A Reply to Stefan Sorgner
Michael Hauskeller
Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 37

Nietzsche’s Overhuman is an Ideal Whereas Posthumans Will be Real
Bill Hibbard
Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 41

Beyond Humanism: Reflections on Trans- and Posthumanism
Part II
Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 70

The Future is Superhuman: Nietzsche’s Gift
Keith Ansell Pearson
Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 83
Nietzsche’s Transhumanism
Paul S. Loeb

vi Contents
Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 101

Nietzsche’s Post-Human Imperative: On the “All-too-Human” Dream
of Transhumanism
Babette Babich
Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 133

Zarathustra 2.0 and Beyond: Further Remarks on the Complex
Relationship between Nietzsche and Transhumanism
Part III
Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 172

“But what do we matter!” Nietzsche’s Secret Hopes and the Prospects
of Transhumanism
Michael Steinmann
Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 191

Nietzsche, the Übermensch, and Transhumanism: Philosophical
Reflections
Russell Blackford
Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 205

Nietzsche on Ethical Transhumanism
Rebecca Bamford
Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 220

The Question of Pain and Suffering in Nietzsche and Transhumanism
Yunus Tuncel
Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 231

Postmodern Reflections on the Nietzsche and Transhumanism Exchange
Ashley Woodward
Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 248

Immortality as Utopia and the Relevance of Nihilism
Contributors’ Bios ................................................................................... 262
Bibliography ............................................................................................ 266

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
YUNUS TUNCEL
Nietzsche’s relationship to transhumanism has been debated for the

last several years, and one can find scholars on any point of the spectrum
regarding Nietzsche’s affinity to this movement. In this collection of
essays scholars from different backgrounds explore this relationship, as
they discuss many issues that are central to Nietzsche’s thought and
transhumanism. These issues include the overhuman (or the superhuman),
the posthuman, eternal recurrence, nihilism, evolution, education,
asceticism, enhancement, bio-enhancement, morality, pain, suffering,
longevity, and immortality.
The anthology is structured in three parts: Essays in Part I are from the
Journal of Evolution & Technology, a journal of Institute of Ethics and
Emerging Technologies dedicated to transhumanism; in this debate from
2009 to 2010 Stefan Sorgner presented his ideas on how and why
Nietzsche’s ideas could be seen to have impact on transhumanism, as Max
More, Michael Hauskeller, and Bill Hibbard responded to him. The last
piece in this part is Sorgner’s response to them. Part II carries the debate
into Nietzsche scholarship; the essays of this part appeared in the Fall
2011 issue of The Agonist, a journal of the Nietzsche Circle. Here Keith
Ansell Pearson, Paul Loeb, and Babette Babich examine Nietzsche’s ideas
in relation to those of transhumanism, and Sorgner responds to them.
Finally, the essays of Part III were solicited specifically for this anthology,
and scholars were approached to contribute to this collection. These essays
are by Michael Steinmann, Russell Blackford, Rebecca Bamford, Yunus
Tuncel, and Ashley Woodward. This part also ends with a response by
Sorgner to these essays and does not cohere like the other two parts, which
were focused debates. However, all parts and chapters deal with the same
theme of this anthology, emphasizing different aspects of Nietzsche’s
thought and the transhumanist thought. What follows below is a summary
of, or rather flavors from, each of the chapters. In this way, the reader can
easily find what interests him or her the most and focus on that part of the
anthology or on a specific chapter.

2 Editor’s Introduction
In Part I, Chapter 1, “Nietzsche, the Overhuman1 and Transhumanism,”

Stefan Sorgner argues against Bostrom’s claim that Nietzsche cannot be an
ancestor of the transhumanist movement and shows the parallels between
the concept of the posthuman and Nietzsche’s overhuman. In this discussion
Sorgner finds similarities between Nietzsche and transhumanism in their
conceptions of dynamic, always changing aspects of life and human life,
in their valuations of science, and their belief in enhancement and
development. After touching upon the differences between Bostrom’s and
Esfandiary’s concepts of the transhuman and the posthuman, Sorgner
suggests that Nietzsche’s concept of higher types and overhuman is similar
to that of Esfandiary rather than that of Bostrom. In the last part of his
essay, Sorgner engages in an analysis of Nietzsche’s overhuman and
argues that the concept of the posthuman would be stronger “if one accepts
that it also has a meaning-giving function,” (25) which he finds in
Nietzsche’s conception.
In the following essay, “The Overhuman in the Transhuman,” Chapter
2 of the anthology, Max More not only agrees with Sorgner’s conclusion,
but also claims that “…transhumanist ideas were directly influenced by
Nietzsche.” (28) As one of the key figures of the transhumanist movement,
More acknowledges Nietzsche’s influence on his work in transhumanism.
On a further note, More finds Nietzsche to be instrumental for critical
thinking and for the transhumanist goal of self-transformation. Despite the
utilitarian influence on transhumanist thought and Nietzsche’s distance
from utilitarianism, More entertains a Nietzschean variation of
transhumanism.
Michael Hauskeller, on the other hand, disagrees with both More and
Sorgner and, in his essay, “Nietzsche, the Overhuman and the Posthuman:
A Reply to Stefan Sorgner,” Chapter 3 of the anthology, shows the
essential differences between Nietzsche and transhumanism. Here are the
essentials of his position: first, Nietzsche was not interested in improving
humanity in contrast to the transhumanist goal “to improve human nature
by means of technology” (32). Second, Nietzsche and transhumanists
would not agree on a revaluation of all values. While transhumanism
wants to maintain continuity, Nietzsche wants to undermine all values.
Third, transhumanists uphold the logocentric tradition and consider the
organic body to be replaceable, whereas Nietzsche considers the mind to
be an invention and the body to be crucial. Fourth, Hauskeller discusses
personal immortality. While transhumanism accepts it as a goal, Nietzsche

1
For Übermensch in Nietzsche either ‘Overhuman’ or ‘Superhuman’ is used by
different authors in this collection.

Nietzsche and Transhumanism: Precursor or Enemy? 3
rejects it. It must be noted here that this is a complicated topic in

Nietzsche’s works and his rejection of immortality has much to do with his
criticism of Christian belief in after-life. Hauskeller does not discuss the
bigger context of Nietzsche’s position on immortality, which would
necessitate a discussion of eternal recurrence. The last part of Hauskeller’s
essay addresses the question of the overhuman and finds Nietzsche’s
conception to be in disagreement with transhumanist ideas.
Continuing with the debate Sorgner initiated on Nietzsche and
transhumanism, Bill Hibbard, in his “Nietzsche’s Overhuman is an Ideal
Whereas Posthumans Will be Real,” Chapter 4, sees a huge divergence
between the two, as he points out that Nietzsche’s overhuman is an ideal,
whereas the posthuman of transhumanism is real. While incorporating
Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence into this debate, Hibbard offers a “fixed
point theory,” and states that “…the overhuman’s satisfaction with eternal
recurrence implies that the overhuman must be the result of an infinite
sequence of improving humans and posthumans” (39) and concludes that
“…some posthumans would say yes to eternal recurrence” (39). This
separation between ideal and real that Hibbard uses to base his argument is
hardly tenable, because Nietzsche stands at a critical threshold in relation
to such a separation. On a final note, Hibbard finds another major
difference, which concerns the issue of “radical inequality.” He claims that
Nietzsche’s preference for the strong would not be good for social
cohesion and proposes Hobbes, with his materialism and ideas for social
cohesion, to be a better antecedent for transhumanism than Nietzsche.
In his essay, “Beyond Humanism: Reflections on Trans- and
Posthumanism,” Chapter 5 of this collection, Sorgner responds to the on-
going discussion on Nietzsche-transhumanism relationship in nine parts.
What follows below is a summary of each of these parts. In 1) Technology
and Evolution, Sorgner presents the following arguments. First, Nietzsche
has a high regard for sciences; therefore, he would affirm technology and
technological means for bringing about the overhuman. Just to diverge
from Sorgner, we must also keep in mind the ‘how’ of sciences and
technology, the affects they produce, and how they fit in the life of a
culture; all of these issues would be crucial in Nietzsche. Furthermore,
Sorgner sees education and enhancement as analogous processes and, as a
result, concludes that Nietzsche would be in favor of technological
enhancement for the overhuman. In the second section, “Overcoming
Nihilism,” Sorgner makes a distinction between alethetic nihilism and
ethical nihilism; the former stands for the fact that “…it is currently
impossible to obtain knowledge of the world” (50), while the latter
represents the position that no non-formal concept of the good is plausible

and there is no ethical foundation universally applicable to all. According

to Sorgner, Nietzsche proposes to go beyond ethical nihilism, but
embraces alethetic nihilism. However, Sorgner himself does not agree
with Nietzsche’s call because of the potential paternalistic structures,
which go along with a move beyond ethical nihilism. He then suggests that
an embrace of both ethical as well as alethetic nihilism would help
establish a post-foundational society in which all diversity and different
forms of life are accepted and coexist with each other. In the third section,
“Politics and Liberalism,” Sorgner sees a two-class system in Nietzsche’s
political vision in which society is split between the leisurely creators and
the rest doing the day-to-day work; I think this is too simplistic and
Sorgner acknowledges the complexity of Nietzsche’s politics. On the other
hand, he sees a two-class system in some brands of transhumanism. As a
result, he turns Hauskeller’s criticism of Nietzsche against transhumanism
itself. In section four, Sorgner aligns Nietzsche’s thought more with Virtue
Ethics than Utilitarianism and urges transhumanists and bioethicists to
benefit from Nietzsche’s ideas on ethics, despite their association with
Utilitarianism. Concerning the good life in section five, Sorgner warns
against the dangers of upholding one true ideal for all humanity and one
true good, in agreement with Nietzsche, and shows that certain aspects of
the good life are not incompatible with his philosophy, contra what
transhumanists claim—Nietzsche is not only open to certain forms of the
good life but is also open to diverse good lives, as Sorgner exemplifies. In
response to several transhumanists, Sorgner, in section six, states that
Nietzsche’s dynamic conception of power and the will to power is
sufficient for his conception of the world as ever-changing; therefore, this
conception is open to ideals of progress, which transhumanism upholds.
Regarding the concepts of eternal recurrence and the overhuman, Sorgner
considers them to be logically separate. He acknowledges that the former
is incompatible with transhumanist thought, but the latter is not. In section
seven, Sorgner expresses his criticism of Hauskeller’s reading of
Nietzsche on immortality and highlights the fact that both Nietzsche and
transhumanism are in agreement in their critical distance to the Christian
conception of after-life and immortality. As for longevity, Nietzsche
clearly departs from the transhumanist goal of simple survival; as Sorgner
observes, what counts is power and to be more powerful, which, in fact,
ties in with living in an overhumanly way and not just living. Regarding
logocentricity, in section eight, Sorgner does not agree with Hauskeller
that transhumanism continues the logocentric tradition of the West. On the
contrary, transhumanists may agree with Nietzsche’s “naturalistic” and
perspectival position on reason and knowledge. In the last section, Sorgner

exposes some of the reasons for hostility towards Nietzsche among some
transhumanists and academics in general and assesses the place of
Nietzsche in post-war Germany.
The first chapter of Part II of the anthology, “The Future is Superhuman”
by Keith Ansell-Pearson—Chapter 6 of the anthology—presents an
extensive discussion of the superhuman and nihilism. Focusing on
Vattimo’s reading of Nietzsche and his position that Nietzsche’s thought
“offers a possible proposal for a breakthrough” (73) to a post-metaphysical
human, Ansell-Pearson offers his reading of the superhuman as “a new
non-dogmatic image of thought: a seduction, a temptation, an experiment,
and a hope” (74). He then moves on to discussing the question of nihilism
in Nietzsche. He rightly acknowledges the ambiguity of the term and
points out its different meanings and forms such as passive nihilism,
which Nietzsche rejects, and active nihilism, which he embraces (75).
What is crucial for both Vattimo and Ansell-Pearson is to see nihilism as
“…an indicator of…our emancipation from moral monism, dogmatism,
and absolutism” (74). Ansell-Pearson’s discussion of nihilism is
interesting in that it poses the question as to what extent transhumanism is
a problem or an overcoming from the standpoint of Nietzsche’s
philosophy? In the rest of his essay, Ansell-Pearson discusses Sorgner’s
appropriation of Nietzsche for transhumanism and the responses of Babich
and Loeb, which I will summarize below.
In his essay, “Nietzsche's Transhumanism: Evolution and Eternal
Recurrence,” Chapter 7 of the anthology, Paul Loeb expresses his
dissatisfaction with the ways More and Sorgner treat the link between the
Übermensch and the eternal recurrence, as it relates to transhumanism.
Insisting on the translation of Übermensch as ‘superhuman,’ Loeb presents
his understanding of the superhuman, which “…does not even refer to any
single individual…but only to a future descendant species…,” (85) an
understanding which may echo well with Sorgner and transhumanists.
Loeb rightly exposes the shortcomings of More’s position on the link
between the superhuman and the eternal recurrence. He first disagrees
with More’s claim that eternal recurrence is bizarre and implausible, as he
shows the problem in such a scholarly position and exposes its scientific
aspect. Next Loeb debunks the idea that eternal recurrence rejects progress
or that it is opposed to any transhumanist progress. In this way Loeb
achieves two things: first, the superhuman and the eternal recurrence as
two significant doctrines of Nietzsche’s thought are consistent with each
other. Second, they can both be adapted by transhumanism, and even more
radically he states that “…eternal recurrence is actually required for there
to be any transhumanist progress in the first place” (91). Next Loeb

demonstrates how the idea of eternal recurrence enables Zarathustra to

overcome his doubts regarding backward willing and thereby to become a
transhuman; by the same token Nietzsche points the way to the future
superhuman species. In arguing against More and Sorgner and their
disjointed treatment of the concepts of the superhuman and the eternal
recurrence, Loeb brings the two together in his conclusion as it pertains to
the evolution of the superhuman animal “through its additional recurrence-
enabled mnemonic control of the past” (94). On a final note for this essay,
Loeb criticizes the transhumanists in that they do not discuss the problem
of time in Nietzsche, which is a significant aspect of the eternal
recurrence, and, therefore, they cannot explain how an evolutionary step to
a higher form of species is possible. This is why Loeb ends his essay by
urging transhumanists and Sorgner to reflect on and appropriate
Nietzsche’s teachings on time.
In the following essay, “Nietzsche’s Post-Human Imperative: On the
“All-too-Human” Dream of Transhumanism,” Chapter 8 of the anthology,
Babette Babich explains why she disagrees with Sorgner’s claim that
Nietzsche would have been an advocate of transhumanism. One of
Babich’s criticisms of Sorgner is that he does not engage with the reasons
as to why transhumanists like Bostrom keep Nietzsche at a distance (105).
After laying down the building blocks of Sorgner’s chained argument,
namely education = evolution = genetic engineering, Babich lists some
shortcomings in Sorgner’s reconstruction of Nietzsche as a precursor of
transhumanism. One shortcoming she sees is the fact that Sorgner
excludes Sloterdjik from his discussion and does not discuss the reasons as
to why Habermas argues against transhumanism while associating
Nietzsche with it. Babich proceeds to expose the context of Habermas’
critique of transhumanism, in which cybernetics and systems theory have
been the basis of the military industrial world in the United States,
Germany (especially of the Weimar period), and other parts of the world.
She then presents the theme of Sloterdjik’s discussion in “Rules for the
Human Zoo:” “…’anthropotechnics,’ the technique of the manufacturing
of humanity…” which is a global concern (109). In the next section of her
essay, Babich takes Sorgner to task on education and rightly questions him
as to what he means by ‘education.’ After surveying several elements of
Nietzsche’s conception of education, Babich reveals the discrepancies
between Nietzsche’s and Sorgner’s Nietzsche-inspired transhumanist
model; in fact, the transhumanist model “…would lead to a society not of
“enhancement,” but and much rather of leveled or flattened out humanity”
(114). While taking note of the danger of playing with Nietzsche’s texts,
Babich concludes that Nietzsche would dismiss the kind of “enhancement”

Sorgner talks about, which is not about self-overcoming but rather about
self-preservation. I will end the summary of Babich’s essay with two valid
points she makes: first, who will benefit from all the enhancements
Sorgner and transhumanists promise? Will it be only the wealthy who can
afford expensive technologies? This puts a dent on the transhumanist
promise for a better future for all. Second, transhumanism is too utopian to
follow; in obsessing with promises and possibilities for the distant future,
we forget the problems of the world today. Both of these points Babich
makes are worthy of reflection not only for Sorgner and transhumanists,
but for any thinker who is truly concerned with the problems we are faced
with today.
In his response to the debate in The Agonist, “Zarathustra 2.0 and
Beyond: Further Remarks on the Complex Relationship Between
Nietzsche and Transhumanism,” Chapter 9 of the anthology, Sorgner
addresses the criticisms raised by Babich and Loeb. In this debate, Sorgner
engages with Babich on the historic context of Nietzsche and
transhumanism, including a discussion on fascism, futurism, and any form
of totalitarianism. Sorgner not only does not see any causal relationship
between transhumanism and totalitarianism, but he is also sensitive to the
question of technology-totalitarianism connection: “How can technologies
get dealt with without them bringing about totalitarian structures within a
society?” (142) He believes that technologies, whether electronic or
medical, will be available to many people, as they will enhance their lives.
While Sorgner acknowledges that Nietzsche and transhumanism are
different especially in relation to their philosophical inclinations
(especially in their positions on Utilitarianism) and in their styles, he does
not see ascetic idealism in transhumanism; on the contrary, he considers
both Nietzsche and transhumanism to be “naturalistic” and to be accepting
our “natural” being in the world. Sorgner then moves on to discussing
Loeb’s critique of transhumanism. While finding Loeb’s position on the
connection between the overhuman (Loeb himself uses ‘superhuman’) and
the eternal recurrence implausible—here much of the discussion rests on
memory and backward willing, Sorgner accepts, albeit for different
reasons, Loeb’s advice to transhumanists that they benefit from
Nietzsche’s conception of eternal recurrence. The main disagreement
between Sorgner and Loeb in this debate lies in the question as to whether
the overhuman and the eternal recurrence are separable or not. Loeb thinks
not, while Sorgner holds that they are logically separable. What stands out
in this debate is an in-depth discussion of the eternal recurrence.
Part III starts with Michael Steinmann’s essay, “But What Do We
Matter! Nietzsche’s Secret Hopes and the Prospects of Transhumanism,”

Chapter 10 of the anthology. Steinmann offers a comparative study

between Nietzsche and transhumanism, specifically on “Nietzsche’s hopes
and the prospects of transhumanism” (174), as he starts with the
overhuman. At the outset, Steinmann introduces a stark contrast between
Nietzsche’s overhuman and the transhumanist vision; the former seems
quite extraordinary, or “wholly other” as he puts it (174), while the latter is
ordinary. Continuing along the line of contrast, Steinmann introduces
another divergence between the two. In his reading of Nietzsche, the
overhuman “has existed and can exist again” (176). This position, in
which the higher types are not tied to any evolutionary transformation,
clearly goes against the transhumanist conception of evolution. In this
account, the overhuman appears as an exemplary human being, and
Nietzsche’s vision for humanity rests on the potential to be different than it
currently is (177). To support his argument, Steinmann gives examples
from Nietzsche’s texts on what historical figures he considers to be
overhumans, such as Goethe and Napeleon. After making an interesting
comment on the overhuman, namely that one can have overhumanly
experiences without being an overhuman, Steinmann lists its three aspects:
1) the overhuman is a mere daring and risk-taking individual; 2) the
overhuman has a divine character (he states this with caution); and 3) there
is an inhuman aspect of the overhuman, which has to do with brutality and
evilness. He then discusses some parts of Beyond Good and Evil. What is
relevant here is the expansion of the ‘inhuman’ aspect of the overhuman.
Steinmann’s reading of Aphorism 44 of BGE is that we all learn from
hardships and dangers, but destruction or “devilry of every sort” are
confined to fiction and mythology and do not have any room in the
conduct of life and practical philosophy. After discussing destructiveness
and Dionysus in Nietzsche, specifically in BGE, Steinmann concludes
that, despite some parallels between Nietzsche and transhumanism,
Nietzsche’s hopes cannot be positively linked to the prospects of
transhumanism, especially when the roots of transhumanist movement are
to be found in Enlightenment and the progress of sciences.
In the next essay, “Nietzsche, the ‘Übermensch,’ and Transhumanism:
Philosophical Reflections,” Chapter 11 of the anthology, Russell
Blackford first sums up the debates on Nietzsche and transhumanism,
which transpired in Journal of Evolution & Technology in 2009 and 2010,
and in The Agonist in 2011 (the subject-matter of Parts I and II of the
anthology). He then presents an overview of transhumanism in which he
emphasizes the role of technology in human life and some of the core ideas
of transhumanism such as technological advancement and transformation via
technology to radically altered state called ‘posthuman.’ Blackford then

proceeds to explore Nietzsche and transhumanism connection; after

considering several views, specifically those of Bostrom, Babich, More,
and Sorgner, he concludes that “Nietzsche had some influence, via More,
on transhumanism” (195). Despite Nietzsche’s influence on More and
More’s contribution to the transhumanist movement, Blackford wants to
examine if Nietzschean thinking and transhumanist thinking support each
other philosophically. Regarding asceticism in transhumanism, for
instance, Blackford criticizes Babich’s position. In agreement with More,
Blackford states that the desire to alter and enhance human nature and
body is not a form of asceticism but is rather put forward for the sake of
extending “our physical, social, and sensory lives beyond their current
limits…” (201). In the section, “Reflections” of his essay, Blackford
presents his position on the main subject of this anthology. While
expressing his doubts about transhumanist adoption of Nietzsche’s
philosophy—he mentions specifically Thus Spoke Zarathustra and eternal
recurrence, he suggests that this does not exclude the possibility of taking
inspiration from his works. In fact, it did not prevent him from doing so. In
a similar vein, Ted Chu, a transhumanist, was also influenced by
Nietzsche’s ideas. Blackford cites from his recent book, Human Purpose
and Transhuman Potential and calls Chu’s version of transhumanism
“recognizably neo-Nietzschean.” (204) Blackford ends his essay by
acknowledging philosophers such as Hobbes and Mill to be the inspiration
for transhumanism, while not entirely denying Nietzsche’s influence.
In “Nietzsche on Ethical Transhumanism,” Chapter 12 of the anthology,
Rebecca Bamford touches upon the subject of moral transhumanism, as
she discusses such issues as altruism and enhancement, and challenges
transhumanists in their understanding of morality in the light of
Nietzsche’s critique. In the first section of her essay, Bamford presents the
transhumanist position on moral enhancement, especially the positions of
Persson and Savelescu. They argue that, despite technological advancements
including those of enhancement technologies, the human capacity for
morality, or altruism to be specific, has not advanced proportionally. This
can have dire effects, she justifiably warns, if a solution is not found, and
they find the solution in “moral bioenhancement” (205). As she shows,
they base their argument on Hume and Schopenhauer for the necessity of
altruism and compassion. Bamford then revises the question of
defensibility for moral transhumanism. In the next part of her essay, she
brings up the issue of moral arbitrariness, following on the criticisms
raised by McNamee and Edwards against moral transhumanism, and
discusses the subject of enhancement. After presenting Sorgner’s position
that educational and genetic/bio-processes are parallel, Bamford concludes,

contra Persson and Savulescu, that “…moral motivation need not be

presented as ‘exclusively’ a matter of genetic or pharmaceutical intervention
and may also, and effectively, involves moral education” (210). In
agreement with Bamford, but going further, I would raise the following
Nietzschean/Foucauldian questions: In what institutional context are the
genetic interventions being used? Who is using them? These questions seem
to be absent in Persson and Savulescu. Next Bamford discusses the concerns
about altruism within the context of Nietzsche’s philosophy. As she engages
with another book of Nietzsche’s, namely Daybreak, she discusses
Nietzsche’s critique of “customary morality” and shows how debilitating
this type of morality can be on human health, and similarly, compassion
itself, which “…can also be profoundly disempowering and objectifying…”
(212). Bamford then lists three reasons as to why, for Nietzsche, it is
difficult to overcome customary morality. On the other hand, she does
show how such overcoming is also possible in Nietzsche as he provides “a
substantial alternative for the development of a new approach to ethics…”
(214). Given the shaky grounds of transhumanist ethics built on altruism
and compassion, Bamford invites transhumanists to reflect on their basic
assumptions and to be consistent within their “futuristic” promises by
steering away from customary morality.
The following essay, “Pain and Suffering in Nietzsche and
Transhumanism,” Chapter 13 of the anthology, addresses some of the
fundamental differences between Nietzsche and transhumanism. Tuncel
chose this topic because so much has already been said on some of the
core issues such as the superhuman (or the overhuman) and the eternal
recurrence. On the other hand, the question of suffering remains central to
Nietzsche’s thought and the previous essay by Bamford deals with it
tangentially by way of her discussion of compassion in Nietzsche. The
essay starts with exploring Nietzsche’s ideas on suffering and related
issues such as pity, compassion or how we relate to others’ sufferings in
general, cruelty, and more specifically “refined cruelty,” and the role of
suffering in memory-making. The essay then moves on to examining the
transhumanist goal of eliminating pain and suffering, extending human
life, and even ending aging and human mortality. Tuncel tried to include
many different transhumanist goals and approaches to these issues and the
common trend among them, while realizing that there are different
transhumanist perspectives. In the last part of the essay, Tuncel examines
in what ways Nietzsche would be in disagreement with the transhumanist
goals, all of which have to do with the functions of self-preservation. He
also shows, in related but different areas, how Nietzsche and
transhumanist thought are at odds with one another, including their

relations to Enlightenment, metaphysical dualism, logocentricity, and the

subject of death. Although there are more areas than can be presented here
in which two intellectual movements can be compared, Tuncel concludes
that Nietzsche and transhumanist thought are more different than similar.
In the last essay of this part before Sorgner’s response, “Posthuman
Reflections on the Nietzsche and Transhumanism Exchange,” Chapter 14
of the anthology, Ashley Woodward engages with post-modern
philosophy, especially that of Lyotard and Foucault, to show how a
Nietzschean form of transhumanism is possible. The first section of the
essay introduces Lyotard’s ideas on post-modernity and his understanding
of it as “incredulity toward meta-narratives” (232). Woodward then
presents Lyotard’s “post-modern fable” in which Lyotard puts forward the
extra-terrestrial survival of the human species after the end of planet earth
to be “the most pressing problem facing us today” (234). This surely
connects with the concern of transhumanism. In this fable, the hero of the
narrative is no longer the human, unlike modern narratives, but rather
‘negetropy,’ “…the organization of matter and energy into complex form
as such” (234) hence, the relevance of the post-human in this discussion.
Woodward then concludes that Lyotard’s fable critiques transhumanist
dreams, “but does not necessarily disqualify them” (235). In the following
section of his essay, Woodward explores Nietzsche as a critic of
modernity, especially concerning his ideas on the value of science and
technology. After he presents Ansell-Pearson’s and Babich’s charge that
transhumanism is a form of ascetic idealism and his own understanding of
Nietzsche’s ascetic idealism, he examines their arguments.
The last essay of the collection is by Stefan Sorgner, Chapter 15:
“Immortality as Utopia and the Relevance of Nihilism,” where he
responds to the authors of Part III. After discussing his version of
perspectivism influenced by Vattimo, Sorgner lists three points relevant to
the Nietzsche-transhumanism connection: 1) health, 2) science, and 3) the
overhuman. As for the first one, Sorgner does not say much; let’s keep in
mind that the use of the terms ‘health’ or ‘healthy’ is complicated in
Nietzsche, because he does not mean ordinary health. As for science,
Sorgner, in response to Woodward, makes an interesting point about
Nietzsche’s prospective use of the term ‘science,’ a different notion of
science that is yet to come. Finally, as for the overhuman, Sorgner insists
on the strictly evolutionary meaning of the overhuman when he claims,
contra Steinmann, that the overhuman for Nietzsche never existed in
history. This is another contested area of debate in Nietzsche scholarship.
Sorgner then presents his responses under the sub-sections of immortality,
health, nihilism, truth, and moral bioenhancement. What I like to focus on

is his main criticism of some of the contributors of Part III, me,

Woodward, and Steinmann. First, he softly and indirectly criticizes all
essays, with the exception of Bamford’s, for focusing “…solely on the
most abstract philosophical questions, because in particular when we are
dealing with applied ethical issues, the value and relevance of this
comparison between Nietzsche and transhumanism can become
particularly clear” (258). If it is a criticism, it cannot be a serious one,
because the subject of this anthology is not Nietzsche, Transhumanism and
Applied Ethics. His other criticism is more grave and, in my opinion,
entirely unjustified. Under the sub-section, “The Pars Pro Toto Fallacy,”
he claims that Steinmann, Woodward and I are criticizing certain aspects
of transhumanism, thinking that these aspects are the essence of the
movement, whereas a good criticism would have to target its core or its
essence (258-260). In defense of my essay, I would like to say the
following and hope Steinmann and Woodward find a platform to respond
to his criticism. The main goal of transhumanism is to improve humanity
with the help of technology; when one asks transhumanists how this goal
should be achieved, they respond (for that, one can consult with many
transhumanist texts), by eliminating suffering, by way of longevity,
enhancement, and by achieving immortality. In my short essay, I took on
these aspects without forgetting the bigger framework of transhumanism
and Nietzsche’s conceptions of the overhuman and the eternal recurrence.
In conclusion, Nietzsche’s works, Nietzsche scholarship, and
transhumanism encompass a broad spectrum of topics all of which are
relevant to our age. What is the place of scientific rationality in today’s
world? What is the role of technology in human society? How far can or
should we go with different kinds of enhancements? Can enhancement be
seen in conjunction with Nietzsche’s conceptions of overcoming and
education? Where are we in the evolutionary process? Are we being
already displaced by the next species that is in the works? Is Nietzsche’s
overhuman a goal to be attained in the future? Or, does the future simply
lie in the past while memory is simply a matter of interpretation, a function
of backward-willing? This collection of essays poses these and many other
questions, brings many topics together and should provoke and engage
readers from different backgrounds who are interested in them and in
thinking through the problems of our age. With this anthology, the editors
of the series, while being thankful to all the contributors, hope to create a
framework and a platform for future debate on Nietzsche and
transhumanism. The debate shall continue.

PART I

CHAPTER ONE
NIETZSCHE, THE OVERHUMAN,

AND TRANSHUMANISM
STEFAN LORENZ SORGNER
Introduction
When I first became familiar with the transhumanist movement, I
immediately thought that there were many fundamental similarities
between transhumanism and Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially
concerning the concept of the posthuman and that of Nietzsche’s
overhuman. This is what I wish to show in this article. I am employing the
term ‘overhuman’ instead of ‘overman,’ because in German the term
Übermensch can apply to both sexes, which the notion overhuman can, but
overman cannot. I discovered, however, that Bostrom, a leading
transhumanist, rejects Nietzsche as an ancestor of the transhumanist
movement, as he claims that there are merely some “surface-level
similarities with the Nietzschean vision” (Bostrom 2005a, 4).
In contrast to Bostrom, I think that significant similarities between the
posthuman and the overhuman can be found on a fundamental level.
Habermas agrees with me in that respect, as he has already referred to the
similarities in these two ways of thinking. However, he seems to regard
both of them as absurd. At least, he refers to transhumanists as a bunch of
mad intellectuals who luckily have not managed to establish support for
their elitist views from a bigger group of supporters (Habermas 2001, 43).1
In addition, it seems to me that Nietzsche explained the relevance of
the overhuman by referring to a dimension, which seems to be lacking in
transhumanism. In order to explain my position, I will progress as follows.
First, I will compare the concept of the posthuman to that of Nietzsche’s
overhuman, focusing more on their similarities then on their differences.
Second, I will contextualise the overhuman in Nietzsche’s general vision,
so that I can point out which dimension seems to me to be lacking in
transhumanist thought.

Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism 15
1 The posthuman and Nietzsche’s overhuman

Before I focus directly on the comparison between posthumans and
Nietzsche’s overhuman, I will deal with some fundamental principles of
Bostrom’s version of transhumanism, where the concept of the posthuman
can be found, and corresponding principles within Nietzsche’s thought. I
will give a short comparison of their dynamic views of nature and values,
and their positions concerning human nature, enhancement, education, the
revaluation of values, and evolution towards a higher species.
1.1 The evolution of human nature, and values

First, both transhumanists and Nietzsche hold a dynamic view of
nature and values. “Transhumanists view human nature as a work-in-
progress,” Bostrom says (2005b, 1).
So does Nietzsche. He holds a dynamic will-to-power metaphysics
which applies to human and all other beings, and which implies that all
things are permanently undergoing some change.2 There is nothing which
is eternally fixed. According to Nietzsche, human beings are organisms
constituted out of individual power quanta or will-to-power constellations.
One can clarify his concept by reference to Leibniz’s monadology.3 A
power quantum is a single entity like a monad. In contrast to the monad, it
can interact with other power quanta, it can grow, it can nourish itself
(which has to be understood metaphorically), and it has a perspective on
the world. This perspective enables the quantum to decide what to do next,
which depends upon its options and its conception of power whereby it
employs an extremely wide and open notion of power. Every state, in
which a power quantum is stronger, more capable, than another, and has
the potential to dominate the other, represents a state of power.
According to Nietzsche, all entities are constituted out of such power
constellations. The dynamics of power also underlie the process of
evolution, which was responsible for bringing about the human species,
animals, and plants. All organisms came into existence because the
conditions were such that bringing about the respective organisms was the
best possible means for realizing the striving for power of the preceding
organisms. Eventually, human beings came into existence.
However, the species “human being,” like every species, is not
eternally fixed and immutable. It came into existence, it can fade out of
existence, and it can evolve into a different species. Individual members of
a species have only a certain limited potential, which is limited by their
belonging to a specific species. Each species represents a species not only

16 Chapter One
because it is a community whose members have the potential to reproduce

themselves with one another, but also because its members have certain
limits.
A human being as a human being has only a limited amount of
potential and capacities, as he belongs to the human species, and any
species is defined by its limits. It cannot go beyond that limit. If a human
being has acquired special capacities, then she cannot pass them on to her
descendants, Nietzsche holds. However, a certain kind of Lamarckism can
also be found in Nietzsche, as he stresses that certain tendencies can get
inherited. If a man likes to eat well, and to enjoy the company of women,
then it is advisable for his son not to live a chaste and ascetic life (KSA, 4,
356-68).
Given a certain social and individual state, which Nietzsche does not
describe in detail, evolution can take place, and the species can evolve –
something also maintained by transhumanists. Bostrom points out: “A
common understanding is that it would be naive to think that the human
condition and human nature will remain pretty much the same for very
much longer” (Bostrom 2001).
Nietzsche might not be as optimistic as Bostrom: he does not argue
that an evolutionary progress in which human beings are involved will
take place soon. However, he does agree with transhumanists that it will
happen eventually, if the human species does not cease to exist.
In addition to the ontological dynamics, which can be found both in
transhumanisn and in Nietzsche’s philosophy, the same dynamics also
applies to the level of values. Here, Bostrom claims:
Transhumanism is a dynamic philosophy, intended to evolve as new
information becomes available or challenges emerge. One transhumanist
value is therefore to cultivate a questioning attitude and a willingness to
revise one’s beliefs and assumptions. (Bostrom 2001.)
Nietzsche agrees that values have undergone many changes. He

presents his interpretation of the evolution of values in his account of the
“Genealogy of Morals” (KSA, 5, 257-89). Values undergo a change on
various levels, on a social and cultural level as well as on a personal one.
Nietzsche’s concept of power, to which the concept of value is closely
related, can change given new experiences and insights. The content of the
concept of power is perspectival (Sorgner 2007, 79-83). There are no
absolute and unchanging values, as there is no Platonic realm of ideas in
which something could remain fixed.

1.2 Science, enhancement, and education

Both Nietzsche and transhumanists have an outlook on the world,
which diverges significantly from the traditional Christian one, or one
which has inherited many Christian values. As one can still find many
elements of Christian thinking in the value system of many people today,
both Nietzsche and transhumanists are in favour of bringing about a
revaluation of values.
Bostrom emphasizes: “Transhumanists insist that our received moral
precepts and intuitions are not in general sufficient to guide policy”
(Bostrom 2001). Consequently, he suggests values that take into
consideration a dynamic view of the world:
We can thus include in our list of transhumanist values that of promoting
understanding of where we are and where we are headed. This value
encloses others: critical thinking, open-mindedness, scientific inquiry, and
open discussion are all important helps for increasing society’s intellectual
readiness. (Bostrom 2001.)
Nietzsche agrees again. His respect for critical thinking was immense –
he is widely regarded as one of the harshest critics of morality and
religion. Furthermore, he also values scientific inquiry immensely
(Sorgner 2007, 140-45), even though his respect for science has often been
underestimated. In various passages, he points out that the future age will
be governed by a scientific spirit, which is why he thinks that many future
people will regard his philosophy as plausible, as his way of thinking is
supposed to appeal to scientifically minded people.
Nietzsche’s high regard for the sciences has been recognized by most
leading Nietzsche scholars.4 His theory of the eternal recurrence is based
upon premises, which have been held by many scientists. His will-to-
power anthropology bears many similarities to scientific ones. Even
though he is critical of Darwin, he also holds a theory of evolution.
Nietzsche very often is most critical of thinkers who are closest to his own
understanding of things. In Darwin’s case, Nietzsche’s critique is mainly
rooted in his concept that human beings strive solely for power. Hence, a
concept, which implies that a struggle for existence or a will to life is the
fundamental human drive, is the one from which he feels the need to
distinguish himself (Sorgner 2007, 62). Human beings strive for power.
The struggle for existence represents only a marginal type of expression of
the fundamental will-to-power.
If you will power, then it is in your interest to enhance yourself.
Enhancement, however, is just what transhumanists aim for.

18 Chapter One
Transhumanism is in favour of technologies and other means which could

be used for “enhancement of human intellectual, physical, and emotional
capacities” (Bostrom 2001) so that posthumans could come into existence.
Consequently, Bostrom stresses that transhumanists value a type of
liberalism, which implies that people have the right to choose “to live
much longer and healthier lives, to enhance their memory and other
intellectual faculties, to refine their emotional experiences and subjective
sense of well-being, and generally to achieve a greater degree of control
over their own lives” (Bostrom 2005b, 1). Bostrom obviously has gone
into more detail concerning what all of these demands do and do not
imply. However, what is important is that he, in contrast to Habermas,
values the option for parents to choose the genetic makeup of their
children.
Habermas distinguishes between children who simply became who
they are and those who were made in a specific manner (Habermas 2001,
41, 45, 80-93), and claims the following. First, the parents’ act of
imposition of a genetic makeup is supposed to be immoral, as children are
supposed to feel forced into a certain direction, if their genetic makeup
was chosen by their parents, more so than if they became who they are by
chance (Habermas 2001, 53-55). Second, there is supposed to be a
difference between educating one’s children and deciding about their
genetic makeup (Habermas 2001, 31, 87-114). Children are supposed to be
able to do something against the way they are being educated (Habermas
2001, 100), and education is supposed to bring about only qualities, which
can get changed again. A genetic makeup, however, cannot get altered
again (Habermas 2001, 111). Therefore, according to Habermas, choosing
a genetic makeup for one’s children and educating them are, morally-
speaking, two different types of acts concerning their moral evaluation.
Bostrom points out the following: “Transhumanists also hold that there
is no special ethical merit in playing genetic roulette. Letting chance
determine the genetic identity of our children may spare us directly from
directly confronting some difficult choices” (Bostrom 2001). Accordingly,
he simply rejects Habermas’ first point. It seems to be implicit in his
position that most parents love their children, from which follows that
most parents aim for the good for their children. That good can be
something the parents regard as good, or something, which they regard as
in the interest of the child. No matter which concept of the good the
parents favor, it is usually better that parents decide than that the child’s
genetic potential is the result of a genetic roulette, or of a chance outcome.
Consequently, Bostrom argues, Habermas’ second criticism does not hold
either. If the genetic design that parents decide for is better, in most cases,

than that which they receive by chance, then obviously it does not matter
morally that it cannot get altered, at least not as easily as qualities which
one developed as a result of education. One might even be tempted to say
that, in most cases, it is even better that these qualities cannot get altered,
as they are a good for the child. Here, it also must be noted that it is far
from clear whether Habermas’ second point is correct. It might be the case
that many qualities one develops on the basis of one’s education are
embedded so deeply in one’s personality that they cannot get altered
significantly either.
Critics of genetic engineering also tend to stress the dangers related to
new technological methods: that some things will certainly go wrong in
the beginning, and that one must not play around with human beings, or
treat them solely as a means. Concerning such worries, Bostrom responds:
“Transhumanism tends toward pragmatism […] taking a constructive,
problem-solving approach to challenges, favouring methods that
experience tells us give good results, and taking the initiative to ‘do
something about it’ rather than just sit around complaining” (Bostrom
2001). He is right, as all scientists and technicians who aim for new goals
have to be brave as they enter new, potentially dangerous waters. The
same applies to researchers in the field of genetic engineering. We would
not have discovered America, or developed smallpox vaccination, if there
had not been people brave enough to do what was essential for fulfilling
these tasks.
Courage is a significant virtue within Nietzsche’s favored morality. In
addition, he stresses the importance of science for the forthcoming
centuries, and does not reject that development. Given these two premises,
I cannot exclude the possibility that Nietzsche would have been in favor of
genetic engineering, even though he mainly stresses the importance of
education for the occurrence of the evolutionary step towards the
overhuman. If genetic engineering, or liberal eugenics, can actually be
seen as a special type of education, which is what transhumanists seem to
hold, then it is possible that this position would have been held by
Nietzsche, too, as education played a significant role in his ethics. He
affirmed science and was in favor of enhancement and the bringing about
of the overhuman.
1.3 The perspectival view of values, and the Renaissance genius

Transhumanists do not intend to impose their values upon other
people, as “transhumanists place emphasis on individual freedom and
individual choice in the area of enhancement technologies” (Bostrom

20 Chapter One
2005b). One reason for holding this position is that Bostrom regards it as
“a fact that humans differ widely in their conceptions of what their own
perfection would consist in” (Bostrom 2001). And: “The second reason for
this element of individualism is the poor track record of collective
decision-making in the domain of human improvement. The eugenics
movement, for example, is thoroughly discredited” (Bostrom 2001).
Besides the fact that Bostrom here uses the word “eugenics” but refers to
state regulated eugenics only, which I do not regard as a useful way of
employing that notion (Sorgner 2006, 201-209), he puts forward a position
that can be called a perspectival view of values. Nietzsche also defends
such a view.
Each power constellation, and hence each human being, according to
Nietzsche, has a different perspective on the world and as each individual
concept of power depends on who one is and which history one has had,
each human being has a unique concept of power, and consequently a
unique conception “of what their own perfection would consist in.”
Nietzsche himself has a clear concept of power, and what he regards as the
highest feeling of power, which is directly connected to the classical ideal
(Sorgner 2007, 53-58). A similar ideal seems to be upheld by
transhumanists, according to Bostrom:
Transhumanism imports from secular humanism the ideal of the fully-
developed and well-rounded personality. We can’t all be renaissance
geniuses, but we can strive to constantly refine ourselves and to broaden
our intellectual horizons. (Bostrom 2001.)
Not only the aspect of the “fully-developed and well-rounded

personality” can be found in Nietzsche, but also the striving “to constantly
refine ourselves and to broaden our intellectual horizons.” In Nietzsche,
this aspect is called “overcoming” (KSA, 4, 146-49). Higher humans wish
to permanently overcome themselves, to become stronger in the various
aspects, which can be developed in a human being, so that finally the
overhuman can come into existence. In transhumanist thought, Nietzsche’s
overhuman is being referred to as “posthuman.”
1.4 The posthuman, the transhuman, and Nietzsche’s

overhuman
Who is a posthuman? Which qualities does he have? I think that the
only qualities, which all transhumanists can subscribe to, are the
following: “we lack the capacity to form a realistic intuitive understanding
of what it would be like to be posthuman” (Bostrom 2001). However,

various transhumanists have tried to describe a posthuman in more detail.

According to Bostrom, F.M. Esfandiary held the following concept: “a
transhuman is a ‘transitional human’, someone who by virtue of their
technology usage, cultural values, and lifestyle constitutes an evolutionary
link to the coming era of posthumanity” (Bostrom 2005a, 12). In that case,
a transhuman would still belong to the species of human beings, which,
however, in some aspects has already developed qualities that stretch the
concept of a human being, and have the potential to establish itself as the
basis for the evolutionary step to a new species. The new species that
represents a further stage of evolution is referred to as the posthumans.
Hence, transhumans and human beings have the capacity to reproduce
themselves with each other, but posthumans would not, in the same way
that we cannot reproduce ourselves with great apes, at least not in a sexual
manner. It might even be the case that posthumans need to rely on
technological means for reproduction.
Bostrom’s concept of the posthuman seems to be slightly different
from Esfandiary’s: “By a posthuman capacity, I mean a general central
capacity greatly exceeding the maximum attainable by any current human
being without recourse to new technological means” (Bostrom
forthcoming, 1). It becomes clear that posthuman capacities cannot be
identical to the qualities current human beings have. However, Bostrom
still thinks that we5 can develop into such a being. He thereby does not
refer to us as the species of human beings, which can evolve into a new
species with capacities which are far more complex than our own, but he
thinks that any human being, by means of technology or other methods,
might be able to develop into a posthuman. He even claims: “This could
make it possible for personal identity to be preserved during the
transformation into posthuman” (Bostrom forthcoming, 15). Therefore, he
seems to have in mind that both current human beings, as well as
posthumans, belong to the species of human beings, which implies that
they have the potential to reproduce themselves with another by means of
sexual reproduction. Posthumans are not a separate species but a particular
group of humans with capacities which cannot yet be imagined by us, but
which can involve an enhancement in all human aspects including a
physiological, emotional, or intellectual enhancement. Bostrom suggests
that it is most likely for us to acquire these capacities by technological
means.6
Let me clarify some options of general enhancement, according to
Bostrom, whereby I will employ the notion of eugenics which he does not,
but which I regard as appropriate.7 We have had examples of state
regulated and liberal eugenics. State regulated eugenics is the type of

22 Chapter One
eugenics present in the Third Reich, which is morally despicable, and

which is regarded as something to avoid today by most, if not all serious,
Western ethicists. Liberal eugenics, on the other hand, is being discussed
today, as a morally legitimate possibility, and scholars such as Nicholas
Agar (1998) are in favor of some acts associated with liberal eugenics.
Transhumanists, as mentioned before, also regard liberal eugenics a
morally legitimate way of enhancing human beings. Both state regulated
and liberal eugenics, however, are heteronomous types of eugenics, which
means that people decide about the enhancement of other people. In the
case of state regulated eugenics, the state decides, whereas in the case of
liberal eugenics, the parents have the right to decide what ought to be done
to offspring. Transhumanists seem to identify a further type of eugenics,
which I suggest could be called autonomous eugenics. People may decide
for themselves whether they wish to be transformed into posthumans by
technological means. Given the theme in Bostrom’s articles, this even
seems to be the dominant way, he expects posthumans, “an exceedingly
worthwhile type” (Bostrom forthcoming, 24), to come into existence.8
Given the above analysis of two concepts of the posthuman, I claim
that Nietzsche’s concept of higher humans and the overhuman is very
similar to Esfandiary’s concepts of the transhuman and the posthuman, but
not to Bostrom’s concepts. According to Nietzsche, individual members of
the species of human beings have the capacity to develop only certain
limited qualities. It is supposed to be characteristic of all species that their
respective members can develop only within fixed limits. Given certain
conditions, which Nietzsche does not specify, evolution can take place.
According to Nietzsche, evolution is not a gradual development from one
species to another, but takes place in steps. If the conditions within one
species are such that an evolutionary step can take place, various couples
at the same time give birth to members of a new species. The couples, who
give birth to the overhuman, must have qualities that Nietzsche would
refer to as those of higher humans. One of the conditions necessary for an
evolutionary step to occur is that many higher humans exist. Normally, a
higher human cannot simply transfer his outstanding capacities to his
descendants. However, if there are many higher humans and some other
conditions are present too, such an evolutionary step can occur (KSA, 13,
316-317).
Higher humans still belong to the human species, but have some
special capacities, which an overhuman could also have. However, higher
humans cannot pass on their special capacities to their descendants by
means of sexual reproduction. By chance, higher humans have the
potential they have and, in addition, they must put significant effort into

developing their various capacities. According to Nietzsche, Goethe

represents the best example of a higher human (KSA, 6, 151-152).
Nietzsche’s higher humans are based upon a special nature that they have
by chance. Their nature enables them to develop into higher humans, if
they realize their potential by working hard at enhancing themselves.
Hereby, he particularly stresses the development of intellectual capacities,
the ability to interpret. Nietzsche does not refer to technological means of
improvement – Bostrom is correct in that respect. However, Nietzsche
does not exclude the additional possibility of technological enhancement
either.
The overhuman has a significantly different potential from that of
higher humans. So far no overhuman has existed, but the normal capacities
of an overhuman are beyond the capacities even of a higher human. Like
every species, the species of the overhuman has limits, but their limits are
different from the limits of the human species. The overhuman comes
about via an evolutionary step, which originates from the group of higher
humans. Nietzsche does not exclude the possibility that technological
means bring about the evolutionary step. His comments concerning the
conditions for the evolutionary step toward the overhuman are rather
vague in general, but in this respect his attitude is similar to that of
transhumanists. However, he thinks that the scientific spirit will govern the
forthcoming millennia and that this spirit will bring about the end of the
domination of dualist concepts of God and metaphysics, and the beginning
of a wider plausibility for his way of thinking.
Given this brief characterisation of higher humans and the overhuman,
I am bound to conclude that Nietzsche’s higher humans are similar to
Esfandiary’s concept of the transhuman and that Nietzsche’s overhuman
bears many similarities to Esfandiary’s posthuman. What can we say about
Bostrom’s concept of the posthuman in comparison to Nietzsche’s
concepts?
Bostrom holds: “One might well take an expansive view of what it
means to be human, in which case ‘posthuman’ is to be understood as
denoting a certain possible type of human mode of being” (Bostrom
forthcoming, 24). Accordingly, he also holds that posthumans have
capacities that cannot be found in living human beings. As Nietzsche
defends that the species of human beings has strict limits, it is rather
unlikely that the concept of a type of human being with capacities, which
have not yet existed, is consistent with his philosophy. Consequently, we
can conclude that Nietzsche and the transhumanists share many aspects in
their general anthropologies and their values, but Nietzsche’s concept of
the overhuman does not correspond to the concept of the posthuman of all

24 Chapter One
transhumanists. However, there are transhumanists whose concept of the

posthuman bears many significant similarities to that of Nietzsche’s
overhuman.
2 The Overhuman, and Nietzsche’s Hope for the Future

Transhumanists, at least in the articles which I have consulted, have
not explained why they hold the values they have, and why they want to
bring about posthumans. Nietzsche, on the other hand, explains the
relevance of the overhuman for his philosophy. The overhuman may even
be the ultimate foundation for his worldview.
Nietzsche sees philosophers as creators of values, which are ultimately
founded in personal prejudices.9 He regards his own prejudices as those
that they correspond to the spirit, which will govern the forthcoming
centuries. “Spirit” here does not refer to an immaterial nous in the Platonic
sense, or some ghostly spiritual substance. “Spirit” in Nietzsche’s writing
refers to a bodily capacity of interpretation by means of language, which is
based upon physiological strength. He distinguishes between a religious
and a scientific spirit. Weak reactive human beings, who cannot fulfill
their wishes in the here and now, incorporate the religious spirit, which
makes them long for a good afterlife. This spirit was dominant among
human beings for a very long time. However, eventually human beings
grew stronger and consequently more and more developed a scientific
spirit. The importance of the scientific spirit has increased significantly,
particularly since the Renaissance. Nietzsche expects this spirit to become
even more dominant in the future. As his worldview is supposed to appeal
to the scientific spirit, it is supposed to become more and more attractive
to the people of the future.
According to Nietzsche, Plato can be seen as a representative of a
philosophy based on the religious spirit, Nietzsche as representative of a
philosophy based on the scientific one. Christianity, which was dominant
in Western countries for a very long time, has to be regarded as Platonism
for the people. It is Nietzsche’s intention and need to turn Platonism
upside down. He refers to his own philosophy as inverted Platonism. In
the same way, as Christian thought has dominated many centuries, his
scientific way of thinking is supposed to govern forthcoming centuries.
Consequently, inverted versions of the main elements of Platonic-
Christian thinking have to be found in Nietzsche’s thought.
One central aspect of Christianity, according to Nietzsche, is the
personal afterlife. It is what makes Christian thinking appealing to many
people, and gives a sense of meaning to their lives. If my representation of

Nietzsche’s thought is correct, then an inverted version of the personal

afterlife, or a concept which gives meaning to the life of human beings,
also has to be part of Nietzsche’s thought. Here the overhuman comes in,
together with another concept, the eternal recurrence – Nietzsche’s theory
of this-worldly salvation – with which I will not be concerned here, even
though all these concepts are closely related to one another.
The overhuman represents the meaning of the earth. The overhuman is
supposed to represent the meaning-giving concept within Nietzsche’s
worldview, which is supposed to replace the basically Christian
worldview. It is in the interest of higher humans to permanently overcome
themselves. The ultimate kind of overcoming can be seen in the
overcoming of the human species, and whoever has been keen on
permanently overcoming himself can regard himself as an ancestor of the
overhuman. In this way, the overhuman is supposed to give meaning to
human beings. It is not a transcendent meaning but an earthy, immanent
one, which is appropriate for scientifically minded people who have
abandoned their belief in an after world. As C. G. Jung stresses: “Man
cannot stand a meaningless life.”10 Nietzsche and Plato would agree. I
suspect that the transhumanist concept of the posthuman cannot be fully
appreciated, if one does not take the meaning-giving aspect into
consideration, or if one wishes to exclude all references to quasi-religious
concepts. Bostrom in a different context puts forward the following:
Many people who hold religious beliefs are already accustomed to the
prospect of an extremely radical transformation into a kind of posthuman
being, which is expected to take place after the termination of their current
physical incarnation. Most of those who hold such a view also hold that
the transformation could be very good for the person who is transformed.
(Bostrom forthcoming, 16-17.)
I suspect that the value of the bringing about of the posthuman cannot
be ultimately justified, except to an individual who believes that that the
concept makes his life meaningful: “I wish to be the ancestor of a
posthuman.” I doubt that Bostrom agrees with this suspicion. He might
fear a mixture of scientific and religious categories. I, on the other hand,
think that it can make the concept of the posthuman stronger, if one
accepts that it also has a meaning-giving function, which, in contrast to the
Christian afterlife, is based upon scientific hopes, the importance of the
world of the senses, and immanent goals. Nietzsche upheld that the
concept of the overhuman is the meaning of the earth. I think that the
relevance of the posthuman can only be fully appreciated if one
acknowledges that its ultimate foundation is that it gives meaning to
scientifically minded people. I do not think there is anything wrong or

26 Chapter One
abominable about that.
Acknowledgment: A German version of this article is in preparation:

Sorgner, S.L. (2009), “Nietzsche, der Übermensch und Transhumanismus,” in
N. Knoepffler and J. Savulescu, ed., Der neue Mensch. Enhancement und
Genetik. Feiburg i. B.: Alber Verlag.
Notes
1. The British Nietzsche scholar Ansell-Pearson (1997) merely recognizes some
similarities between Nietzsche and transhumanism.
2. In the following paragraphs, I summarise my reading of Nietzsche’s metaphysics
of the will-to-power (Sorgner, 2007, 39-76).
3. See Sorgner 2007, 50.
4. Compare Babich 1994; Birx 2006, vol. 4, 1741-1745; Moore/Brobjer 2004.
5. “Let us suppose that you were to develop into a being that has posthuman
healthspan and posthuman cognitive and emotional capacities” (Bostrom
forthcoming, 5).
6. “We may note, however, that it is unlikely that we could in practice become
posthuman other than via recourse to advanced technology” (Bostrom
forthcoming, 22).
7. Compare Sorgner 2007, 53-58.
8. “It follows trivially from the definition of ‘posthuman’ given in this paper that
we are not posthuman at the time of writing. It does not follow, at least not in any
obvious way, that a posthuman could not also remain a human being. Whether or
not this is so depends on what meaning we assign to the word ‘human’. One might
well take an expansive view of what it means to be human, in which case
‘posthuman’ is to be understood as denoting a certain possible type of human
mode of being – if I am right, an exceedingly worthwhile type.” (Bostrom
forthcoming, 24.)
9. The following paragraphs are a summary of my reading of Nietzsche spelled out
in detail in my monograph Metaphysics without Truth (2007).
10. Compare Stevens 1994, 126.

CHAPTER TWO
THE OVERHUMAN IN THE TRANSHUMAN
MAX MORE
Introduction
Should transhumanists look upon Friedrich Nietzsche’s thought as an
embarrassment – just as Nietzsche suggested the ape was to man? Is there
an abyss between his “philosophy with a hammer” and the philosophy of
transhumanism? Stefan Sorgner (2009) says that on becoming familiar
with transhumanism, he “immediately thought that there were many
fundamental similarities between transhumanism and Nietzsche’s
philosophy, especially concerning the concept of the posthuman and that
of Nietzsche’s overhuman.” In contrast to Bostrom (2005), Sorgner sees
significant and fundamental similarities between the posthuman and the
overhuman. (I will adopt his use of “overhuman” in place of “overman” or
Übermensch.) This overall view seems to me highly plausible. I agree with
most of Sorgner’s comments in this respect. My intent is to give further
support to the conceptual parallels. In addition, I argue that these are not
merely parallels: transhumanist ideas were directly influenced by
Nietzsche.
First, it is necessary to note that an enormous range of ideas can be
found in Nietzsche’s writing, some of which – especially comparing
different periods of his work – may be inconsistent. Although there are
clear parallels between Nietzsche’s thinking and some core transhumanist
ideas, the latter are inspired very selectively by the former. Perhaps the
most salient example of a Nietzschean idea alien to transhumanism is his
“eternal recurrence.” Nietzsche thought this idea inseparable from that of
the overman (or overhuman).
Many scholars have been puzzled at this connection and have often
rejected eternal recurrence. Nietzsche’s attachment to the concept
probably results from his seeing it as the ultimate affirmation of the real
world as against the Christian (and Platonic) denial of the primacy of the

28 Chapter Two
actual, physical reality. Not only is eternal recurrence a bizarre piece of

metaphysics in itself, it was part of Nietzsche’s denial of the idea of
progress. Both for its inherent implausibility and for its opposition to
progress, this concept cannot be reconciled with transhumanism.
Nevertheless, several other concepts can be so reconciled. As a strong
opponent of philosophical systems, Nietzsche could hardly object to
transhumanism’s picking and choosing from among his thoughts.
Direct influence
Sorgner’s essay establishes parallels between transhumanism and
Nietzsche’s thought, but does not address the question of whether
transhumanist ideas were directly influenced by Nietzsche. I can state with
complete confidence that such an influence does indeed exist. I know that
because his ideas influenced my own thinking. That thinking led to my
introduction of the term “transhumanism” (only later did I discover
Huxley’s prior use of the term), to the publication of my essay,
“Transhumanism: Towards a Futurist Philosophy” (More 1990), and to my
original transhumanist statement, “The Extropian Principles” (later “The
Principles of Extropy”, More 1990b). While these essays are far from the
only sources of contemporary transhumanism, these seminal writings have
been influential. Since they were themselves influenced by some of
Nietzsche’s core ideas, the direct connection between transhumanism and
Nietzsche is established.
In “Transhumanism: Towards a Futurist Philosophy,” for instance, I
wrote that “The religionist has no answer to the extropic challenge put by
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: ‘I teach you the overman. Man is something that
is to be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?’” Sorgner
notes, “The overhuman represents the meaning of the earth. The
overhuman is supposed to represent the meaning-giving concept within
Nietzsche’s worldview which is supposed to replace the basically
Christian worldview.” He also states that “Nietzsche upheld that the
concept of the overhuman is the meaning of the earth. I think that the
relevance of the posthuman can only be fully appreciated if one
acknowledges that its ultimate foundation is that it gives meaning to
scientifically minded people.” This again agrees closely with my
“Transhumanism” essay in which I wrote: “I agree with Nietzsche (in The
Will to Power) that nihilism is only a transitional stage resulting from the
breakdown of an erroneous interpretation of the world. We now have
plenty of resources to leave nihilism behind, affirming a positive (but
continually evolving) value-perspective.”

The Overhuman in the Transhuman 29
Critical rationalism
Reflecting its humanist and Enlightenment roots, transhumanism
places an extremely high value on rationality. Especially popular among
transhumanists is critical rationalism. This form of rationalism differs from
the foundationalist certitude of Descartes. In its most consistent form it
becomes pancritical rationalism (Bartley 1984). As Sorgner points out,
Nietzsche, too, had an immense respect for critical thinking and valued
scientific inquiry highly.
In my 1994 talk on pancritical rationalism at the first Extropy Institute
conference (More 1994), I started by citing Nietzsche’s statement: “A very
popular error: having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter
of having the courage for an attack on one’s convictions!” I might just as
easily have cited another passage: “Convictions are more dangerous foes
of truth than lies.” Or the passage from The Gay Science (Nietzsche 1882):
“Not to question, not to tremble with the craving and joy of questioning …
that is what I feel to be contemptible, and this feeling is the first thing I
seek in everyone: some foolishness persuades me ever and again that
every human being has this feeling, as a human being. It is my kind of
injustice.” Although Nietzsche is not essential to critical rationalism, he
does provide inspiration for what might otherwise seem a dry epistemology.
Self-Transformation
One of the core transhumanist principles of extropy has been that of
Self-Transformation. In a later version of the Principles, this was
complemented by the principle of Self-Direction. Both of these are highly
compatible with Nietzsche’s thinking. They are also influenced by his
work, along with that of many other thinkers. Most centrally, I would
point to Zarathustra’s declaration (Nietzsche 1885): “And life itself
confided this secret to me: ‘Behold,’ it said, ‘I am that which must always
overcome itself.’”
From both the individual and species perspective, the concept of self-
overcoming resonates strongly with extropic, transhumanist ideals and
goals. Although Nietzsche had little to say about technology as a means of
self-overcoming, neither did he rule it out. And, as a champion of what he
saw as a coming age of science, it is not difficult to see technology as part
of the process of self-overcoming, so long as it is integrated firmly with
will and self-assertion. Self-assertion in this case, of course, is not
assertion of an existing self to preserve itself, but a striving to “become
who you are”. New technologies allow us new means of becoming who

30 Chapter Two
we are – another step toward posthuman ideals – and new ways of “giving
style” to our character. As Nietzsche put it: “a great and rare art!”
Utilitarianism, slave-morality, and heroic

transhumanism
The sole reason Bostrom (2005) gives for saying that transhumanism
has merely “some surface-level similarities with the Nietzschean vision” is
that transhumanism – thanks to its Enlightenment roots – has an emphasis
on individual liberties and a “concern for the welfare of all humans (and
other sentient beings).” Bostrom is correct about this emphasis, as
reflected, for instance, in the principle of Self-Direction in the Principles
of Extropy. Bostrom concludes that transhumanism therefore “probably
has as much or more in common with Nietzsche’s contemporary J.S. Mill,
the English liberal thinker and utilitarian.”
Nietzsche famously had nothing positive to say about the utilitarians.
When he mentioned them, it was to say something caustically critical,
such as: “Man does not strive for pleasure; only the Englishman does”
(Nietzsche 1889). Should we infer from Nietzsche’s distaste for the slave-
morality of utilitarianism (which turns every moral agent into a slave
yoked to the task of maximizing the greatest good of the greatest number)
that transhumanism has little in common with Nietzsche’s thinking? I
think not.
What we can infer is that differing variants of transhumanism are
possible. Certainly there is no inconsistency between transhumanism and a
utilitarian morality. But neither is there any inconsistency between
transhumanism and a more Nietzschean view of morality. While Nietzsche
viewed morality as essentially perspectival, we can easily enough fit him
loosely within the virtue ethics approach classically represented by
Aristotle. Yes, transhumanism can be sanitized and made safe so that it fits
comfortably with utilitarian thinking. Or we can take seriously Nietzsche’s
determination to undertake a “revaluation of all values.”
This not need imply any kind of illiberal social or political system. It
may simply lead to a version of transhumanism that champions the self-
overcoming of the individual without an obligation to “the masses.” Many
sound pragmatic reasons exist for each of us to want to uplift everyone – at
least for those of us who reject the idea of society and economy as a zero-
sum game. Pragmatic considerations are not the only reason a Nietzschean
transhumanist may have for benevolence of this kind. Unlike a utilitarian
transhumanist who must regard uplifting others as an obligation, a
Nietzschean transhumanist would look upon the prospect of uplifting the

The Overhuman in the Transhuman 31
masses as an expression of overflowing personal power or well-being or

health.
Neither a utilitarian nor a Nietzschean transhumanism can plausibly
claim to be the true transhumanism. Both share the central elements of the
radical transhumanist worldview. My goal has not been to show that
transhumanism must be Nietzschean. It has been to show that central
elements of Nietzsche’s philosophy are not only compatible with
transhumanism, but have historically had a considerable direct influence
on major strands of this philosophy of life.

CHAPTER THREE
NIETZSCHE, THE OVERHUMAN

AND THE POSTHUMAN:
A REPLY TO STEFAN SORGNER
MICHAEL HAUSKELLER
Sorgner (2009, 29) has argued that Bostrom (2005, 4) was wrong to
maintain that there are only surface-level similarities between Nietzsche’s
vision of the overman, or overhuman, and the transhumanist conception of
the posthuman. Rather, he claims, the similarities are “significant” and can
be found “on a fundamental level”. However, I think that Bostrom was in
fact quite right to dismiss Nietzsche as a major inspiration for
transhumanism. There may be some common ground, but there are also
essential differences, some of which I am going to point out in this brief
reply.
Beyond good and evil

First of all, transhumanists believe that it is both possible and desirable
to improve human nature by means of technology (More 2009). They tend
to assume that by “making better people” we will, as John Harris (2007, 3)
puts it, make “the world a better place.” Posthumans will allegedly lead
happier, more fulfilling lives than we do now. This assumption is the main
reason why transhumanists demand that we pave the way for
posthumanity. In other words, there is a moral imperative at the heart of
the transhumanist agenda. David Pearce calls it the “hedonistic
imperative” (lifelong well-being as a basic human right), Julian Savulescu
(2001) the “principle of procreative beneficence”, which, if adhered to,
naturally leads to the embrace of radical human enhancement and, by
implication, posthumanity.
Nietzsche, on the other hand, had nothing but contempt for those who
sought to improve the human condition, such as John Stuart Mill whom he
Nietzsche, the Overhuman and the Posthuman 33
denounced as a “blockhead” (Flachkopf) because Mill still believed in

good and evil (both natural and moral) and felt that one should make it
one’s duty to bring about the victory of the former and the destruction of
the latter (E, WIII, 665). According to Nietzsche, the philosopher needs to
position himself “beyond good and evil,” because there are no moral facts
and nothing that is truly better or worse than anything else. Happiness, for
instance, is not to be considered better than suffering. To believe otherwise
indicates a grave error of judgment. And more than that: trying to improve
humanity is actually an attempt to “suck the blood out of life,” an act of
“vampirism” (EH, WII, 1158). Consequently, Nietzsche fervently denied
that he himself intended any such thing: “The last I would promise is to
better humanity” (EH, WII, 1065).
Revaluation of all values

Transhumanists may want to revaluate certain aspects of our existence,
but they certainly do not, as Nietzsche did, advocate the revaluation of all
present values. On the contrary, they emphasize the continuity between
(past and present) humanist, (present) transhumanist, and (future)
posthuman values and see themselves as defenders of the Enlightenment’s
legacy against its modern (bio-conservative) enemies. “The posthuman
values,” writes Bostrom (2005b, 5), “can be our current values”. Of
course, a few things that are supposed to be valuable by some, such as “the
natural,” are discarded, but on the whole a transhumanist would regard as
good and valuable what is commonly regarded as good and valuable, e.g.,
a long, healthy and happy life, intellectual curiosity and proficiency, the
ability to form deep and lasting relationships, etc.
Nietzsche, on the other hand, wanted to turn our whole system of
values upside down, or rather rip it apart. He prided himself to be the “first
immoralist” and hence “destroyer par excellence” (EH, WII, 1153). What
was commonly regarded as evil needed to be recognized as the highest
good. “Evil is man’s best power […] necessary for the best of the
overhuman” (TSZ, WII, 524). He wondered whether not all great humans
were in fact evil (E, WIII, 449), and he specifically and repeatedly
mentions Cesar Borgia as “a kind of overhuman” (TI, W2, 1012), whom
he admiringly describes as a “human predator” (Raubmensch) (BGE, WII,
653). Compassion, charity, loving one’s neighbour – traditional Christian
values, but not alien to transhumanists either – are scoffed at as symptoms
of decadence. According to Nietzsche, universal altruism would take the
greatness from existence and effectively castrate humanity (EH, WII,
1155). Consequently, what puts Nietzsche’s (or more precisely Zarathustra’s)
34 Chapter Three
overhuman over the merely human is precisely his indifference to common

moral concerns: “the good and just would call his overhuman devil” (EH,
WII, 1156). Surely, transhumanists would not want to hold that the
posthuman is post in this respect.
The non-existence of the mind

Transhumanists continue the logocentric tradition of Western
philosophy. By and large they believe that what makes us human, and
what is most valuable about our humanity, is the particularity of our
minds. We are thinking beings, conscious of ourselves and the world,
rational agents that use our environment including our own bodies to
pursue our own freely chosen ends. And because our essence consists in
our thinking, it is at least conceivable that we may one day be able to
transfer (“upload”) our very being to a computer (or another biological
brain) and thus achieve some kind of personal immortality. Generally, the
organic body is held to be replaceable.
Nietzsche, however, opposed what he thought of as the Christian
devaluation of the body and the bodily instincts. The mind, as an entity
distinct from the body, was a clever invention, in other words a lie (EH,
WII, 1157). It doesn’t exist. Because the invented mind used to be taken as
a proof of humanity’s divine origin, one could only hope to reach human
perfection by retracting, tortoise-like, one’s senses into oneself,
relinquishing all commerce with earthly things, discarding one’s mortal
shell, and thus retaining only what was essential to our humanity: pure
spirit. For Nietzsche, however, “pure spirit” was “pure folly,” and
consciousness in general a “symptom of imperfection” (A, WII, 1174).
Nietzsche’s will to power, which is the essence of all life, and in fact the
essence of all being, is preconscious and non-rational, although it has its
own, superior, reason. One characteristic of the overhuman is that he
knows himself to be “entirely body and nothing else” (TSZ, WII, 300).
The big lie of personal immortality

Transhumanism “stresses the moral urgency of saving lives”, which
makes anti-aging medicine “a key transhumanist priority” (Bostrom
2005b, 9). The indefinite extension of our life spans is believed to be an
obvious good. Nobody wants to die, death is an evil, and life generally
(though not necessarily under any circumstances) a good. Hence, if we
could achieve personal immortality, we should not hesitate, but seize it.
For Nietzsche, however, the promise of personal immortality is nothing
Nietzsche, the Overhuman and the Posthuman 35
but a “big lie” (A, WII, 1205). Not so much because he thought it was
impossible for us to ever become immortal, but rather because he believed
that most of us are far too insignificant and worthless to deserve
immortality.
Promising immortality (or indefinite life extension) to everybody only
boosts the widespread delusion that the world revolves around every single
one of us, whereas in fact most of us should never have been born in the
first place. Most people actually die too late, not too early, because they
have never learnt to live (TSZ, WII, 333). “‘Immortality’, granted to every
Peter and Paul, has been the biggest, most vicious attack against noble
humanity to date” (A, WII, 1205). The promise of personal immortality
pretends that we are all equal. It denies difference and rank. Moreover, it is
based on an erroneous reification (Versubstanzialisierung) and atomisation
of the individual self. The ego is wrongly differentiated from the non-ego,
which are in fact inseparable in the eternal process of becoming (E, WIII,
612). By wishing for personal immortality I cut myself off from this
process, believe myself to be more important than the rest of the world,
which, for all I care, may perish if only I will be safe (HATH, WI, 753).
That is not an affirmation of power, but on the contrary an indication of
impotence. That is why, just like the human, the self or the “I is something
that needs to be overcome” (TSZ, WII, 303). Instead of doing everything
to escape death we ought to practice the art of going at the right time and
celebrate our dying as something that we freely embrace (TSZ, WII, 334),
in order to plunge again into the great “ocean of becoming” (D, WI, 1193),
in which we belong. The overhuman understands how to live and how to
die. The transhumanist, in Nietzsche’s view, understands neither.
What is the Overhuman?

If the overhuman is not an improved version of the human, what is he?
There are of course statements in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, especially in
the first sections, that sound as if Nietzsche was indeed advocating the
transformation of the human into some kind of posthuman. “Man is
something that needs to be overcome” (TSZ, WII, 279). The overhuman is
“the meaning of the earth” (TSZ, WII, 280), and man merely a “rope tied
between animal and overhuman” (TSZ, WII, 281). But Nietzsche has no
clear concept of the overhuman and produces at best vague intimations of
what he has in mind (Shapiro 1980, 171). There is a chance that his
overhuman is merely an ironic device, never meant to be taken seriously
as an ideal human (Ansell-Pearson 1992, 310). After all, we shouldn’t
forget that the overhuman was preached by Zarathustra, not Nietzsche
36 Chapter Three
himself, and may well be understood as a provisional concept in the

ongoing movement of understanding (Lampert 1987, 258), as one possible
perspective on the way things are, but not necessarily a true one, let alone
the true one (Ansell-Pearson 1992, 314).
Nietzsche himself warned of misunderstanding the overhuman as some
kind of higher human. Zarathustra, he reminds us, is the destroyer of all
morality, not half saint, half genius, not an idealist type of higher human,
not a Parsifal, but a Borgia (EH, WII, 1101). He is mainly characterised by
contempt: of personal happiness and of reason (TSZ, WII, 280). The
overhuman is not thought of as an exemplar of a future human or
posthuman race, but as the “exceptional human” (Ausnahme-Mensch) (EC,
WII, 1155), and there have always been such exceptional humans who
were “in relation to the whole of humanity a kind of overhuman” (A, WII,
1166). Even though Nietzsche sometimes talks as if a whole race of
overhumans were possible, the overhuman can in fact only exist in the
singular, that is, set apart from others. Overhuman is the one who is strong
enough to take reality as it is, in all its fearfulness (EC, WII, 1156), with
all its pain and suffering, who does not want anything different, to the
point that he would welcome the opportunity to live it all again, just as it
was. The eternal recurrence of the same, the idea of which is the true
center of the Zarathustra, is counter to the dynamic optimism that
characterizes transhumanist thought, and its non-selective affirmation by
the overhuman counter to transhumanism’s morally toned selectivity.
All this makes it very unlikely that Nietzsche would, as Sorgner (2009,
34) claims, “have been in favour of genetic engineering” or indeed the
transhumanist movement as a whole.

CHAPTER FOUR
NIETZSCHE’S OVERHUMAN IS AN IDEAL

WHEREAS POSTHUMANS WILL BE REAL
BILL HIBBARD
Introduction
Sorgner wrote “significant similarities between the posthuman and the
overhuman can be found on a fundamental level” (Sorgner 2009, 1), in
reaction to Bostrom’s claim that there are only "surface-level similarities"
between these concepts (Bostrom 2005, 4). While there certainly must be
some similarity between the posthuman and the overhuman, there is a
fundamental difference that posthumans will be a reality, whereas the
overhuman is an ideal limit that can never be reached.
Nietzsche’s overhuman
Nietzsche described the overhuman as follows:
Here man has been overcome at every moment; the concept of the
“overman” has here become the greatest reality – whatever was so far
considered great in man lies beneath him at an infinite distance. (Nietzsche
1888, 305.)
The important point is the “infinite distance” between human and

overhuman. As envisioned by the transhumanist community, posthumans
are a finite improvement on humans.
Nietzsche’s overhuman is closely related to his concept of “eternal
recurrence.” Faced with the prospect of living one’s life again endlessly,
with every detail and misery replicated exactly, the ordinary human says
no but the overhuman says yes. Nietzsche believed in human
improvement, driven by a human “will to power.” But the overhuman has

38 Chapter Four
no need for improvement, having achieved satisfaction with life. The

overhuman is an ideal rather than an achievable reality. Posthumans, as
envisioned by most transhumanists, will be real successors to humans and
still struggling to improve.
Analogy with fixed point theory

The notion of human and posthuman improvement suggests a partial
order relation among sentient beings. The notion of beings wanting to
improve suggests a function from beings to the beings they want to
become. And the notion of the overhuman being satisfied with eternal
recurrence of its life suggests a fixed point of this function. Taken
together, these suggest an analogy with the mathematical theory of fixed
points over partially ordered sets, as used in the denotational semantics of
programming languages (Scott 1972). We should not take this analogy too
seriously because of the lack of rigorous definitions of posthuman,
overhuman and other terms, but it is nevertheless interesting.
Let S represent the set of possible sentient beings, including humans,
posthumans and the overhuman. We define a partial order relation on S,
writing s < s' for s and s' in S, to mean that s' is an improvement on s. This
is a partial order because it may be the case that neither s < s' nor s' < s is
true (e.g., neither my wife nor I am an improvement on the other, in the
interest of domestic tranquility). We also define a function F: S ĺ S where
F(s) is the being that s wants to become. Humans want to improve, so for
all human s, s < F(s). Similarly a posthuman s as envisioned by the
transhumanist community will want to improve, so for these posthumans s
< F(s). This assumes that all humans and posthumans agree on what
constitutes improvement, which may not be true. Nietzsche discussed how
different people had different moralities but he imposed on this discussion
his own standard of strength and weakness among humans, which was his
real definition of improvement. And there is a general consensus among
humans on at least certain types of improvement, so perhaps we can
restrict S to those sentient beings who subscribe to this consensus. An
objective mathematical measure of intelligence has been proposed and
might contribute to a definition of improvement (Legg and Hutter 2007).
The sentient being called the overhuman would happily relive its life in
eternal recurrence, so overhuman = F(overhuman). That is, overhuman is a
fixed point of F. Under certain assumptions about S, the order relation and
F, the Kleene fixed point theorem tells us that a least fixed point of F
exists and is defined as the limit of the infinite sequence: A F(A)
F(F(A)) F(F(F(A))) etc. (Manes and Arbib 1986). Here A indicates the

Nietzsche’s Overhuman is an Ideal Whereas Posthumans Will be Real 39
least member of S, whose existence is one of the theorem's assumptions.

Since we are looking for a fixed point greater than humans (i.e., the
overhuman) rather than a least fixed point, we can replace A by any human
s1 (if we restrict S to those s such that s1 s, then s1 is the least member).
Another assumption of Kleene’s theorem is that S is a complete partial
order, which means that every directed subset (every pair of members of a
directed subset has an upper bound in the subset) of S has a least upper
bound in S. Since S is a set of possible rather than actual beings, it is
plausible that there exists a possible being that is a least upper bound for
every directed subset of S.
The final assumption of Kleene’s theorem is that F is continuous,
which means that it preserves least upper bounds. That is, given a directed
subset D of sentient beings then F(D) is the set of beings that each being in
D wants to become. We can also define d and d' as the least upper bounds
of D and F(D). Continuity of F means that d' is the being that d wants to
become (i.e., d' = F(d)). If F satisfies this assumption, and if S is complete,
then Kleene’s theorem says we can define the overhuman as the limit of
the infinite sequence of improving humans and posthumans: s1 s2 = F(s1)
s3 = F(s2) s4 = F(s3) etc.
We are assuming that all humans and posthumans want to improve, so
this sequence should be strictly increasing: s1 < s2 = F(s1) < s3 = F(s2) < s4
= F(s3) < etc. Thus the analogy with fixed point theory suggests that the
overhuman’s satisfaction with eternal recurrence implies that the
overhuman must be the result of an infinite sequence of improving humans
and posthumans. This is consistent with the Nietzsche quote that humans
are infinitely far beneath the overhuman.
However, according to current physics the universe has a finite
information capacity (Lloyd 2002), so there cannot be an infinite sequence
of strict improvement. Some sn in the sequence of improving posthumans
must reach the maximal improvement possible in our finite universe.
Assuming that this sn is intelligent enough to realize that it has reached the
maximum, it will not want to improve (violating our assumption that all
posthumans want to improve), so sn+1 = F(sn) = sn. That is, sn is a fixed
point of F. If current physics is right that our universe is finite, then it is
possible that some posthuman would say yes to eternal recurrence. But
nineteenth century physics did not derive any finite limit on the
information capacity of the universe and a finite limit on the overhuman is
inconsistent with the Nietzsche quote.
The posthuman sn that reaches maximal improvement is reminiscent of
Tipler’s prediction of human intelligence spreading to employ all the
matter and energy in the universe (Tipler 1994). But the goal of Tipler’s

40 Chapter Four
work was to derive Christian theology from physics, so Nietzsche would

probably have denied any connection with his overhuman (perhaps
Newton would have approved of Tipler’s goal).
This analogy with fixed point theory is one interpretation of
Nietzsche’s overhuman and eternal recurrence. His romantic writing style
is open to many interpretations.
Radical inequality
Sorgner writes about social issues including the dangers of genetic
engineering, people’s concern for their children, and eugenics (Sorgner
2009). But he does not address the issue of the radical inequality that could
result from technological change to human bodies and brains. Some
transhumanists think that this is a critical issue (Hughes 2004; Hibbard
2008a), whereas others focus only on individual improvements without
regard for the effects of unequal access to the technologies of
improvement. When humans can simply buy greater intelligence and use
that intelligence to earn more money, this positive feedback cycle will lead
to an unstable “arms race” in intelligence (Hibbard 2008b). Intelligence
levels among humans will diverge to the extent that less intelligent
humans will be unable to understand or learn the languages spoken by the
most intelligent humans, leading to different laws for people of different
intelligence. This must have a destructive effect on the sense of meaning
in the lives of less intelligent people.
Nietzsche thought that strength was the ultimate good and expressed
little sympathy for measures to oblige the strong to subsidize the weak.
Thus Nietzsche is not a good antecedent for transhumanists concerned
with the issue of radical inequality. Hobbes is a more useful antecedent
than Nietzsche for such transhumanists. Hobbes was a materialist with a
practical writing style who wrote “By reasoning, however, I understand
computation” (Hobbes 1981, 177). So Hobbes would probably not be
surprised that 350 years later humans are approaching the construction of
machines surpassing the human mind. More important for transhumanism
is Hobbes’s observation that humans need stability and security, but that
society will degenerate into chaos without a social contract and an
authority to enforce that contract (Hobbes 1968). The technology of mind
will invalidate assumptions underlying our society and lead to instability
and insecurity unless we modify our social contract to regulate that
technology (Hibbard 2008a). Following Hobbes, transhumanists should
analyze this situation and ask what social contract will create stability and
security for people to live meaningful lives.

CHAPTER FIVE
BEYOND HUMANISM:
REFLECTIONS ON TRANS-
AND POSTHUMANISM
I am very grateful for the provocative replies to my article “Nietzsche,

the Overhuman, and Transhumanism” (2009), published in the recent
“Nietzsche and European Posthumanisms” issue of The Journal of
Evolution and Technologyy (January-July 2010). In the following nine
sections, I will address the most relevant arguments that have been put
forward against some of the points I was raising. As several commentators
referred to identical issues, I decided that it would be appropriate not to
respond to each of the articles individually, but to focus on the central
arguments and to deal with the counterarguments mentioned in the various
replies. I will be concerned with each topic in a separate section. The
sections will be entitled as follows: 1. Technology and evolution; 2.
Overcoming nihilism; 3. Politics and liberalism; 4. Utilitarianism or virtue
ethics?; 5. The good life; 6. Creativity and the will to power; 7.
Immortality and longevity; 8. Logocentrism; 9. The Third Reich.
1. Technology and evolution

One of the central issues that many commentators discussed was the
appropriate understanding of who he overhuman is and how he can come
about. In the final paragraphs of his article, Hauskeller attacks the idea that
Nietzsche’s overhuman is to be understood in an evolutionary sense (2010,
7). However, I can confidently claim that he is wrong in this respect. Let
me list the most important reasons for this. First, Nietzsche saw human
beings as the link between animals and overhumans (KSA, Z, 4, 16). How
is this to be understood, if not in the evolutionary sense? Second,
Nietzsche valued Darwin immensely. Nietzsche readers frequently point

42 Chapter Five
out that Nietzsche was very critical of Darwin, and falsely conclude from
this that he did not hold a theory of evolution. But the inference is false, as
is their understanding of Nietzsche’s evaluation of Darwin. It is true that
Nietzsche’s remarks concerning Darwin were critical. However, he
criticized him for a specific reason: not for putting forward a theory of
evolution, but for putting forward a theory of evolution based on the
assumption that the fundamental goal of human beings is their struggle for
survival (KSA, GD, 6, 120). According to Nietzsche, the world is will to
power, and hence the fundamental goal of human beings is power, too
(KSA, GD, 6, 120). Why, one might wonder, if Nietzsche was so close to
Darwin, did he have to be so critical of him? Nietzsche stresses explicitly
that he distances himself most vehemently from those to whom he feels
closest. In order to give a clear shape to his philosophy, he deals most
carefully and intensely with those who are closest to his way of thinking,
which is the reason why he permanently argues against Socrates (KSA,
NF, 8, 97). The same applies to all those thinkers, such as Darwin, with
whom he shares many basic insights. Hence, Nietzsche is not arguing with
Darwin over the plausibility of the theory of evolution but concerning the
appropriate understanding of the theory and the fundamental theory of
action that underlies it. Third, a simple way of showing that Nietzsche did
hold a theory of evolution is by referring not only to the writings he
published himself, but also to those of his writings that were published by
others later on. Here one finds several clear attempts at developing a
theory of evolution (KSA, NF, 13, 316-317).
Fourth, many of the commentators are correct in stressing that
Nietzsche regarded education as the primary means for realizing the
overhuman and the evolutionary changes that would enable the overhuman
to come into existence. However, Nietzsche also talks about breeding in
some passages of his notebooks. In my recent monograph on the concept
of human dignity (2010, 226-232), I described in detail how the
evolutionary process towards the overhuman is supposed to occur from
Nietzsche’s perspective. In short, Nietzsche regards it as possible to
achieve by means of education. Thereby, the more active human beings
become stronger and turn into higher human beings, which has as a
consequence that the gap between active and passive human beings
widens. Eventually, it can occur that the group of active and that of the
passive human beings stand for two types of human beings who represent
the outer limits of what the human type can be or what can be understood
as belonging to the human species. If such a state is reached, then an
evolutionary step towards a new species can occur and the overhuman can
come into existence. Many transhumanists, by contrast, focus on various

Beyond Humanism: Reflections on Trans- and Posthumanism 43
means of enhancement, in particular genetic enhancement, for such an

event to occur. In both cases, the goal is to move from natural selection
towards a type of human selection, even though the expression “human
selection” sounds strange–particularly, perhaps, for many contemporary
Germans. Yet, I do not think that human selection must be a morally
dubious procedure. If the selection is a liberal one, i.e. a type of selection
undertaken within a liberal and democratic society, many problematic
aspects vanish.
Even though transhumanist thinkers and Nietzsche appear to differ
over the primary means of bringing about an evolutionary change, I think
the appearance is deceptive. Classical education and genetic enhancement
strike me as structurally analogous procedures, and in the following
section I will offer some reasons for holding this position.
1.1 Technology
Quite a few commentators have pointed out that that Nietzsche
regarded education as the main means of bringing about the overhuman,
whereas transhumanists focus on technological means of altering human
beings to realize the posthuman. Blackford explicitly stresses this in the
editorial of the “Nietzsche and European Posthumanisms” issue: “It is
unclear what Nietzsche would make of such a technologically-mediated
form of evolution in human psychology, capacities, and (perhaps)
morphology” (2010, ii). Certainly, this is a correct estimation. Max More
is also right when he stresses the following: “From both the individual and
the species perspective, the concept of self-overcoming resonates strongly
with extropic transhumanist ideals and goals. Although Nietzsche had little
to say about technology as a means of self-overcoming neither did he rule
it out” (2010, 2). Stambler, on the other hand, goes much further and
declares confidently: “in addition [...] his denial of scientific knowledge
and disregard of technology [...] are elements that make it difficult to
accept him as an ideological forerunner of transhumanism” (2010, 19).
Stambler supports his doubts about Nietzsche’s ancestry of transhumanism
by stressing the point in a further passage: “Nietzsche too placed a much
greater stock in literary theory than in science and technology” (2010, 22).
I can understand Blackford and More who doubt whether Nietzsche
would have been affirmative of technological means of enhancing human
beings. However, Stambler’s remarks concerning Nietzsche are rather
dubious given the current state of the art in Nietzsche scholarship.
Stambler writes that Nietzsche denies scientific knowledge. However, it
needs to be stressed that Nietzsche rejected the possibility of gaining

44 Chapter Five
knowledge of the world, as that is understood within a correspondence

theory of truth, by any method, whether the sciences, the arts, philosophy
or any other means of enquiry, since he held that each perspective is
already an interpretation. It is false to infer from this that Nietzsche had
disrespect for science. On the contrary, he was well aware that the future
would be governed by the scientific spirit (Sorgner 2007, 140-158). As he
found it implausible to hold that there is an absolute criterion of truth,
what was important for a worldview to be regarded as superior and
plausible was that it corresponds to the spirit of the times. Nietzsche
himself put forward theories that he regarded as appealing for
scientifically minded people so that his worldview might become
plausible.
Indeed, Nietzsche's respect for the various sciences is immense. He
upholds a theory of evolution, which is based upon a naturalistic
worldview that can be summarized by the term “will to power” (Sorgner
2007, 40-65). In addition, he puts forward the eternal recurrence of
everything, which he tries to prove intellectually by reference to the
scientific insights of his day. Unfortunately, he fails to put forward a valid
argument, even though it would have been possible for him to have one.
Elsewhere, I have reconstructed a possible argument and shown that the
premises, which must be true for the eternal recurrence to occur, are such
as correspond to contemporary scientific insights (Sorgner 2009b, vol. 2,
919-922). In addition to all this, Nietzsche wanted to transfer to Paris to
study natural sciences in order to be able to prove the validity of the
eternal recurrence (Andreas-Salome 1994, 172). Thus his high estimation
of the sciences becomes clear. This does not mean, of course, that he
disrespects the literary arts. However, it shows that he does not regard
scientific enquiry and literary theory as two antagonistic approaches to
philosophy, as Stambler claims. Nietzsche accepts the value of both
approaches and stresses the great importance of scientific approaches for
the future, and he is right in doing so. In this regard, his approach is very
similar to that put forward by Kuhn in his The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions (1962).
Is it possible to infer from Nietzsche’s high estimation of the sciences
that he would have been in favor of enhancement procedures by means of
technology? Not necessarily. However, there are good reasons for holding
that the procedures of classical education and genetic enhancement are
structurally analogous. Given that Nietzsche was in favor of education to
bring about the overhuman, and assuming that classical education and
genetic enhancement are structurally analogous procedures, there are good
reasons for concluding that Nietzsche would have been affirmative of

technological means for bringing about the overhuman. I am currently

working on a monograph on the relationship between genetic enhancement
and classical education, and in the following sections I will summarize
some of its important points.
1.1.1 Education and enhancement as structurally analogous

procedures
Habermas (2001, 91) has criticized the position that educational and
genetic enhancements are parallel events, a position held by Robertson
(1994, 167). I, on the other hand, wish to show that there is a structural
analogy between educational and genetic enhancement such that their
moral evaluation ought also to be analogous (Habermas 2001, 87). Both
procedures have in common that decisions are made by parents concerning
the development of their child at a stage where the child cannot yet decide
for himself what it should do. In the case of genetic enhancement, we are
faced with the choice between genetic roulette vs genetic enhancement. In
the case of educational enhancement, we face the options of a Kasper
Hauser lifestyle vs. parental guidance. First, I will address two
fundamental, but related, claims that Habermas puts forward against the
parallel between genetic and educative enhancement: that genetic
enhancement is irreversible, and that educative enhancement is reversible.
Afterwards, I will add a further insight concerning the potential of
education and enhancement for evolution given the latest findings of
epigenetic research.
1.1.1.1 Irreversibility of genetic enhancement

According to Habermas, one claim against the parallel between genetic
and educative enhancement is that genetic enhancement is irreversible.
However, as recent research has shown, this claim is implausible, if not
plain false.
Let us consider the lesbian couple discussed by Agar (2004, 12-14)
who were both deaf and who chose a deaf sperm donor in order to have a
deaf child (Agar 2004, 12-14). Actually, the child can hear a bit in one ear,
but this is unimportant for my current purpose. According to the couple,
deafness is not a defect, but merely represents being different. The couple
was able to realize their wish and in this way managed to have a mostly
deaf child. If germ-line gene therapy worked, then they could have had a
non-deaf donor, changed the appropriate genes, and still brought about a
deaf child. However, given that the deafness in question is one of the inner
ear, it would then be possible for the person in question to go to a doctor

46 Chapter Five
later on and ask for surgery in which he receives an implant that enables
him to hear. It is already possible to perform such an operation with such
an implant.
Of course, it can be argued in such a case that the genotype was not
reversed, but merely the phenotype. This is correct. However, the example
also shows that qualities, which come about due to a genetic setting, are
not necessarily irreversible. They can be changed by such means as
surgery. Deaf people can sometimes undergo a surgical procedure so they
can hear again, depending on the type of deafness they have and when the
surgery takes place.
One could object that the consequences of educational enhancement
can be reversed autonomously whereas in the case of genetic alterations
one needs a surgeon, or other external help, to bring about a reversal. This
is incorrect again, as I will show later. It is not true that all consequences
of educational enhancement can be reversed. In addition, one can reply
that by means of somatic gene therapy, it is even possible to change the
genetic setup of a person. One of the most striking examples in this
context is siRNA therapy. By means of siRNA therapy, genes can get
silenced. In the following paragraph, I state a brief summary of what
siRNA therapy has achieved so far.
In 2002, the journal Science referred to RNAi as the “Technology of
the Year,” and McCaffrey et al. published a paper in Nature in which they
specified that siRNA functions in mice and rats (2002, 38-9). That
siRNA’s can be used therapeutically in animals was demonstrated by Song
et al. in 2003. By means of this type of therapy (RNA interference
targeting Fas), mice can be protected from fulminant hepatitis (Song et al.
2003, 347-51). A year later, it was shown that genes at transcriptional
level can be silenced by means of siRNA (Morris 2004, 1289-1292). Due
to the enormous potential of siRNA, Andrew Fire and Craig Mello were
awarded the Nobel prize in medicine for discovering RNAi mechanism in
2006.
Given the empirical data concerning siRNA, it is plausible to claim
that the following process is theoretically possible, and hence that genetic
states do not have to be fixed: 1. An embryo with brown eyes can be
selected by means of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). 2. The
adult does not like his eye color. 3. Accordingly, he asks medics to provide
him with siRNA therapy to change the gene related to his eye colour. 4.
The altered genes bring it about that the eye color changes. Another option
would be available if germ line gene-therapy became effective. In that
case, we could change a gene using germ-line gene therapy to bring about
a quality x. Imagine that the quality x is disapproved of by the later adult.

Hence, he decides to undergo siRNA therapy to silence the altered gene

again. Such a procedure is theoretically possible.
However, we do not have to use fictional examples to show that
alterations brought about by genetic enhancement are reversible; we may
simply look at the latest developments in gene therapy. A 23-year-old
British male, Robert Johnson, suffered from Leber’s congenital amaurosis,
which is an inherited blinding disease. Early in 2007, he underwent
surgery at Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London’s
Institute of Ophthalmology. This represented the world’s first gene therapy
trial for an inherited retinal disease. In April 2008, The New England
Journal of Medicine published the results of this operation, which revealed
its success, as the patient had obtained a modest increase in vision with no
apparent side-effects (Maguire et al. 2008, 2240-2248).
In this case, it was a therapeutic use of genetic modification. As genes

can be altered for therapeutic purposes, they can also be altered for non-
therapeutic ends (assuming one wishes to uphold the problematic
distinction between therapeutic and non-therapeutic ends). The examples
mentioned here clearly show that qualities brought about by means of
genetic enhancement do not have to be irreversible. However, the parallels
between genetic and educative enhancement go even further.
1.1.1.2 Reversibility of educative enhancement

According to Habermas, character traits brought about by educative
means are reversible. Because of this crucial assumption, he rejects the
proposition that educative and genetic enhancement are parallel processes.
Aristotle disagrees, and he is right in doing so. According to Aristotle, a
hexis, a basic stable attitude, gets established by means of repetition (EN
1103a). You become brave, if you continuously act in a brave manner. By
playing a guitar, you turn into a guitar player. By acting with moderation,
you become moderate. Aristotle makes clear that by means of repeating a
certain type of action, you establish the type in your character, you form a
basic stable attitude, a hexis. In The Categories, he makes clear that the
hexis is extremely stable (Cat. 8, 8b27-35). In the Nichomachean Ethics,
he goes even further and claims that once one has established a basic
stable attitude, it is impossible to get rid of it again (EN III 7, 1114a19-
21). Buddensiek (2002, 190) has correctly interpreted this passage as
claiming that once a hexis, a basic stable attitude, has been formed or
established, it is an irreversible part of the person's character.
Aristotle’s position gets support from Freud, who made the following
claim: “It follows from what I have said that the neuroses can be

48 Chapter Five
completely prevented but are completely incurable” (cited in Malcolm

1984, 24). According to Freud, Angstneurosen were a particularly striking
example (Rabelhofer 2006, 38). Much time has passed since Freud, and
much research has taken place. However, in recent publications
concerning psychiatric and psychotherapeutic findings, it is still clear that
psychological diseases can be incurable (Beese 2004, 20). Psychological
disorders are not intentionally brought about by educative means.
However, much empirical research has been done in the field of illnesses
and their origin in early childhood. Since irreversible states of
psychological disorders can come about from events or actions in
childhood, it is clear that other irreversible effects can happen through
proper educative measures.
Medical research has shown, and most physicians agree, that Post
Traumatic Stress Disorders can not only become chronic, but also lead to a
permanent personality disturbance (Rentrop et al. 2009, 373). They come
about because of exceptional events that represent an enormous burden
and change within someone’s life. Obsessional neuroses are another such
case. According to the latest numbers, only 10 to 15 % of patients get
cured, and in most cases the neurosis turns into a chronic disease (Rentrop
et al. 2009, 368). Another disturbance which one could refer to is the
borderline syndrome, which is a type of personality disorder. It can be
related to events or actions in early childhood, such as violence or child
abuse. In most cases, this is a chronic disease (Rentrop et al. 2009, 459).
Given the examples mentioned, it is clear that actions and events
during one’s lifetime can produce permanent and irreversible states. In the
above cases, it is disadvantageous to the person in question. In the case of
an Aristotelian hexis, however, it is an advantage for the person in
question if he or she establishes a virtue in this manner.
To provide further intuitive support for the position that qualities
established by educational enhancement can be irreversible, one can
simply think about learning to ride a bike, tie one’s shoe laces, play the
piano or speak one’s mother tongue. Children get educated for years and
years to undertake these tasks. Even when one moves into a different
country, or if one does not ride the bike for many years, it is difficult, if
not impossible, to completely eliminate the acquired skill. Hence, it is very
plausible that educative enhancement can have irreversible consequences,
and that Habermas is doubly wrong: genetic enhancement can have
consequences that are reversible, and educative enhancement can have
consequences that are irreversible. Given these insights, the parallel
between genetic and educative enhancement gains additional support.

1.1.1.3 Education, enhancement and evolution

Can education bring about changes that have an influence on the
potential offspring of the person who gets educated? As inheritance
depends upon genes, and genes do not get altered by means of education,
it has seemed that education cannot be relevant for the process of
evolution. Hence, Lamarckism, the heritability of acquired characteristics,
has not been very fashionable for some time. However, in recent decades
doubts have been raised concerning this position, based on research on
epigenetics. Together with Japlonka and Lamb (2005, 248), I can stress
that “the study of epigenetics and epigenetic inheritance systems (EISs) is
young and hard evidence is sparse, but there are some very telling
indications that it may be very important.”
Besides the genetic code, the epigenetic code, too, is relevant for
creating phenotypes and can get altered by environmental influences. The
epigenetic inheritance systems belong to three supragenetic inheritance
systems that Japlonka and Lamb distinguish. These authors also stress that
“through the supragenetic inheritance systems, complex organisms can
pass on some acquired characteristics. So Lamarckian evolution is
certainly possible for them” (Japlonka and Lamb 2005, 107).1
Given recent work in this field, it is likely that stress,2 education,3
drugs, medicine or diet can bring about epigenetic alterations that, again,
can be responsible for an alteration of cell structures (Japlonka/Lamb
2005, 121) and the activation or silencing of genes (2005, 117).4 In some
cases, the possibility cannot be excluded that such alterations might lead to
an enhanced version of evolution. Japlonka and Lamb stress the following:
The point is that epigenetic variants exist, and are known to show typical
Mendelian patterns of inheritance. They therefore need to be studied. If
there is heredity in the epigenetic dimension, then there is evolution, too.
(2005, 359)
They also point out that “the transfer of epigenetic information from
one generation to the next has been found, and that in theory it can lead to
evolutionary change” (2005, 153). Their reason for holding this position is
partly that “new epigenetic marks might be induced in both somatic and
germ-line cells” (2005, 145).
A “mother’s diet” can also bring about such alterations, according to
Japlonka and Lamb (2005, 144), hence the same potential as the ones
stated before applies equally to the next method of bringing about a
posthuman; i.e. it is possible that the posthuman can come about by means
of educational as well as genetics enhancement procedures.

50 Chapter Five
1.1.1.4 Nietzsche and Technology

Given the above analysis, I conclude that Habermas is wrong
concerning fundamental issues when he denies that educational and
genetic enhancements are parallel events. Even if the parallel between
educational and genetic enhancement is accepted, however, it does not
solve the elementary challenges connected to it, such as questions
concerning the appropriate good that motivates efforts at enhancement.
Even though I am unable to discuss that issue further here, this analysis
provides me with a reason to think that Nietzsche would have been in
favor of technological means for bringing about the overhuman. Nietzsche
held that the overhuman comes into existence primarily by means of
educational procedures. I have shown that the procedures of education and
genetic enhancement are structurally analogous. Hence, it seems plausible
to hold that Nietzsche would also have been positive about technological
means for realizing the overhuman.
2. Overcoming nihilism
The next topic I wish to address is that of nihilism. More mentioned it,
and I think that some further remarks should be added to what he said. I
think that More is right in pointing out that Nietzsche stresses the
necessity to overcome nihilism. Nietzsche is in favor of a move towards “a
positive (but continually evolving) value-perspective” (2010, 2). More
agrees with Nietzsche in this respect, and holds that nihilism has to be
overcome. However, before talking critically about nihilism one has to
distinguish its various forms. It is important not to mix up aletheic and
ethical nihilism, because different dangers are related to each of the
concepts. Aletheic nihilism stands for the view that it is currently
impossible to obtain knowledge of the world, as that is understood in a
correspondence theory of truth. Ethical nihilism, on the other hand,
represents the judgment that universal ethical guidelines that apply to a
certain culture are currently absent. To move beyond ethical nihilism does
not imply that one reestablishes ethical principles with an ultimate
foundation, but it merely means that ethical guideline which apply
universally within a community get reestablished (Sorgner 2010, 134-
135). Nietzsche’s perspectivism, according to which every perspective is
an interpretation, implies his affirmation of aletheic nihilism (Sorgner
2010, 113-117). I think Nietzsche’s position is correct in this respect.
Ethical nihilism, on the other hand, can imply that the basis of human acts
is a hedonistic calculation, and Nietzsche is very critical of hedonism
(KSA, JGB, 5, 160). He definitely favored going beyond ethical nihilism,

but I doubt that his vision concerning the beyond is an appealing one. In
general, I find it highly problematic to go beyond ethical nihilism, because
of the potentially paternalistic structures that must accompany such a
move. I will make some further remarks concerning this point in the next
section. From my remarks here, it becomes clear that there are good
reasons for affirming both types of nihilism – in contrast to Nietzsche,
who hopes that it will be possible to go beyond the currently dominant
ethical nihilism which he sees embodied in the last man whom he
characterizes so clearly in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Coming back to aletheic nihilism, I wish to stress that, like Nietzsche, I
regard this type of nihilism as a valuable achievement and I regard it as the
only epistemic position that I can truthfully affirm. Why is it valuable?
Aletheic nihilism helps to avoid the coming about of violent and
paternalistic structures. Religious fundamentalists claim that homosexual
marriages ought to be forbidden because they are unnatural. What the
concept “unnatural” implies is that the correspondence theory represents a
correct insight into the true nature of the world. Political defenders of a
concept of nature act like a good father who wishes to institutionalize his
insight to stop others from committing evil acts. The concept “natural”
implies the epistemic superiority of the judgment to which it applies.
Aletheic nihilism, on the other hand, implies that any judgment and all
concepts of the natural are based on personal prejudices and that each
represents a specific perspective – not necessarily anything more.
Religious fundamentalists commit an act of violence by claiming that x is
an unnatural act, which then implies that those (a, b, & c) who commit act
x do some evil, and thereby these fundamentalists look down upon a, b,
and c who suffer from being humiliated. If we realize that all judgments
are interpretations based upon personal prejudices, it is easier to refrain
from universalizing one’s own values and norms and to accept that other
human beings uphold different values and norms. Hence, it becomes a
matter of negotiation and a fight between various interest groups regarding
which norms get established in a political system. If we affirm aletheic
nihilism, no norm is a priori false or true and the argument that a value is
evil or false cannot get further support by means of reference to God or
nature. Instead, one needs to appeal to more pragmatic and this-worldly
aspects, such as the consequences of a rule or the attitude of someone who
commits the corresponding acts. I regard these lines of argument as
valuable and appropriate for our times, and I am not claiming that there is
just one pragmatic way of arriving at an appropriate decision.

52 Chapter Five
3. Politics and liberalism

Given the argument of the previous section, it is not surprising that I
was slightly worried when I read that Roden affirms the move away from
“bio-political organizations such as liberalism or capitalism” (2010, 34). I
wonder what the alternative is, because I think we have done pretty well
recently in Western industrial countries with liberal and social versions of
democracy. I do not think that there is nothing which can get improved or
criticized, but generally speaking I am very happy living in a Western
liberal democracy with a well-developed health system and permanently
new technological innovations that help us in improving our lives as long
as we do not let ourselves get dominated by these developments. Most
other types of political organization so far have led to paternalistic systems
in which the leaders exploited the citizens in the name of the common
good. Any system that does not sufficiently stress the norm of negative
freedom brings about structures, which are strongly paternalistic. I do not
think that social liberal democracies are the final answer to all questions or
that they are metaphysically superior to other types of political
organization, but I think that pragmatically they seem to work pretty well.
In addition, I am afraid of the violence and cruelties related to political
structures that are based upon stronger notions of the public good.
An apparent difference between transhumanism and Nietzsche’s
philosophy in this respect is pointed out by Hauskeller, who stresses that
transhumanists aim at making the world a better place, whereas Nietzsche
does not, because he supposedly holds that there is no “truly better or
worse,” and so does not aim at bettering humanity (2010, 5). There is
some truth in what Hauskeller says. However, Nietzsche did have a
political vision, even though he also claimed to be a non-political thinker. I
think that his political vision, which I described in detail in my recent
monograph (2010, 218-32), is not very appealing, because it leads to a
two-class society in which a small class of people can dedicate themselves
to the creation of culture, while the rest of humanity has to care for the
pragmatic background so that the small group of artists can dedicate
themselves to such a life style. This is Nietzsche’s suggestion of how
ethical nihilism ought to get transcended.
Given this vision, it seems that there is a clear difference between
Nietzsche’s view and that of transhumanists. However, I do not think that
this is necessarily the case. The danger of a two-class society also applies
to many visions of transhumanists, especially if an overly libertarian
version gets adopted. Transhumanism can lead to a genetic divide and a
two-class society, as has been shown convincingly in the Gattaca

argument. In particular, a solely libertarian type of transhumanism implies

the danger of a genetic divide that would not be too different from
Nietzsche’s vision.
Again, I agree with More’s judgment that the goals of transhumanists
and Nietzsche do not have to “imply any kind of illiberal social or political
system” (2010, 4). However, in the case of Nietzsche it is more plausible
to interpret his political vision such that it is not a very appealing one,
because it leads to a two-class society. This danger can also arise from an
overly libertarian type of transhumanism.
James Hughes (2004) has put forward some plausible arguments why a
social democratic version of transhumanism might be more appropriate. I
have some reservations about both social-democratic and libertarian
positions, even though I share many basic premises of both. I share
Hughes’ fear that a libertarian type of transhumanism leads to a genetic
divide. However, I also fear that a social democratic version of
transhumanism might not sufficiently consider the wonderful norm of
negative freedom for which several interest groups have been fighting
since the Enlightenment so that we nowadays can benefit from the results
of these struggles. I regard a dialectic solution as more plausible; this
implies that there is no ideal political system that can serve as the final
goal towards which all systems ought to strive. Any system brings about
challenges that cannot get solved within the system, but they can be
resolved by altering the system. As this insight applies both to libertarian
and social democratic systems, a pragmatic pendulum between those
extremes might be the best we can achieve, which also implies that we
permanently have to adapt ourselves dynamically to the new demands of
social institutions and scientific developments. Dynamic adaptation works
best in the process of evolution and might be the best we can achieve on a
cultural level, which includes our political systems, too. Hence, not
sticking dogmatically to one’s former evaluations might not be a sign of
weakness, but of dynamic integrity (Birx 2006).
Dynamic integrity enables us to adapt to new demands and challenges,
which arise continually because of the permanent flux of everything that
we have to deal with. However, there ought to be some stable aspects, too,
namely one’s integrity, which consists in the recognition that the norm of
negative freedom is an exceptional achievement that we always ought to
consider. If there arises the need to impose limitations on negative
freedom, then this ought to occur in order to defend and preserve freedom.
If negative freedom leads to unfreedom, we ought to restrict it, so that it
can be preserved. Once there is no need to restrict negative freedom
anymore, we ought to abolish the restrictions that we introduced. Hence, I

54 Chapter Five
suggest that the norm of negative freedom ought to be central in answering

the challenges from bioethical questions. However, once the system brings
about a radical split concerning the people in question, then the norm of
equality ought to receive further consideration. In this way, we would get a
dynamic politics that implies a fluid interplay between negative freedom
and equality, or between a libertarian and a social democratic system.
However, the need to permanently adapt ourselves occurs in the name of
freedom. We keep our integrity concerning the central norm of negative
freedom, but we always make additional rules that take into consideration
the contemporary state of affairs, so that the danger of a genetic divide, or
a two-class system such as proposed by Nietzsche, does not occur.
4. Utilitarianism or virtue ethics?

I greatly appreciate More’s remarks when he stresses the following:
Certainly there is no inconsistency between transhumanism and a
utilitarian morality. But neither is there any inconsistency between
transhumanism and a more Nietzschean view of morality. While Nietzsche
viewed morality as essentially perspectival, we can easily enough fit him
loosely within the virtue ethics approach classically represented by
Aristotle. (2010, 3)
More’s point is not only correct, but also very important. It is true that
many transhumanists take a utilitarian standpoint, and the bioethics debate
in the English speaking world in general is also dominated by this ethical
theory. However, this does not mean that other ethical theories are
irrelevant in this respect or have to be inconsistent with transhumanism.
More is also very perceptive in pointing out that Nietzsche can be seen
as a philosopher who is putting forward a virtue ethics. This does not
imply that Nietzsche’s position has much in common with a traditional
virtue ethics like the ones put forward by Plato or Aristotle. In contrast to
those, Nietzsche holds that there are no universally valid virtues. Yet, he
presents a perspectival account of virtues, according to which there are
virtues that apply to certain types of human beings (Sorgner 2010, 119-
50). According to Nietzsche, it is possible to name virtues that apply to
members of a certain type, and there are other virtues which apply to a
certain sub-type only, and again others which are solely dependent upon
the specific physiology of an individual. A virtue that Nietzsche upholds
for all active human beings is truthfulness (Sorgner 2010, 125-26).
Without having to describe Nietzsche’s account of the virtues in detail, I
wish to stress that his general approach might also be an appropriate one

for transhumanists. So far, mainly bio-conservatives have used a virtue

ethical approach: the position put forward by Sandel is probably the most
influential of these. However, instead of arguing primarily on utilitarian
grounds, I regard it as appropriate to base one’s argument in favor of
enhancement technologies on an approach that can be understood as a type
of virtue ethics. In this respect, contemporary ethicists can benefit
immensely from studying Nietzsche.
Sandel accepts that many moral concepts to which traditional ethical
discourses have referred do not apply to questions concerning enhancement
issues at the beginning of life, e.g. the non-harm principle or autonomy
(Sandel 2007, 1-10). However, according to him, the parental wish to
technologically influence processes so that a child comes into existence
with qualities desired by the parents implies a basic attitude that can be
referred to as vicious. Such parents are not in the possession of appropriate
parental virtues, because they wish to create children in the same way
objects get made by human beings (Sandel 2007, 49-51).
I do not think this is the case. Given the short version of my argument
in favor of the structural analogies between classical education and genetic
enhancement, it becomes clear that genetic enhancement is not as bad as it
sounds in the writings of Sandel, and it also follows that parents who wish
to or use technology to bring about certain structures in their children do
not have to be vicious. In fact, the opposite might be the case. Most, if not
all, legal jurisdictions demand that there is a parental duty to educate one’s
children (Allhoff 2009, 32). Given the aforementioned structural analogy,
it follows that if this is the case then there can also be a parental duty to
enhance one’s children (Ranisch and Savulescu 2009, 36-37). This does
not mean that parents ought to alter their children technologically in all
respects. However, it does imply that there can be cases in which it is
appropriate for parents to enhance their children. I do not intend to put
forward a complex argument here concerning this issue, but I am merely
trying to hint at the possibility that it can be bad not to consider the duty to
enhance one’s child, and a parent who disrespects that duty can be referred
to as vicious or rather as someone who does not possess parental virtues.
In a longer version of this paragraph, I would specify in more detail what
such an attitude can imply. For present purposes, I have merely sought to
provide some reasons for holding that virtue ethics can be an ethical
theory, which goes along well with a transhumanist basic attitude, and that
such an approach might in some cases be more convincing than an
argument based upon utilitarian foundations. Nietzsche can be a good
author for inspiration for formulating such an approach.

56 Chapter Five
5. Nietzsche, transhumanism and the good life

A topic that has been in the center of most ethical theories, at least until
the end of the Renaissance, was that of the good life. The replies to the
question of the good put forward by transhumanists and Nietzsche force us
to consider what can be said concerning the final goal of human acts
today. According to Hauskeller (2010, 6), the transhumanist concept of the
good involves a long, happy, and healthy life. Hence, it is supposedly not
very different from what is being widely shared among many people in
Western industrial countries today. Hauskeller stresses that Nietzsche, on
the other hand, claims the following: “What was commonly regarded as
evil needed to be recognized as good” (2010, 6). It can be inferred from
Hauskeller’s remarks that the respective concepts of the good upheld by
transhumanists and by Nietzsche are radically antagonistic. I think the
issue is a bit more complex than that.
First, the question of happiness is a difficult one in Nietzsche. On the
one hand, Nietzsche vehemently criticizes philosophical theories that
stress the importance of happiness (KSA, JGB, 5, 160). On the other hand,
we have philosophers such as Seel – and here I agree with him – who hold
that Nietzsche’s main focus is on the question concerning the good life and
living eudaimoniously (Seel 1998, 27). In fact, Nietzsche did criticize
happiness as the goal of human lives. However, when he employed the
concept happiness he identified it with a hedonistic concept, and he was
very critical of many types of hedonism. Yet, there are even reasons for
identifying some elements of Nietzsche’s ethics with a hedonistic one,
given that he aims at the affirmation of one moment by means of which
one’s whole life can get justified. Without considering this point any
further, I wish to stress that Nietzsche’s main attack was on an enlightened
version of happiness, as embodied in the character of the last man, which
can be identified with health, happiness and a long life.
In this respect, Hauskeller is correct. However, by focusing solely on
this point, he takes an overly one-sided approach. According to Nietzsche,
the main goal of all organisms is power: for Nietzsche, this is an open
concept that can be identified with various contents, depending on the
perspectival interpretation of an organism as to which concept of power it
applies. What is important for all organisms is the need to recognize the
permanent necessity to overcome themselves, and hence to set themselves
new and higher goals. According to Nietzsche, one of the few detailed
elements that constitutes an elementary aspect of all concepts of the good
is the value of self-overcoming, which can be reached by means of one’s
embeddedness in a process of continual interpretation. Yet, it is possible to

make some further comments concerning the good to which Nietzsche

subscribes. According to Nietzsche, the classical ideal of a fully
flourishing person with a strong and creative mind, someone who
interprets the world and puts forward the interpretation in a tempting
manner, is the highest concept of power that can be held (Sorgner 2007,
53-58). I think that this concept is valid only for Nietzsche himself, but
something similar can also be found in the views of transhumanists.
Bostrom stresses the Renaissance ideal as a concept of the good that is
worth aspiring to (Bostrom 2001). Thereby he comes close to what
Nietzsche had in mind for himself. In addition, it is also very different
from a simple-minded way of living a long, happy, and healthy life,
because the Renaissance ideal implies the need to continually work at
various aspects of one’s own abilities. Given further examination, there
might be some difference between the respective concepts discussed by
Nietzsche and Bostrom, but there is more shared ground than Hauskeller
recognizes. In any case, there is a danger in upholding such a concept of
the good. According to Nietzsche, the classical ideal is only valid for
himself. According to Bostrom, it is and ought to be a general ideal, I
think, or least one that is valid for all transhumanists. Any ideal, which
claims to be universally valid, seems dangerous to me. What consequences
are implicit in a concept of the good like the Renaissance ideal, if it is
taken as a universally valid concept?
Let us take the famous example of the deaf lesbian couple who wish to
have a deaf child. If one takes an objective concept of health and accepts
that the Renaissance ideal is universally valid, then we have reasons for
not giving the couple the permission to have that child because deafness is
not part of the Renaissance ideal. In general, transhumanists value
negative freedom immensely. However, in such cases as the one
concerning the deaf lesbian couple, there are inevitable conflicts between
the Renaissance ideal of the good and the norm of negative freedom. If
one upholds the Renaissance ideal and one also wishes to give it a legal
underpinning, this will lead to a paternalistic intrusion of the state into the
negative freedom of the citizens – in this case the procreative freedom of
the parents. I do not think that there is anything wrong with the
Renaissance ideal as a personal ideal. However, once it is supposed to
serve as normative guideline for legal decisions, it becomes problematic.
The deaf lesbian couple wishes to make use of their right to procreative
freedom, and there is nothing wrong with that. No one is harmed. They
merely realize a concept of the good that does not correspond to the one
held by the majority. It is not, moreover, a concept of the good that is
being upheld solely by a mad individual. There is a culturally accepted

58 Chapter Five
subculture that shares the concept in question, even though many human
beings might not be able to imagine its validity. Here, I think, we have a
case in which it is appropriate to accept the otherness of the members of
the group of the deaf. It is an otherness that many might not be able to
imagine, but the deaf community claim to be able to live a good life the
way they live, and why should someone from the community of the
hearing be justified in claiming that the deaf cannot lead a good life in the
full sense of the word? Concepts of the good that pretend to be universally
valid, and seek acceptance on a legal level, lead to political systems that
disrespect the otherness of minority groups, and I do not think that the
state ought to act violently against members of minority groups. These
reflections lead me directly to the next and related issue.
5.1 New concepts of the family

The Renaissance ideal not only implies high capacities in various
disciplines and areas, but also leading a flourishing private life, being
married and having some children. Hence, it most probably implies being
a part of a flourishing family. Yet, the concept of the family is a difficult
one, especially in the age of biotechnology. FM-2030 stresses that social
institutions like the family become obsolete in scientifically and
technologically advanced societies, as Bainbridge pointed out correctly
(2010, 40). I think I know what FM-2030 is hinting at. Yet, I would rather
say that I do not think that families become obsolete but that their form has
to get revised significantly. It is possible to imagine that a child can have
two mothers or two fathers. Maybe, she can even have two fathers and one
mother, or vice versa. Especially when science and technology progresses
even further, it might be possible to compose the genetic makeup of a
child by putting together genetic information from two mothers and one
father who have agreed that they wish to live together and have the
responsibility of bringing up this child.
Why should it not be possible to accept any group of consenting adults
to becoming partners? I do not see a necessary reason why partnership has
to be limited to a heterosexual couple or even a homosexual couple. If
there are three, four, or even more consenting adults who wish to get
married and have children, it ought to be possible. I am not saying that
biotechnology advances so fast that that a group of several adults can
become biological parents fairly soon, but if such a group of people wishes
to get married, then this ought to be possible. If such a group wishes to
have a child, and if this is scientifically possible, then a society in which
the right to procreative freedom is respected should allow them to progress

with their endeavors. Hence, biotechnological developments can bring

about the need for significant revision of our concept of a family, and
these revisions will definitely conflict with the Renaissance ideal. Hence, I
do not think that the Renaissance ideal ought to be put forward as a
universally valid one.
6. Creativity and the will to power

There are a couple of remarks I am bound to make concerning
comments by various authors about the basis of Nietzsche’s concept of the
world. I will not go into too much detail in my replies, but I wish to
mention some claims that are highly dubious. When Blackford writes that
Nietzsche holds a “scientific materialist view of the world” (2010, i), he is
not quite right, because Nietzsche was not a materialist. His will to power
theory can be classified, rather, as a teleological concept of the world, but
without having a final telos.
It can also be misleading to claim, as Bainbridge does, that Nietzsche
was someone who “doubted the possibility of progress” (2010, 39).
Nietzsche regarded change as a permanent phenomenon. Like Heraclitus
he holds that all things change in all respects in every moment (Sorgner
2007, 39-65). He did not think it possible to say that things are
permanently getting better. Such a judgment would imply that there is a
universally valid criterion upon which such a judgment can be made, but
he doubted the possibility of such judgments. Still, awareness of his
dynamic will to power worldview should be sufficient to reveal that
Nietzsche understood the world as being permanently in progress in a
sense that does not imply that the future has to be better than the past.
In addition, Bainbridge identifies Nietzsche with someone who affirms
“reading novels or poetry” (2010, 39) to bring about better human beings.
Nietzsche’s concept of power is far removed from such a position, because
Nietzsche particularly stresses the creative aspect of existence, rather than
the receptive one. His will to power theory implies that the active creation
of new values, embedded in an inclusive theory, is the highest task by
means of which it is possible to achieve the highest kinds of power (KSA,
NF, 12, 312-313; JGB, 5, 22; Z, 4, 169; NF, 11, 106). Reading novels or
poetry, however, does not have to be an active or creative act.
Hibbard claims that “the overhuman has no need for improvement,
having achieved satisfaction with life” (2010, 10), but he does not cite any
passages which support this claim. As I mentioned before, the main aspect
of Nietzsche’s concept of the good is that of self-overcoming. It applies to
all beings, to higher humans as well as overhumans. Why should

60 Chapter Five
overhumans have no need for improvement? I think Hibbard makes this

one-sided judgment, because he focuses on the claim that overhumans can
get into a situation where they can say Yes to one moment, and thereby
they manage to affirm the eternal recurrence of everything. However,
being able to affirm one moment does not mean that overhumans have
achieved satisfaction in life. Satisfaction is not something overhumans aim
for. They wish to be creative, to permanently overcome themselves, and to
reach higher creative goals (Sorgner 2010, 223-24). Even if they managed
to say Yes to one moment, there is no reason why they should stop willing
to overcome themselves.
A further point concerns the relationship between the eternal
recurrence and the will to power theory. More is right when he claims that
the idea of the eternal recurrence is alien to transhumanism. However, he
also holds that it is “inseparable from that of the overman (or overhuman)”
(2010, 1). He is right in explaining that the eternal recurrence is one of the
central aspects of Nietzsche’s thought (Sorgner 2010, 226-32). It is
fundamental to his thinking, because it is related to the question of the
meaning of life (Sorgner 2004, 169-88). However, the concepts of the
eternal recurrence and the overhuman are not logically inseparable. If one
does not regard the question concerning a meaning of life as important, it
is still possible to uphold the rest of Nietzsche’s claims, if one wishes to
do so. Then the overhuman would be seen as simply a further step in the
evolutionary process. Hibbard would have some doubts concerning this
claim, because he holds that Nietzsche’s overhumans can never actually
come into existence, but posthumans, as described by transhumanists, can
become real (2010, 9). In this context, Hibbard cites Nietzsche’s remark
that there is an “infinite distance” between human beings and overhumans
(2010, 9). As an infinite distance cannot be transcended, it is impossible
for overhumans to come into existence, or so he seems to think. However,
if one takes the various utterances of Nietzsche concerning the overhuman
into consideration, Nietzsche’s remark should be understood metaphorically.
According to Nietzsche’s writings, there have been higher human beings,
but there has not yet been an overhuman. Still, there is nothing in
Nietzsche’s writings which renders plausible the judgment that it is
impossible for Nietzsche’s overhumans to come into existence.
7. Immortality and longevity

In contrast to the great variety of aspects I have had to deal with in the
previous section, the question of immortality and longevity is indeed a
specific and a very important one, and various authors have suggested that

Nietzsche and transhumanists hold different positions in this respect. Still,

Hauskeller’s remarks concerning immortality (2010, 6-7) seem unfair both
to Nietzsche and to transhumanists. According to Hauskeller, transhumanists
aim for immortality whereas Nietzsche criticizes the will to be immortal. It
is correct that Nietzsche criticizes immortality. However, he merely
criticizes the concept as it was put forward by Christian theologians who
linked it to the existence of an immortal soul which lives in the afterworld.
Nietzsche upholds and affirms a type of immortality within his concept of
the eternal recurrence. It is not a type of immortality that needs an
afterworld, but one which implies solely the existence of one natural
world. He acknowledges the human aspiration towards a type of
immortality; however, he criticizes two-worldly versions of immortality
and tries to replace them with a this-worldly version.
Transhumanists also aspire for a type of immortality, though, in most
cases, this is not literal immortality but rather a long life or a prolonging of
human lives. Hence, both Nietzsche and transhumanists reject the idea of
an eternal afterlife in a transcendent world and develop concepts of a
prolonged life within this world. Nietzsche’s solution (the eternal
recurrence) represents a reply to the question of the meaning of life. The
transhumanist idea of a prolonged life does not necessarily seem to work
as an answer to the question of the meaning of life. It might work in this
way, if it meant that one can actually achieve a type of immortality, but I
doubt that this is what most transhumanists have in mind. In most cases,
transhumanism aims solely for a prolonging of life, which is an aspect of
the good life according to the concepts of many human beings. Stambler
agrees with me in this respect, because he stresses that life extension is
upheld by many transhumanists, but not by Nietzsche who does not set
“longevity as a goal for the Superhuman” (2010, 18). However, it also
needs to be borne in mind that Nietzsche doubts the existence of universal
values, and stresses the need to create values. Nietzsche’s doubt about the
value of longevity is based on his doubt that the basic motivation of
human beings is the will to survive. We do not wish to survive in order to
survive, according to him, but we wish to live in order to become more
and more powerful. Here, power does not imply physiological or military
power, but primarily intellectual power and the capacity to interpret the
world and advertise one’s own interpretation in a way that convinces
others.
I wonder whether transhumanists are committed to longevity as a
necessary component of the good life, and whether it is valid for all human
beings that a good life for posthumans must be a long one. The
Transhumanist Arts Statement seems to imply that transhumanists must

62 Chapter Five
uphold longevity as a value, but an alternative would be to claim that it is

up to the individual posthuman what he values. Even from an evolutionary
perspective, the longevity of individuals might not be in the interest of the
species.
8. Logocentrism
According to Hauskeller transhumanists “continue the logocentric
tradition of Western philosophy,” whereas Nietzsche moves away from
this tradition by positing that the overhuman is “entirely body” (2010, 6).
Again, Hauskeller is partly right. It has been recognized widely and
correctly that Nietzsche became the ancestor of postmodernism by going
beyond logocentrism (Habermas 1985, 104-129; Vattimo 1988, 164;
Sloterdijk 1987, 55) and by stressing the importance of the body.
However, the distinction raised by Hauskeller is based on a selective
reading. Even though Nietzsche moves away from the logocentric
tradition, he still values reason. Like Hauskeller, Bainbridge fails to
recognize this; he claims that most of what Nietzsche wrote “was
gloriously incoherent” (2010, 48). In my monograph Metaphysics without
Truth: On the Importance of Consistency within Nietzsche’s Philosophy
(2007), I have explained in detail why this is not the case and why
consistency is important for Nietzsche. In the following paragraphs I will
summarize my analysis.
It is true that Nietzsche seems to be inconsistent when he puts claims
that every perspective is an interpretation, but also that the world is will to
power. On the basis of a more detailed analysis of his writings and the
dialectical nature of his approach to philosophy, however, the apparent
inconsistencies dissolve. For Nietzsche, every perspective is an
interpretation, and this applies to all the things Nietzsche says, too.
However, this does not imply that a judgment is false, but merely that it
can be false. As long as no one has shown that one judgment concerning
the ultimate foundation of the world is true, Nietzsche’s perspectivism is a
plausible theory of knowledge, and I do not think that one fundamental
truth about the world has been discovered. Does this mean that Nietzsche’s
position might also apply to reason and the demand to make consistent
judgments? Yes, I think this is the case, but this does not imply that reason
is without value. Reason might not be able to provide us with an
understanding of the truth in correspondence with the world. However, it
developed in the process of evolution because it was in our interest to have
this capacity. Reason is a faculty that helps us to survive, and it enhances
our ability to become more powerful. It is this line of thought, which

Nietzsche uses to explain why reason and consistency are important.

Reason might not help us in our task of getting a better understanding of
the world, but it helps us to better deal with the world in which we are
living. I think that this Nietzschean view of the importance of reason is
plausible and convincing.
I think, too, that many transhumanists could agree with Nietzsche in
this respect. Our capacity to reason is not connected to an entity that
separates us from the naturalistic world, but it is a capacity, which is
embedded in this world. Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991) try to
develop a naturalistic and evolutionary account of the mind, and it is to
this endeavor that both Nietzsche and many transhumanists could
subscribe. I definitely think it is a path worth taking because I share their
naturalistic sympathies.
If transhumanists, too, have sympathies for evolutionary accounts of
the mental, then it would be false to claim that transhumanists continue the
“logocentric tradition of Western philosophy,” because that tradition holds
that human beings possess a logos which separates them categorically
from the natural world and provides them with a special status in the
world. On this view, human beings are categorically different from other
natural entities. I doubt that this is a view many transhumanists would
subscribe to.
9. Nietzsche and the Third Reich

At this stage we are coming to what I see as the real motive for
Bostrom’s claim that Nietzsche cannot be seen as an ancestor of
transhumanism (2005, 4). Nietzsche still has a rather unsavory reputation
in many social circles. The philosophical reaction to the Sloterdijk-
Habermas debate that took place as a result of Sloterdijk’s talk on the
“Rules concerning the Human Zoo” revealed that many German
philosophers continue to see Nietzsche as a type of proto-fascist (Sorgner
2000, 10-13). Even though this position is regarded as absurd by most
serious Nietzsche scholars, especially in the English speaking world, the
educated public, too, seems to associate Nietzsche with the fascism of the
Third Reich. Some phrases from the JET issue on “Nietzsche and
European Posthumanisms” seem to go in a similar direction.
Stambler affirms Fedorov’s reading of Nietzsche as a “mouthpiece of
militarized Germany” (2010, 18). The later Nietzsche was a good
European, and mostly interested in cultural creativity, and to see him as a
militarist is very far from what we would find in a detailed and critical
interpretation of his writings. Further remarks by Stambler reveal certain

64 Chapter Five
prejudices concerning the philosopher Nietzsche: “Yet as regards ‘life

enhancement’ in a broader sense, Nietzsche’s work may be viewed as a
product and advertisement of German aristocratism” (2010, 19). I am
uncertain what Stambler wishes to express with this comment. To regard
Nietzsche as someone who paradigmatically embodies and upholds
typically German character traits is far from plausible. There are, indeed,
aristocratic elements in Nietzsche’s philosophy, but the aristocracy he
affirms is connected to the capacity to be a great creator of culture. For the
later Nietzsche, the question of nationality is without any relevance to who
is an active creator of culture and who is not.
Perhaps in using the phrase “German aristocratism” Stambler refers to
the attitude of some Germans, some time ago, who regarded themselves as
superior to other nations – or in other words, German fascism. In that case,
his judgment would imply that there are connections between the
worldviews of Nietzsche and German fascism. A similar estimation of
Nietzsche’s philosophy is put forward by Bainbridge, which becomes clear
in the following remark about Nietzsche: “Perhaps he really was a Nazi”
(2010, 37). I wonder what Bainbridge means by this. Nazis are people who
supported Hitler as political leader. Nietzsche was definitely no Nazi,
because he was dead when Hitler was a political leader. Maybe,
Bainbridge means that Nietzsche would have supported Hitler, had he not
been dead. This judgment implies that Nietzsche’s political views and
Hitler’s are identical in most cases, but this is also incorrect: first, Hitler
was in favor of Germany dominating the world, while Nietzsche was in
favor of a unified Europe; second, Hitler was interested in military power,
while Nietzsche was interested in intellectual power and the capacity to
interpret the world and create works of art; third, Hitler was an anti-
Semite, while Nietzsche was an anti-anti-Semite. The list could be
continued. However, I wish to make some further remarks concerning
Nietzsche's anti-anti-Semitism.
You can find some nasty remarks concerning Jews in Nietzsche’s
writings. These, however, concern the Jews who developed the Jewish
religion, which represents the ancestor of the Christian one. It is hard to
say whether Nietzsche’s attacks on the Jews or his attacks on the Christian
religion were nastier and stronger. In any case, he regarded both religions
as life denying and dangerous. Nonetheless, he always stressed that he
regarded his Jewish contemporaries as providing enrichment for any
culture. In addition, he hated it when anti-Semites wished to cooperate
with him or to draw upon his work, and he regularly expressed that he was
an anti-anti-Semite, and that he did not want to have anything to do with
anti-Semites. There are several studies, in particular by American Jews, in

which this reading of Nietzsche’s relationship concerning Jews and

Judaism can be found in great detail (e.g. Yovel 1994, 214-36). I stress
this point to show that it is absurd to claim that Nietzsche might have been
a Nazi.
Bainbridge also suggests that the Nazis “treated him as one of their
own” (2010, 45). However, even this claim is far from plausible, because
many Nazi scholars realized that there are many anti-German positions in
Nietzsche’s writings and that he was an anti-anti-Semite. Even though it is
true that there were scholars during the Nazi regime who were concerned
with Nietzsche’s philosophy, it is false to claim that the Nazis “treated him
as one of their own,” because the estimation of Nietzsche and his work
during the Third Reich was not universally affirmative. Many Nazi
ideologists recognized that Nietzsche went against the intentions and goals
of Nazi ideology on many fundamental issues. Bainbridge’s above
comment does not say much with respect to the estimation of Nietzsche by
the Nazis but it might say something about the author’s flawed
understanding of Nietzsche.5
However, Bainbridge is not the only one who seems to favor such an
inappropriate understanding of Nietzsche. The false judgment that
Nietzsche was a proto-Nazi is still held by many educated people, and it is
very difficult to eliminate widespread prejudices. Hence, Bostrom’s
attempt, in his 2001 article, to dissociate transhumanism from Nietzsche
was a reasonable one, because dissociating these two ways of thinking is
easier than getting rid of prejudices that have been around for quite some
time. Indeed, it is praiseworthy to dissociate transhumanism from any
fascist ideology, because there is no general basis that both views have in
common. However, some bioconservative thinkers, among them
Habermas, attempt to identify transhumanist views with politically
problematic ones by identifying their views with Nietzsche’s. In his
influential essay on liberal eugenics, Habermas (2001, 43) talks about
some freaky intellectuals who reject what they see as the illusion of equality
and try to develop a very German naturalistic ideology. This seriously
considers the potential for employing human biotechnology in the service of
Nietzschean breeding fantasies. This is the kind of identification that
Bostrom rightly fears. Habermas, who rejects all procedures of genetic
enhancement, identifies transhumanists (whom he refers to incorrectly as
“posthumanists”) with Nietzscheans, associating both with fascist breeding
ideologies. Habermas is rhetorically gifted, and he knew exactly what he
was doing – that an effective way to bring about negative reactions to human
biotechnological procedures in the reader would be to identify those
measures with procedures undertaken in Nazi Germany.

66 Chapter Five
This type of rhetoric is well known in Germany, and it is one that

continues to bring about its intended effects. If you disapprove of a view,
refer to it as a pro-fascist one, and your antagonist who holds the view in
question is directly in a weak position and on the defensive. However, it is
a fascist type of rhetoric which functions as follows: You identify a thing
X, of which you disapprove, with something Y, which the majority of
people dislike intensely, which has the effect that the majority will also
start to dislike or at least be doubtful concerning X. Eureka!, you have
achieved what you wished. You have managed to change the perspective
of people concerning X.
As I have shown above, it is false to refer to Nietzsche as a Nazi. It is
also false to identify transhumanists with Nazi ideology, as Habermas
does, because Nazis are in favor of a totalitarian political organization,
whereas transhumanists uphold the value of liberal democracies. For all
that, many Nietzschean philosophical positions can be found in basic
beliefs of transhumanists. Habermas agrees, but in contrast to him I regard
both philosophical approaches as stimulating, valuable and extremely
important when one deals with contemporary philosophical and ethical
challenges.
Conclusion
All of the issues that have been raised above are central for the
challenges we must face, given recent biotechnological developments.
Many of them touch upon fundamental questions about our conception of
ourselves, the world, and even the meaning of life. I very much hope that
the critical reflections I have put forward here, as a response to papers that
replied to one of my articles, will stimulate further discussions and
debates, and help us to find solutions that enable humankind to flourish
and help human beings to live together in political systems which value
the wonderful achievement of the norm of negative freedom.
Notes
1. “Heritable variation – genetic, epigenetic, behavioural, and symbolic – is the
consequence both of accidents and of instructive processes during the
development” (Japlonka and Lamb 2005, 356). A striking case is that of the
evolution of language: “Dor and Japlonka see the evolution of language as the
outcome of the continuous interactions between the cultural and the genetic
inheritance system” (Japlonka and Lamb 2005, 307).
2. “Waddington’s experiments showed that when variation is revealed by an
environmental stress, selection for an induced phenotype leads first to that

phenotype being induced more frequently, and then to its production in the absence
of the inducing agent” (Japlonka and Lamb 2005, 273).
3. Jonathan M. Levenson and J. David Sweatt show that epigenetic mechanisms
probably have an important role in synaptic plasticity and memory formation
(2005, 108-118).
4. “Belyaev’s work with silver foxes suggested that there is a hidden genetic
variation in natural populations. This variation was revealed during selection for
tameness, possibly because stress-induced hormonal changes awakened dormant
genes” (Japlonka and Lamb 2005, 272).
5. A detailed and well informed account of this topic was written by Aschheim
(1993).

PART II
CHAPTER SIX
THE FUTURE IS SUPERHUMAN:

NIETZSCHE’S GIFT
KEITH ANSELL PEARSON
Evolution does not desire happiness; it wants evolution and nothing more.
– Only if humanity had a universally recognized goal could one propound
‘such and such should be done’: for the time being, there is no such goal
(Nietzsche, Dawn aphorism 108).
…if a goal for humanity is still lacking, is there still not lacking –
humanity itself? (Nietzsche, ‘Of the Thousand and One Goals’, Thus
Spoke Zarathustra)
1. Nietzsche conceived the Übermensch as a response to the crisis of

European civilization, namely, the death of God and the arrival of nihilism.
It is a notion that many of the most creative philosophers of the twentieth
century took up and transformed under a Nietzschean inspiration. The
question is what it is to mean to us today. There is a legacy here that needs
working and thinking through. As the late French philosopher, Dominique
Janicaud advised us, in confronting our fluid human complexity…
We must know how to establish…a paradoxical “economy” strategically
combining a cautious humanism, warning against the inhuman or the
subhuman, and an opening up to possible superhumans…that lie dormant
in us. On the one hand, the defence of the human against the inhuman, on
the other, the illustration of what surpasses the human in man.1
2. In Dawn Nietzsche declares that “we are experiments” and the task
is to want to be such (D 453). What is his meaning? In what sense are we
experiments? And what is the experiment about? I believe it’s a modest
proposal on Nietzsche’s part, in which he attacks the “bloodless fiction”
and “abstraction” of the human being (D 105). It’s an argument in favour
of human pluralization and working against the closure of the human
being. As Nietzsche writes in a note of 1880:
The Future is Superhuman: Nietzsche’s Gift 71
My morality (Moral) would be to take the general character of man more

and more away from him...to make to a degree non-understandable to
others (and with it an object of experiences, of astonishment, of instruction
for them)...Should not each individual (Individuum) be an attempt to
achieve a higher species than man through its most individual things?
(KSA 9, 6 [158]).
3. What does Nietzsche teach in Zarathustra? Not only does he

express his desire for the superhuman or overhuman, but equally his love
for humankind and to whom he wishes to bring a gift (Prologue 2). If the
superhuman is to be the new Sinn of the earth, it is also the case that
humanity itself is lacking. If God is dead then the superhuman or
overhuman is the gift that can now be presented to humankind: ‘I teach
you the Superhuman. The human is something that should be overcome.
What have you done to overcome him?’ (ibid. 3) As Zarathustra notes, all
creatures have created beyond themselves. The question facing the human
being is whether it wishes to be “the ebb of this great tide” or return to the
animals and not overcome itself. The human is to become for the
superhuman what the ape is to the human, namely, a laughing stock or a
painful embarrassment. Continuing with this quasi-evolutionary parable,
Zarathustra says that if we have made our way from worm to man, there
still remains much within us that is worm, and although we were once apes
man is now more of an ape than any ape. The superhuman is to be our new
hope, the lightning and madness that emerges out of the dark cloud of man
and in which man can find his purification:
In truth, the human is a polluted river. One must be a sea, to receive a

polluted river and not be defiled.
Behold, I teach you the superhuman: he is this sea, in him your great
contempt can go under.
What is the greatest thing you can experience? It is the hour of the
great contempt. The hour in which even your happiness grows loathsome
to you, and your reason and your virtue also (ibid.).
4. In Nietzsche’s famous image the human is a rope fastened “over an

abyss” and between animal and superhuman: “A dangerous going-across,
a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering
and staying-still” (ibid. 4). Furthermore, what is great in the human is that
it is a bridge and not a goal: the human is the site of life’s self-overcoming.
Instead of seeing in the human the fundamental lack of life or entirely
senseless forces, Nietzsche posits the becoming of superabundant forces in
which life is able to become an exploration and experimentation:
72 Chapter Six
I love those who do not know how to live except their lives be a down-
going, for they are those who are going across…
I love him who lives for knowledge and who wants knowledge that one
day the superhuman may live. And thus he wills his own downfall…
I love him who throws golden words in advance of his deeds and
always performs more than he promised: for he wills his own downfall…
I love him whose soul is overfull, so that he forgets himself and all
things are in him: and thus all things become his downfall (ibid.).
5. The emphasis in the book, when Nietzsche presents the doctrine of

the superhuman, is on the experimental character of our knowledge of the
human and of the earth. In the discourse, which closes Part One of
Zarathustra, significantly entitled ‘Of the Gift-Giving Virtue’, bearing
testimony to the spirit of generosity and excess Nietzsche is in search of,
he writes:
The body purifies itself through knowledge; experimenting with

knowledge it elevates itself: to the discerning human being all instincts are
holy; the soul of the elevated human being grows joyful.
Physician, heal yourself: thus you will heal your patient too. Let his
best healing-aid be to see with his own eyes him who makes himself well.
There are a thousand paths that have never yet been trodden, a
thousand forms of health and hidden islands of life. The human and human
earth are still unexhausted and undiscovered (‘Of the Bestowing Virtue’, 2).
6. The superhuman seems to be the universal goal Nietzsche thinks

humanity is in need of, as that which will give meaning to the earth in the
wake of the death of God and the emergence of nihilism: “‘All gods are
dead: now we want the superhuman to live’ – let this be our last will one
day at the great noontide!” (ibid. 3) However, it’s a universal of new
peoples, affirming a genuine pluralism of values and modes of life: each
people are to be an experimenter. In the crucially important discourse
entitled ‘Of Old and New Law-Tables’ Nietzsche argues that a new
nobility is needed, one that will oppose all mob-rule and despotism, and he
adds:
For many noblemen are needed, and noblemen of many kinds, for nobility
to exist! Or, as I once said in a parable: ‘Precisely this is godliness, that
there are gods but no God!’ (‘Of Old and new Law-Tables’, 11)
Nietzsche’s great hope is that the human animal will cease being a
piece of chance and a meaningless accident. The contrast made is with
“the last human”, a human that has discovered an easy contentment
(“happiness”) and then blinks. For Zarathustra this is the most

contemptible human being, knowing little of love, creation, and longing.
7. Nietzsche has Zarathustra declare that the Übermensch is his

paramount and sole concern, not man - and not the neighbour, not the
poorest, not the most ailing, and neither the best (Z ‘Of the Higher Man,’
3). In Ecce Homo Nietzsche stresses that the Übermensch is a “very
thoughtful word” (ein sehr nachdenkliches Wort). Most commentators in
the Anglo-American reception see it as little more than a part of the
misguided dreamy and utopian Nietzsche.2 However, it is a notion that a
number of post-Nietzschean thinkers have made use of and adapted to the
concerns of their own philosophical programs. Heidegger holds to
different views of it at different times in the development of his own
thinking. At one point it is judged to symbolize the consummate
subjectivity of the reign of planetary technology and the supreme
realization of the modern “will to will”; at another time it is construed as
the exact opposite, as “the shepherd of Being”.3 In key strands of post-war
French thought the superhuman or overhuman assumes an emblematic role
and stands as the key word for designating new modes thinking, feeling,
and existing. We see this configuration at work in the writings of Deleuze,
Foucault, and Derrida. In Les Mots et les choses (1966), for example,
Foucault argued that the overhuman signifies the point at which Nietzsche
discovered the double death of God and man, to the extent that: “It is no
longer possible to think in our day other than in the void left by man’s
disappearance”. For Foucault, this void does not mark a deficiency or
constitute a lacuna that needs to be filled. Rather, “It is nothing more, and
nothing less, than the unfolding of a space in which it is once more
possible to think”.4 For Derrida it becomes the deconstructive figure par
excellence, the figure who does not mourn the loss of the question of
Being but who dances playfully outside the house of Being.5
8. More recently, Gianni Vattimo has reclaimed Nietzsche’s metaphor

for the purposes of discrediting the modern utopian notion of a tragic,
heroic subjectivity, and it is this interpretation that I think captures well a
key aspect of Nietzsche’s post-metaphysical move. For Vattimo,
Nietzsche’s thought is not the pure symptom of crisis and decadence but
offers a possible proposal for a breakthrough. The breakthrough is to a
post-metaphysical human being conceived as a plural subject capable of
living his/her interpretation of the world without needing to believe that it
is “true” in the metaphysical sense of the word (grounded in a secure and
steadfast foundation).6 The superhuman is a new non-dogmatic image of
74 Chapter Six
thought: a seduction, a temptation, an experiment, and a hope. Perhaps

most importantly, then, the superhuman is a sign of a new modesty within
humankind’s self-awareness and self-appreciation. This is an overlooked
aspect of Nietzsche’s teaching that, I believe, Vattimo’s work especially
helps to bring to light.
9. Notwithstanding the reputation he enjoys, Nietzsche is a thinker of

modesty. He calls for a new style of philosophy, which he calls, historical
philosophizing, and with it a new virtue, namely, that of modesty (HH 2).
In addition, against the claims of morality Nietzsche says that his task –
the self-overcoming of morality – favors “more modest words” (D
Preface). And in a note of 1884 he says that humankind is now entering a
new phase in its existence, that of “the modesty of consciousness”, in
which the “human” is to be overcome (WP 676). The experiment
Nietzsche envisages, the experiment of the human future, is a modest one,
even though this might strike many of us as incredulous. The portentous
language of Thus Spoke Zarathustra may conceal this important fact. For
Vattimo we need to get beyond tragic and negative nihilism and see
nihilism as an indicator of, in the West, our emancipation, namely, our
emancipation from moral monism, dogmatism, and absolutism. As
Nietzsche expresses it, “I have declared war on the anemic Christian
ideal…not with the aim of destroying it but only of putting an end to its
tyranny and clearing the way for new ideals…” (WP 361) For Vattimo
nihilism, if we listen to its message carefully, denotes the “increasing
awareness that we do all our thinking within the boundaries of that same
culture [western culture], since the very idea of a universal truth and a
transcultural humanism…has arisen precisely within this particular
culture”. 7
10. The attempt is often made, for good reasons, to save Nietzsche
from the charge of being a nihilist. However, at the same time it is
important not to lose sight of the pedagogic aspects of his treatment of the
problem. As one commentator has noted, if the sickness and malaise of
modern humans is a symptom of nihilism, it is nihilism that is also the
cure.8 Indeed, in one sketch Nietzsche conceives nihilism as tremendous
purifying movement in which nothing could be “more useful or more to be
encouraged than a thoroughgoing practical nihilism” (WP 247). Nietzsche
is not the only thinker in the latter part of the nineteenth century to be
perturbed by growing pessimistic suspicion towards the human animal
grounded in statements on the futility of human existence and reflecting a
fundamental disaffection with this impossible animal.9 However, he is, I
believe, the only philosopher to welcome nihilism and actually embrace it.
Nihilism is ambiguous since, on the one hand, it could be a sign of the
increased power of the spirit but, on the other hand, it could equally be a
sign of the decreased power of the spirit (WP 22). Nietzsche insists on this
ambiguity in a number of notes from this period, for example: “Overall
insight: the ambiguous character of our modern world – the very same
symptoms could point to decline and to strength” (WP 110). Close beside
the modern malaise there is an untested force and powerfulness of the
spirit, so that the same reasons that produce the increasing smallness of
man drive the stronger and rarer individuals up to greatness (WP 109).
Indeed, Nietzsche wonders whether it’s not the case that every fruitful
movement of humanity does not create at the same time a nihilistic
movement: “It could be the sign of a crucial and most essential growth, of
the transition to new conditions of existence…” (WP 112; see also 113A)
In active nihilism spirit has grown so strong that previous goals, including
convictions and articles of faith, have become incommensurate and the
desire is to negate and to change one’s faith (one is no longer flourishing
within the conditions of existence one finds oneself in). Or one may be
experiencing a crisis of faith but one lacks the strength to posit a new goal.
This experience reaches its “maximum of relative strength as a violent
force of destruction”. The opposite is passive nihilism, which denotes a
weary nihilism that does not wish to attack anything. Here the spirit finds
itself exhausted and the synthesis of values and goals dissolves;
disintegration or mummification follows, in which whatever refreshes,
heals, calms, and numbs emerges into the foreground in various guises
(religious, aesthetic, moral, political, and so on) (WP 23). Nietzsche is
insistent that nihilism must be faced since any attempt to escape it without
revaluing our values so far will only produce the opposite and make the
problem more acute (WP 30). In a note of 1886-7 Nietzsche writes:
The whole idealism of humanity…is on the point of tipping into nihilism –

into the belief in absolute valuelessness, that is, meaninglessness…
The annihilation of ideals, the new wasteland, the new arts of enduring
it, we amphibians. (KSA 12 7 [54]).
He insists that this process must be endured and persisted with; there
can be no going back, no ardent rush forwards, and for the time being an
attitude of parody in relation to all previous values is to be taken up and
out of plenitude.
11. In the Lenzerheide notebook on European nihilism of June 1887

Nietzsche conceives of a crisis-point in which different forces will come
76 Chapter Six
together and collide, and in which there will be assigned “common tasks to
people of opposing mentalities”, leading to the initiation of an order of
rank among forces “from the point of view of health, and, he stresses, also
at ‘one remove from all existing social orders”. He asks who in this
struggle will prove to be the strongest, and states that it is not a matter of
numbers or of brute strength. The strongest will be the most moderate ones
who do not need extreme articles of faith (dogmas). These spiritually
mature human beings can concede a good deal of contingency and
nonsense and even love this and they can think of the human being with a
significant reduction in its value without becoming small and weak. These
are the ones who are richest in health, equal to the misfortunes of life and
therefore less afraid of them, and “who are sure of their power.” These
confident human beings can be said to “represent with conscious pride the
achievement of human strength.” 10 Nietzsche is insistent, then, that
humanity needs a new aim (WP 866) and this new aim will eventually
conquer the pathological feeling of nihilism.
12. For Vattimo it is even possible to speak of a “destining” of the

West on this issue, and this is the issue of secularization and its task:
The history of the dissolution of metaphysics, and in general of the

reduction of the sacred to human dimensions, has its own logic, to which
we belong and which supplies us, in the absence of eternal truths, with the
only guide we gave for arguing rationally and orienting ourselves in the
matter of ethical choice. Our belonging to the history of the West as
secularization is not something we can be convinced of by proofs…Let us
call it a destiny – not in the sense of fate, but in the sense of the destination
towards which are (already) headed by the very fact that we exist.11
Vattimo writes, as is well known, of a secular philosophy of weak

thought and a “weakened universality”, by which I take him to mean that
as humanity we are now united by a sense of our radical contingency. This
is to speak of what he calls a postmodern pluralism in which all cultures,
western and non-western, now participate. To be “mature” in this new
pluralism is to make the transition from veritas to caritas:
In all fields, including science, truth itself is becoming an affair of
consensus, listening, participation in a shared enterprise, rather than one-
to-one correspondence with the pure hard objectivity of things…I would
even say that this movement could be encapsulated by referring in
Christian terms to a passage from veritas to caritas.12
13. Vattimo holds that to live with an affirmation of this postmodern

Babel of cultures, irreducible to a common core, requires something of a
superhuman effort, indeed, the very figure of the Nietzschean Übermensch:
If we do not want – as indeed we cannot, except at the risk of terrible wars
of extinction – to give way to the temptation of resurgent fundamentalisms
grounded in race, religion, or even the defence of individual national
cultures against invasion by ‘foreigners’, we will have to imagine a
humanity with at least some of the characteristics of Nietzsche’s
Übermensch.13
14. I have been claiming that Nietzsche’s fundamental problem is one

of nihilism arising from what for him is the greatest recent event on earth,
namely the death of God (GS 125). However, as Deleuze and Guattari
point out in What is Philosophy?: “It is amazing that so many philosophers
still take the death of God as tragic. Atheism is not a drama but the
philosopher’s serenity and philosophy’s achievement”.14 In book five of
The Gay Science Nietzsche notes that, as a matter of integrity,
unconditional and honest atheism is “a triumph achieved finally and with
great difficulty by the European conscience”. It is “the most fateful act of
two thousand years of discipline for truth that in the end forbids itself the
lie in faith in God” (GS 357). But then, he quickly goes on to note
something awkward or difficult:
As we thus reject the Christian interpretation and condemn its ‘meaning’
like counterfeit, Schopenhauer’s question immediately comes to us in a
terrifying way: Has existence any meaning at all? It will require a few
centuries before this question can be heard completely and in its full depth.
What Schopenhauer himself said in answer to this question was – forgive
me – hasty, youthful, only a compromise, a way of remaining – remaining
stuck - in precisely those Christian-ascetic moral perspectives in which
one had renounced faith along with the faith in God. But he posed the
question – as a good European, as I have said, and not as a German (ibid.).
For me the Übermensch is the goal Nietzsche posits in the wake of the
event of the death of God and in an effort to bestow upon the earth and
human a new Sinn. I believe the emphasis is on human and social
experimentation so as to produce plural “peoples”. A key question to
consider, then, is precisely how we are to conceive of this commitment to
experimentalism on Nietzsche’s part.
15. In the future, Nietzsche writes in Dawn, the inventive and

fructifying person shall no longer be sacrificed and numerous novel
experiments shall be made in ways of life and modes of society. When this
78 Chapter Six
takes place we will find that an enormous load of guilty conscience has
been purged from the world. Humanity has suffered for too long from
teachers of morality who wanted too much all at once and sought to lay
down precepts for everyone (D 194). In the future, care will need to be
given to the most personal questions and create time for them (D 196).
Small individual questions and experiments are no longer to be viewed
with contempt and impatience (D 547). In place of what he sees as the
ruling ethic of sympathy, which he thinks can assume the form of a
‘tyrannical encroachment’, Nietzsche invites individuals to engage in self-
fashioning, cultivating a self that others can look at with pleasure.
Unknown to ourselves we live within the effect of general opinions about
“the human being”, which is a “bloodless abstraction” and “fiction” (D
105). Even the modern glorification of work and talk of its blessings can
be interpreted as a fear of everything individual. The subjection to hard
industriousness from early until late serves as “the best policeman” since it
keeps everyone in bounds and hinders the development of reason, desire,
and the craving for independence. It uses vast amounts of nervous energy
which could be given over to reflection, brooding, dreaming, loving and
hating and working through our experiences: “…a society in which there
is continuous hard work will have more security: and security is currently
worshipped as the supreme divinity” (D 173). Nietzsche’s commitment to
experimentalism, it would seem, centres on a set of ethico-ontological
concerns to do with human pluralization and combating attempts to place a
“closure” on the human. As Spinoza asked: do we know what a body can
do?
16. In contrast to these reflections, the transhumanist encounter with

Nietzsche’s thought has a decidedly “out of this worldly” character about
it, moving into the realms of futuristic speculation – and deception,
according to Babette Babich. Stefan Sorgner, to whom Babich and Loeb
are responding, has devoted considerable intellectual effort in recent years
to appropriating Nietzsche for the transhumanist cause. In the electronic
Journal of Evolution and Technology he has laid out in several essays
what he sees as the “fundamental similarities between transhumanism and
Nietzsche’s philosophy”, in particular the alleged rapport that exists
between Nietzsche’s metaphor of the “overhuman” and the concept of the
“posthuman”. According to Sorgner what is in common here is a shared
commitment to a dynamic conception of nature and values in which
human nature is taken to be a work in progress. As Sorgner writes in JET,
“the species ‘human being’, like every species, is not eternally fixed and
immutable” (20:1, March 2009, 31). However, the key question to pose is
whether Nietzsche’s commitment to human and social experimentalism is

of the same kind as the vision of transhumanists and their focus on
technological intervention and enhancement (Nietzsche has little to say
about technics in his oeuvre, with the exception of some interesting
remarks on the machine in his middle period). Sorgner clearly holds that
Nietzsche would favor the means of technology for bringing about the
overhuman: although the emphasis in his work is on education and a new
paideia, Sorgner argues that “the procedures of education and genetic
enhancement are structurally analogous” (JET, 21: 2, October 2010, 5).
Where Sorgner clearly departs from Nietzsche is on the question of
“politics” and Nietzsche’s attachment to class society. For Sorgner, it is
the norm of negative freedom that merits our primary respect and that
needs to inform our bioethical deliberations. In addition, Sorgner relies on
a conception of “the next evolutionary step” when speaking of the
transition to the overhuman – although he admits that both Nietzsche and
transhumanists are vague on this issue – but it is far from clear that
“evolution” is playing any role in this anthropocentric development.
Sorgner’s challenge, however, is to argue that the overhuman may be the
“ultimate foundation” of Nietzsche’s “worldview” (my emphasis).
17. In an inspired polemic Babette Babich -- who is highly suspicious

of the very language in which Sorgner writes about Nietzsche as a
transhumanist avant la lettre -- argues the transhumanist “ethos” is but one
more expression of the ascetic ideal, expressing a hatred of the fragility
and contingency of the human being and fantasising about perfection and
immortality. This is deeply un-Nietzschean, as she demonstrates in such
bracing terms. Did Nietzsche not herald the great affirmation as that of our
mortality? (see D 72 & 501). Although transhumanists want and desire
life, and as much “life” as possible, they do not want it, she notes, “with
all its fuss and mess, with its banality and limitations but life as in a video-
game or a movie…” Babich has a deeper worry over the potentially
narcissistic preoccupation with the transhuman: “What fascinates us here
is pure promise, potential”, she writes, and then points out that although
we can at present do none of the technological enhancements advocated by
the transhumanists, we are “astonishingly preoccupied with the idea”, and
to the extent that, “We do not worry about the destruction of wild-life all
over the globe in our now long and ongoing holocaust of beings other than
ourselves…” In short, for Babich our preoccupation with the transhuman
and posthuman may be a little human, all too human, as well as ethically
and politically pernicious. Her ultimate verdict seems to be that
transhuman “is the latest word” for a “consumerist capitalist world-ethos”.
80 Chapter Six
However, in spite of the witty brilliance and erudition guiding her

polemical critique of the transhumanist agenda, one is left wondering:
what for her does the Übermensch speak of and who or what is
Nietzsche’s Übermensch? It’s not for her, clearly, the human plus genetic
enhancement, but what exactly is it and why did Nietzsche herald it?
18. In contrast to Babich, Paul Loeb expresses his sympathy with

transhumanism – he sees Zarathustra as a figure of transition, virtually
transhuman – and in his highly lucid contribution he seeks to show that
transhumanists, who dream of a self-controlled and self-directed future,
cannot afford to do without the doctrine of the eternal recurrence of the
same simply because this requires the required power over time, including
backwards-willing, that transhumanist thinking presupposes. For him this
has been the great weakness to date of transhumanist thinking, namely, to
neglect eternal recurrence and mistakenly see it as in conflict with the
linear evolutionary progress indicated by the doctrine of the superhuman.
For Loeb this is a well-established paradigm in Nietzsche Forschung but a
fundamentally mistaken one. As he points out, Nietzsche himself did not
see his two fundamental doctrines as standing in contradiction with one
another, and it’s possible to see the two as entirely compatible; it’s the
great merit of Loeb’s work to show how this can be brought about. For
him a future new species will be “stronger, healthier, and more beautiful”
once it has incorporated these two doctrines and learned how to practice
power over time (transhumanist progress, he contends, actually requires
eternal recurrence). Loeb lays down an essential challenge to the
transhumanist movement when he claims that Nietzsche would have
objected to any future movement inspired by his ideas that chose to ignore
the doctrine of eternal recurrence. For Loeb there is no contradiction
between the two doctrines and, as he points out, “if we do succeed in
creating a stronger and healthier species, this is an achievement that we
will be repeating…over and over for all eternity”. Moreover, it will be an
achievement of health: “Zarathustra’s initial steps in creating a stronger
and healthier species are only possible if his willing backwards in circular
time allows him to shape the unchangeable past so that his creation is new
and intentional”. In short, for Loeb we are unable to think the next so-
called “evolutionary step” (to the transhuman) unless we fundamentally
reconsider our relation to time. The vision and the riddle is one of “a
stronger superhuman species whose new and higher capacities are a result
of their complete control over time”. The problem with the transhumanist
goal of seizing control of the human evolutionary destiny is that the plans
for enhancement appear to be “inevitably determined and restricted by the
chance-governed forces of natural selection” from which the species first

emerged. For Loeb – and this is perhaps the most contentious aspect of his
thinking on the issue – we have a “deep need” to gain some degree or
measure of control over time: over its passing, over ageing, over entropy,
and over death (in addition, Loeb writes of attaining “complete autonomy,
self-affirmation, and self-knowledge”). But it’s a moot point whether this
was, in fact, ever Nietzsche’s concern or ambition, especially given his
Epicurean commitment to human mortality, which he never abandons (see,
for example, D 72 and A 58). Loeb seems to want of the human what one
might call a cosmic exceptionalism, but I see no basis or grounds for this
in Nietzsche’s philosophy (perhaps Zarathustra is an exceptional text in
this regard).
19. In response to the inspiring essays of Babich and Loeb, Sorgner

offers a contribution that aims to address the concerns of both authors and
to further elaborate his deep-seated view that there is a genuine basis for a
rapport between Nietzsche and the transhumanist movement. The issues
his work has raised are vitally important ones and merit the attention of
every serious reader of Nietzsche, not least because they invite us to
reflect on Nietzsche’s deepest concerns and the sense and significance of
his most fundamental teachings.
Notes
1 D. Janicaud, On the Human Condition, trans. Eileen Brennan (London & New
York: Routledge, 2005), p. 58.
2 See, for example, Daniel W. Conway’s thought-provoking essay, ‘Overcoming
the ĥbermensch: Nietzsche’s Revaluation of Values’, Journal of the British
Society for Phenomenology, 20: 3, 1989, 211-24.
3 See M. Heidegger, ‘The Overman’ in Nietzsche: The Will to Power as
Knowledge and as Metaphysics, trans. Joan Stambaugh et. al 1987, 216-35; What
is Called Thinking?, trans. Fred D. Wieck & J. Glenn Gray (1968). See also The
End of Philosophy, trans. Joan Stambaugh (1973).
4 M. Foucault, The Order of Things (1989, 342).
5 See J. Derrida, ‘The Ends of Man’, in Margins of Philosophy.
6 G. Vattimo, Dialogue with Nietzsche, trans. William McCuaig (2006, 131).
7 G. Vattimo, Nihilism and Emancipation, trans. William McCuaig (2004, xxv).
8 John Marmysz, Laughing at Nothing: Humor as a Response to Nihilism (2003,
32).
9 See, for example, Jean Marie Guyau’s great text of 1887, which Nietzsche read,
The Non-Religion of the Future: “If all is vanity, nothing, after all, is more vain
than to be completely conscious that all is vanity”, J. M. Guyau, The Non-Religion
of the Future (1962, 475).
82 Chapter Six
10 This notebook has been deftly translated by Duncan Large in The Nietzsche
Reader, ed. Ansell Pearson and Large, (2006, 385-90).
11 Vattimo, Nihilism and Emancipation, 32-3.
12 Ibid., p. 35.
13 Ibid., p. 55.
14 G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, What is Philosophy?, trans. Graham Burchell
(1994, 92).
CHAPTER SEVEN
NIETZSCHE’S TRANSHUMANISM:
EVOLUTION AND ETERNAL RECURRENCE
PAUL S. LOEB
I am in broad agreement with Stefan Sorgner’s approach to the

question of how Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch is related to the
contemporary transhumanist movement. I would like to commend Sorgner
for focusing attention on this important question, for clearly outlining the
various issues that are stake in this question, and for eliciting the
interesting responses of Nietzsche scholars and participants in the
transhumanist movement. I outlined some of the same issues in my
editorial foreword to a special issue of the Journal of Nietzsche Studies
devoted to Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch (Loeb 2005) and I
continue to be interested in thinking about the ways in which Nietzschean
considerations may be used to predict, assess, and guide the evolving
transhumanist movement.
As I mentioned in my editorial foreword, the single most important
divergence between Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch and the
contemporary debate about the transhuman (or posthuman) is Nietzsche’s
link between this concept and his doctrine of the eternal recurrence of the
same. So I was happy to see Max More bringing up this point in his
response to Sorgner’s first essay. But I was not satisfied with More’s
cursory dismissal of this link and of Nietzsche’s doctrine. Nor was I
satisfied with Sorgner’s brief rebuttal in which he argued for the logical
separability of Nietzsche’s doctrine from his concept of the Übermensch.
In what follows, then, I will offer my reasons for thinking that the
transhumanist movement has something important to learn from
Nietzsche’s pairing of the Übermensch and eternal recurrence. As Sorgner
and his respondents show, there are many interesting themes to be
84 Chapter Seven
explored concerning Nietzsche’s relation to transhumanism. But I think

this particular issue is the most neglected and misunderstood, so I will
devote my essay to it.
Before I begin, let me make some brief remarks about our respective
translations of Nietzsche’s term, “Übermensch.” Like Graham Parkes and
Adrian Del Caro in their recent translations of Zarathustra, Sorgner
modifies Walter Kaufmann’s term “overman” into “overhuman” so as to
stay faithful to the gender-neutral term, “Mensch.” But I think that it is
time we dispensed with Kaufmann’s neologism and thus with this
modification as well. Whereas Nietzsche’s term, “Übermensch,” has a
related history and a place in the German language prior to his influential
use of it, the terms “overman” and “overhuman” have no such history or
place in the English language at all.1 In addition, Nietzsche’s substantival
term is closely related to the modifying term, “übermenschlich,” and
Nietzsche himself uses the modifying term frequently and in association
with his use of the substantival term (Marsden 2005). This modifying term
is standardly translated with the English word, “superhuman,” so if we
want to keep visible this linguistic relation and Nietzsche’s association of
the two terms, our best option is simply to use the same English word as a
translation for his use of the German substantival term. This strategy is
certainly wiser than leaving Nietzsche’s substantival term untranslated (as
in Clancy Martin’s recent translation of Zarathustra), since all of his
associations would then be obscured for the English-speaking reader.
Also, the Latinate prefix “super” certainly carries with it many of the same
elevation connotations that are cited by Kaufmann and Parkes as their
reason for preferring the Anglo-Saxon prefix “over.” It’s true that, unlike
the German modifying and substantival terms, the English modifying and
substantival terms are typographically identical. But I think the context in
the translated passages easily shows which term is at issue. As additional
support for my translation preference, I would note that the word
“Superman” was the standard translation of Nietzsche’s substantival term
until Kaufmann coined the term “overman” in 1954. I think it is
noteworthy that R.J. Hollingdale, in his 1961 translation of Nietzsche’s
book, chose to keep the term “Superman” despite Kaufmann’s arguments
against it. 2 Finally, although Del Caro was obliged by editorial constraints
to use the word “overhuman” in his recent translation, he expresses his
preference for the word “superhuman” in his remarks there and elsewhere
(Del Caro 2004: ix; Nietzsche 2006: xli).
So in what follows I will be writing of Nietzsche’s concept of the
superhuman. This concept should be distinguished from the related, but
Nietzsche’s Transhumanism: Evolution and Eternal Recurrence 85
different, concepts of the transhuman and the posthuman.3 I have chosen

to entitle this essay, “Nietzsche’s Transhumanism,” in order to indicate the
relation of Nietzsche’s concept to the contemporary movement of
transhumanism, but also to indicate a philosophical point about
Nietzsche’s claim that his protagonist Zarathustra is only a transitional
figure on the way to his ultimate goal of creating the superhuman. Since
Nietzsche’s book is all about his protagonist Zarathustra, I would say that
this is a book about a singular individual who becomes transhuman as part
of his effort to envision and facilitate the emergence of the superhuman.
Thus, in Nietzsche’s usage, and contrary to much of Kaufmann-derived
scholarship on this question, the term “superhuman” does not ever refer to
any single individual (no matter how special) but only to a future
descendant species that will be stronger, healthier and more beautiful than
the human species.4 I was happy to see that Sorgner understands this
important definitional issue and I think that this is one reason he is able to
make clearer progress in thinking about the relation of Nietzsche’s
concept to contemporary transhumanism.
Returning now to my topic, I agree with More that eternal recurrence
has so far been a Nietzschean idea that is alien to the transhumanist debate
and that for this reason we should say that core transhumanist ideas have
been inspired very selectively by Nietzsche’s thinking. I also agree with
More that Nietzsche thought that his doctrine of eternal recurrence was
inseparable from his concept of the superhuman. But More does not seem
to know why Nietzsche thought this and is therefore not in a position to
evaluate Nietzsche’s reasons. Instead, he: (1) argues that the doctrine
entails a denial of progress that is incompatible with transhumanism, (2)
criticizes the doctrine as a bizarre and inherently implausible piece of
metaphysics, and (3) offers a hypothesis as to why Nietzsche was
nevertheless attached to the doctrine of eternal recurrence. Since More
believes that Nietzsche’s concept of the superhuman is an inspiration for
transhumanism, and since he mentions a possible inconsistency among
Nietzsche’s ideas, I presume he would want to say as well that Nietzsche’s
progress-denying doctrine of eternal recurrence is inconsistent with his
progress-affirming concept of the superhuman. So actually More is
committed to the hermeneutically uncharitable claim that Nietzsche
himself was confused and mistaken when he first conceived these two
new ideas as joined together. More concludes by suggesting that, because
Nietzsche was an opponent of philosophical systems, he could hardly
object to transhumanism’s picking and choosing from among his
thoughts—in this case, choosing his concept of the superhuman and
86 Chapter Seven
discarding his doctrine of eternal recurrence.

The problem with More’s conclusion, as well as with Sorgner’s
conciliatory rebuttal, is that we can hardly count eternal recurrence as just
one of Nietzsche’s many thoughts. Pace More, Nietzsche would certainly
have objected to any future Nietzschean movement that chose to ignore
his doctrine of eternal recurrence. Besides, More is not just picking one of
Nietzsche’s thoughts and dismissing another one of his thoughts, but
rather breaking up a pair of thoughts that Nietzsche conceived together.
Further, More is selecting the concept of the superhuman as Nietzsche’s
most important thought while discarding the concept of eternal recurrence
that he admits Nietzsche believed was inseparable from it. He is so
supremely confident of Nietzsche’s philosophy that he chooses to base a
whole movement on it. And yet he is so skeptical of this same philosophy
that he dismisses out of hand the idea that Nietzsche himself said was his
most important discovery ever. So let me address each of the three points
above that lead More into this misguided conclusion. I have actually
discussed each of them elsewhere (Loeb 2010, 2011, and forthcoming
2012) and much of my argument in those places depends on a detailed
exegesis of Nietzsche’s writings (especially, of course, Thus Spoke
Zarathustra). Here, then, I will simply attempt briefly to explain the main
points of my argument and exegesis as they concern the relation of
Nietzsche’s thought to transhumanism.
I will begin by quickly refuting More’s hypothesis as to why Nietzsche
was attached to his concept of eternal recurrence despite what More
claims is its absurdity and incompatibility with his concept of the
superhuman. The reason, he writes, is that Nietzsche saw it “as the
ultimate affirmation of the real world as against the Christian (and
Platonic) denial of the primacy of the actual, physical reality.” This is
actually a very common approach to Nietzsche’s concept these days.
According to most scholars, we can’t take seriously his unpublished
remarks about the scientific and provable aspects of the cosmological
version of this doctrine. But, they argue, we can still appreciate his
published presentations as part of a laudatory attempt to formulate an ideal
of affirmation that would serve to counter the historically influential
Platonic and Christian denials of life and reality.
Actually, however, Nietzsche endorses the scientific aspect of his
cosmological thesis in his own voice in Gay Science 109, one of his most
significant published discussions of philosophical naturalism. He also
includes an unconditional assertion of this same cosmological thesis in
what is usually considered his most important published presentation of
his doctrine in Gay Science 341. He then returns to present precisely this
same cosmological thesis at various crucial points in his next book
Zarathustra, the book he said was his best and most important. Indeed, I
have argued in my book, he incorporates this cosmological thesis into the
narrative structure of Zarathustra, so that the reader is able to follow the
eternally recurring life and death of a protagonist who is able to remember
and foresee the details of his life’s repeating iterations. Nietzsche also
includes a proof of this cosmological thesis in the “Vision and Riddle”
chapter, arguably one of the key chapters of the entire book. This proof
should be taken seriously because it is the distillation and final version of
the various provisional arguments that he first outlines in his unpublished
notes up that point. Finally, in Ecce Homo, Nietzsche again declares in his
own voice that eternal recurrence is a cosmological thesis that is in some
ways akin to the cosmological thesis of Heraclitus and the Stoics.
Even leaving aside all these exegetical omissions, the scholarly
approach described above is self-contradictory. For suppose that eternal
recurrence is a false account of actual, physical reality. Suppose that
eternal recurrence is, in More’s words, merely some fantastical piece of
metaphysics. In that case, to affirm eternal recurrence, that is, to want the
world to eternally recur, would be just as much a denial of actual reality as
any Platonic or Christian piece of metaphysics. Or, to put it differently, to
want the eternal and identical repetition of one’s life when in fact one’s
life is transitory and finite, would be just as much as denial of life as any
Platonic or Christian understanding of life. So these scholars are actually
attributing to Nietzsche an ideal of life-affirmation that they themselves
are committed to regarding as life-denying. It doesn’t help to object here,
as some scholars do, that Nietzsche himself didn’t actually believe in
eternal recurrence, and that he was simply trying to conceive a theory that
would allow us to imagine reality and life as maximally intensified by
being repeated identically for all eternity. The only difference is that now
these scholars are attributing to Nietzsche himself a self-contradictory
ideal of affirming non-recurring life by desiring its recurrence—that is, by
wanting it to be other than it actually is. For, again, if actual reality and
life are not repeated at all in any way, then this theory would simply be a
new fantasy whereby the actual fleetingness and finitude of reality and life
would be denied all over again.
It must be the case, then, that Nietzsche’s ideal of affirming the eternal
recurrence of reality and life only makes sense if these do in fact eternally
recur (and, indeed, as he says, necessarily so). And it must be the case as
well that any attempt to take seriously Nietzsche’s doctrine as an ideal of
88 Chapter Seven
affirmation has to attempt to understand as well his reasons for claiming

the truth, provability, and scientific validity of the cosmological version of
eternal recurrence. So let me deal now, very briefly, with More’s
objections to these claims. Is eternal recurrence a piece of metaphysics?
Yes, of course it is, but this is no longer the devastating objection that it
used to be under the mid-20th-century influence of Heidegger and the later
Wittgenstein. Metaphysics is a thriving and respected philosophical
discipline today, and careful commentators like John Richardson and Peter
Poellner (cited by Sorgner in his own recent monograph on this topic)
have persuasively shown that Nietzsche was of course interested in
constructing his own brand of immanent metaphysics.
Is eternal recurrence a bizarre piece of metaphysics? Most
commentators think so, but here we need to define more closely what is
meant by “bizarre”—bizarre as compared to what? This theory doesn’t
seem any more bizarre than many of the metaphysical theories that are
influential today (for example, those of Derek Parfit). Moreover, since
eternal recurrence was in fact intended by Nietzsche as a cosmological
theory, and since Nietzsche argued for its scientific status, we might want
to ask if eternal recurrence is any more bizarre than the kinds of theories
that are routinely advanced in current cosmological theory, such as the
inflationary universe, quantum foam, and hyper-dimensional string theory.
I would say, certainly not, and I would in addition cite the thorough and
knowledgeable commentary of scholars like Alistair Moles who long ago
argued for the compatibility of eternal recurrence and the currently
accepted Standard Big Bang model (Moles 1988, 1990).
Is the problem supposed to be, as some commentators argue (cf. Clark
1990, 247) that Nietzsche advanced mostly a priori considerations in
support of his theory? But scholars like Moles and Robin Small have
shown Nietzsche was in fact availing himself of the very latest thinking in
cosmological theory, such as Friedrich Zöllner’s theory of Riemannian
curved space (Loeb 2010, 55-56). Indeed, Henri Poincaré, a respected
mathematician and physicist, was advancing the same kind of a priori
considerations in support of his own eternal recurrence theorem. Besides,
we should recall that physicists like Ernst Mach and Einstein both devised
purely a priori thought experiments as means of arriving at their
breakthrough relativistic conclusions. Also, that Kurt Gödel advanced
purely mathematical solutions to the general relativity field equations that
were later endorsed by Einstein as possibly showing a global closed
timelike curvature for the cosmos (Loeb 2010, 57; Loeb 2012). And just
this year the respected and influential contemporary cosmologist Roger
Penrose has cited experimental evidence in support of his a priori

mathematical conjecture of conformal cyclic cosmology (Penrose 2010;
Penrose and Gurzadyan 2011).
Let me address finally More’s charge that eternal recurrence is
inherently implausible. Part of what he has in mind here, I think, is that
Nietzsche’s proofs have seemed lacking to commentators ever since
Georg Simmel published his famous refutation. But the studies of more
recent and more careful commentators like Moles and Peter Rogers have
shown that Simmel’s refutation begged the question against Nietzsche’s
theory (Loeb 2010, 61; see also Sorgner 2007, 70-72). More probably also
has in mind a lot of commentary from the last fifty years claiming to show
that the concept of eternal recurrence is somehow self-contradictory or
conceptually incoherent. But I have argued in detail that all these critiques
begin by begging the question and assuming the denial of Nietzsche’s
theory (Loeb 2010, 11-31; Loeb 2012). In any case, the charges of
bizarreness and implausibility are strange coming from one of the
founders of a transhumanist movement that has seemed to most outside
observers quite bizarre and deeply implausible.
Let me turn now to More’s criticism of Nietzsche’s connection
between his two concepts of eternal recurrence and the superhuman.
More is right to say that many Nietzsche scholars have found this
connection puzzling and, indeed, for the reason More himself gives, that
the superhuman is a progress-affirming concept while eternal recurrence is
a progress-denying concept (Loeb 2010, 204-206). But is this right? Is
eternal recurrence really opposed to progress? Is it part of Nietzsche’s
denial of the idea of progress? Although More doesn’t explain why he
thinks this is the case, his reason is presumably the same as that of the
scholars he mentions. Since everything repeats itself identically for all
eternity, any future progress we might make in creating a stronger,
healthier species will eventually devolve back into the identical situation
we find ourselves in now. Eternal recurrence is thus like the myth of
Sisyphus: we may expend great effort in pushing the stone up to the peak
of the mountain, but the stone will eventually roll back down and then we
will have to commence pushing it back up all over again.
Notice, however, that Sisyphus does indeed succeed in getting the
stone up to the peak of the mountain, and indeed, that he succeeds in
doing so over and over for all eternity. Similarly, if we do succeed in
creating a stronger and healthier species, this is an achievement that we
will be repeating in just the same way over and over for all eternity. As
Ivan Soll noted a long time ago (1973, 335-338), there is therefore nothing
90 Chapter Seven
in eternal recurrence that precludes the possibility of complete progress

and success within every cycle of repetition. All that is precluded is some
kind of trans-cyclical progress. But this is not a problem, since (unlike the
myth of Sisyphus) the end of each cycle also brings with it the end of any
consciousness that could witness the devolution of any attained intra-
cyclical progress.5
Against this response, the objection might be raised now that no
stronger, healthier superhuman species could possibly stay at its peak until
the very end of any particular cycle. But notice that this is no longer an
objection to the eternal recurrence of such cycles. To return to the
Sisyphus analogy, this would be like objecting to the natural force of
gravity that causes the stone to fall back down the mountain rather than to
the supernatural force that causes this scenario to repeat itself the same
way for all eternity.6 And in fact, Nietzsche shows, it is actually the
traditional conception of time as linear and non-recurring that causes
Zarathustra such deep anxiety and doubt about the lasting significance of
his progress in creating the superhuman. Time, he says in his speech on
redemption, does not run backwards (die Zeit nicht zurückläuft) and the
law of time (Gesetz der Zeit) is that it must devour its children (dass sie
ihre Kinder fressen muss). There is always a flux of things (Fluss der
Dinge) and everything is always passing away (alles vergeht). Death and
entropy always intervene and so it appears that all our best
accomplishments are in vain (alles ist umsonst) (Z: 4 “The Greeting”).
Thus, in a complete reversal of the new objection being contemplated,
and as Nietzsche mentions several times in his unpublished notes (KSA
10, 4[85]; 10, 5[1].160), the discovery of eternal recurrence would
actually offer comfort in the face of this nihilistic thought of intra-cyclical
dissolution—precisely because it guarantees that a peak achievement can
be repeated over and over again for all eternity. In Nietzsche’s
philosophical narrative, Zarathustra’s anxiety and doubt are only allayed
once he realizes that time is actually circular and recurring, for he is then
reassured of the eternal significance of creating the superhuman. This is
why, I have argued (Loeb 2010: 195-196), Nietzsche shows Zarathustra
recovering from the soothsayer’s nihilistic teaching through his own
prophetic knowledge of the truth of eternal recurrence. And this is also
why, I have argued (Loeb 2010, 186), Nietzsche shows Zarathustra
joyfully reconciling himself to the fact of time and entropy as he
anticipates the eternal recurrence of each of his life’s peak moments and
achievements.
So much, then, for the claim that the thought of eternal recurrence is
opposed to any transhumanist progress. Let me now articulate a more

interesting, and to my knowledge unrecognized, feature of Nietzsche’s
thinking—namely, that eternal recurrence is actually required for there to
be any transhumanist progress in the first place. This has to do, as
Nietzsche writes, with Zarathustra attaining something higher than simply
reconciling himself to the fact of time and entropy. For let us suppose, as
Nietzsche does in Zarathustra’s speech on redemption, that time does not
run backwards and that there is therefore an asymmetric determining
relationship between the past and the present. From this it follows, as
Zarathustra says, that the will—which is the will to power (der Wille
welcher der Wille zur Macht ist)—cannot will backwards (nicht zurück
kann der Wille wollen) and is therefore impotent and an evil-eyed
spectator of all that is past (ohnmächtig gegen Das, was gethan ist - ist er
allem Vergangenen ein böser Zuschauer). As I’ve argued (Loeb 2010,
178-179, 206), this assertion should not be interpreted to mean the will
cannot change the past, but only that the will cannot be said to have had
any influence on the past coming to be what it unchangeably is. But this
means that the will is also impotent with respect to the past’s
determination of the present and is unable to impose its creative design on
an open-ended future. Whatever flawed, fragmentary, meaningless, and
accidental features belong to the past, these will be imported into the
present and future as well, and there is no way that the will can transcend
these so as freely to create something of its own that is superior, whole,
and meaningful.
As Laurence Lampert so ably explains (1986, 135-151), Zarathustra’s
speech on redemption is offered by Nietzsche as an explanation of the
meaning of his preceding chapter on the soothsayer. Just as the will’s
impotence with respect to the determining past causes the will to feel the
loneliest and most secret melancholy (Trübsal), so too the narrator in this
preceding chapter recounts a great sadness (Traurigkeit) that came over
humankind and that made the best men weary of their work. The cause, he
says, was the soothsayer’s teaching that everything is the same (Alles ist
gleich) and that everything has been (Alles war). What this means, given
the conception of time just outlined above, is that everything in the past
inevitably repeats itself and persists into the future—hence the
soothsayer’s ability to foretell the future.7 Upon hearing of this teaching,
Zarathustra himself experiences overwhelming sadness and melancholy
(Traurigkeit, Trübsal) and grows weary of his own work. The reason is
that his goal of the superhuman requires him to make a decisive break
with past human history, to overcome the deficiencies and accidents of the
92 Chapter Seven
past, and to create something entirely new that has never existed before.
In these two linked chapters, then, Nietzsche shows Zarathustra
coming to doubt that he will ever be capable of freely shaping the future
so as to realize his goal of creating an entirely new, stronger, and healthier
superhuman species. In both these same chapters, however, and in the
most important chapters of Part III, Nietzsche also shows Zarathustra
overcoming these doubts and, indeed, as a result, transforming himself
into a being who is no longer human—that is, into a transhuman, a
transitional figure on the way to the superhuman species. The key to
Zarathustra’s recovery and success lies in his recognition that the
foundation of his doubts was a false conception of time as linear and non-
recurring. Although I don’t have the space to rehearse all the exegetical
details here, I have argued (Loeb 2010, 176 ff.) that once Zarathustra
awakens his latent knowledge of circular and recurring time in the
“Convalescent” chapter, he then learns how to will backward in time
precisely as he had foreseen he would do in the “Vision and the Riddle”
chapter (where he had a vision of rescuing his future self from his most
abysmal thought). This backward-willing extends into Zarathustra’s
presentiment in his speech on redemption that someone has already taught
him backward-willing and also into his dream in the “Soothsayer” chapter
that he is liberated from his entombment in the past by his future
redeemed self. As a consequence, Zarathustra is able to create his
completely novel, no-longer-human, and child-spirited soul who laughs
like no one has ever yet laughed on earth and who is able to exert a
creative influence on his unchangeable past that allows him to say to it,
“But thus I will it!”8 In showing that Zarathustra himself becomes
transhuman as a result of his newfound wisdom, Nietzsche thus points the
way to the future superhuman species that will be stronger and healthier
precisely because it will live and thrive in the reality of circular recurring
time.
It might seem strange that eternal recurrence provides Nietzsche with
the solution to the problem of the determining, accidental, and repeating
past. For eternal recurrence is itself the claim that everything in the past is
eternally repeated. Indeed, the soothsayer’s teaching that everything is the
same would seem to anticipate Zarathustra’s teaching of the eternal
recurrence of the same (Gooding-Williams 2001, 202-205; Loeb 2007, 81-
83). But the key to understanding the difference is to notice Nietzsche’s
vision of the human interaction with the eternally repeating cosmos. This
is because humans, as he defines them (GM II), are mnemonic animals,
meaning that they are able to remember (that is, suspend their forgetting
of) the past. In linear and non-recurring time, this means that human
beings are haunted, crippled and burdened by the past—indeed, that their
acquisition of retrospective memory is precisely what leads them to feel
the kind of impotence described by Zarathustra in his speech on
redemption. But in circular and recurring time, the past is identical to the
future, and so human memory is now also prospective.9 Or, rather,
according to Nietzsche, since eternal recurrence is true, human memory
has always been prospective, but human beings have not been strong or
healthy enough to allow themselves to suspend their forgetting of their
future. This is why Nietzsche imagines a later age in which his protagonist
Zarathustra will be strong and healthy enough to awaken his latent
knowledge of eternal recurrence and to become a prophet of the future. In
all human history so far, memory has always been merely a vehicle
whereby the past influenced and shaped the future. But Nietzsche shows
his protagonist Zarathustra also being influenced by his memory of the
future. Indeed, in the passages mentioned above and others, he shows
Zarathustra leaving mnemonic messages to his younger self and thus using
his memory as a means whereby his present and future will can creatively
influence and shape his unchangeable past so as to be able say to it, “But
thus I will it! But thus I shall will it!”. And since Zarathustra is the teacher
of disciples who will themselves be able to use their own memory in this
same way, his interaction with them allows him to be influenced by a
future they remember that is beyond the span of his own lifetime. These
disciples, Zarathustra says, will be the ancestors of the superhuman
species, and so ultimately there is a paradoxical sense in which
Zarathustra’s teaching of the superhuman species is retroactively inspired
by the actual future emergence of just this species.
This account is very brief and compressed, and I would urge readers to
consult my other writings cited above for a much more extensive
elaboration of these philosophical and exegetical points. But I think it is
sufficient to undermine More’s suggestion that Nietzsche confusedly
conjoined together his incompatible concepts of eternal recurrence and the
superhuman. I think it is also sufficient to undermine Sorgner’s weaker
suggestion, in response to More, that Nietzsche’s two concepts “are not
logically inseparable” (2010b, 13). For I have argued that Nietzsche’s
background discovery of the truth of eternal recurrence is what allowed
him to conceive of the possibility, significance, and nature of the
superhuman. According to Nietzsche, Zarathustra’s initial steps in creating
a stronger and healthier species are only possible if his willing backward
in circular time allows him to shape the unchangeable past so that his
94 Chapter Seven
creation is new and intentional. Moreover, Zarathustra’s creative

achievement can only have lasting significance if eternal recurrence saves
it from inevitable entropic dissolution. Finally, this species will be
superior to human beings, that is, superhuman, precisely because it will
fully utilize this new mnemonic power over time granted by its complete
affirmation of the reality of cosmological eternal recurrence. Just as the
human animal rose above all other animals through its socially inculcated
mnemonic control of the future (GM II §1), so too the superhuman animal
will rise above the human animal through its additional recurrence-
enabled mnemonic control of the past.
In his other brief discussions of eternal recurrence (2007, 65-74, 143-
145; 2009a, 919-922; 2009b, 39-40; 2010b, 3), Sorgner rightly counters
the usual scholarly approach I have outlined above when he claims that
this doctrine was intended by Nietzsche as a true, metaphysical, scientific
and provable theory that drew upon contemporaneous physics and that
could be regarded as compatible with contemporary physics. Unfortunately,
like most other commentators, Sorgner dismisses the possibility of
remembering eternal recurrence (2009a, 919) and is therefore unable to
see Nietzsche’s vision of the human interaction with this cosmological
reality—namely, willing backward in circular time. For this reason, he is
not in a position to understand the deep and inseparable connection
Nietzsche finds between eternal recurrence and the goal of a superhuman
species. According to Sorgner, it is possible to simply disregard
Nietzsche’s question concerning the meaning of life and thus his meaning-
giving ideal of a superhuman affirmation of life’s eternal recurrence
(2010, 230-231; 2010b, 13). But, he claims, one could still uphold the rest
of Nietzsche’s claims and see the superhuman as simply a further step in
the evolutionary process. Indeed, this is the whole point of Sorgner’s first
essay on Nietzsche and the transhumanist movement: although
transhumanists are influenced by Nietzsche’s concept of the superhuman
in wanting to take the next step in the evolutionary process, they do not
follow Nietzsche in justifying this desire by reference to the question of
the meaning of life. Sorgner’s unstated implication is that transhumanists
might want to learn from Nietzsche about the need to justify human
enhancement as part of a general project to affirm this life and this world
to the fullest—a project whose success will be determined by our longing
for their eternal recurrence.
Sorgner makes a good point here about this deficiency he finds in most
transhumanist thought and I agree with him that Nietzsche would have
regarded his project as superior in this respect. But the interpretation I
have offered above shows, I think, that Sorgner doesn’t go far enough in
understanding this deficiency. From Nietzsche’s perspective, the problem
is not that current transhumanists don’t justify their quest for the next
evolutionary step, but rather that they believe this quest is possible without
a reconsideration of our relation to time. As Sorgner points out, the
transhumanist goal, like Nietzsche’s, is to move from natural selection
toward a type of human, intentional, artificial selection (2010b, 2). But
transhumanists, unlike Nietzsche, have no way of explaining how such a
move is possible. As long as they subscribe to the traditional conception
of an asymmetric relation between the determining past and the present,
they must concede that we can never escape the influence of our own
emergence from the chance-governed, preservation-oriented, herd-
promoting forces of natural selection. We might invent ambitious plans to
create a new species that is no longer a product of natural selection, but
these plans will themselves always be a product of natural selection and
therefore fruitless. Moreover, Nietzsche argues at the start of Thus Spoke
Zarathustra that natural selection does not lead to the superhuman, but
rather to the last human. This is why critics like Keith Ansell Pearson
(1997) have emphasized that Nietzsche would have disparaged many of
the current transhumanist goals (such as happiness, longevity, and
equality) as belonging to the last human.
Given his concession to More about the logical separability of
Nietzsche’s two concepts, it is noteworthy that Sorgner offers an account
of Nietzsche’s vision of the evolutionary emergence of the superhuman
that has nothing to do with eternal recurrence. According to Sorgner
(2009b, 37-38; 2010a, 227-230; 2010b, 2), Nietzsche believes that there
exist some individual higher human beings (like Goethe) who by accident
possess special (non-acquired) capacities that they can actualize and
enhance through education. Once enough of these individuals enhance
themselves to an extreme, they will reproduce with each other, pass on
their special capacities to their descendants, and become still more
numerous. According to Sorgner (2009b, 31), Nietzsche has some
Lamarckian inclinations, so perhaps he believes that the enhancement of
these capacities can also be passed on to the descendants. In any case,
eventually an evolutionary step will take place wherein these capacities
become essential and then a new species will emerge that has a completely
new, different, and higher potential that transcends the fixed limits of the
human species.10
Now, I don’t agree with Sogner that this is Nietzsche’s account, and I
am puzzled that he chooses to base such an important part of his
96 Chapter Seven
discussion on just a single unpublished note (KSA, NF, 13, 316-317). I

think he should have focused his interpretive energy instead on
Nietzsche’s detailed depiction of transhuman emergence in the essential
published text, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. But the important point here is
Sorgner’s admission that chance and accident play a crucial role in his
initial postulation of higher human beings who simply exist already with
their higher potential. In addition, Sorgner fails to support his implausible
contention that somehow the breeding of enhanced higher human beings
with certain fixed limits will result in the emergence of a new superhuman
species without those same limits (but instead, different and higher fixed
limits). So I think that he is committed to admitting the role of chance and
accident in this final step as well. Thus, although Sorgner emphasizes the
intentional aspect of the intermediate stages in which higher human beings
educate themselves and deliberately interbreed, it seems to me that this
aspect is undermined by the non-intentional aspects (genetic mutations?)
at the start and finish of this alleged evolutionary process. And this failure,
I would argue, can be traced back to Sorgner’s omission of Nietzsche’s
bedrock assumption that the traditional conception of time as linear and
non-recurring precludes the possibility of human beings taking control of
their own evolutionary destiny. According to Nietzsche, I have argued,
only backward-willing in circular time allows the future Zarathustra to
transform himself into the kind of transhuman who teaches his still
stronger disciples to gain even better control of the past, and similarly
with these disciples and their descendants, until eventually there emerges a
stronger superhuman species whose new and higher capacities are a result
of their complete control over time.
Sorgner might object at this point that he does include the concept of
backward-willing in his account of Nietzsches’ concept of redemption
(Erlösung, or as he translates it, “salvation”): “What is important
concerning salvation on the basis of this concept [of eternal recurrence] is
that you experience one moment which you can affirm completely. Once
you have had such a moment then all other moments before and after this
one get justified by means of this one moment because all the other
moments have been and are necessary in order for that moment to occur”
(2009a, 919-920, my italics; see also 2010a, 230-231; 2010b, 10). On
Sorgner’s interpretation, humans are given meaning by their goal of
creating superhuman individuals who will be able to attain redemption in
this fashion and say to their past, “But thus I will it!”. Notice, however,
that this interpretation of Nietzsche’s concept does not in any way require
the assumption of circular and recurring time. Indeed, this is precisely the
same kind of interpretation that is offered by scholars like Alexander

Nehamas who think that Nietzsche did not actually believe in the truth of
cosmological eternal recurrence. And I have argued (Loeb 2010, 187-189)
that this interpretation conflates two different kinds of relations that the
past can have to the affirmable present moment: namely, as necessary
condition, or as goal. But only the latter relation is the one that Nietzsche
has in mind in Zarathustra’s redemption speech, only the latter relation
depends upon the reality of circular and recurring time, and only the latter
relation is the one that allows Zarathustra literally to shape his past in such
a way that its unchangeable core is genuinely affirmable (instead of
needing retrospective reinterpretation).
Supposing this discussion has been sufficiently convincing regarding
Nietzsche’s pairing of his concepts of eternal recurrence and the
superhuman, let me conclude now by returning briefly to the critical point
of view expressed by Max More. Given the new interpretation I’ve
offered here, transhumanists might wonder why they should worry about
Nietzsche’s radical and metaphysical claim concerning the obstacles to
their project posed by the traditional conception of time. And they might
wonder as well why they should concern themselves with Nietzsche’s
obscure and speculative claim to have discovered the way around these
obstacles through the ability to will backward in circular time.
In reply to the first question, I would argue that some indirect or covert
version of Nietzsche’s obstacles drives much of the debate already taking
place among transhumanists, and much of the criticism already directed at
transhumanism. Outside of objections concerning ethics, politics, and
technology, the main criticisms tend to focus on the question whether the
transhumanist project is possible at all. And these questions, I would
argue, can for the most part be traced back to the conviction that it makes
no sense to speak of human beings transcending the determining influence
of their past history. Transhumanists aim to show how we human beings
can take control of our own evolutionary destiny, but their enhancement
plans and preferences would seem inevitably determined and restricted by
the chance-governed forces of natural selection from which we first
emerged. Sorgner mentions for example the transhumanist hope of
circumventing the genetic lottery through genetic engineering (2009b: 34),
but won’t the values guiding that attempt still be driven in the end by that
same lottery? Although Sorgner cites the transhumanist goal of
revaluating our values in light of recent biotechonological advances
(2009b, 32), others like Jonathan Glover observe that it is actually the pull
of some of our pre-existing values that causes us to abandon or modify
98 Chapter Seven
some of our other values. According to Glover, therefore, we should think

of the idea of revaluating values more along the lines of Otto Neurath’s
analogy: “We are like a sailor who, instead of taking it to pieces in dock,
has to rebuild the boat on the open sea, and has to be able to build it anew
out of its own best components” (2006, 98).
In reply to the second question above, I would recall Sorgner’s
observation that trashumanists have not explained why they want to
facilitate the emergence of a new superhuman species. Sogner suggests
that they can learn from Nietzsche’s insight that such a project of self-
directed evolution will give an earthly, immanent meaning to scientifically
minded people who can no longer believe in the long-dominant Platonic-
Christian worldview (2009b, 38-39). But I have argued above that
Zarathustra’s redemption speech requires any such meaning to be given
through backward-willing in circular time. I also think that Sorgner
overlooks the obvious motivation behind a lot of transhumanist ideas—
namely, the deep need to gain some measure of control over aging, death,
entropy, and the passing of time. From Nietzsche’s perspective, all human
beings, including the transhumanists, feel impotent with respect to time.
So far, he thinks, human beings have sublimated this feeling into what he
calls a spirit of revenge and they have devised values and worldviews (like
the Platonic-Christian one) that covertly accuse and degrade the
conditions of immanent existence. Nietzsche would have certainly
regarded the thinking of some transhumanists (most prominently, Ray
Kurzweil) as motivated by this spirit of revenge against time, the body,
this life, and this world. But I think he also would have argued that behind
the transhumanist quest for control over time there lies a secret striving for
the solution he found in 1881: backward-willing in circular time. Insofar
as transhumanists are also spurred by will to power and hope to enhance
human beings with new powers and abilities, Nietzsche would claim that
here too he was ahead of the curve and had discovered a new power over
time that could be the foundation for gaining all the other desired abilities.
And finally, insofar as transhumanists are driven by the desire to gain new
and extensive knowledge about ourselves and the world we live in,
Nietzsche would have urged them to look more closely at what he thought
was his most important discovery that time is actually circular and
recurring. This discovery, he believed, showed that the human animal
could acquire a new kind of prospective memory that would lead to the
emergence of a new superhuman species able to gain complete autonomy,
self-affirmation, and self-knowledge. Should transhumanists like Max
More protest the obscure and speculative manner in which Nietzsche
presented these supposedly fundamental and history-changing discoveries,

we can recall that they themselves were first inspired to found their
movement by the extremely obscure and speculative first sentence in
Zarathustra’s first public speech: “Ich lehre euch den Übermenschen. Der
Mensch ist Etwas, das überwunden werden soll. Was habt ihr gethan, ihn
zu überwinden?”
Notes
1 Kaufmann writes that in his translation of Zarathustra “the older term,

‘overman,’ has been reinstated” (1976, 115). By “older” he does not mean the
English term used by previous translators like George Bernard Shaw or Thomas
Common (who both chose “Superman”). Instead, he means the archaic English
term that referred to a labor foreman, supervisor or overseer. Obviously, this
archaic term has nothing to do with Nietzsche’s term, which is why I have said
that Kaufmann’s term is a neologism. Certainly, the meaning of the archaic term
does not lend itself at all to the modification, “overhuman,” and so this has now
become a completely invented English word.
2 George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Common, and R,J. Hollingdale all capitalized
this English word.
3 As evidence of the distinction Nietzsche might make between the concepts of the
posthuman and the superhuman, I would cite his remark at the start of the
Antichrist: “The problem I thus pose is not what shall succeed [ablösen]
humankind in the sequence of beings (—the human being is an end—): but what
type of human being shall be bred, shall be willed, as one that is of higher worth,
worthier of life, more certain of the future. This type that is of higher worth has
appeared often enough already: but as a fortunate accident, as an exception, never
as willed.” (A § 3; here and in the rest of this essay I have consulted Kaufmann’s
translations in Kaufmann 1976)
4 See Kaufmann’s individualist interpretation in his major study (1974, 307-316),
and in the commentary of his students, Schacht (1983, 380-381), Nehamas (1986,
158-159, 222), and Solomon (2006, 130-132, 173-174).
5 Clark (1990, 271-272) accepts Soll’s analysis, but thinks that Nietzsche himself
must have believed that eternal recurrence is incompatible with progress in
creating the superhuman because he depicts Zarathustra as despairing over the
eternal recurrence of the small human. But I have argued in detail (Loeb 2010,
151-157) that Zarathustra’s despair actually concerns the possibility that he might
not overcome the small human—thus ensuring that the persisting small human will
eternally recur. And this despair, as I argue below, has its source in Zarathustra’s
most fundamental worry that, because time is linear and non-recurring, his creative
will might be impotent in relation to the determining accidental past—a worry that

100 Chapter Seven
he overcomes by learning to backward-will through circular and recurring time.

6 Nietzsche uses this same metaphor of gravity when he has the dwarf whisper
mockingly to Zarathustra that every stone that is thrown up must fall back down,
and that Zarathustra, the philosopher’s stone, has thrown himself up high but is
now sentenced to being stoned by himself as he falls back down upon himself (Z:
3 “On the Vision and the Riddle” §2).
7 Seung (2005, 103, 123-124, 131, 180) conflates the intra-cyclical determinism of
linear time with the trans-cyclical determinism of circular time and is therefore not
able to see how Nietzsche looks to our interaction with the latter as a solution to
our problems resulting from the former.
8 In an unpublished note from 1884 (KSA 11:25[7]), Nietzsche has Zarathustra
spell out the compatibility of intra-cyclical novelty and trans-cyclical repetition
(Loeb 2010, 17, 142; Loeb 2012).
9 As I argue in Loeb 2010, 14-16, scholars have missed this point because they
have imagined that a memory of the last cycle would add something different to
the next cycle. But Nietzsche’s point is that the memory is acquired in every
cycle, including the last cycle, and that there has never been an original, or first,
cycle in which the memory was not yet acquired.
10 In Loeb 2010, 138-145, I explain how Nietzsche indicates that it is
Zarathustra’s disciples, and not the higher men, who are the ancestors of the
superhuman in virtue of awakening their own latent knowledge of eternal
recurrence.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NIETZSCHE’S POST-HUMAN IMPERATIVE:

ON THE “ALL-TOO-HUMAN”
DREAM OF TRANSHUMANISM
BABETTE BABICH
To the extent that we are always ahead of ourselves, always beyond

ourselves, the human being is almost inherently metaphysical. And when
Nietzsche characterizes the human being as the not-as-yet-determined, the
unfinished, the all-too-vague animal — “Er ist das noch nicht festgestellte
Thier” (KSA 11, 25 [428], 125) — he plays on this being-ahead-of-
ourselves, being-beyond-ourselves quality, as our specifically unqualified
quality. We can call this adaptability, many call it intelligence, and this
same meta-physicality is also what makes us the religious animal par
excellence: the animal that, unlike other animals, not only has beliefs but
can hang on to them blindly and that until its dying day.1 It is accordingly
also what we could call our human exceptionalism: our conviction that we
are other, higher, better-than other animals, a belief that the ancient
Greeks, as Nietzsche also noted, were able to advance to the insight that
allowed them a kind of moral superiority to the gods themselves. More
than the Judeao-Christian ideal of creation in the image of the Divine but
in some fashion ‘better’ than the gods, the human being judged his gods.
All peoples, not only the Greeks, rate their gods — our god is higher, your
divinities are lesser, indeed false gods, empty fantasies, mere and only
idols. Thus the human being, as Nietzsche also argued, invented truth and
used it to prop up the furniture of the beyond, contra the immediate,
sensible, real, and all and always to his own advantage, at least as long as
he could hold on to or maintain what he thus called truth as truth.
And as human beings, we also have fashions. Once upon a time there
was the belief in the Jewish god, the god of pride, the god of the original
Bible, a God who required that his people hold to him above all other
gods, a people singularized by any manner of suffering and exile as proof
102 Chapter Eight
of his glory and his inscrutability. By contrast, the God of the New
Testament, the Christian god, as Nietzsche writes, presented the sorriest
spectacle of all the gods: needing not honor or devotion or glorification but
desperate for love and, a god, like anyone who needs love, of destitution,
abjection, pity.
Today we have science. Even more than that, we have our belief or
faith in science, a faith which has long since replaced the ascetic ideal
corresponding to the divine compact that drove the old and new
testaments. And today, we “machinists and bridge builders of the future”
(BGE §14), expect to fabricate ourselves. And with all the practice we
have in the invisible, in the virtual appearances that play on our computer
and tablet screens and cell-phone displays, we see ourselves as no longer
the beings we happen to be (human, all-too-human) but we are our
machines, we are our internet connections, iPads or tablets, cellphones,
little Apple watches. On Facebook, on Instagram or Twitter, texting and
sharing our location automatically, triangulating our lives with and above
all into the web, we are (already) transhuman. Hence we can well imagine
that with an implant, be it of a chip, a lens, a titanium joint, or some time
ago — before a certain scandal, with murder, made the example an
awkward one — with new curved blades as legs,2 or new ears, or the new
kidneys we hope (very soon) to harvest from pig-human chimeras,3 there
will be no limit at all, so we imagine, to what we can be, or at least, in the
‘cloud,’ given the vistas of cyberspace, or at least given the cartographical
conceits of a range of gaming domains (seemingly going back no further
than Robert E. Howard or maybe J.R. Tolkien),4 it is argued there will be
no limits to where we can travel or set up shop, and ‘love’ and ‘live.’
Tethered to a keyboard, tapping with squinting attention on a cell-phone
screen, we proclaim ourselves limitless: scholars tell one another and any
popular ear inclined to listen that human beings are (already) transhuman,
(already) humanity 2.0.5 Welcome to the online, connected, networked,
virtual, digital realm. Welcome to your finger on a keyboard, tapping a
screen or even, although the kinks in that are not yet worked out in detail,
traced, outlined in air. And we might wonder about the relationship
between Minority Report’s air tracing gestures and the voice commands
favored on Star Trek, do such films program our desires for technology, or
anticipate them, spontaneously? And some murmur that with Siri, the
“new” iPhone already — there’s that ‘already’ word again — did all this,
generations ago now.
In his essay “Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism,”6 Stefan
Sorgner challenges those who seek to keep a distance between the
transhumanist movement and any connection with Nietzsche’s thought.
Nietzsche’s Post-Human Imperative 103
For Sorgner the danger that is anticipated here is an already foregone

conclusion. And as he muses, had Nietzsche known of transhumanism, he
would have been, because so Sorgner muses, he could only have been,
sympathetic with the ideal. The only dissonance is a sheerly mechanical
one, rather to the extent that transhumanism was once named via
cybernetics, and hence associated with Donna Haraway’s ‘cyborgs,’ but
this dissonance seems to vanish with Ray Kurzweil’s projection of the
‘technological singularity,’ as an automatic human machine mind-meld, a
becoming-machine. More exigent writers will note that Kurzweil himself
simply takes over or “borrows” the language and the science fantasy
assumptions of the San Diego computer scientist and science fiction
writer, Vernor Vinge.7 Rather more gingerly than Kurzweil (and this is
true in almost every respect), Vinge contextualizes the language of what
he called “the technological singularity” as a techno-theoretical trump
card, explained by the cyberneticist Vinge with reference to John von
Neumann (where it should be noted that the reference to von Neumann
exemplifies a fairly ecstatic conventionality that is a staple in the science
fiction world, as Vinge celebrates von Neumann in his fiction as a “Dawn
Age genius.”)8
The reference to a new ‘dawn’ is significant and it should be noted that
founding fathers, this is what I meant by calling this a sci-fi staple, from
Ray Bradbury to Clark and Asimov (and it doesn’t get more staple than
that), are permitted any number of limitations because one needs them,
just like a real father, for legitimacy’s sake. Here the abstract of Vinge’s
1993 lecture on the technological singularity is worth citing and it has a
certain punchy quality, as abstracts go:
Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create
superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.9
Vinge cites Stanisáaw Ulam as reporting von Neumann in conversation

on
the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of
human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential
singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we
know them, could not continue.10
As Vinge points out (in a parenthesis drawn from Günther Stent), von
Neumann himself
even uses the term singularity, though it appears he is thinking of normal
progress, not the creation of superhuman intellect. (For me, the
104 Chapter Eight
superhumanity is the essence of the Singularity. Without that we would get

a glut of technical riches, never properly absorbed …11
In the context of the technological singularity, including, as if for good

measure, a reference to superhumanity, Vinge’s contextualization requires
— as all insider-style comments require — a context. There are a lot of
such references on the theme of the human-superhuman continuum and I
would recommend unpacking them with the help of Günther Anders or
Peter Sloterdijk or even, to be more esoteric, Jean Baudrillard or Paul
Virilio, on one side of the tale, and of any number of more or less
triumphalist futurists on the other, I like to think of Vanevar Bush and
Hermann Kahn but it is more conventional to think of Marshall McLuhan
(it was his centennial ‘year’ in 2011) or Alvin Toffler. For his part, Vinge
whom I met in San Diego, is fond of citing Erik Drexler and the seemingly
out of touch nuclear power enthusiast (damn the radiation and all the other
details), Freeman Dyson, in addition to Marvin Minsky and others.12
Although it is my point in what follows that Nietzsche offers us a good
deal of help philosophically, it is hard to come to terms with triumphalist
futurists without going all Frankfurt school on them and the rhetoric of
Vinge’s abstract illustrates why. First you posit, as Vinge does (echoing
Ulam who was himself echoing von Neumann), the “imminent creation by
technology of entities with greater than human intelligence.”13 Having
said that this is somehow to be done by an as yet to be unspecified
technology (Vinge, a computer scientist is himself vague here), and without
fully specifying what a ‘greater than human intelligence’ would look like
or, indeed, how we human beings with our specifiedly lesser degree of
intelligence would be able to recognize such a ‘higher’ intelligence to
begin with, today’s futurists debate the projected consequences supposed
likely.
This is a sales pitch: having invented “superhuman intelligence” (never
mind the details) the pitch continues with the declaration that “the human
era will be ended”14 and thus one must plan accordingly. The rest is
science fiction and it’s well worth reading. In philosophy of a certain kind
the argument may be varied slightly yielding Bostrom’s influential 2001
speculation concerning life as a computer simulation, AI variations, and
parallel universes.15 Bostrom takes his own point of departure with the
assumption that the sort of thing “later generations might do with their
superǦpowerful computers” would likely be to “run detailed simulations of
their forebears or of people like their forebears.”16 It is thus supposed that
they would have nothing better to do and it is further supposed that they,
unlike ourselves, fascinated as we are by speculations concerning the
future, would be so very intrigued by their past to the extent of running

“detailed simulations” of the same past.
Here what interests me is the rhetorical gambit and it depends on
authority for its functioning. Paul Feyerabend has recalled the mechanism
of such authoritative, which is what I mean by trump-card type, references.
Thus for Feyerabend (the context was a recollection of physics debates of
the 1930s through the 1950s),
the discussion usually went like this. First the defenders of the second
interpretation presented their arguments. Then the opponents raised
objections. The objections were occasionally quite formidable and could
not be easily answered. Then somebody said “but von Neumann has
shown …” and with that the opposition was silenced.17
Continuing in this spirit, one might well suppose that Sorgner’s own
arguments would support a claim for Nietzsche’s sympathies for or
affinities with cybernetics or cyborgs (such as the new ‘digital’ Dionysus
inspired by, among others, Friedrich Kittler)18 as indeed for the technological
singularity to come, now articulated as simply another way of parsing
eternal recurrence.
But Sorgner does not do this and he also opts to defer engaging with the
specific reasons articulated by other transhumanists who vigorously attempt
to maintain a distance from Nietzsche. Instead (and it should be noted that
this is characteristic of a certain kind of philosophical formation), Sorgner
proceeds to tell us what Nietzsche would have “liked.” Thus we are
informed that Nietzsche would have been an advocate of transhumanism. If
I myself do not find this claim especially plausible, this does not mean that
I do not understand Sorgner’s reasons for making such a claim. Hence I
agree that whatever Nietzsche was, he was no traditional humanist, not at
least of the garden-variety sort (unless we take that garden, as some do, to
have been an Epicurean garden, just as Nietzsche heard this garden
reference, all meteorological expression/comprehension,19 including
allusions to Lucretius20 as well as Diogenes Laertius and not less to what
Nietzsche apotheosizes as “personality,” which last term turns out to
matter a great deal for today’s transhumanism — avatars and bots
anyone?), as his thinking on the human, all-too-human includes all the
complexities that were masks for Descartes (there is a reason that
Nietzsche cites Descartes as epigraph to his Human, all-too-Human). And
in the spirit of internet cloaking devices,21 we should add that if Nietzsche
appreciated one thing about Descartes, it was the mask. “Everything
profound loves a mask.” (BGE §40)
106 Chapter Eight
Sorgner’s work is not masked and one of the great strengths of

Sorgner’s work is this very straightforward quality. Hence and from the
start, Sorgner reminds us that
When I first became familiar with the transhumanist movement, I
immediately thought that there were many fundamental similarities
between transhumanism and Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially
concerning the concept of the posthuman and that of Nietzsche’s
overhuman.22
But, as Sorgner reflects, apparently with some surprise: a good many

transhumanists seem anxious to refuse this coordination. In addition,
Jürgen Habermas, opposing the transhumanist movement, concurs with
Sorgner’s reading, in an inverse direction,23 such that Habermas refuses in
his own account what Sorgner embraces in his. Now, it seems to me, one
can hardly be surprised at this, for Habermas had long opposed Nietzsche
in a number of other respects.24 Thus, and this has changed the landscape
and indeed the intrinsically critical force of critical theory, Habermas
differs from the perspective of either an Adorno or a Horkheimer or even a
Marcuse, all of whom had more specifically critical tolerance for
Nietzsche’s own brand of critical thinking. It should, but it does not, go
without saying that what Anglo-American philosophers (analytic, broadly
conceived, that is: mainstream philosophy) call “critical thinking”
(meaning thinking that takes an avowedly pro-science perspective) has
nothing in common with either Nietzsche or classical critical theory
though it does have some elements in common with Habermas.
Sorgner seeks to coordinate Nietzsche and transhumanism point for
point, in part by citing Nick Boström’s contention that just as
transhumanists tend to “view human nature as a work-in-progress,”25
Nietzsche likewise adheres to “a dynamic will-to-power metaphysics
which applies to human and all other beings, and which implies that all
things are permanently undergoing some change.”26 So far, so good, one
might say. Yet the argumentative parallel in its further projection turns out
to cause trouble for Sorgner. Hence and beyond what he calls “ontological
dynamics,”27 Sorgner locates additional parallels on the level of values, the
same level that is important for Boström as for his own part, Boström
argues for a normative appreciation of the transhuman. For Boström, this
is related to the demarcation of risk analysis that appeals to the speculative
projections critical for research of this kind quite independently of
anything so trivially ontic as actual research about actual options. Too
empirical, one imagines and this, so it may be argued, is the arch nature of
futurology. In his own discussion, Sorgner begins, rightly I believe, by
emphasizing both Nietzsche’s critique of religion and morality in addition

to underscoring Nietzsche’s regard for science and scientific thinking.
As Sorgner argues, Nietzsche can be aligned with those who favor
what transhumanists call “human enhancements” to the extent that “human
beings strive for power” and, so Sorgner continues to make what turns out
to be his crucial argumentative point: “If you will power, then it is in your
interest to enhance yourself.”28 For Sorgner, this point can be taken as
supporting the case that Nietzsche could well have been said to
have been in favour of genetic engineering, even though he mainly stresses
the importance of education for the occurrence of the evolutionary step
towards the overhuman. If genetic engineering, or liberal eugenics, can
actually be seen as a special type of education, which is what
transhumanists seem to hold, then it is possible that this position would
have been held by Nietzsche, too, as education played a significant role in
his ethics. He affirmed science, and he was in favour of enhancement, and
the bringing about of the overhuman.29
Thus we may reconstruct Sorgner’s (and not only Sorgner’s) chained

conventionality here: education = evolution = genetic engineering, noting
to be sure that both education and genetic evolution are here regarded as
kinds of proactive ‘evolution.’ Hence and just as Boström argues that we
should seek to broaden ourselves, Sorgner similarly seeks to argue that this
same broadening corresponds to just what Nietzsche meant by self-
overcoming. For Sorgner,
Higher humans wish to permanently overcome themselves, to become
stronger in the various aspects which can get developed in a human being,
so that finally the overhuman can come into existence. In transhumanist
thought, Nietzsche’s overhuman is being referred to as “posthuman.”30
Patently, Sorgner distinguishes Nietzsche’s post-human from other

transhumanist definitions of the posthuman in order to demonstrate that
Nietzsche’s Übermensch or overhuman is the posthuman.31 In every case,
so Sorgner contends, Nietzsche would have been in favor of enhancement
and Sorgner thinks it plausible to suppose that (and at this would be at the
very least) Nietzsche believed in a certain transhumanist possibility
corresponding in turn to his teaching of the overhuman.
Sorgner goes further in this regard by noting that where the
transhumanists fail to provide a basis for their teaching of the transhuman,
Nietzsche does provide such a basis, with the consequence that on
Sorgner’s reading just this fundament explains the “relevance of the
overhuman for his philosophy. The overhuman may even be the ultimate
108 Chapter Eight
foundation for his Worldview.”32 This foundational and systematic

advantage permits Sorgner to offer the coordinate argument that to the
extent that the “overhuman represents the meaning of the earth,” it can
only be “in the interest of higher humans to permanently overcome
themselves.”33 Key for Sorgner is the focus not on the afterlife, which
Sorgner here conceives in a fairly traditionally enlightened parallel or
coordination with a focus on science rather than and by contrast with
traditional religion, but on meaning instead.
And yet, as we have noted, Sorgner chooses not to take his point of
departure by inquiring into the reasons Boström and Habermas in addition
to others including, albeit for different reasons, the musically and
creatively content-concerned Jaron Lanier34 — all of whom do tend to
seek to keep Nietzsche at a distance. Indeed: many in the current context
of cybernetics-cum-cyborg lifestyle exclude any and all references to
Nietzsche, not least perhaps because such references inevitably involve a
number of historical and historicist issues. These are observations on his
opponents not eternal truths and one might think that Sorgner would first
offer at least a preliminary reflection, if not on Boström (whom he does
consider) or Lanier (whom Sorgner does not consider, just as Sorgner also
excludes reflection on Peter Sloterdijk and Günther Anders, both of whom
I already mentioned and to whom I return below) then perhaps, at the very
least, on the reasons Habermas advances for finding it necessary to argue
contra the transhumanist movement and indeed regarding Habermas’s
reasons for assimilating Nietzsche to the same movement.
I am not here advocating the Habermasian side per se. But I am
suggesting that it is essential to advert to Habermas’s constellation of
arguments here as these are also specific to a set of concerns that had
already in another more controversial and related context pitted Habermas
contra Sloterdijk’s infamous Elmau lecture, Rules for the Human Zoo.35
Here the obvious merits attention, and not just because what one takes to
be “obvious” is often less well known than one supposes. For Habermas’s
opposition to Nietzsche and a range of other thinkers in a broad swath
tends to include Martin Heidegger but also Hans-Georg Gadamer and
Jacques Derrida, and latterly Sloterdijk, and if Sorgner is not careful here,
Sorgner himself (not that this is not a great set of companions in thought).
For his own part, Sloterdijk36 seems concordant with Sorgner, to the
extent that Sloterdijk recommends that we read otherwise esoteric
cybernetic theorists like Gotthard Günther, notably his 1963 book, The
Consciousness of Machines: A Metaphysics of Cybernetics.37 Günther
himself, a German-American systems thinker,38 echoes an audaciously
technological optimism which we may recognize as sympathetic to
Sorgner’s transhumanism. As Sloterdijk explains it, we find in Günther’s

work
the concept of a “formless matter” [that] embodies … all that’s been
thought between Hegel and Turing on the relation of “things” to “mind.” It
tests out a trivalent—or multivalent—logic that’s so potent it could rid us
of the impotent, brutal binarism of the mind/thing, subject/object,
idea/matter type…39
I should add that it matters here that Sloterdijk also recommends the
cybernetician, in today’s terms, we should say the theoretical neuroscientist,
Warren McCulloch, who was “junior,” as Sloterdijk reminds us, helping
us keep our time consciousness here, to Norbert Weiner.40 Indeed, there is
nothing like cybernetics and systems theory and its allure has animated the
military industrial world, especially but not only in the United States.
Sorgner could do worse than to turn to Sloterdijk’s Critique of Cynical
Reason, especially the bits at the end, where Sloterdijk is able to argue that
futurists like Toffler and McLuhan (again, not unlike Kurzweil as noted
above),41 are for their own futuristic part surprisingly dependent upon an
earlier generation of thinkers, not so much cold war but pre-World War (II
& I) thinkers, like Friedrich Dessauer, but also Walter Rathaus, and Adrien
Turel in a decidedly uncanny context that was the crucible for the
particular fascism that grew out of the Weimar Republic on Sloterdijk’s
account.
If we add these bits of context to the transhumanist debate, Habermas
and his opposition to Nietzsche comes into rather better focus.
Hence it is not too surprising that some will find it hard not to think of
Ray Kurzweil’s (or should one not say, at least to respect the interest of
copyright, Vinge’s/Ulam’s/von Neumann’s?) “technological singularity”
or what I already opted to name, via Star Trek, the machine-human mind-
meld, when Sloterdijk reflects upon his Rules for the Human Zoo noting
that
its strong epistemological linkage between concepts like ‘Dionysian
materialism’ and ‘vitalism,’ a linkage made even more interesting by the
fact that the life sciences and life technics have just passed into a new
phase of their development.42
Beyond the debate internal to the politics of German public

intellectuals, the theme for Sloterdijk is anthropotechnics: the technique of
the manufacture of humanity, and it is not a German but a global concern:
Nietzsche and Plato have invited themselves to the ‘symposium’ to
comment on the ideas of Heidegger, to put forward their opinions on the
110 Chapter Eight
drama played out in the clearing. The title of this drama?

Anthropotechnics or: How human beings produce themselves. And
suddenly everyone wants to be invited, everyone — dramatically — wants
to be part of the debate, to take part in it.43
Sloterdijk’s point is increasingly relevant and the message of

Kurzweil’s vision of the ‘technological singularity’ as it has been
embraced by (at least some elements of) popular culture, when it is not the
message of the genome project or stem cells, is indeed anthropotechnics,
which is all about not becoming the one you are but, and to be sure
becoming the one you wish you were, the one you ‘should have’ been all
along.
Call this the Harry Potter effect, or everyone is a boy wizard, quidditch
player, best in sports, all secret greatness and unfair discrimination, at
least, in the germ, at least until after the singularity: in just the way that it
may be argued that we have been transhuman all the while we have, in
Bruno Latour’s words “never been modern,”44 it can and has repeatedly
been claimed that everything will be perfect after the revolution. For
Marx, this was the revolution he famously failed to locate rightly, not in
his industrial England or even in his Germany but and however
disastrously and unsustainably where it did change the world in Russia and
(still ongoing) in a China that is today increasingly indistinguishable from
a capitalist regime (just ask the international financier Maurice Strong or
for the same answer from a different source, ask Žižek). Apart from Marx,
and closer to home, the “revolution” that was promised to change
everything, at least when I was eleven going on twelve, was a socio-
cultural, leftist revolution, that was the revolution of the 1968 generation
as it played itself into nothing but the idols of the market: lots of music,
drugs, distractions of sex and the compulsion to announce one’s erotic
orientation to the world. So we ask, which revolution? The technological
revolution, of course. And who announces this but those who market the
same? The technological singularity is suspiciously not unlike a Coke
commercial. We are the world.
Technology, qua transhumanist conventionality, has an ever growing
appeal, more than the vision of the robotics of the Asimovian past, and this
may be, perhaps, traced to certain stubborn limitations in cognate fields.
Practically minded as I am, I like to suppose that this may be because the
biological business of genetic engineering, retro-fitting genes, and such
like, has not been going as well as anticipated, perhaps owing to the pesky
detail that genes work badly on the model of add-a-gene-and-stir varieties
of genetic engineering but also that cloning adult organisms seems to
produce young organisms that senesce and die markedly faster than young
organisms usually do, be they sheep or mice or Korean puppies for the
clone-your-Shi-Tzu market (with all the future woe this betides for the
ethically catastrophic dog cloning commercial enterprise, speaking not of
whether one should but of the consequences for those who do, quite apart
from the dozens and dozens of dogs killed to ‘manufacture’ this one quasi-
identical dog — but what is identity? the philosophers ask). Hence with all
the troubles facing hard science, soft science, the science of clouds and
apps that is the stuff of the coming technological rapture, vague as it is,
may promise more success. Can’t get Apple and IBM to play right? Make
a virtual machine, dual boot it (at least for the minority still capable of
doing that these days): Apple and IBM still won’t play right but you won’t
know it.45 Or maybe, owing to our own contouring of our own
consciousness to the limits and constraints of the digital interface, be it
that of email or of gaming or of the increasingly ubiquitous social
networking (Facebook now appeals to the young, and the old and
everyone in between, despite the social horror that it is for teens to ‘friend’
their parents), we increasingly find the flatness of computer-enhanced
experience exactly as charming as its purveyors claim. Go Pokémon.
Here we note the very specific (and very popularly Nietzschean)
“faith” in science as we began by discussing this faith and the industrial,
corporate, capitalist technology that has, if we read Sloterdijk aright, been
with us since the interregnum between the two wars. But this is again and
also to say that such a vision cannot but be fascist through and through.
All this gives us is another reason to ‘prepare’ for the coming singularity.
But that may be less than or at least other than anticipated. And as with
other religious raptures, one does not expect to have a choice. And one
thinks this no matter how underwhelming the experience turns out to be in
actual experience.
Like Conrad,46 the object of fan-girl affection in a bygone musical, we
“love” our iPhones — O yes we do. Here what matters is not affect as
much as brand loyalty — O Conrad, we’ll be true. Even with all its
limitations, we are happy to say: O iPhone, we love you.47
Along with the idealized expectation of technological rapture goes a
vision of technological oversimplification that is not quite a result of our
being closer and closer to a future we once imagined. In other words, it is
significant that talk of 2045 was once upon a time talk of unimaginably
distant era, as was talk of 2012. Or 1998 — which was indeed and to be
sure, and this matters immensely, the projected future for the 1968
American television series Lost in Space.
112 Chapter Eight
To see this it is worth thinking a bit about Aubrey de Grey, a software

developer or programmer who, having learnt sufficient biology for the
purpose,48 has been arguing that we can resist aging if we avoid its causes,
to wit the oxidation of cells and the build-up of waste products in those
same cells. Having determined that it is the mitochondria that develop
problems or ‘damage’ by getting gunked-up (or losing ‘efficiency’), de
Grey proposes that we send in little nanobots to clean them out (or indeed,
as de Grey also imagines, as so many mechanical replacements). What de
Grey has in mind is close to the miniaturized spaceships of Fantastic
Voyage,49 the 1966 film of Raquel Welch’s travels on a microscopic level,
which film title just happens to accord with one of Kurzweil’s first books
for his ventures into technological rapture. Grey is vague on the details of
designing and implementing such a nanobot brigade.
De Grey not only runs an anti-aging foundation (and one supposes that
he has all manner of highly motivated and well-heeled investors backing
him) but also has an appointment on the faculty of Ray Kurzweil’s
Singularity University).50 For it turns out that it is less about biology than
technology and marketing, precisely in the way we relate to technology as
those who have, as fully vested heirs of a cargo cult, grown up with
devices we know how to use from electric appliances, toilets (to be
Illichian here),51 televisions and computers, cell-phones and coffee-
makers, automobiles and airplane travel, but could not ourselves fabricate
if our lives depended on it (this is the ominous subtext of the future-as-
desert film genre, like Road Warrior or Mad Max). Assuming as we do
that someone else makes the tool, or writes the code for our app idea, i.e.,
assuming that some factory actually deploys the technology, the gadgets
are what it is all about.
Thus critics object that, like Kurzweil, de Grey does not seem to mind
too much that the technology supposed by the theorizing (this would be de
Grey’s theorizing) or futuristic speculation (this would be Kurzweil
picking up after Walt Disney left off and telling us what life will be like in
2025 or 2045) does not ‘exist’ as yet. Thus these are cheap ontic
objections. All that, so we suppose, like space flight and jetpacks will
come. And as if on cue, Virgin Airlines is currently selling tickets for
space flight for civilians (we are still waiting for the jetpacks). As iPhone
commercials insist on proclaiming, always without needing to ask what we
might have in mind (doesn’t matter): there’s an app for that (or we just
know there will be).
Sorgner as Educator: Transhumanism as the New

‘Future’ of our Educational Institutions
Sorgner seems to assume this same chirpily upbeat, technological
focus: the transhuman is the human plus (whatever) technological
enhancement. As a specific, Sorger attends to the issue of Nietzsche and
evolution, an issue that is itself far from straightforward (most readings of
Nietzsche and evolution depend upon a fairly limited understanding of
both Darwin and Nietzsche’s own understanding of Darwin).52
We can hardly raise all the relevant questions that remain to be
explored on the (very, very) complicated theme of Nietzsche and Darwin,
but the key issue seems to be the (may we say mildly Lamarkian?) parallel
Sorgner constructs between education and genetic enhancement. As
Sorgner contends, education and genetic enhancement are “structurally
analogous procedures.”53
But, Lamarck to one side, it is worth asking what Sorgner means by
“education”? Does Sorgner understand this in the traditional sense of
Bildung or as what counts for the French as formation and where we may
speak of either in terms of what Nietzsche also called getting oneself a
culture, that is: personal and intellectual cultivation?
Or and now apart from these traditional meanings, will an “education”
correspond to nothing more than the business (emphasis on the economic
or cost-based affair) of acquiring and conferring, i.e., obtaining and selling
degrees and certificates — indeed and just as Sorgner suggests, all like
such modules, courses, degrees, parallel to many add-ons and upgrades,
like iPhone or android apps and the enormous market that there is for cell-
phone accessories which same pale in comparison to the market for iPad
accessories, Apple and otherwise? And yet, it may be that this surface
parallel calls for a bit more reflection, especially with regard to Nietzsche
who himself reflected quite a bit on educational institutions as well as the
idea of education — even if we begin with his very paradoxical, very
provocative claim: “There are no educators” [Es gibt keine Erzieher] (HH
II, The Wanderer and his Shadow § 267).
What is certain is that many of us even within the academy do tend to
suppose that education is just and only the acquisition of such degrees,
especially at the graduate but also at the undergraduate level, and
especially as evident in the current debate in England and mainland
Europe on the virtues of the privatization of the university — a debate
which manages to overlook any review of the actual practice of the same
as this can be found in the US.54 No need for factual feedback to sully our
models, as Orrin Pilkey, a very practical or applied or hands-on coastal
114 Chapter Eight
scientist has argued with stunning consequentiality when it comes to beach

erosion and the public costs of “maintaining” the same and with very
specific meteorological applicability to the debates on global warming.55
I.e., no empiricism, please: we’re idealists.
Nietzsche’s own reflections on what is needed for an “education” as
such are quite formidable — even as his own education was an
extraordinary one. Thus we betray something of the limitations of our own
formation whenever we as scholars or commentators find ourselves
insisting that Nietzsche took or borrowed his ideas from other thinkers —
ranging from Pascal and Spinoza or else Spir and Lange or Emerson, or
Gerber, or Stirner or ultimately and of course, from Wagner himself
(especially for the Wagnerians for whom no limit to the master’s own
cultural prowess can be imagined). I am not saying that Nietzsche was not
familiar with these thinkers: I am saying that an education is this
familiarity and much, much more. Thus although it is amusing to note that
the identity of the supposed origination of (the so-called ‘sources’ for)
Nietzsche’s ideas just happens to change in the scholarly literature over
time (and not less with the mood and, nota bene!, educational formation of
his commentators), it is also noteworthy that the very same set of
assumptions applies (negatively speaking) for those who are fond of
insisting that Nietzsche could never have read Kant (just to pick one
example, contentious given the influence of Kant on the 19th century, an
influence we fail to see in the 20th as in the 21st century, at least so far).
The idea that an education, the getting of or the having of one, is a
simple affair, and thus that the parallel idea of an upgrade to the more-
than-human, that is now: the trans-human, would simply be like taking a
course or like signing up for an instructive module, supposes that one
pretend (as transhumanists do like to pretend) that one can/should set aside
questions of cultural inequalities, differences in wealth, “class” differences
and so on. In this (an sich inherently optimistic when it is not calculating
when it is not deliberately mendacious) regard, the transhumanist
movement may be revealed as a humanism, here using the term as Jean-
Paul Sartre once spoke of Existentialism as a Humanism.56 Hence and at
least in principle, human enhancement may be regarded, if only for the
sake of argument, as corresponding to “enhancement for all,” like “micro-
chips for all,” or “airport security searches for all.”
Ultimately, as Leibniz might help to remind us, such a broad extension
would lead to a society not of “enhanced” but and much rather of leveled
or flattened out humanity. Nor is this all-too surprising where the ideal of
humanism in question mirrors contemporary consumer society, viewed
from the corporate side of the equation. In the commercial world view of
the corporate mindset, everyone ought to have (that means ought to buy)
an iPhone, iPad, Mac computer/laptop/airbook, heck everyone should have
ALL the stuff in the Apple store, etc. Beyond iPads or iPhones (and for the
sake of argument, android smart phones running android or related
programs may be counted as iPhones we can also add in other desirable
items or array of items (flat screen tv, luxury car, new kitchen appliances,
‘smart’ houses — although these last, long insisted upon by technology
enthusiasts for the last half century under a variety of names, have yet to
catch on… and so on).
Sorgner argues that Nietzsche would back this enhanced or
“accessory” life, as the transhumanist life for all and sundry. But,
Nietzsche also sidesteps this same advocacy. Hence although I believe that
we may read Nietzsche as advocating Sorgner’s transhumanism when
Nietzsche writes of a lesson that Nietzsche argues is one that may be
drawn from the mirror of nature — “the only thing that matters is the
superior individual exemplar, the more unusual, more powerful, more
complex, more fruitful exemplar,” (SE §6) — as this is a point Nietzsche
seems to intensify, as virtually transhumanist as Sorgner or anyone
pleases, Nietzsche continues to emphasize that “the goal of any species’
evolution is the point at which it reaches its limit and begins the transition
to a higher species.” (Ibid.)
The problem here is the problem with any of Nietzsche’s texts: like
Proteus, Nietzsche’s words turn in our hands. Thus Nietzsche turns,
emphasizing with respect to that same evolution that “its goal is precisely
those seemingly scattered and random existences that arise here and there
under favorable conditions.” (Ibid.) The point to be taken is posed against,
as Nietzsche puts it at this juncture: “Mr. Commonman.” (Ibid.)
What is at issue for what we might regard as Nietzsche’s own brand of
transhumanism, if we may so speak of the self-overcoming that is the
transition to the overhuman, the post-human, is not only that it is no kind
of utilitarianism but also that it is also no kind of humanism, other than
that served, this would be nothing other than Nietzsche’s “future
humaneness” (GS §337), this would be what I have elsewhere described
and analyzed as the “bravest democratic fugue”57 ever written, by
Nietzsche or anyone else (forgive me, Wagnerians of the world). Thus I
argue that Nietzsche’s “genius of the heart” (BGE §295) communicates an
uncanny, shattering, ultimately unsettling, disquieting and quieting
“fanfare” for the common man. To this extent, the genius Nietzsche’s pied
piper comes to teach is not the transmogrified, new and improved
humanism of transhumanism but and much rather and this is related to his
Zarathustrian teaching of the over-human, beyond the self-satisfactions of
116 Chapter Eight
the self (this is the reference to Lucian’s parodic hyperanthropos) and just
to the extent that such a post-humanism turns out to be all about going
beyond oneself. That anti-self-satisfied dimension is the heart of, the art of
acquiring nothing less than a culture in place of the self-absorptions of the
ego, the dear little self. But this is to say that it is not a religious, Judeo-
Christian kind of altruism, redeemable in trade for more or longer life,
even unto infinity and it is not a humanism. Hence Nietzsche excludes the
kind of a transhumanism Sorgner speaks of, because and qua
“enhancement,” transhumanism is not at all about self-overcoming but is
very much about self-preservation, self-assertion, self-advancement.
As an overcoming of rather than an enhancing of the human (or
perhaps better said, of the all-too-human), the meaning of Nietzsche’s
over-human turns out to be the meaning not of the human but of the earth.
In part, this is the essence of, this is the meaning of Pindar’s word to the
seldom-encountered, to the rare as Nietzsche quotes this throughout his
own life: become the one you are. In Nietzsche’s early meditation on
Schopenhauer as Educator, as referred to above, Nietzsche explains the
point to our Mr. Commonman by asking him to reflect on how his life can
have meaning or value at all only to answer in what seems to be Sorgner’s
spirit, appealing to a perfectly upgradable, trans-humanist project: “Surely
only by living for the benefit of the rarest and most valuable exemplars,
not for the benefit of the majority, that is, for the benefit of those who,
taken as individuals, are the least valuable species.” (SE §6)
The implicit elitism here cannot but alienate many of Nietzsche’s
readers. Nor is this particular kind of elitism incidental: for Nietzsche
insists on it again and again. Indeed his project from the start to the end of
his creative life was nothing other than the production of a higher culture
in broad terms and on the individual level of genius, whereby Nietzsche
supposed the first to require the second, i.e., that the restoration on the
level of culture of a once and yet higher culture called for that same rare
genius. And Nietzsche took care to emphasize and to reflect upon the
significance of that same rarity. For Nietzsche, and this is perhaps his
greatest distance from the transhumanist movement, this particular rarity
will not be an upgrade money can buy. The object of such design, on
Nietzsche’s account, are the values themselves as Nietzsche regarded such
values, empirically enough, as values of middle-rank: mediocrity.
Here related to elitism would seem to be the ‘spectre’ which we may
also and very politely call “the” problem of eugenics.58 But, as Sorgner
emphasizes (and as Boström also argues)59 it won’t be Nazi eugenics, but
and much rather (but how different this is?) a liberal eugenics that one
might support. The difference is that Boström is anxious to limit
associations with Nietzsche in order to lend coherence to a rhetorical

assertion that transhuman value judgments would not necessarily go along
with the spectacle of posthumans in contest with humans, and thereby
suggesting that negative scenarios would be unlikely and hence need not
be unduly feared. Thus Sorgner could say that there is nothing problematic
in comparing one scholar’s masters from Cambridge with his masters from
Durham, or another scholar’s Oxford PhD with one from Jena. Except, of
course for an employer in the all-too status conscious world of university
philosophy. This is just what Bourdieu called cultural capital and it can be
argued that such differences make no real difference (this egalitarian
presumption was what Bourdieu began with, was not, as it turned out,
vindicated by Bourdieu’s research).60 Nor is it an accident that the right
kind of educational pedigree confers what Bourdieu calls “cultural
nobility.” This is the Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge effect.61
Thus the conviction that it would not matter too much if some had
transhuman upgrades and some did not, is like the conviction that it does
not matter that one person has a degree from wherever university and
another person has a degree from the same Harvard that was certainly if
perhaps only serendipitously happy to publish Bourdieu’s Distinction.
Thus the distinction between Nazi eugenics and liberal eugenics surely
matters in some sense but how would that difference make a difference to
those who might be considered ‘merely’ human as opposed to the new
transhuman, and assuming the progress we already know from consumer
models for such things, those considered no more than the original
transhuman versus the latest model of the same. I am talking about the
putative subhuman, say, by comparison with the putative overhuman. This
is the original iPhone vs. the currently current model, iPhone 6S or and
indeed and this would be my point vs. the awaited iPhone SE (or X or
whatever) version, etc.
Here it is relevant to note that in the literature, rather like the not-quite-
really-there-yet qualities of post-op transmen and transwomen, the
transhuman is the transitional human: on the way to a perfect model that
the marketing department, again very like the iPhone, Kurzweil’s favorite
example for being (already) technologically enhanced, already has in
planning, but has yet to “release.” The tension this produces is fantastic
because it is of a piece with marketing. One wants the newest iPhone, with
just those features it happens to have; at the same time one wants to wait
for the next iPhone, because there is no way to know, with perfect
certainty, for sure, for sure, if the newest gadget has all the promised
qualities advertised as desirable, qualities the one around the corner might
have. There are upgrades and then there are upgrades and the consumer
118 Chapter Eight
has learned that there is no difference in cost only in release time: all new
phone versions are the same, cost-wise, on balance, what differs is the
quality of the upgrade between differing instaurations.62
Withal, it takes Sorgner nine good steps in order to pose the financial
(in a Marxian framework this is also a “class”) question. I have already
observed that this question always attends the supposed coming
technological singularity. Indeed, while one may argue that if the supposed
ideal behind the transhumanist movement is to create a better world for
all,63 anything that involves technology also involves not randomness and
not luck so much as money.
This is, of course, the old story of those who have and those who have
not. This too would fit, rather nicely, Sorgner’s point with respect to the
structural analogies to be had between education and genetic enhancement.
And in every version of the world as we know it, present and past, only
those with class privilege (call this money, call this being part of the right
group of people) have access to the ultimate advantages of education. Thus
it is not for nothing that the late (and not accidently saintly) Ivan Illich
took care to remind us of what most academics, inured to the school
system as they are, never point out: school educates us to have very
specific, i.e., very elite tastes in music, food, travel, consumption.64 Hence,
following Sorgner’s parallel between education and transhumanism for the
sake of argument here, in the transhumanist world as Sorgner envisions it
along with Kurzweil and de Grey as the world to come (this would be the
post BP old-spill world to go with the ongoing old [but not reported]
coupled with the new [but not reported] spills or leaks in the Gulf of
Mexico, post-earthquake world in Japan, here with the same caveats, and
the same lack of news reports on the same ongoing consequences of
radiation fallout), in this new world, only those with ample resources
(financial and otherwise) will have access to transhuman enhancements,
just as only those with access to advanced medical care can afford the
implants that can keep a failing heart going — and this is true today as
well and on any level of technology, be it a heart transplant, a pacemaker
or even a shunt. Add to that the cost of those life-style changes (drugs,
foodstuffs, leisure or care) required in order to provide the necessary
supports needed for life with a heart transplant, pacemaker, etc. And now
we are back to the cost of the future transhuman via xenotransplants to be
harvested from the pig-human chimeras now in production for those with
means.
It is popular to advert to the most empirically (if one wishes to
consider the facts) disproven vision of economics, the economic ideal that
nevertheless and still dominates most markets, namely the idea that
capitalism advances culture, that enhancing the wealth of the wealthy, that
enhancing the well-being of the wealthy is ‘somehow’ in the interest of
everyone. But as Nietzsche points out of the fantasy of an eternal reward,
one has to wait a long time for the reward. Call it trickle-down economics,
or call it whatever you like, this is the economics of the scratch-card
lottery and it is a fantasy.
Nevertheless and beyond such phantasms as palliative stories favored
by the wealthy and by those who wish to be like them, there is a key
difference between the ideal of education Sorgner adduces and access to
the kind of thing that has investors speculating on ‘leadership’ (always
another word for corporate interests) in Kurzweil’s Singularity University.65
For education can be had, education does exist, and there are better and
worse articulations of the same and it is also true that some people have a
better education than others not just because of their own aptness, their
intrinsic ability but and just because their training was itself the result of
greater reflection, care, design, paideia.66 As Nietzsche reminds us from
the very start of his Schopenhauer as Educator, ultimately the individual
is responsible. But what Nietzsche means by an education is not what the
university educator means by it and it is not is not on at either Singularity
University or Harvard.67
As Al Lingis argues, as Ivan Illich had argued before him, the sick
individual must eschew the position of patient: there is a moral imperative
to health, i.e., one must take responsibility for one’s own health. In the
same way, one must take responsibility for and that is to say one must
choose or select, elect or design one’s own education, one’s own
educators.68 And it is this that Nietzsche means when he says as already
cited: “there are no educators.”
In every case, as Nietzsche already saw in his own reflections on what
he called very specifically “The Future of our Educational Institutions,”
the task of getting oneself an education, getting oneself an educator, falls
to the individual. Thus if we cannot answer Illich’s charges that our ideal
of education so far from ‘enhancing’ society and so far from “enhancing”
the individual within that society (this is Sorgner’s model) perpetuates a
particular and not accidentally capitalist structure, inculcating (as Illich
emphasized and as Adorno would emphasize and as Marcuse would
emphasize) the very same point Nietzsche had in mind with his own
utterly non-socialist challenge to Mr. Commonman, what we can note is
that so very far from culture, we find only identical consumer tastes for
what are only identical consumer goods in a world of limited resources, a
world already set to serve the profit of increasingly few. Education, to
paraphrase Nietzsche, likewise.
120 Chapter Eight
But this more critical point, though I think it needs to be made, is less
significant than the insight I share, I think, with Illich and with Sorgner:
there is the formation of skill or training and this can, as Sorgner rightly
argues, avail us nothing less remarkable than what Nietzsche calls a
second nature. Thereby the individual is empowered to climb, as Nietzsche
argues, up to his or her higher, second self by means of these, one’s
educators.69
This second self might count as the transhuman but this is not usually
what we mean by it. And Kurzweil, like most rich men, simply would
rather not give up the riches of his life, not now, not ever. The
technological singularity is all about not dying. Transhumanism is about
not dying. Hence when we argue on behalf of transhumanism we argue as
very dedicated devotees of a cargo cult that has yet to deliver the goods —
which is why it is a cult. Just because, as the old New York City Jewish
joke (Woody Allen tells this joke in Hannah and Her Sisters) argues on
behalf of the neurosis of a relative who thinks he is a chicken: “we need
the eggs.” We need, we want what transhumanism promises. This cargo
cult faith goes together with a conviction that that the only thing that holds
science back from this windfall of technological add-ons and upgrades is
some ethical aversion to, say, stem cell research, so we argue for the
“value” of transhumanism, just to quell such objections.70
And yet and at the current time, the vaunted enhancements of
transhumanism are still so many motes in the eye of a technological
demon yet to be born. And by fixing our sights on these possibilities, these
potential benefits, these promised promises, we overlook the more urgent
problems all around us and we pass over the experience that is or should
be common to us, the experience of technologies gone wrong, of
unanticipated side-effects of the kind one can never anticipate apart from
the instruction of practice.
What fascinates us here is pure promise, sheer potential. Although at
the moment of this writing, we can do none of this, we are preoccupied
with the sheer idea of transhumanism: we are so tired of the merely
human, the human, all too human that we want transhumanism. And
Nietzsche must be its prophet. But this is not new, as Bostrom reminds us,
tracing the idea and the ideal back to Gilgamesh and his search for a cure
for his friend Enkidu, like Kurzweil’s putative search for what would have
cured, not himself, but his father. Thus we have been preocuuped with the
idea of creating ourselves, in our own image, for centuries, for millennia,
recall Talos, the man of bronze, or else the Golem, the being made from
clay, as Genesis tells us we are made in the image of deity, or else and as
we confidently read Plato’s noble lie, we imagine ourselves secretly
formed in our core on the basis of essence of gold of silver of brass.

Today, perhaps we think of a combination of plastic and metal, opting for
the simulacrum of the human or dispense with all of that for the dream
consciousness that would be digitally enhanced humanity, now reduced to
nothing but digital reverberations: coded humanity, the program, the
circuit, the network.
For as long as we have been a conversation on this question of being
human, our thoughts are there in being ourselves our own originators. So
what, we say, that we are not nearly so near to this consummation as all
our intellectual efforts on this theme might make us suppose? Are we not
already transhuman because, after all, some of us see by means of contact
lenses? Are we not, all of us, already transhuman because a chip
embedded in one paralyzed woman’s brain functions to allow the most
minimal of effects? Intriguingly we argue this one-way influence. Do such
achievements count as an evolution to a ‘higher’ (because techno-enhanced)
species? Are we not already transhuman because of pacemakers, artificial
limbs and joints, crutches and wheelchairs?
We do make such claims, note only the way we talk about the
wounded American soldiers and contractors back from Iraq and back from
Afghanistan. Beyond these our ongoing US wars, each one of which we
may hope is only temporary but each one of which has since proven itself
to be astonishingly durable, we also have long practice making trans-
animals and we do this for every peaceful or market-driven reason—which
does not mean that it is not, as Nietzsche would say, thoroughly soaked in
blood, and for long time. We breed and raise animals in order to sell them
more efficiently but also in order to experiment on them trying out
medical, therapeutic uses for animal parts (this will also be a kind of
transhumanism) all already in place for diabetics and heart surgery, all
with little written about this, all with as little supervision as possible (and
biological scientists treat the concerns of the public as so much
interference, as anti-science, and thus devote pages of peer-reviewed
articles to reviewing means that might be deployed to ‘educate’ the public
such that it would not oppose their expert-sanctioned policies of species
extirpation, as this serves the advantages of exploiting animal parts),71
sacrificed to join flesh and machine. And then there is the fact that we are
already transhuman inasmuch as we eat cloned beef in addition to beef
laced with antibiotics and steroids to permit quick growth, for a quick sale
and the abysmal everyday holocaust that is the path to industrial scale
slaughter. We are what we eat. With regard to bodyparts — organic
transplants or technological replacements — we note that obstacles seem
to remain, but the technology seems likely to be solved, and in case not,
122 Chapter Eight
we hope to overcome the immune limitations we currently face by

sidestepping the same: this is the allure of stem-cell technology just in that
such technology promises to allow us to do the straightforward transplants
that we currently cannot manage without staggering requirements for
immune-suppressors. So too, the point of cloning: not to reproduce Fluffy
(once again, the cloned Fluffy II never looks like the original Fluffy save
by the old fashioned breeder’s means of taking the best of a horrifying
number of clones [multiple pregnancies/whelps] coupled with desire and a
pet owner’s memory deficits)72 and much rather to “grow” bio-identical
body parts that might not look the same, but should, if we are lucky,
permit us to switch out body parts. (And only science fiction horror
enthusiasts, in fiction and film, bother to reflect on the life of the clone that
happens to bear those replacement parts for us.)
We need the transhuman just because the transhuman would have, so
we imagine, replaceable, up-gradeable parts. This is our cargo-cult of life
and death and like the man who visits a psychiatrist on behalf of his
brother in Woody Allen’s joke, we need, we want the eggs.
We want to be anything but human. We want, as Günther Anders
already argued in his 1956 The Obsolesence of Humanity, to overcome our
“promethean shame” and to be like our precisely manufactured objects in
all their precision, all their durability, all their replaceability. We wish to
be objects with exchangeable parts, infinitely upgradable, as science
fiction robot stories have long explored these possibilities. Bad heart? Get
a replacement. Bad eyes, replace them with optical sensors, see the way
Robocop sees — i.e., in the dark, through walls, complete with grids and
autofocus—upgrade to Cyborg vision. Bad spirit, that is to say, afflicted
with the ‘disease’ du jour, namely “depression”?73 There are a bunch of
pills to help with that. But what we want, at least we think this, is to live
forever.
Nietzsche and Humanism

I have said that Nietzsche’s philosophy is not a humanism. Thus it is
not for nothing that he declares that humanity is something that should be
overcome. For Nietzsche, the human being is the ‘skin- disease’ of the
earth not because humanity is somehow an awful mistake of creation but
because in the human everything base tends to thrive while everything
higher tends to perish. This we may call Nietzsche’s Schopenhauerianism.
And as Nietzsche observes — contra both Hegel and Darwin, this is the
point of his reflection on evolution as noted above — it is not the strong
who survive or have dominion but the mediocre, the incurably, perpetually
mediocre. And what dominates in the run of the mill is the slavely moral,
which is the only morality that remains in any conflict. This is
Ressentiment as Nietzsche famously characterizes as the ascetic ideal. And
the ideal of the ascetic is fundamentally anti-life. The ascetic ideal, let us
recall, is anti-life in that it opposes everything that life involves and seeks
an improvement on that, even if, until now, it has supposed that it would
need to live, these are Nietzsche’s words, “a very long time” in order to
attain just that compensation, which has until now been promised after
death and in eternity.
Transhumanism is thus the latest and maybe not even the best (we
should probably wait for the next model) instantiation of the ascetic ideal.
One wants life but one does not want life as it is, with all its trouble and
mess, with all its banality and its limitations. Instead one wants video-
game style life, one wants movie or television life: without suffering,
without illness, without permanent death (save of the redeemable,
corrigible, resettable kind), and although one wants sex, one might well be
inclined to exclude birth, generating children on demand. Maybe.
If we become the machine we do not, as in the Christian promise of
reincarnation, get our obsolescence-prone bodies back? Have we not
thereby perfected the body, as the last men would say, blinking, as
Nietzsche tells us, as they say so. One might have taken that to mean that
the last men do not mean what they say, or that they do not understand or
that they merely guess at what they say. Maybe their blinking indicates
only a temporary loss of power in the electrical grid. What is certain is
that one motivation for the transhuman ideal would be found in its
capacity to take us beyond the need to recharge our devices, the need to
ensure that the power supply remains unbroken. And so we need Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, etc.
In all this, the ethical question takes a back seat to the practical.
Because we cannot quite effect the transhuman beyond the cheaper and
fairly ontic details of contact lenses already mentioned and replacement
knees and hips, we nonetheless spend an inordinate amount of time
debating the value of doing the things we cannot do at levels well beyond
our actual technical grasp. What matters is that and in our mind’s eye, we
are already there. In fact, we have been there in this mind’s eye since
before I was born.
No problem say those who argue, with Kurzweil at the forefront, that
the technological singularity is one that accelerates exponentially, taking
Moore’s Law not as a statistical generalization thus far and as applied to
chips but as if it were a cosmic law of nature applicable to everything
124 Chapter Eight
technological,74 whereby the apparent absence of signs of such consummate

final evolution is utterly consistent with the process.
But some worry that such transhuman elements as there will be will
not be likely to be the legacy of all. And with Nietzsche, or more
accurately with Ayn Rand, we might here ask why such elements should
be enhancements for all? If humans will power, they will advancement,
but if they will advancement, they will advancement as an advantage over
all others.
What is the point of being transhuman if you are not thereby advanced
to a position closer to the superior individual by contrast with others and
for the sake of which, as Nietzsche suggests, everything in you should be
directed?
As with education, transhumanism, just assuming all the obstacles
noted can be overcome, cannot but be for those of us who have the means
to assure our personal evolution, qua transhuman, and it is here that the
parallel to education as we know it, in terms of human excellences, as in
exemplars, as in habit, comes to an end. If one promises that, like cell
phones, costs for transhuman enhancements will ‘come down’ one
participates in the lies of the privileged. Nor does everyone have a cell
phone, nor has poverty been abolished even when it comes to bread and
water promises to be the battle of the current century at least. The
promised transformation of the human is not to be modeled on the
advantages of youth and health or the competitive edge of learning not so
much because there will likely be a financial bar to accessibility (although
there surely will be that) but far more because it is also designed to be a
departure from the lived, flesh and blood body. And that is nothing but the
ascetic ideal again: anti-life, again. As Nietzsche once remarked, no
sooner have we overcome the true world, than we find we have also
surpassed the apparent one.
Here Sorgner might do well to return to his initial engagement with
Boström. For Boström’s concerns, mapped out with all the care that befits
someone who took his degree at the London School of Economics (ah, a
cultural noble!) is what he calls, on the most physically metaphysical level
one might suppose, existential risk.75 And risk is the heart of the point of
existentialism as it mattered in its origins, not in Denmark but in Germany
and above all in France, with the thought of death and not only of god’s
abandonment all around one. I am speaking of Jaspers, of Bataille, Sartre,
Camus.
Thus we overcome both body and soul.
This is evidence of the animus philosophy (and this includes science)
seems to have contra life. Hence we recall Nietzsche’s arguments on
philosophy as anti-life. And here again I agree with Günther Anders, the
very heretical critical theorist who was also at the same time that he was
anti-Adorno, also an anti-Heideggerian (whereby, bien entendu, to be anti-
anything always also includes what is opposed).
Anders had argued that if we are ‘ashamed,’ appalled, by our humanity
it is because we find it deficient, and thus we mean to correct it.
Transhumanism would only be the latest word for what Anders diagnosed:
a precipitate conviction of a consumerist capitalist world-ethos. The
obsolescence of the human is part and parcel of the obsolescence of
everything else from music and film in the culture industry to the media
we ‘consume’ rather than ‘enjoy.’
For my part, I still hear Nietzsche’s reflection at the end of The Gay
Science section entitled, The Thought of Death. “It makes me happy that
men do not want at all to think the thought of death! I should like very
much to do something that would make the thought of life even a hundred
times more appealing to them.” (GS §278)
Thus when we later read (towards the end of this the first edition of the
Gay Science, Nietzsche will take until 1887 to finish the second and final
edition) of what Nietzsche speaks of as the “‘humaneness’ of the future,” I
take the idea of humaneness here very much as I believe Sorgner would, as
the happiness of a single feeling, not an immortality (the entire passage is
shot through with the need to think mortality somehow, like the sun at
evening) as such but exactly as one “whose horizon encompasses
thousands of years past and future,” all contained “in a single soul and a
single feeling, the happiness of a god, full of power and love, full of tears
and laughter.” (GS §337)
Shall we call this “enhancement”? Is this single soul with its singular
single feeling, denominated by Nietzsche as the “happiness of a god,” the
transhuman? I do not think that Sorgner would find it difficult to argue
this. And why not? Can we not imagine such a being as an avatar in any of
the computer games one can play for fun (one’s own pleasure) and profit
(of course and always and even when the game has our own players’ input,
someone else’s profit).76
For Nietzsche, joy is not in saving, keeping, or preserving life. Joy is
dispensation: the sun at evening as Nietzsche writes: blessing everything
with gold. The emphasis is not the gold we immediately seek to literalize.
Like Pindar who lyrically declared ‘water is best,’ the gold of the sun at
evening is gold on the water, as in the Venice Nietzsche liked to visit,
when afternoon turns to evening and “even the poorest fisherman rows
with golden oars.” (GS §337) Like the happiness of that ‘bright star,’ all
happiness is giving out, expression, gift. In question is less the issue of
126 Chapter Eight
how one might overcome humanity (Nietzsche teaches that the human
being must go under) and thus it is less a call to live as a god lives: a
deathless life — the point is tied to Nietzsche’s melancholy (and Northern)
insight that all gods die — than and much rather the singularization of
recurrence in each event: “Do you desire this, once more and innumerable
times more?” (GS §341) If one might argue that this is compatible with the
transhuman as eternal circuit, eternal loop — it still leaves us where we
started.
Notes
1 This metaphysical ‘exceptionalism’ is one of the reasons that Nick Bostrom can
begin his “History of Transhuman Thought” with a discussion of titanic myth,
including the theft of Prometheus, as well as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the dream
of immortality. See Bostrom (2005).
2 Prior to this media tragedy, see Michael Sokolove’s 2012 cover article “The Fast
Life of Oscar Pistorius”.
3 See, for further references, Babich (2016b) as well as the last section:
“Afterword / Afterworld: On Embryonic Mosaics and Chimeras, Animal Farm for
the 21st Century” in Babich (2017).
4 I am well aware that enthusiasts will tell me that I am wrong and that gaming
maps only “look” like they have such a bookishly cartographic inspiration. But see,
for an important discussion of the aesthetics of gaming, Bateman (2011).
5 This is the name of at least one documentary film project, another short and
formulaic science fiction novel, and more than one scholarly study. Thus, more
critically, see Kennelly (2007) as well, less critically, Chan (2008) and not
uncritically but with just enough ambiguity to encourage the powers that be, see
Steve Fuller (2011).
6 Sorgner (2009).
7 Vinge (1993). The text of Vinge’s talk is accessible online at the following
address: http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Singularity/sing.html. Vinge remains
confident (personal communication) of his own contribution to the theme.
Bostrom’s essay privileges rather more, as is commonly done (common by
Feyerabend’s assessment), the connection with John von Neumann, citing Ulam’s
1958 recollection of a conversation with von Neumann concerning “the ever
accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which
gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the
race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.” Cited in
Bostrom (2005), locus cited above.
8 Vinge (1999, 571).
9 Vinge (1993). Cited above.
10 Vinge (1993). Ulam’s retrospective review of von Neumann’s mathematical
contributions cites von Neumann on the imminent transience of our human interest
in science, here using the term “singularity” to characterize the prospect of life-
altering change. It is relevant that this was no mere metaphor for Ulam who
worked on the Manhattan Project and designed what is usually regarded as the
foundation for current thermonuclear weapons. See Stanisáaw Ulam’s memorial
essay, “John von Neumann, 1903-1957” (1958, 5).
11 Ibid. Vinge’s reference here is to Stent (1969).
12 Vinge (1993) lists among others: K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, (1986);
Freeman Dyson, Infinite in All Directions (1988), Marvin Minsky, Society of Mind
(1985); Hans Moravec, Mind Children (1988), and so on.
13 Vinge (1993).
14 Vinge (1993). I discuss the science fantasy author, R. Scott Bakker’s rather
differently minded sensibility regarding some related themes in Babich (2015).
15 Bostrom (2003a).
16 Bostrom (2003a, 243).
17 Feyerabend (1978, 90).
18 See the contributions to Melamphy and Mellamphy (2016).
19 See Howard Caygill’s luminous 2009 essay: “Under the Epicurean Skies”
which Caygill situates via Usener but especially with reference to A.-J. Festugiére
(1946) as well as to be sure the indispensable Pierre Hadot (1995).
20 A useful discussion for those who favor, as most Anglophone readers do,
Foucault, Agamben, Badiou, etc., is Jonathan Goldberg’s, “Turning toward the
World: Lucretius, in Theory,” chapter two of Goldberg (2009, 31-63).
21 Anonymity or net-privacy turns out to be less about surfing porn sites than it is
about the content that becomes the product that is deep date, i.e., the venality of
Microsoft and Sony and Apple who wish to be secure (as they already know
everything you look at) their right to charge you for it, thus getting their cut from any
piece of software you use, anytime you use it, as of anything you look at, download, or
share online each and every time you look at it, download, share it.
22 Sorgner (2009, 29).
23 Sorgner’s own reference here is to Habermas (2001, 43).
24 For Habermas’s anxiety concerning the danger of Nietzsche’s thinking,
alternately characterized as “infectious” or contagious, see the contributions
(including a translation of Habermas’s own 1968 essay on Nietzsche’s
epistemology), to Babich (Ed.) (2004).
25 Sorgner cites Nicklas Boström (2005b, 1). Boström, whose work is already
cited above, teaches philosophy at Oxford University and is the Director of the
Future of Humanity Institute. He is also editor with Julian Savulescu of a 2009
book on Human Enhancement and takes the notion of the “post-human” condition
about as literally as one might wish. For one overview of transhumanism as a
concept see Agar (2007) as well as Boström (2003b). Note that discussion
continues to be heavily influenced by N. Katherine Hayles’s 1999 How We
Became Posthuman as well as and in addition to Turkle’s early work, Mark
Poster’s 1990 study: The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social
Context.
26 Sorgner (2009, 30).
27 Ibid., 32.
28 Sorgner (2009, 33).
128 Chapter Eight
29 Ibid., 35.
30 Ibid.
31 I hardly oppose the broadly metonymic to the literalist rendering of
posthumanism and I use the latter terminology in a related context with reference to
both Umberto Eco and Nietzsche in Babich (1990) and not less to render the
nuances of the concept of Nietzsche’s Übermensch in Babich (1994, 12ff).
32 Sorgner (2009, 39).
33 Ibid., 40.
34 See Jaron Lanier’s 2010 You Are Not A Gadget. It is relevant to the present
context that in response to an email inquiry I sent regarding the argument I seek to
develop here, Lanier’s first response was the exclamation, “Yikes, Nietzsche
studies!” And “Yikes” is the sort of comment that obviously speaks volumes.
35 See Sloterdijk (1999) but see too Sloterdijk’s interview with Erik Alliez (2007).
36 See for a discussion of Sloterdijk related to these issues, Babich (2011b).
37 In: Alliez (2007, 319). Note that and inasmuch as Günther was employed by
several US government agencies, Günther’s Das Bewusstsein der Maschinen (1957)
is at least accessible in part in English, e.g.— and note again the science fiction locus
— in the pulp magazine, Startling Stories, Günther (1953). Contemporary scholars
may find this reference of interest more because of a hoped for resonance, say with
Simondon, or owing to an interest in Ray Kurzweil’s mystical vision of technology
in Kurzweil (2006). A product in a consummate fashion of the last century, born in
the same year’s but dying in the Orwellian year of 1984, Günther, an
enthusiastically pro-American German could not have been less Orwellian is worth
our attention in any case as a useful guide to what might have been hoped for as a
result of possible logics in the wake of Gödel’s challenge to the same and Gödel
was interested in Günther’s outline of non-Aristotelian logic (1959). But see too
Jean-Pierre Dupuy (2000).
38 Thus it is worth noting that Sloterdijk also discusses thinking on the philosophy
of technology in the today more esoteric than not philosophic writers on
technology, such as Rathaus, Freyer, Turel, Jünger, Dessauer, etc., in the latter
pages of Sloterdijk’s 1987 Critique of Cynical Reason,.
39 In: Alliez (2007, 318).
40 Warren McCulloch is the author of Embodiments of Mind (1965). See for an
astonishing reading idealizing cybernetics, here qua proto-cognitive science, and
psychoanalysis, including a passing swipe at psychiatry (the latter as much for its
circularity as its cupidity), McCulloch’s The Past of a Delusion (1953). McCulloch
trained as a physician and studied psychoanalysis with Ferenczi, challenges
Freud’s unconscious in economic terms, rather as Adolf Grünbaum has sought to
do in related ventures in the Pittsburgh tradition of the philosophy of science.
Where McCulloch supposed that one needed to integrate new understandings into
the account of the mind, suggesting that one “contrast Freud’s delusion with the
sad humility of Sherrington, who though he knows more physiology of brains that
any other Englishman, admitted that for him in this world, Mind goes more ghostly
than a ghost.” (1953, 21-22), his real objection turned upon the foundation of what
he called Freud’s “delusion” (and thus the title of McCulloch’s essay), i.e.,
psychoanalysis: “One of the cornerstones of Freud’s delusions is that we forget no
single jot or tittle of what at any time has happened to us. By calculations that
began naïvely with the senior Oliver Wendell Holmes and are today best handled
by the physicist von Förster, man’s head would have to be about the size of a small
elephant to hold that much. His body could not eat enough to energize its mere
retention even if we suppose a single molecule of structuring protein would serve
as trace. Actually the mean half-life of a trace in human memory, and of a
molecule of protein, is only half a day. Some few per cent of engrams do survive,
presumably because we recreate the traces in our heads, but that is all fate leaves
us of our youth. Where written words remain to check our senile recollections they
often prove us wrong. We rewrite history, inventing the past so it conforms to
present needs. We forget, as our machines forget, because entropic processes
incessantly corrupt retention and transmission of all records and all signals. Partly
because all men, when pushed, fill in the gaps of memory, partly because hysterics
and neurotics generally are most suggestible, Freud’s so-called findings of repressed
unconscious stuff rest on confabulation, perhaps his patients; but where the free
associations and the dreams are both his own, there cannot be a question but that
Freud did the confabulating.” (Ibid., 23)
41 Vinge (1993).
42 Alliez (2007, 318).
43 Ibid., p. 324.
44 Latour (1991). Compare here with reference to Harry Potter and education my video
lecture “On Alan Rickman as Professor Severus Snape: The Actor as Exemplar”
“Getting to Hogwarts.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjqSW0rOKaw.
45 And Linux operating systems are not the answer because Word, which is
arguably the touchstone (no one can handle WordPerfect, which has given up and
become a Word impersonator as a consequence) is not the same as Open Office. In
fact, Word on a Mac and Word on a PC (I bristle at this because what are Macs if
they are PCs, Toasters? Hoverboards?) does not give one identical results,
although you need to look at the print results to note the difference (so make a PDF
and minimize it, it’ll still be there, but coherent unto the file you crafted without
the changes introduced by the new platform: WYSIWYG). So let’s all go blame
Microsoft but the problem is that hardware makes a difference. Your screen makes
a difference, your computer and software settings make a difference (whether known
to you or not) and now Google and Facebook and other bubble protocols to go with
your television programming also makes a difference.
46 I owe this reference to Tracy B. Strong who persisted in singing this song from
the 1963 musical Bye Bye Birdie for no apparent reason day and night. This is, of
course, an instantiation of the ‘Hallelujah Effect’ while I was writing this essay. And
repetition, any repetition, affords the same propaganda effect as a commercial. As
Adorno points out, in the realm of pop culture, be it Toscanini or jazz or any pop
radio song, liking is a matter of recognition.
47 There is a lot published on this, but see, e.g., Jonathan Franzen’s 2011 op-ed
piece, “Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts.”
48 Although de Grey does not have a post at Cambridge University and there was
a certain understated scandal associated with the implication that he did have one,
130 Chapter Eight
he does hold a doctorate from Cambridge for his 1999 The Mitochondrial Free
Radical Theory of Aging. See also Harman (1956).
49 The scenario should be familiar to those who might have been watching Star
Trek which also began as a television series in the same year: 1966, or to those who
had been watching the science fiction films of the 1950s or reading Fantastic
Stories.
50 But for a critical overview that also applies to Kurzweil’s prediction of the
coming ‘technological singularity,’ see Richard A. L. Jones, a professor of physics
at Sheffield University, (2008) and (2004).
51 See, on toilets, Ivan Illich’s important 1985 study, H2O and the Waters of
Forgetfulness.
52 See for a (very) truncated account Babich (2014).
53 Sorgner (2010). Here cited from: http://jetpress.org/v21/sorgner.htm. See for
my own reading of education more broadly Babich (2014) as well as Babich
(2016a).
54 European advocates of such ideals of educational ‘excellence’ tend to focus on
Princeton, or Yale, or Harvard, somehow missing the hundreds of thousands and
even millions of tuition-driven, for-pay or profit institutions as these abound at every
level of post-secondary education in the United States. As for me, I’d compare
CUNY or SUNY or the University of California system to private schools, even top
tier schools, any day — if not of course when it comes to prestige as that is a market
and class affair, but indeed and when it comes to education. The more critical
point here is that European fantasies about private schools tend to suppose that all
private schools work like so-called ‘top-tier’ schools. Ivan Illich already put paid to
this assumption more broadly in his criticism of school as such. For references and
discussion, see, among the other essays which I recommend in the same respective book
collections, (Babich 2011b) as well as Babich (2009a).
55 See Orrin H. Pilkey and Linda Pilkey-Jarvis (2007) as well as, on the topic of
global climate change, Keith Pilkey and Orrin Pilkey (2011). And see Ohis very
practical, timely 2011 editorial: The road ahead on the Outer Banks,. I discuss
Pilkey’s analysis of modeling further in Babich (2010).
56 By contrast Heidegger’s “Humanismusbrief” is written against such a
presupposition. See Sartre’s L’existentialism est un humanisme and compare the
two with Sloterdijk’s controversial Elmau lecture: Regeln für den Menschenpark.
Some of this discussion draws upon points I make in Babich (2011c).
57 Babich (2006, 166ff) as well as Babich (2011a, 124ff).
58 See for a current overview and discussion, Sparrow (2011).
59 See, for example, Bostrom (2003a).
60 Bourdieu (1984).
61 All scholars hailing from schools left out (present author included) may weep on
cue.
62 Think old model iPhones, available for next to nothing (and, of course, a contract).
Gotcha. And that is a gotcha when the decidedly desirable iPhone7 is the current
model but customers are already anticipating the iPhone8 …
63 Many commentators have explored the question of what Nietzsche thinks to
animate the conventional dream of such a better world, at least on the surface of it,
in his discussion of the same in Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of
Morals, and Twilight of the Idols.
64 See, again, for context and further references here, my discussion of Illich’s
Deschooling Society in Babich (2011b). I add a discussion of Illich’s critique of
institutions in Babich (2017).
65 See, for example, http://singularityu.org/.
66 See the initial sections of Babich (2009b) and Babich (2009c).
67 I have elsewhere noted that university level philosophers rarely give significant
thought to decisions of curriculum (in my own department it is relegated to
committee which is to say that is it evaded) and that this is regrettable.
68 This was the theme of Al Lingis’ plenary address at the conclusion of the 50th
Anniversary meeting of SPEP in Philadelphia, Oct. 22, 2011.
69 Here I recommend the wide range of essays contributed to Fairfield (Ed.)
(2011).
70 As if there were not advanced research cultures already extant that had no such
‘ethical’ restrictions at all. As if the only values in the world were Western values.
71 The numbers in question are systematically, because statistically, overstated for
the sake of wildlife policy which always involves a recommendation and policy of
extermination. See for a recent account, with unvarying literature, Loss, Will &
Marra (2013). These accounts are well-aware of the dangers of criticism. See
Dauphiné and Cooper (2009). The authors reflect that “lethal control methods are
increasingly the targets of negative campaigns by many animal rights and welfare
groups and special interest groups, often with disastrous results for the conservation
of native wildlife” (ibid., 211). By “lethal control” is meant the killing of cats,
which of course has ‘disastrous results’ for those feral groups. One species for the
sake of a preferred other. In addition there is the artifice of the construct of what
counts as wildlife, as native, and so on. The debate is part of a larger one on
conservation in general and “managed care” of the environment which of course
turns the environment only and solely into what we, or zoo or wildlife
‘management’ experts say that it is. And in turn this is part of the complex issue of
public vs. expert authority in policy matters. See for a discussion, Kleinman’s 2003
Impure Cultures, specifically addressed to the issue of the relation of business or
capital interests and science in addition to Kleinman (2005) as well as with respect to
biotech, co-authored with Kleinman, Steven P. Vallas (2008). Kleinman is among the
more measured of these discussions but see too Daniel S. Greenberg’s many
books, especially (1968) and (2008). And note here that, as in many cases where
an author issues so very many books on a single theme, there is a distinct lack of
reception.
72 The problem which cloning enthusiasts seeking to promote their research
endeavors seem to have overlooked when talking to journalists about likely perks of
the procedure is that the expression of genetic traits is already determined by the
cortex of the ovum. Without the specific egg, the one and only one that led to you
all your physical traits, your clone will not look like you. And Fluffy’s clone will not
even have the same markings. For those who mourn their lost pet, look for a similar
looking kitten or puppy or adult dog or cat or give a brand new pet, with a whole
other appearance, a chance to live. To date, so called “animal shelters” exist not to
132 Chapter Eight
‘shelter,’ to care, to feed, to protect the lives of animals but as holding institutions
for the purpose of killing them.
73 No one to date has answered the critical challenges of Thomas Szasz (1974) or
(1978) or (1994). See too Szasz’ study of Karl Kraus and the Soul-Doctors, Szasz,
(1976).
74 Moore’s law was formulated by Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel, and predicts
that the number of transistors that can be placed on chip will double every two
years. With modifications and extensions, the “law” has been extended.
Intriguingly, Paolo Gargini, director of technology strategy at Intel had already
pointed to a limit. Cf. Zhirnov et al. (2003) and (2008). Moore himself, intriguingly,
does not share Kurzweil’s optimism, and predicts that the “rapture” will take place:
“Never.” See sidebar on the last page of Jones’ 2008 article, “Rupturing The
Nanotech Rapture” cited above.
75 See for a discussion of our tendency to get in the way of any estimation of
future risks ûirkoviü, et al. (with Bostrom), (2010) as well as Bostrom’s (2009).
76 Games are not played for free, computers are not free, nor is access to the internet
free and so on, multiply that anyway one likes if one cares to “upgrade.” And the
newer models for licensing software take such costs still further (plus costs across
platforms, ‘cloud’ computing, the need to have a desktop and a laptop (or at least
one or the other), and an iPad and a cell phone entail proliferation of gadgets to do
the same thing, differently, with payments to different entities). Cheap, ontic
details turn out to be less than ‘cheap.’ And here the concern goes a good deal
beyond matters of access or supposed ‘affordability.’
CHAPTER NINE
ZARATHUSTRA 2.0 AND BEYOND:

FURTHER REMARKS ON THE COMPLEX
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NIETZSCHE
AND TRANSHUMANISM
After the intense debate concerning the relationship between Nietzsche,

European Posthumanisms and Transhumanism, which has taken place in
three issues of the Journal of Evolution and Technology (Vol. 20, issue 1;
Vol. 21, issues 1 and 2), and in this issue of “The Agonist”, the exchange
has entered the realm of Nietzsche scholarship. I regard this as an
important step given the relevance of the questions which have been raised
by transhumanists. Due to the close structural similarity between
Nietzsche’s philosophy and many transhumanists’ reflections, for which I
argued at least, an exchange between the two discourses can be of great
use for scholars of both topics. As Nietzsche scholarship is related to the
tradition of continental philosophy and transhumanists’ reflections are
most closely connected to analytical ethics exchanges and the Anglo-
American Utilitarian (Mill) and evolutionary theory (Darwin) tradition,
experts of both disciplines do not usually meet and argue with one another.
I hope the following reflections and arguments will make it even more
obvious that there is a structural similarity between the views of Nietzsche
and those of transhumanists, even though the sound in which they put
forward their understandings of the world differs significantly. The
inspiring articles by Babich and Loeb provide an excellent basis for
clarifying some specific issues, which are closely related to the debate, so
that the views of Nietzsche and those of transhumanists become clearer. In
addition, I use some insights gained from these exchanges to put forward
new perspectives and values by developing further selected arguments that
have been put forward by Nietzsche as well as by transhumanists.
134 Chapter Nine
I will progress as follows: In the initial sections 1 to 14, I deal with

questions and topics Babich dealt with in her piece within this issue of The
Agonist (2012) and in the later sections 15 and 16 I clarify some
challenges Loeb mentioned in his article in this issue of The Agonist
(2012). The reason why I am considering more points Babich raised is not
that her piece is better or worse than Loeb’s article, but I am mostly in
agreement with the positions Loeb argued for and hence there was not
much need to argue against his points of view, even though I do argue
against the very heart of his position, which concerns the relationship
between the overhuman and the eternal recurrence according to
Nietzsche’s perspective. Babich, on the other hand, referred to several
important challenges concerning the relationship between Nietzsche and
transhumanism, and as she criticized me with respect to many of the topics
mentioned; I face her challenges and respond to the questions raised. I am
very grateful to both Babich and Loeb for this incredibly stimulating
philosophical exchange.
1. Methodology
I need to make some remarks concerning Babich’s interpretation of my
methodology, because some of them are incorrect, e.g.:
For Sorgner, had Nietzsche only known, per impossible, of
transhumanism, he could only have been sympathetic with the ideal.
This is not what I argued for. I only showed that there are significant
similarities between Nietzsche’s philosophy and transhumanists’ positions.
Neither did I claim that Nietzsche’s philosophy is identical with
tranhumanism in all respects, nor that transhumanism was actually
influenced by Nietzsche’s writings. However, in one of the replies to my
initial paper Max More1 upholds the latter position by stressing that he
himself, who is a leading transhumanist thinker, was influenced by
Nietzsche’s philosophy. In any case, Babich explains her reading of my
methodology further:
Sorgner tells us in his essay what, in his judgment, Nietzsche would have
“liked.” Hence we are informed that Nietzsche would have been an
advocate of transhumanism. This is an argument by assertion.
In one case, I mentioned that given the structural analogies of genetic

enhancement by means of the alteration of genes and classical education
and the relevance of education for bringing about the overhuman
according to Nietzsche provides us with a reason for assuming that he
Zarathustra 2.0 and Beyond 135
might have also been in favor of certain genetic enhancement technologies. I

stressed that these reflections provide us with a reason for asserting that
the fact that genetic enhancement procedures play an important role in
transhumanist reflections but do not and cannot turn up in Nietzsche’s
philosophy is not a reason for dissociating Nietzsche from the
transhumanist movement. However, this does not imply that I claim to
know what Nietzsche would have liked or that he necessarily would have
been in favor of transhumanist ideals. Both claims are far too strong.
Neither did I wish to argue for them, nor do I think that they can get
argued for. It would have to be mere speculation, if one aimed to show the
aforementioned position. My goal was a weak one, namely to show that
there are structural similarities between transhumanist reflections and
Nietzsche’s philosophy. I regard this insight as important because given
such a similarity it is possible to employ Nietzsche’s lines of thought to
develop transhumanist reflections further and to also reveal crucial
challenges some transhumanist concepts have to face. Both procedures can
be important for trying to find a more appropriate way of dealing with
emerging technologies.
2. No one wants to play with Freddy

A further mistake in Babich’s article, which I need to point out, is that
she claims that I did not inquire why many thinkers do not wish to get
associated with Nietzsche:
And yet, as we have noted, Sorgner chooses not to take his point of
departure by inquiring into the reasons Bostrom and Co. might have —
here along with a number of others such as Habermas but also and for
different reasons also including the preternaturally insightful and
musically creative Jaron Lanier2 — to seek to keep Nietzsche at a distance.
In a different section she repeats the same point in a slightly different

manner:
Yet Sorgner opts to defer, at least for the most part, any direct engagement
with the specific reasons given by other transhumanists for seeking to keep
their distance from Nietzsche.
I have to correct both of her remarks because I do mention and analyze

some of the reasons explicitly in the article Beyond Humanism3:
In his influential essay on liberal eugenics, Habermas (2001, 43) talks
about some freaky intellectuals who reject what they see as the illusion of
136 Chapter Nine
equality and try to develop a very German naturalistic ideology. This

seriously considers the potential for employing human biotechnology in
the service of Nietzschean breeding fantasies. This is the kind of
identification that Bostrom rightly fears. Habermas, who rejects all
procedures of genetic enhancement, identifies transhumanists (whom he
refers to incorrectly as “posthumanists”) with Nietzscheans, associating
both with fascist breeding ideologies. Habermas is rhetorically gifted, and
he knew exactly what he was doing – that an effective way to bring about
negative reactions to human biotechnological procedures in the reader
would be to identify those measures with procedures undertaken in Nazi
Germany.
Maybe, Babich intended to claim that I have not dealt with the topic
sufficiently enough. This might be the case. Hence, I will make some further
remarks on that topic in section 4. Not only will I discuss why thinkers do
not wish to play with Freddy in that section, but I will also analyze how
Nietzsche is interwoven into the recent enhancement debates in Germany.
3. The Good as Universal Concept or as Advertised Goal

The question of values and norms within the Nietzsche and
transhumanism comparison is a tricky one and one I have not yet
considered in its appropriate depth. The following remark from Babich’s
text made it clear to me that some further clarifications concerning this
topic are needed.
Beyond what he calls “ontological dynamics,” (ibid., 32), Sorgner
discovers additional parallels on the level of values, the same level so
important for Bostrom as he for his own part argues for a normative
appreciation of the transhuman, i.e., and in terms of what it ought be.
Babich did not criticise me in this phrase. However, I must point out
that there are not only parallels but there can also be differences between
the two philosophies in question, e.g. the methods of how transhumanists
and how Nietzsche argues for the relevance of the development beyond
human beings differs in some cases. Nietzsche does not put forward
universal norms. He is a rigid critic of norms. I explained his critique of
norms in detail in my most recent Nietzsche monograph Menschenwürde
nach Nietzsche.4 Nietzsche associates norms with slave moralities, which
he criticizes. He, on the other hand, puts forward values, as it is done
within a master morality, which implies that he does not claim that his
values are universally valid. Nietzsche merely puts forward reasons to
advertise a certain position concerning the good, and he employs this
method also with respect to the overhuman by putting forward the
suggestion that the overhuman is the meaning of the earth.
Some transhumanists use a similar method as Nietzsche, e.g. Bostrom

who refers to psychological research to support his claim that a person
leads a better life, if he has higher capacities, lives longer and so on.5
Thereby, he does not claim that all people lead a better life, if they have
higher capacities, but he merely stresses that the psychological research on
which he bases his judgment provide us with a reason for holding that
some judgments concerning the good life apply to many people. Given
that the research shows that a certain value judgment is widely shared
within a society, we do have a reason for making such a judgment while
one has to be aware that the judgment is not valid for all people at all
times.
Other transhumanists and quite a few bioliberal thinkers put forward
stronger positions concerning the good and the moral life, namely that we
have a moral duty to use enhancement technologies to promote the good
life. In contrast to the above position, here the focus lies on the question of
the right whereby it gets connected with a universally valid concept of the
good. Hence, such a position assumes that there is a universally valid
concept of the good, and also that we ought to promote it whereby the
“ought” is based upon a utilitarian foundation. This position differs from
the above concepts, because the above position includes that there is no
universally valid concept of the good. In addition, this Utilitarian position
demands that the good ought to be promoted from which follows a
universal moral imperative to act in a certain manner. The most prominent
exponent of this position is the Oxford philosopher Julian Savulescu who
is a bio-liberal pupil of Peter Singer but not a transhumanist. Still, he often
puts forward positions, which are close to the ones transhumanists affirm.
In two influential articles6 he argues in favour of a moral duty to select the
child with the best chance of the best life. Savulescu does not advertise the
use of enhancement technologies but claims that there is a moral duty to
use enhancement technologies to select the child with the best chance of
the best life, which is a much stronger claim than the aforementioned one.
This view is also supported by some transhumanists.
It needs to be stressed that on a political level both Savulescu and
transhumanists (in contrast to Nietzsche) affirm the relevance of the norm
of negative freedom, which implies that even though there might be the
moral duty to select a certain child, Savulescu would not regard it as
appropriate that this moral duty gets politically enforced. Hence, on a
political level transhumanists and bio-liberals are liberal thinkers. Still, a
wide spectrum of liberal positions can be found among transhumanists in
between the libertarian Max More and the liberal social democrat James
Hughes.
138 Chapter Nine
It was important for me to stress that Nietzsche does not put forward a
theory of the good, which he regards as universally valid. He merely puts
forward reasons for regarding his position as a plausible one. Bostrom
argues analogously with respect to the question of the good whereby he
draws upon psychological research to support his point of view. I regard
both methods as appropriate ones. This judgment does not apply to
Savulescu’s position, which claims that there are universally valid
judgments concerning the good; this is his reason for upholding some
universal moral obligations. Even though these obligations are merely pro
tanto obligations, they are seen as universally valid obligations. Due to my
doubt concerning the possibility of grasping a universally valid concept of
the good, I regard his position as problematic. I also think that Savulescu’s
position has some morally problematic consequences (it might have
totalitarian implications), if one applies them in a practical context.
4. Nietzsche, Sloterdijk, Habermas and Genetic

Enhancement
In section 2, I mentioned some reasons why many thinkers do not wish
to get associated with Nietzsche. In this section I make some further
remarks about this topic by considering the role of Nietzsche within the
German bioethics debates.
Babich criticises me for not considering sufficiently Sloterdijk in the
articles in question. (“as he also excludes Peter Sloterdijk”) She is right
that Sloterdijk deserves detailed attention concerning this topic but not
with respect to the work she has in mind:
Reason.
I already published two articles in English7 in which I considered

Sloterdijk’s philosophy, and one of them was an in depth treatment of the
Critique of Cynical Reason.8 However, I regard his infamous speech Rules
for the Human Zoo9 as far more important in this context, because it was
responsible for starting a bigger public debate concerning the moral
challenges of biotechnologies and enhancement techniques, it dealt with
Nietzsche and it was referred to by Habermas in his little monograph on
liberal eugenics. In one section of his treatise The Future of Human Nature
Habermas mentions a bunch of mad intellectuals who develop further a
very German ideology by putting forward a naturalist type of posthumanism.10
He also stresses that luckily this position, which comes along with
Nietzschean type of breeding fantasies, has not yet gained broader support
by the public according to him. By referring to a naturalist type of

posthumanism he means transhumanism in whose context he sees
Sloterdijk, because he cites passages from Sloterdijk’s rules for the human
zoo speech without mentioning Slotersdijk’s name. This paragraph is
particularly interesting because it reveals several problematic intuitions
and false claims. I will point out three challenges related to the passages.
Firstly, it needs to be mentioned that the procedures he deals with are
not posthumanist ones but transhumanist ones. Whereas posthumanism is
embedded in the tradition of continental philosophy, transhumanism is
mainly part of the Anglo-American bioethics scene. This does not mean
that the two movements have nothing in common. However, the
relationship between them is a complex one, and it will be dealt with in
detail in the forthcoming collection Post- and Transhumanism: An
Introduction, which will be edited by Robert Ranisch and myself and
which will come out in my book series Beyond Humanism: Trans- and
Posthumanism.11
Secondly, in his speech Rules for the Human Zoo Sloterdijk merely
stresses the relevance of dealing ethically with questions concerning
biotechnologies. He did not make any strong normative claims in this
context. In a later speech on human perfection which he gave on December
6th, 2005 at the University of Tübingen, he made clear that concerning
normative judgments he is in agreement with Habermas’ position by
regarding gene technologies as morally appropriate for therapeutic
purposes but morally problematic for enhancement ones. Hence, Sloterdijk
clearly is not a transhumanist. What was seen as problematic concerning
Sloterdijk’s text on the human zoo and, which was also responsible for it
to cause such a massive public debate in Germany, was the fact that he
referred to Plato, Nietzsche and Heidegger, who are still seen as defenders
of a totalitarian state system from the perspective of many Germans and
also a lot of German intellectuals today. In addition, he employed a
terminology (human zoo, breeding etc.) which did not help bring about a
different impression on the reader either. Hence, it was mostly his rhetoric
and style, which was responsible for bringing about the famous Habermas-
Sloterdijk-debate rather than the content of the text.
In the context of the Nietzsche and transhumanism debate this fact is
interesting. Just by referring to Nietzsche, Sloterdijk was regarded as a
transhumanist by Habermas. Habermas also identifies transhumanism with
Nietzschean breeding fantasies. The transhumanist Bostrom, on the other
hand, does not regard Nietzsche as an ancestor of transhumanism.12
Hence, it becomes clear why many thinkers do not wish to play with poor
Freddy because he is widely regarded as a morally problematic or even
140 Chapter Nine
dangerous thinker by many educated people today.

Thirdly, Habermas’ remark needs to get criticized because he thinks
that transhumanism has not yet gained a broader intellectual support. This
might be a correct judgment with regard to Germany but it definitely has
to get challenged with respect to many other cultures of the world, at least
concerning the current state of affairs. Transhumanist publications
dominate the Anglo-American academic debate in the field of bioethics
and medical ethics, leading transhumanists teach and have permanent
posts at some of the best universities of the English speaking world (e.g.
University of Oxford), and an intense consideration of transhumanist
reflections has taken place in various artistic and cultural realms. Here, I
am merely referring to some selected examples: Films: Gattaca; Music:
Facing Goya by Michael Nyman; Literature: The Elementary Particles
and an immense amount of science fiction literature; Fine Arts: Patricia
Piccini’s Still Life with Stem Cells and Alba the fluorescent rabbit by
Edouardo Kac. This short overview hints at the broad public awareness
and engagement with transhumanist positions, which also shows that
Habermas’s judgment can be seen as implausible.
Given the central relevance and presence of Nietzsche with respect to
the German bioethical debates concerning genetic enhancement, or as it
has been referred to by Habermas “liberal eugenics”, and the dubious
reputation Nietzsche still has in many intellectual circles, it becomes clear
why many intellectuals do not wish to be associated with him. However,
there are similarities between Nietzsche and transhumanism, and I think
that one can employ this insight for gaining further knowledge and for
making new and more complex reflections on the problematic relationship
between human beings and emerging technologies.
5. Fascism, Totalitarianism or Hughes’ Social Democratic

Transhumanism?
As I have shown in the last section, Nietzsche still gets associated with
totalitarianism by many educated people and intellectuals and hence many
thinkers do not wish to get associated with Nietzsche. There are also some
scholars who claim that totalitarian motives can be found within
transhumanism, and Babich belongs to this group of scholars when she
argues as follows:
Reason, in particular the bits at the end where Sloterdijk is at pains to
show that then-popular futurists like Alwin Toffler and Marshall
McLuhan, much like today’s Kurzweil,13 were themselves dependent upon
an earlier generation of thinkers, not so much cold war thinkers but pre-
World War II thinkers, including Friedrich Dessauer, but also Walter
Rathaus, and Adrien Turel in a decidedly uncanny context that turns out to
be nothing less than the crucible for the particular fascism that grew out of
the Weimar Republic as Sloterdijk discusses it.
Babich claims that fascism had grown out of futurism and that there
are parallels between earlier futurists and later transhumanist futurists.
Hence she implies that there is the risk that a new type of fascism can
grow out of contemporary transhumanism, which she stresses explicitly in
the following statement:
Here we note the very specific (and very popularly Nietzschean) “faith” in
science and especially industrial, corporate, capitalist technology that has,
if we read Sloterdijk aright, been with us since the interregnum between
the two wars which is again and also to say that such a vision is fascist
through and through.
It is not the case that I cannot understand the worry that transhumanism
can lead to a totalitarian system, but I do not think that a logical and
necessary connection is given between these two types of structures as she
wishes to make us belief. In addition, I do not think that fascism is the
appropriate word to use here, as fascism implies both authoritarianism and
nationalism. Transhumanism clearly is no movement that could be in favor
of nationalism. However, her judgment would have to be considered more
carefully, if Babich had used the term totalitarianism instead of fascism,
because the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley clearly shows that
technological innovations can lead to a totalitarian system.14 The movie
Gattaca reveals another danger, which Babich also has in mind and which
often is associated with biotechnological innovations, namely a social
order which includes a hierarchical ranking of members of different
groups:
Most of us are not sure how that difference would make a difference to
those who might be considered differently valued “subhuman” by
comparison with the supposed “over-” human (like overclocking, it all
depends).
Even though I can understand her worry, I do not think that it is one,
which ought to lead to the decision to stop making scientific and
biotechnological research. There are two central reasons for me to hold
this position:
Firstly, it needs to be pointed out that there are political ways of
regulating technological innovations such that they do not lead to social
142 Chapter Nine
injustice or to a breaking up of the norm of equality. One option was

developed in detail by James Hughes in his book Citizen Cyborg15 in
which he develops a liberal social democratic version of transhumanism.
How can technologies get dealt with without them bringing about
totalitarian structures within a society? One enhancement technique which
we have already is vaccinations. Future enhancement technologies could
get treated analogously to the way we deal with vaccinations today; e.g. in
Germany vaccinations have not been obligatory during the previous
decades. However, as most vaccinations are relatively safe and beneficial,
it is possible for all citizens to get the ones that are most relevant for free,
because they will be paid for by the public health insurance. The ones,
which are not directly relevant for everyone, can be paid for by the public
health insurance in certain circumstances. However, there are also other
more specialized vaccinations, which have to be paid for privately.
Analogously future enhancement technologies can get dealt with so that all
citizens can be able to have access to them, if they wish to use them.
Secondly, a different line of thought can become relevant, too, which
reveals that further technological innovations do not have to lead to a two
class society. The best examples here are mobile phones. Thirty years ago
they were available only to high profile managers and their use was very
expensive. Nowadays, the majority of Western citizens have a mobile
phone and are able to use it due to the low costs of its use. This shows that
if an innovation is reliable, useful and functional, then the demand and
production will rise such that it will also gradually get cheaper. If mobile
phones have developed in this direction, it is likely that the development
of successful enhancement technologies will take a similar route.
Hence, as successful enhancement technologies can be distributed
equally either by means of the public health system or by them becoming
so cheap that they become widely available, the nightmare of a totalitarian
technological world does not have to occur. Some critics might still claim
that by a widespread use of enhancement technologies, others will
implicitly be forced to also use these technologies without them wishing to
do so. These critics are right in pointing out this consequence. However, it
does not have to be a morally problematic consequence, as we can see in
the case of laptops and computers. Twenty years ago it was not obligatory
for university students to deliver their papers written on a computer in a
certain style. Nowadays, the option of handing in a handwritten paper is no
longer available, as it would be declined by most university teachers.
Hence, as a student you are forced to use a computer. Does this mean that
in this case morally problematic totalitarian tendencies are at work? I do
not think so. The computer is a reliable and useful device, which has
become so cheap that it is available to most citizens of Western countries.

Other enhancement technologies might develop in a similar direction.
A further counterexample against the use value of technological
innovations is the fact that not all technologies become reliable and
successful and some might even have grave and dangerous implications.
This judgment is correct, of course. However, is this danger, which is
connected to all technological innovations, a reason for no longer working
on projects that lead to scientific and biotechnological progress? I do not
think so. 250 years ago, we did not have vaccinations. I am very happy
that these have been developed. Yeah! 150 years ago antibiotics had not
been made. I am more than glad living at a time at which we have
antibiotics. Yeah. Each technology brings with it new dangers. However, I
think that the advances technologies brought with them during the
previous 1000 years are praiseworthy. I would not wish to live without
them anymore. However, I can imagine a future in which we have even
further developed technologies and medical possibilities, which can help
human beings in many respects. Hence, I am very much in favor of
scientific and biotechnological research, which can be beneficial in many
respects. Given the above listed reflections, I do not think that the fear of a
future totalitarian system, which was established because of technological
innovations, is one which ought to be dominant. I think that it is useful and
important to have this worry in mind so that scientists continue to progress
with great care, but I definitely do not think that this worry ought to stop
us from making further scientific research.
6. Becoming who you are vs. Becoming who you wish you
were or Perfection as Goal
The next issue Babich raises within her article is a very important one
because it concentrates on the content of the ideal of the good, which is
connected to transhumanism, and not only the formal role of the good with
which I dealt in section 3:
Beyond Sloterdijk, the message of Kurzweil’s vision of the ‘technological
singularity’ as it has been embraced by (at least some elements of) popular
culture, when it is not the message of the genome project or stem cells, is
indeed anthropotechnics, which is all about not becoming the one you are
but, and to be sure becoming the one you wish you were, becoming the
one you should have been all along. Call this the Harry Potter effect, or
everyone is a boy wizard, quidditch player, best in sports, all secret
greatness and unfair discrimination, at least, in the germ, at least after the
singularity.
144 Chapter Nine
According to Babich, transhumanists are in favor of “becoming the one

you wish you were, becoming the one you should have been all along”
which is supposed to be different from Nietzsche’s demand to “become
who you are”:
Thus Nietzsche excludes the kind of transhumanism Sorgner and others
speak of, because and exactly qua “enhancement,” it transpires that what is
meant by transhumanism is no kind of self-overcoming.
Overcoming and not enhancing the human (or perhaps better said, the
all-too-human) is the meaning of the over-human as the meaning not of the
human but of the earth. In part this is the meaning of Pindar’s word to the
seldom encountered, that would be the few, that would be Pindar’s word
spoken to the rare: become the one you are.
She implies that the transhumanists’ goal is linked to the following
utopian vision:
Everything will be perfect after the revolution.
She repeats the claim in a different way in the following two

statements:
transhuman is the transitional human, on the way to a perfect model that
the marketing department, rather like the iphone…
Much rather, have we perfected the body, so say the last men, and, as
Nietzsche tells us, they blink.
Hence, she claims that there is one strong, and detailed ideal of the
good which is associated with the concept of enhancement and
enhancement is only enhancement when it leads toward this perfect ideal,
and in a sense, she is right, because it is the case that Bostrom does uphold
such an ideal, as I pointed out before in the Beyond Humanism16 article:
Bostrom stresses the Renaissance ideal as a concept of the good that is
worth aspiring to.
Actually, there are reasons for holding that Nietzsche has a similar
ideal in mind, as he regularly stresses the relevance of the classical type or
ideal. When Nietzsche compares the qualities of geniuses and higher
human beings in Zarathustra, it also becomes clear that a fully developed
and flourishing Renaissance human being is what he associates with his
ideal of the good which is worth aspiring for.17
There seem to be some central similarities between Nietzsche’s position
and that of some transhumanists, because both identify the Renaissance
ideal or the classical type with the good, which is worth aspiring for.
Given that this is an appropriate reconstruction of both concepts of the
good, it becomes relevant to make further inquiries concerning the
epistemological status of this concept of the concept of the good within
both of their philosophies. As we noted earlier, both Nietzsche and
Bostrom do not claim universal validity for their views of the good, which
also implies that these concepts should not contain universal moral duties.
However, this judgment is not valid for all transhumanists or
transhumanist friendly thinkers. Savulescu’s concept of the good has a
different epistemological status. He holds that there is a universally valid
account of the good, which he has grasped and which he includes in a
central moral principle of his, the principle of procreative beneficence.
However, in contrast to Nietzsche and Bostrom, his view of the good is a
much less detailed one, because it merely stresses the relevance of
intelligence, memory and health. Still, I think that even a weak universal
account of the good has morally problematic implications. A stronger
account of the good with a weaker epistemological status, as it is being
upheld by Bostrom, does not lead to a universally valid moral duty, and
hence I regard it as less problematic than Savulescu’s position. If Bostrom,
however, wishes to employ his strong and detailed account of the good for
creating moral or maybe even political obligations, then the issue would be
different and his position would have to be seen as a dangerous one. As
long as he merely advocates and advertises his stronger account of the
good, as I think he does, the worries concerning his position do not have to
be serious ones.
The question concerning the content of the concept of the good which
is being used for moral and political judgments is a highly problematic
one, and much more could be said about it, but I plan give a more detailed
account of that topic in a later publication. As I alluded to in this section, I
think that it depends a lot on the epistemological status of one’s concept of
the good, how problematic it is. If someone holds that he has grasped a
universally valid truth, then his position is far more problematic and
dangerous as someone else's position, which implies that what he upholds
is not a certain truth but rather a plausible position which he himself
regards as subject to revision given new and further information.
What is important to realize here is the following. Some transhumanists as
well as Nietzsche identify the classical or the Renaissance ideal with the
good life. However, they also relativize this insight by stressing that it is
not universally valid. This aspect is being considered when Nietzsche
stresses the need to become who you are: It is in each person's interest to
consider the needs of his body and to live in accordance with them. In
146 Chapter Nine
transhumanists’ reflections, this aspect is being taken into consideration by

stressing the norm of negative freedom on a political level: Many concepts
of the good life are valid, and it ought to be possible for human beings to
realize them. On the one hand, there is the affirmation of the classical or
Renaissance ideal of the good life, but on the other hand, the realization
that a plurality of views of the good is valid. Hence the goal of becoming
who you are and the goal of becoming who you wish you were can both be
found in Nietzsche's philosophy as well as in transhumanist reflections.
7. Evolution, Ethics, and Existential Risks

I wish to refer to a further remark of Babich, which seems to me as
very important:
Sorgner for his own part seems to assume this same technological focus,
the transhuman is the human plus whatever technological enhancement.
But as a specific, Sorgner attends to the issue of Nietzsche and evolution,
an issue that is itself far from straightforward (most readings of Nietzsche
and evolution depend upon a fairly limited understanding of Darwin
himself and not less of Nietzsche’s understanding of Darwin).
Given our biotechnological advances, human beings have entered an

era in which they are able to actively influence evolutionary processes. I
am not claiming that given our progress chance does not play any role for
evolutionary processes anymore. However, our technological possibilities
enable us to have some influence on qualities relevant for evolutionary
processes. Is enhancing evolution possible as a consequence? Not
necessarily, I must say, because we do not know which qualities are
actually helpful for us to be the fittest. According to Darwin, the fittest
survives, which means that the one who has qualities with which he is best
adapted to the environment has the best chances of survival. This does not
mean that a human being who fulfills the Renaissance ideal necessarily
must have qualities, which are most beneficial in this context. Dinosaurs
would not have thought either that they will die out sometime and in the
same spirit it has to be realized that it is unclear which ideal of the good
proves to be in the human interest from the evolutionary perspective.
Even if one took an evolutionary perspective, the universal validity of
the Renaissance ideal would not follow. Renaissance human beings do not
necessarily have the best option of being the winners in the evolutionary
game. It depends on the specific context at a specific time, which qualities
prove to be the most helpful ones. It could be that a small group of
physiologically weak people who are immune to a certain virus has the
appropriate prerequisites for surviving the evolutionary game.

However, given that human beings or life on earth from time to time
has to face the risk of getting extinct (be it due to a virus or due to an
asteroid), technological innovations might be helpful in facing the risk
successfully or at least in facing the risk better than without our
technological innovations.
There is also the risk that technological progress is responsible for
bringing about the existential risk in question. We might create weapons
that lead to mass destruction or even global extinction of life, or side
effects of our scientific research bring about deadly viruses that kill all
human lives.
On the one hand, technological innovations can lead to further
significant and even existential problems but, on the other hand, they
might also be helpful in facing new challenges. The question is whether
this insight ought to be a reason for us to refrain from being innovative and
to remain being content with what we have. I do not think that this is the
best decision, which we can make. I am very happy that I have the option of
using vaccinations. Vaccinations clearly are an enhancement technology.
250 years ago we did not have this option. Of course, vaccinations can go
wrong. However, I think it is better to have vaccinations than not to have
them. The same applies to antibiotics, which we did not have 150 years
ago. I think it is great to have them. Instead of reacting towards such
innovations with a “Yuck”, as suggested by Leon Kass18, I think that a
“Yeah” is by far the more appropriate reaction in these cases. However,
the expression of a spontaneous inner reaction cannot count as an
intellectually honest argument for or against the use of enhancement
technologies, if it is unsupported by further reasons.
These reflections concerning the evolutionary perspective do not imply
that I am in favor of applying them for paternalistically making decision
for individuals by integrating a stronger view of the good on the political
level. I do think, however, that these reflections suggest that scientific and
technological innovations bring about wonderful achievements, if one
progresses with the appropriate care.
8. Classical Education and Genetic Enhancement

by Alteration & Choosing a Partner for Procreative
Purposes and Genetic Enhancement by Selection
as Structural Analogies
The topic “Education” is a particularly difficult one, and one I am
unable to reply to in a satisfactory manner by means of just a couple
148 Chapter Nine
remarks within an article. The following paragraphs at least give me the

chance to clarify some fundamental misunderstandings. Babich points out
the following:
As Sorgner contends, education and genetic enhancement are “structurally
analogous procedures.19
But it is worth asking here, just what it is that Sorgner means by

“education”? Does Sorgner understand this in the traditional sense of
Bildung or as what counts for the French as formation and where we may
speak of either in terms of what Nietzsche also called getting oneself a
culture, that is to say, personal and intellectual cultivation?
She hints at certain possibilities of how I might have understood the
concept “education” in this context:
What is certain is that many of us even within the academy do suppose
that education is no more than the acquisition of such degrees, especially
at the graduate but also at the undergraduate level,
In the following section, Babich seems to imply that education is far

more complex than how I understood it within the above mentioned
structural analogy, namely the structural analogy between genetic
enhancement by alteration and classical education for which I argue:
The idea that an education, the getting of or the having of one, is a simple
affair, and thus that the parallel idea of an upgrade to the more-than-
human, that is now: the trans-human would simply be like taking a course,
say, or reading a book, supposes that one pretend (as transhumanists do
like to pretend) that one can/should set aside questions of cultural
inequalities, differences in wealth, “class” differences and so on.
The concept “education”, as I employ it in the above-mentioned

analogy, has not much to do with the acquisition of degrees, taking a
course, or reading a book. What is important is that both in the case of
genetic enhancement by alteration as well as in the case of classical
education the following structures are given. Parents are making decisions
whereby they influence the lives of their offspring. The influence can be
such that it can be reversible but also that it can be irreversible.20 Hence, it
is a very particular understanding of education, which I am using in this
context. A valid criticism of the analogy I am proposing has to employ the
same concepts I am using and not some arbitrary ones.
In this context, there is another point that needs to be stressed. As
Babich rightly points out, I claim that there is a structural analogy between
classical education and genetic enhancement. However, I always qualify
genetic enhancement further, because the structural analogy is solely given

in the case of genetic enhancement by means of the alteration of the
genetic makeup. This analogy does not apply to the selection process,
which can occur after in vitro fertilization and pre-implantation diagnosis
(PGD). It is possible and common to refer to this process also as genetic
enhancement procedure. However, in this case genetic enhancement by
means of selection takes place. In contrast to genetic enhancement by
means of the alteration of the genetic makeup, which is structurally
analogous to classical education processes, a different type of analogy
applies with respect to genetic enhancement processes by means of
selecting an already given genetic makeup (after IVF and PGD). In the
case of genetic enhancement by means of selecting an already given
genetic makeup a structural analogy to selecting a partner with whom one
wishes to have offspring is given.
By choosing a partner with whom one wishes to have offspring, one
thereby implicitly also determines the genetic makeup of one’s kids, as 50
per cent of their genes come from one’s partner, and the other 50 per cent
from oneself. By selecting a fertilized egg, one also determines 100 per
cent of the genetic makeup by means of selection.
One objection, which might be raised here, is that selecting a fertilized
egg cell is a conscious procedure but normally one does not choose a
partner according to their genetic makeup such that one has specific genes
for one’s child. However, it can be objected that our evolutionary heritage
might be more effective during the selection procedure of a partner than
we consciously wish to acknowledge. In addition, the qualities according
to which we choose a fertilized egg after a PGD might not have been
chosen as consciously as we wish to believe, but might be influenced more
on the basis of our unconscious organic setup than we wish to
acknowledge. It might even be the case, that the standards for choosing a
partner and for choosing a fertilized egg might both be strongly influenced
by our organic makeup and evolutionary heritage such that both are
extremely similar.
A difference between these two selection procedures is surely that in
the one case, one selects a specific entity, a fertilized egg, but in the other
case a partner and therefore only a certain range of genetic possibilities.
However, given the latest epigenetic research, we know that genes can get
switched on and off, which makes an enormous difference on the
phenomenological level. Hence, it is also the case that by choosing a
fertilized egg, we only choose a certain range of phenomenological
possibilities of the later adult, as is the case by choosing a partner for
procreative purposes.
150 Chapter Nine
The aforementioned comparison provides some initial evidence for

holding that there is a structural analogy between choosing a partner for
procreative purposes and for choosing a fertilized egg cell after PGD. I
mentioned this analogy here to stress that one has to distinguish carefully
between various methods of genetic enhancement procedures, if one
wishes to make a moral judgment about these procedures. In the Beyond
Humanism21 article I provided some evidence for holding that there is a
structural analogy between genetic enhancement by means of the
alteration of the genetic makeup and classical education processes. In the
above paragraphs, I put forward some initial evidence for holding that
genetic enhancement by means of selecting an already given genetic
makeup is structurally analogous to selecting a partner with whom one
wishes to have offspring. These analogies are helpful because they enable
us to have an initial tool for making a moral judgment concerning these
new biotechnologies. Actually, this is the method I am employing
whenever I am facing new technologies and I am puzzled concerning their
moral evaluation. By drawing parallels and finding analogies to well-
known procedures for which we have a clear moral framework, helps us
find a way of approaching or dealing with new challenges. By means of
the above analogies, it is possible to make some founded moral judgments
concerning the related enhancement technologies.
9. Transhumanism as Humanism, Hyperhumanism

or Posthumanism?
In the following paragraphs, Babich raises a fascinating and important
question:
In this (an sich inherently optimistic when it is not inherently calculating
or manipulative) regard, the transhumanist movement turns out of course
to be another humanism, using the term as Sartre once spoke of
Existentialism as a Humanism.22 Hence and at least in principle, human
enhancement may be regarded, if only for the sake of argument, as
corresponding to “enhancement for all,” like “micro-chips for all” or
“security searches for all.
Ultimately, as Leibniz might help remind us, such a broad extension

would lead to a society not of “enhanced” but and much rather of leveled
or flattened out humanity.”
Firstly, she claims that transhumanism is just another type of
humanism. It is a difficult and important question whether transhumanism
ought to be seen in the tradition of humanism, whether it could be
described as a hyperhumanism or whether it is a particular variant of

posthumanism. In my book series Beyond Humanism: Trans- and
Posthumanism (Peter Lang Publishing) authors address questions related
to the clarification of the various types of humanism and how one can go
beyond humanism.
Secondly, it is noteworthy that Babich claims that transhumanism leads
to a “flattened out humanity”, the critique that transhumanism leads to a
Gattaca type of utopia comes up more regularly in the Academic
literature. I assume that she has in mind the following issue.
9.1 Promoting Identical Consumer Tastes

The following statement of Babich might clarify further what she
means when she worries that transhumanism leads to a “flattened out
humanity”:
Sorgner argues that Nietzsche would back this enhanced “accessory” life,
as the transhumanist life for all and sundry. But, and this is why Nietzsche
gives us food for thought, at the same time, I think it is plain that
Nietzsche sidesteps any such advocacy.
I did not claim that Nietzsche would hold such an “accessory” life, if
he lived now. I did not claim either that Babich’s presentation of an
enhanced “accessory” life bears significant similarities to what Nietzsche
upholds. Neither is it my claim that the main concern of transhumanists is
to live in accord with Babich’s vision of an ““accessory” life”.
Transhumanists aim for an enhancement of cognitive and physiological
capacities, a widening of the human health span and a promotion of human
emotional faculties so that the likelihood of the coming about of the
posthuman increases. The transhumanist goal does not necessarily include
having the latest iphone applications. What Babich refers to as “accessory
life” is not a goal transhumanists primarily aim for, and neither is it a
value which Nietzsche upholds. A separate but related issue was referred
to by Babich in the following statement:
So far from tools for conviviality or the transmission of a collective culture
of human flourishing, we find our schools promulgate identical consumer
tastes for identical consumer goods now globally projected in a world of
limited resources.
Here, it becomes clear that she identifies the transhumanist goal with
the promotion of “identical consumer tastes”. This might be the goal of
certain technological companies, but I do not see that transhumanists are in
152 Chapter Nine
the least interested in it.
9.2 Humanist Dualities in Transhumanist Positions

As Babich holds that transhumanists promote identical consumer
tastes, she claims that transhumanism is a variant of humanism, if I
understand her correctly. However, transhumanists do not promote
identical consumer tastes, which were one of her reasons for making this
judgment. Still, there might be some reasons for affirming that
transhumanism belongs to the humanist tradition or can even be seen as a
type of hyperhumanism.
One technology, which is being seen as a promising one for promoting
the prolongation of our lives and also for other enhancement purposes by
many transhumanists, is that of mind uploading. The hypothetical process
of mind uploading occurs when a conscious mind gets scanned, copied and
then transferred from the brain onto a computational device. Some
scholars hold that in this way human beings can continue to exist in the
digital realm, other claim that the mind after having been uploaded to a
computational device can be transferred back to a new organic brain. What
I am interested in in this context, are the anthropological implications of
this claim. It seems as if scholars who affirm this version of mind
uploading have the tendency to affirm a dualist understanding of human
beings with a mind on the one hand and a brain on the other hand from
which the mind can get separated. If this is the case, then transhumanism
can be seen as a kind of humanism, because humanism, as I understand the
concept, relies upon a world constituted out of dualist concepts: mind-
brain, matter-spirit, good-evil. It can even be described as a type of
hyperhumanism, whereby hyperhumanism is to be understood as a radical
and even more extreme version of humanism.
I, as a metahumanist, also regard myself as a weak transhumanist.
However, I think that humanism has to be in conflict with transhumanism,
and it would be in the interest of transhumanists, if they integrated a post-
or metahumanist anthropology into their understanding of the world. In
contrast to humanism, post- and metahumanism reject dualities and hence
also a dualist understanding of human beings. As most transhumanists
affirm a naturalist, this-worldly or relational understanding of the world,
they cannot be humanists. Due to their this-worldly understanding of the
world, they also have to conceptualize human beings in this manner,
which means that it is more in tune with their other views to assume that
human beings have an embodied mind, as described by Francisco Varela,
Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch.23 Hence, if tranhumanists held a
posthumanist anthropology, they would be more consistent within their

worldview. Consequently, I can claim that transhumanism ought not to be
understood as a type of humanism, as Babich claims.
A further reason has to be mentioned for regarding transhumanism as a
variety of humanism. Most transhumanists agree that transhumanism
belongs to the Enlightenment tradition, because of the central relevance of
reason and the employment of rational methods. Even though this self-
understanding is being widely shared by transhumanists, I doubt that it
corresponds to many of their basic premises. The Enlightenment tradition
is based upon a dualist understanding of human beings with the rational
immaterial soul, on the one hand, and a material body on the other one.
Kant as one of the leading Enlightenment humanists affirms exactly this
radically dualist anthropology. Most transhumanists, on the other hand,
hold a naturalist understanding of human beings, which clearly
undermines the dominant Enlightenment anthropology. Hence, it can be
stressed that concerning certain fundamental premises transhumanism is in
disagreement with the Enlightenment humanist tradition, even though both
outlooks have a high estimation of reason. Still, you do not have to be an
Enlightenment humanist to value reason and rational discourses. Due to
these insights, the similarities between posthumanism and transhumanism
seem to me as stronger than the ones between transhumanism and
humanism.
10. Utilitarianism
A brief remark needs to be made about the following comment of
Babich:
What is at issue for what we might regard as Nietzsche’s particular brand
of transhumanism, if we may so speak of the self-overcoming that is the
transition to the overhuman, the post-human, is that it is no kind of
utilitarianism but that it is also no kind of humanism, other than that
served by what Nietzsche called his “future humaneness,” (GS §337), or
else by what I have elsewhere described and analyzed as the “bravest
democratic fugue”24 ever written.
Nietzsche is against utilitarianism. Transhumanism is in favor of

utilitarianism. Hence, Nietzsche and transhumanism uphold radically
different ethical theories. Thus, it could get argued. However, the issue is
more complex than the argument assumes. Even though utilitarianism can
be seen as the dominant ethical theory associated with transhumanism, this
does not have to be the case, which I already stressed in section 4 of my
154 Chapter Nine
Beyond Humanism25 article.

I think that a virtue ethical approach suits transhumanism as well as
utilitarianism. Some of the most interesting arguments against the use of
enhancement technologies are being put forward by Michael Sandel.26 He
claims that parents who use enhancement techniques on their children do
not possess parental virtues. I do not think that this has to be the case. As I
regard classical education to be structurally analogous to genetic
enhancement technologies by means of the alteration of genes, it follows
that it can be morally adequate for parents to apply these technologies on
their children in the same way as there are educational techniques that are
morally appropriate. What is important for parents is to act morally
appropriately as parents for them to possess parental virtues. Acting thus
implies, knowing when and how educational and genetic enhancement
technologies ought to be used. It is not the case that the use of all
enhancement technologies reveals the possession of parental virtues. What
is important for parents to understand is, when the use of enhancement
technologies is appropriate, and when this is not the case. However,
further clarifications are needed to explain this issue in detail.
11. Do I need to be rich for becoming a Post-

or an Overhuman?
The question concerning the financial implications of values is usually
a very important one. Many bioethical challenges can be reduced to
financial questions, I think. I am grateful to Babich that she is referring to
the financial dimensions of transhumanist ideas:
For Nietzsche, and this is perhaps his greatest distance from the
transhumanist movement, this particular rarity will not turn out to be an
upgrade money can buy. What will be the object of such design, on
Nietzsche’s account, will be the values esteemed as best in popular
regarded, and Nietzsche regarded such values, empirically enough, as
middle-rank values, that is what he called mediocrity.
I do not think that Babich’s argument is a plausible one. It is correct

that money will be needed to pay for enhancement procedures,27 but I do
not see why money should not be helpful in the context of educational
processes, which help bring about Nietzsche’s higher beings or maybe
even overhumans. Educational processes can be improved by employing
better educators and by paying for better educational methods, and money
can also be needed for these processes.
Hence, if we follow Sorgner’s parallel between education and

transhumanism solely for the sake of argument, in the transhumanist world
envisioned as the world to come (post BP old-spill to go with the ongoing
[but not reported], new spills in the Gulf of Mexico, post earthquake in
Japan, with the same caveats regarding the lack of news reports on the
same ongoing consequences of radiation fallout), only those with ample
resources (financial and otherwise) will have access to transhuman
enhancements, just as only those with access to advanced medical care can
afford the implants that can keep a failing heart going — and this is true
today as well and on any level of technology, be it a heart transplant, a
pacemaker or even a shunt.
I am wondering what her remarks are supposed to imply. Would it be

better not to realize any technological innovations, according to her, so
that it will be impossible that only a small group of people can benefit
from the technological innovations? Would it not be better to promote
innovations first and to make sure then that the most successful ones
become so cheap that many people can afford them or that the most
efficient and helpful techniques become publicly accessible by having
them being paid for by the public health insurance? Without innovations,
all citizens equally do not benefit. What I suggest is that it is much better
to promote technological innovations, even though initially only a small
group might benefit from the outcomes of the innovations. At the initial
stages of the innovations, it is still an open question whether the newly
developed techniques will be successful and reliable ones. Hence, besides
money, courage might also be needed for using the latest technologies.
Once it is clear that a technology is reliable and helpful like mobile phones
or vaccinations, then they become publicly available. This logic is a
different one from the logic Babich accuses transhumanists of having,
which is supposed to be the following one:
Here it is popular to advert to the most empirically disproven vision of
economics, and the one currently dominating most markets, that is, the
well-publicized, that is to say constantly repeated idea that enhancing the
wealth of the wealthy, that enhancing the material well-being of the
wealthy is somehow in the interest of everyone.
Most transhumanists would not agree with these claims. Transhumanists

do not aim for the enhancement of the material well-being of the wealthy.
Most transhumanists agree with Hughes’s social democratic version of
transhumanism, and hence they are in favor of promoting enhancement
technologies, but they are also in favor of political regulations such that
the most efficient procedures become publicly available. I think that it
makes good sense to progress in this manner.
156 Chapter Nine
12. False Preferences? Eat Lemons instead of Apples!

Babich’s next worry is a strange one. We are concerned with apples,
but she claims that we ought to be concerned with lemons. Is it not clear
that both apples and lemons can be important?
And yet and at the current time, the vaunted enhancements of
transhumanism are still so many motes in the eye of a technological
demon yet to be born. And by fixing our sights on these possibilities,
potential benefits, promised promise, we overlook the more urgent
problems all around us and we pass over the experience that is or should
be common to us, the experience of technologies gone wrong,
unanticipated side-effects of the kind one can only learn in practice.
Technological challenges can go wrong and because of this there are

other challenges which are more important, which ought to be considered
instead, she seems to argue. It is clear that technological innovations can
have problematic consequences. This is exactly the reason why it is
important to seriously reflect upon them. In addition, technologies often
also work properly and help us in various respects, like solar or wind
energy generators. They provide us with energy such that we do not have
to rely so heavily on more problematic sources of energy. Would it be
better not to be concerned with technologies anymore and to solely focus
on other issues?
Although at the moment of this writing, we can do none of this, no part of
it, at all, at all, we are astonishingly preoccupied with the idea. We do not
worry about the destruction of wild-life all over the globe in our now long
and ongoing holocaust of beings other than ourselves, we do not worry
about the deforestation of the land on every continent, especially southern
ones, we do not worry about what we do to the water table we ourselves
depend upon, or our air, etc., etc.
Having clean water is wonderful and important. New technologies can

help us, too, in order to purify a river, and have drinking water. New
technologies might be helpful for reducing the suffering of animal, if one
managed to make meat out of stem cells. New technologies can help us to
reduce the consumption of energy, by creating more efficient ways of
using energies. Should we throw away our computers, cell phones and
microwaves, and live like a peasant a thousand years ago? As I said
before, it is important to be aware of environmental issues and the moral
challenges related to animals. Still having better medical technologies is
excellent, too. We can be concerned both with apples and lemons. We do
not have to choose between them. Are environmental concerns more
important than technological ones? Both areas are so closely interrelated

that it is hardly possible to solely focus on one of them. In addition, many
transhumanists are not solely concerned with technological challenges.
There is an important IEET program, which fights for rights of non-human
persons, and hence aims to promote the moral status of animals, which has
been initiated by Peter Singer.
As many transhumanists, like posthumanists, have a rather naturalist
understanding of the world, they do not subscribe to a dualist
understanding of human beings, which implies that human beings are
constituted out of a material body and an immaterial mind. This
understanding of human beings is still implicitly dominant in many legal
systems. It comes out clearly in the German legal system according to
which only human beings are bearers of human dignity. Animals, even
though they are not regarded as things, ought to be treated like things
according to the German law. This absurd and untimely understanding of
animals is the result of our Christian and Kantian history. Babich also
stresses the importance of our concern with animal ethics. However, she
does not recognize and acknowledge that the moral concern for animals is
something that is being shared by many transhumanists:
We breed and raise animals in order to sell them more efficiently but also
in order to experiment on them trying out medical, therapeutic uses for
animal parts (this will also be a kind of transhumanism).
13. Ascetic Ideal

The next reason for dissociating transhumanism from Nietzsche’s
philosophy is Babich’s identification of transhumanism as an instantiation
of the ascetic ideal:
Transhumanism turns out to be the latest and maybe not even the best (ah,
we should probably wait for the next model) instantiation of the ascetic
ideal. One wants life, but not life as it is, with all its fuss and mess, with
all its banality and its limitations but life as in a video-game or a movie: no
suffering, no illness, no death, and although one wants sex, one might well
be inclined to exclude birth, generating children on demand, and maybe
fast-forwarding through the first few months or years, depending on taste.
Do transhumanists aim for something that cannot be reached, which is

one of the central characteristics of the ascetic ideal? According to
Nietzsche, all human beings are will to power, and it is in their interest to
permanently overcome themselves by setting themselves realizable goals,
which get renewed after the old ones have been reached. Thereby it is
158 Chapter Nine
important for him that the goals are immanent and realistic ones.
Transhumanists work analogously. It is not the case that the majority of
them wish to reach an eternal life in the digital realm because they know
that immortality is not a goal that can be reached realistically. A central
goal of many transhumanists is that the healthspan of human beings gets
expanded.
Most transhumanists are naturalists who accept that human beings are
a type of animal who are part of the evolutionary process. In this respect
transhumanists, just like Nietzsche, accept life as it is. However, by
wishing “to exclude birth, generating children on demand, and maybe fast-
forwarding through the first few months or years” they do not aim for
something that cannot in principle be reached. On the basis of a naturalist
worldview all of these goals are realistic ones which can be reached
within a realistic time span. In addition, by having and by trying to realize
these goals, transhumanists create new organic forms by taking into
consideration naturalistic processes, which seems to be a procedure with
significant similarities to a Nietzschean way of thinking.
14. Nietzsche and Transhumanism – Two Different

Sounds, but Similar Concepts?
Finally, Babich mentions an aspect of transhumanism, which is clearly
different from Nietzsche’s approach – the element of style. In which style
should reflections about the world be written? Nietzsche stresses the
importance of style whereby he means a literary and metaphorical style. It
can be seen how he works, if one considers the writings within his
notebooks and compares them to the works he himself published. In the
notebooks rather analytical statements, clear phrases and explicit
judgments can be found. In the works he published himself, the same
content comes hidden in metaphorical language, beautifully written and
integrated in an artistically styled general outline. Most transhumanists
have a scientific or technological background, and have been brought up in
the tradition of analytic philosophy and clear scientific and naturalist
thinking. Consequently, their writings often are clear, rigid, mathematical,
logical, and without reference to literary or poetical masterworks.
For me this bespeaks certain critical problems for conjoining Nietzsche’s
thought with the transhumanist ethos, here and just musically speaking.
I think this point Babich mentions might be one of the most important
differences between Nietzsche’s and the transhumanists’ approach to
understanding the world – the styles in which they put forward their
positions radically differ from each other. Transhumanists often employ a

dry, scientific way of arguing and analyzing matters. Nietzsche (often, but
not always) writes in an overbearing flamboyant style in the works he
published himself. Does this mean that the content of their thoughts has to
differ fundamentally? I do not think so. Maybe, it would be in the interest
of many transhumanists to put forward their ideas in a more lively and
Nietzschean style. But, maybe, it would also have been in the interest of
Nietzsche’s philosophy, if he had employed a more sober style when
discussing certain topics, e.g. the eternal recurrence of everything. In any
case, it is clear to me that it is timely, possible and fascinating to consider
and bring together both approaches of thinking about the world. The
differences in style might be a reason why the similarity in their understanding
of the world sometimes is not recognized and acknowledged. Maybe,
scholars who can relate to one type of style often have problems also
making sense of a different type of style. I find the intellectual exchange
with both traditions extremely stimulating and I think that a more intensive
exchange between the two traditions can lead to many useful and
important further insights.
15. Metaphysics or Ontology

Loeb did an excellent job in reconstructing my argument concerning
the relationship between the eternal recurrence and the overhuman. I am
mostly in agreement with what he writes in his reply article. Still, there are
two issues, which I wish to address in my reply. The initial point can be
seen as a minor one, but I regard it as a noteworthy one. The second topic,
however, touches the heart of his interpretation concerning the relationship
between the overhuman and the eternal recurrence, and I think that I have
some reasons for claiming why I regard his interpretation as implausible. I
cannot disprove it, because it is solidly based upon Nietzsche’s writings.
However, I also think that he cannot disprove my reading concerning this
relationship, which has the advantage, that it is founded on more plausible
premises. Firstly, I will address the initial issue, which is related to the
following statement of his:
Is eternal recurrence a piece of metaphysics? Yes, of course it is, but this
is no longer the devastating objection that it used to be under the mid-
20th-century influence of Heidegger and the later Wittgenstein.
Metaphysics is a thriving and respected philosophical discipline today, and
careful commentators like John Richardson and Peter Poellner (cited by
Sorgner in his own recent monograph on this topic) have persuasively
shown that Nietzsche was of course interested in constructing his own
160 Chapter Nine
brand of immanent metaphysics.
I do not think “metaphysics” is the word, which ought to be used with

respect to the concept of the eternal recurrence. I myself identified eternal
recurrence as a metaphysical concept when I wrote my first Nietzsche
monograph Metaphysics without Truth: On the Importance of consistency
within Nietzsche’s Philosophy.28 However, I realized that this use of the
concept “metaphysics” can be misleading and that a different use of the
concept might be more appropriate. Nietzsche often employed the word
“metaphysics” to refer to two world theories („Metaphysik als im
Zusammenhang mit Geister- und Gespensterglauben“ (KSA, vol. 10, 6[1],
231)) whereas the aforementioned English language interpreters use it to
refer to any philosophy which deals with foundational structures of the
world, which can include both one world and two world theories. Both
uses of the word “metaphysics” are possible ones.
However, in the hermeneutic continental tradition, Nietzsche’s use of
the concept metaphysics was influential. Hence, Heidegger criticized
metaphysical thinking but put forward an ontology instead.29 In the same
spirit, Vattimo put forward a weak ontology whereby he tells a story of the
weakening of being in history.30 Hence, in this tradition, the word
“metaphysics” developed the connotation of the affirmation of a two-
world theory. To refer to basic structures of a one-world theory, hermeneutic
continental thinkers preferred the word “ontology”. I think that the
distinction is an important and established one within this tradition so that
a different use can lead to significant misunderstandings. Given this use of
the concept, it would be self-contradictory to regard the eternal recurrence
as a metaphysical theory, because the eternal recurrence does not affirm a
two world but is solely based within a one-world view. Consequently, I
regard it as more appropriate to claim that the eternal recurrence is an
ontological theory but not a metaphysical one.
16. The Eternal Recurrence and the Overhuman

Finally, I am reaching the one issue concerning Loeb’s interpretation
of the relationship between the overhuman (to whom he refers as
superhuman) and the eternal recurrence,31 which I regard as implausible. I
also think that I am putting forward a more plausible position than him. In
his article, Loeb stresses:
I also agree with More that Nietzsche thought that his doctrine of eternal
recurrence was inseparable from his concept of the superhuman.
Loeb and I agree that this aspect of Nietzsche’s thought lies at the heart
of Nietzsche’s philosophy. I doubt, however, that the two concepts in
question are logically inseparable. Loeb puts forward an ingenious
suggestion with respect to the question concerning the exact relationship
between the overhuman and the eternal recurrence. Besides one premise of
his position, which I regard as highly dubitable, his suggestion is one,
which seems to correspond to Nietzsche’s way of thinking, but this
judgment also applies to my own reconstruction of Nietzsche’s position. I
also think that my interpretation is a plausible one whereas I doubt that
this is correct for Loeb’s suggestion, even though I regard it as a logical
possibility and one which corresponds to Nietzsche’s way of thinking.
Loeb claims the following:
Let me now articulate a more interesting, and to my knowledge
unrecognized, feature of Nietzsche’s thinking—namely, that eternal
recurrence is actually required for there to be any transhumanist progress
in the first place.
I do not think that this is a plausible claim, but let me reconstruct

briefly his line of argument before I will point out in which respect this
claim is problematic. According to Loeb, the necessary connection
between the eternal recurrence and the overhuman is an insight from
which transhumanists could benefit significantly:
I will offer my reasons for thinking that the transhumanist movement has
something important to learn from Nietzsche’s pairing of the Übermensch
and eternal recurrence.
According to Loeb, Nietzsche has found a way of showing how it is

possible for human beings to free themselves from the necessity of natural
selection so that they are able to move towards a type of human, through
intentional and artificial selection, and so that it becomes possible for them
to gain more control over natural processes. To have more power over
natural processes is also in the interest of many transhumanists. According
to Loeb’s interpretation of Nietzsche, this move is supposed to be possible
due to Zarathustra’s understanding of how to realize backward-willing,
which is connected with the capacity of a prospective memory. This
capacity is supposed to enable Zarathustra turning into a transhuman and
pointing towards the existence of an overhuman species:
This backward-willing extends into Zarathustra’s presentiment in his
speech on redemption that someone has already taught him backward-
willing and also into his dream in the “Soothsayer” chapter that he is
liberated from his entombment in the past by his future redeemed self. As
162 Chapter Nine
a consequence, Zarathustra is able to create his completely novel, no-

longer-human, and child-spirited soul who laughs like no one has ever yet
laughed on earth and who is able to exert a creative influence on his
unchangeable past that allows him to say to it, “But thus I will it!” 32 In
showing that Zarathustra himself becomes transhuman as a result of his
newfound wisdom, Nietzsche thus points the way to the future
superhuman species that will be stronger and healthier precisely because it
will live and thrive in the reality of circular recurring time.
The critical question at issue is how the procedure of backward willing

ought to be understood whereby the following premise is of particular
relevance for Loeb:
This is because humans, as he defines them (GM II), are mnemonic
animals, meaning that they are able to remember (that is, suspend their
forgetting of) the past.
From the insight that human beings are mnemonic animals and time
being circular he infers that human memory can also be seen as
prospective:
But in circular and recurring time, the past is identical to the future, and so
human memory is now also prospective.33
In principle this is a plausible point of view. What is problematic is

Loeb’s understanding of the concept “memory” in this context. What is
within our memory? Is it solely what we have experienced, all experiences
from all times or something in between? Loeb infers from his premises
that human beings are mnemonic animals and that the circularity of time is
given, that in principle it must be possible for human beings to also
remember something which will occur tomorrow, because from a different
perspective events which will occur tomorrow already occurred in the past
— a long time ago in the past I must stress, given that the eternal
recurrence is a correct description of the world.
Is Loeb’s interpretation of Nietzsche plausible in this respect? I do not
think so, because if he assumes that human beings are able to remember
what will occur tomorrow, then it seems to imply that we either have to
have access to a quasi-global mind, which stores all memories of all
people, or that that the power-quanta responsible for our memories contain
all the information they have experienced throughout all periods of time
during the eternal recurrence and that it is possible to have access to all the
information stored there. These two options are the most obvious options
of how prospective memory can be possible. The first option of a universal
mind, which stores all experiences and memories of all perspectives at all
times, is not a position which Nietzsche would have affirmed. He clearly

holds that there is no such universal organism by means of which such a
universal memory could exist. I do not think either that Loeb has this
option in mind.
The second option most probably comes much closer to the basic
assumptions Loeb holds concerning the possibility of a prospective
memory. Whatever an organism experiences gets stored within the quanta
the organism consists off. These memories (at least some of them) get
passed on to the next organism, which will consist off partly the same
quanta. In this case, a future organism could only remember some selected
past events which are being stored in the power-quanta out of which it
consists. Given that it is possible to have a prospective memory of
tomorrow’s events, it seems to be necessary that these quanta store all the
information they receive during all phases of the eternal recurrence. As a
human being is not constituted out of all the quanta of all organisms of
tomorrow, the memory of a human being concerning events that will occur
tomorrow would have to be a limited one. A human being might be able to
remember some events that will occur tomorrow but certainly not all
events. Furthermore, it can be argued that if an organism can remember
tomorrow’s events then it should in principle also be possible to remember
experiences of one’s own power-quanta ten thousand years ago or two
billion years ago. Hence, the information to which any organism would in
principle be able to have access would have to be immense. Yet, it needs
to be stressed again that the period of time between a human being at the
moment and the experiences of an organism tomorrow (i.e. a very long but
limited time ago in the past) is incredibly long. It does not seem plausible
to my mind that human beings are able to remember much about
tomorrow, because another mental capacity, which human beings have, is
the wonderful capacity to forget things. This is a central capacity for
human survival. It seems less than likely to my mind that we, as
mnemonic animals, can actually remember tomorrow’s events.
My main reason against Loeb’s Nietzsche interpretation according to
which human memory can also be prospective is that this position has
highly implausible implications, namely the judgment that it can be
possible to memorize all events which the power quanta out of which
someone is constituted has experienced, even if these events took place an
incredibly long time ago in the past. Loeb’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s
position takes into account central premises which Nietzsche holds,
because I agree with him in so far that Nietzsche stresses that human
beings have a memory, which can remember things beyond the
experiences of an individual human being, i.e. a human being is able to
164 Chapter Nine
remember experiences the power-quanta or energy out of which it is

constituted and has had in the past. As the quanta have already had
experiences a long time ago in the past, i.e. tomorrow, a human being in
principle is also able to remember the experiences the quanta had then. As
the quanta, out of which a human being is constituted, are limited, the
experiences are also bound to be limited ones, which is the reason why
human beings clearly cannot remember all about tomorrow. If this
interpretation were the correct account of the relationship between the
eternal recurrence and the overhuman, then it should in principle also be
able for me to have access to all these information. It seems clear to me
that I am unable to have access to such memories, which is one reason
why I do not regard his interpretation as a plausible one.
Given the above reflections, it seems reasonable to hold that Loeb’s
interpretation of Nietzsche’s position concerning the relationship between
the overhuman and the eternal recurrence which stresses that “human
memory is now also prospective” is not the most plausible position to
hold. I am not saying that it is impossible to hold this point of view or that
it is not in accordance with Nietzsche’s premises. It would be false, if I
made these claims. However, the claim itself seems highly unlikely and
implausible. This is my reason for affirming a different interpretation
which implies the logical separability of the eternal recurrence and the
overhuman. If this is the case, then it also follows that it is not logically
necessary for transhumanists to take the eternal recurrence into consideration
concerning the process of the coming about of the posthuman. However, I
agree with Loeb that transhumanism might benefit from taking
Nietzsche’s account of the eternal recurrence seriously. Yet, my reasons
for this claim differ from the ones Loeb puts forward (see Journal of
Evolution and Technology Vol. 20, issue 1).
Loeb’s argument concerning the relationship between the overhuman
and the eternal recurrence, however, is based upon the aforementioned
premise, because his further line of thought runs as follows:
Indeed, in the passages mentioned above and others, he shows Zarathustra
leaving mnemonic messages to his younger self and thus using his
memory as a means whereby his present and future will can creatively
influence and shape his unchangeable past so as to be able say to it, “But
thus I will it! But thus I shall will it!”. And since Zarathustra is the teacher
of disciples who will themselves be able to use their own memory in this
same way, his interaction with them allows him to be influenced by a
future they remember that is beyond the span of his own lifetime. These
disciples, Zarathustra says, will be the ancestors of the superhuman
species, and so ultimately there is a paradoxical sense in which
Zarathustra’s teaching of the superhuman species is retroactively inspired
by the actual future emergence of just this species.
It is an intriguing line of thought but, due to the highly implausible

implications concerning the powers of our memory, not one, which I
regard as charitable to Nietzsche’s philosophy. Loeb also summarizes well
my own account concerning the coming about of the overhuman and the
eternal recurrence, which are related concepts, but in contrast to his
interpretation, which are also logically separable without any grave loss.
Even though he does an excellent job in presenting my views, there are
some specific points I wish to clarify further.
Firstly, Loeb claims the following while presenting my account of
Nietzsche’s theory of evolution towards the overhuman:
So I think that he is committed to admitting the role of chance and
accident in this final step as well.
He is correct in stressing that in this way chance still plays a role

during the process of evolution. However, chance no longer is the sole
determining factor as it used to be the case in a state in which solely
procedures of natural selection were responsible for the occurrence of any
changes. For chance being able to play a role, it is necessary that human
beings intentionally work at themselves to distinguish themselves from
others. Hence, the role of chance in my interpretation is reduced with
respect to the traditional process of natural selection according to which
chance is solely responsible for evolutionary alterations. Consequently, my
interpretation can be seen as a gradual move away from natural selection
towards human selection whereby Loeb is right in stressing that the
relevance of chance is not excluded in my reading. However, the relevance
of chance gets reduced which is the important point, I think.
Secondly, Loeb holds the following position:
On Sorgner’s interpretation, humans are given meaning by their goal of

creating superhuman individuals who will be able to attain redemption in
this fashion and say to their past, “But thus I will it!”. Notice, however,
that this interpretation of Nietzsche’s concept does not in any way require
the assumption of circular and recurring time. Indeed, this is precisely the
same kind of interpretation that is offered by scholars like Alexander
Nehamas who think that Nietzsche did not actually believe in the truth of
cosmological eternal recurrence.
When Loeb claims that Nehamas’ understanding of backward willing

“does not in any way require the assumption of circular and recurring
time” I must say that Loeb is wrong. In contrast, to convincingly be able to
166 Chapter Nine
say “But thus I will it!” only works given that one also holds the eternal
recurrence as a cosmological theory which is also the reason why I regard
Nehamas’ position as false who stresses the separability of these two
positions. It depends upon the eternal recurrence as cosmological theory to
be able to reach redemption, because in this way it is possible to justify all
moments prior and after the one moment to which one is able to say “But
thus I will it!.” Only if one also holds the cosmological interpretation of
the eternal recurrence, one actually believes that this moment and thereby
also all the moments prior and after this moment will recur again and
again.
If my account of the connection between the overhuman and the
eternal recurrence is correct, then transhumanism does not have to take the
eternal recurrence into consideration for reducing the importance of
chance with respect to the coming about of the posthuman. However, for
different reasons, a consideration of the eternal recurrence might still be in
the interest of transhumanists.
17. Conclusion
I am very grateful to both Babich and Loeb for writing such inspiring
articles, which enable all the readers to continue thinking about the various
incredibly important questions that are being dealt with in the debates
concerning Nietzsche and transhumanism. For me, it has been a stimulating
exchange. I hope that we will be able to continue dealing with the various
specific aspects of this exchange in future debates, because there are many
topics which have only been alluded to or which have been addressed
merely in short passages, even though they deserved a more detailed and
scholarly treatment. In particular the attempt to bridge the gap between the
Anglo-American and the Continental philosophical tradition with respect
to technological, biological and medical challenges is one which I regard
as highly promising and one to which I plan to dedicate myself further. My
own approach attempts to combine a weak version of Continental
posthumanism with a weak type of Anglo-American transhumanism. As it
is in between post- and transhumanism, but also beyond a Christian and
Kantian type of humanism, it can be referred to as metahumanism (meta
meaning both beyond as well as in between).
Notes
1 Max More, The Overhuman in the Transhuman. In: Journal of Evolution and
Technology 21(1) (January 2010): 1-4.
2 See Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto (2010). It is utterly
relevant to the present context that in response to an email inquiry I sent regarding
the argument I cite here, Lanier’s first response was the exclamation, “Yikes,
Nietzsche studies!” As an academic, one might wish that further commentary
would be needed on this point but yikes is the sort of comment that does its own
self-commenting.
3 Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Beyond Humanism. In: Journal of Evolution and
Technology - Vol. 21 Issue 2 – October 2010, 1-19.
4 Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Menschenwürde nach Nietzsche. Die Geschichte eines
Begriffs, ( 2010).
5 Nick Bostrom, Why I want to be a Posthuman when I grow up. In: Bert
Gordijn/R. Chadwick (Ed.), Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity, (2009, 107-
136; in. part. 114-116).
6 Julian Savulescu, Procreative Beneficence: Why we should select the best
children. In: Bioethics 15 (5-6), 2001, 413–426.
Julian Savulescu/Guy Kahane, “The Moral Obligation to Create Children with the
Best Chance of the Best
Life,” Bioethics 23 (5), 2009, 274-290.
7 Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Nietzsche and Germany. In: Philosophy Now 29
(October/November 2000): 10-13.
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, In Search of Lost Cheekiness: An Introduction to Peter
Sloterdijk’s “Critique of
Cynical Reason”. In: Tabula Rasa 20, 2003.
8 Peter Sloterdijk, Kritik der zynischen Vernunft, (1983).
9 Peter Sloterdijk, Regeln für den Menschenpark. Ein Antwortschreiben zu
Heideggers Brief über den
Humanismus, (1999).
10 Jürgen Habermas, Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer
liberalen Eugenik? (2001, 43).
11 Robert Ranisch/Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Post- and Transhumanim.: An
Introduction, (2014).
12 Nick Bostrom, A History of Transhumanist Thought. In: Journal of Evolution
and Technology, 14(1), 2005, 4.
13 Vinge, “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-
Human Era,” lecture, VISION-21 Symposium, NASA Lewis Research Center and
the Ohio Aerospace Institute, Mar. 30-31, 1993. Whole Earth Review, Winter
1993.
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Singularity/sing.htmlhttp://www.aleph.se/Trans/
Global/Singularity/sing.html.
14 By the way, Aldous Huxley wrote the novel as a response to the transhumanism
put forward by his brother Julian Huxley who coined the concept “transhumanism”
which bears many similarities to the more recent use of the concept and which is
168 Chapter Nine
the reason why he can be seen as founder of transhumanism. However, it needs to

be stressed that the word was created by Julian Huxley in his book New Bottles for
New Wine after Aldous Huxley had written this most famous novel of his. Still,
Julian Huxley has put forward ideas which were written in the spirit which he
referred to as transhumanist later on before Brave New World was written.
15 James Hughes, Citizen Cyborg. Why Democratic Societies must respond to the
redesigned Human of the Future (2004).
16 Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Beyond Humanism. In: Journal of Evolution and
Technology - Vol. 21 Issue 2 – October 2010, 1-19.
17 I dealt with exegetical questions concerning the classical ideal in Nietzsche in
detail elsewhere. (Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Metaphysics without Truth. On the
Importance of Consistency within Nietzsche’s Philosophy, Rev. second ed. (2007)).
18 L. R. Kass, The Wisdom of Repugnance. In: The New Republic (Washington,
DC: CanWest) (216), 1997, 17–26.
19 Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Beyond Humanism: Reflections on Trans- and
Posthumanism. In: Journal of Evolution and Technology, Vol. 21, Issue 2 (October
2010):1-19, sec. 1.1.1.
2010):1-19, sec. 1.1.1.
2010):1-19, sec. 1.1.1.
22 By contrast Heidegger’s Humanismusbrief is written against such a
presupposition. See Sartre’s L’existentialism est un humanisme and compare both
with Sloterdijk’s controversial Elmau lecture: Regeln für den Menschenpark. I
address some of these issues in Babich, Sloterdijk’s Cynicism.
23 F. J. Varela/E. Thompson/E. Rosch, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science
and Human Experience, (1991).
24 Babich, Words in Blood, Like Flowers: Poetry and Philosophy, Music and
Eros in Nietzsche, Hölderlin, Heidegger (New York; State University of New
York Press, 2006), pp. 166 ff as well as Babich, “Adorno on Science and Nihilism,
Animals, and Jews,” Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental
Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophiecontinentale, Vol. 14, No. 1, (2011):
110-145, pp. 124ff.
2010):1-19.
26 Michael Sandel, The Case against Perfection. In: The Atlantic Monthly, 2004,
293.
27 “Indeed, while one may argue that if the supposed ideal behind the
transhumanist movement is to create a better world for all, anything that involves
technology also involves less randomness, or chance, or luck, but old-fashioned
money.” (Babich 2012)
28 Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Metaphysics without Truth. On the Importance of
Consistency within Nietzsche’s Philosophy, Rev. second ed. (2007).
29 Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, 2 vol. (1961).

30 Gianni Vattimo, Glauben – Philosophieren, transl. from the Italian by
Christiane Schultz. (2003).
31 I will not deal with the question whether the translation “superhuman” or
“overhuman” is more appropriate but I will stick to the term “overhuman” because
“superhuman” sounds more like “superman” and hence seems to allude to
inappropriate connotations.
32 In an unpublished note from 1884 (KSA 11:25[7]), Nietzsche has Zarathustra
spell out the compatibility of intra-cyclical novelty and trans-cyclical repetition
(Loeb 2010: 17, 142; Loeb 2012).
33 As I argue in Loeb 2010: 14-16, scholars have missed this point because they
have imagined that a memory of the last cycle would add something different to
the next cycle. But Nietzsche’s point is that the memory is acquired in every
cycle, including the last cycle, and that there has never been an original, or first,
cycle in which the memory was not yet acquired.
PART III
CHAPTER TEN
“BUT WHAT DO WE MATTER!”

NIETZSCHE’S SECRET HOPES
AND THE PROSPECTS OF TRANSHUMANISM
MICHAEL STEINMANN
1. What is compared to what?

Much has been written about the question whether Nietzsche can count
as a precursor of transhumanism. Some transhumanists, and perhaps none
more fervently than Sorgner, claim him as one of their spiritual ancestors
(Sorgner 2009, 30), while others are reluctant to grant him that role.
Bostrom, for example, has claimed that transhumanism can be traced back
rather to the thought of John Stuart Mill, despite the existence of “some
surface-level similarities with the Nietzschean vision.” Instead of
promoting “cultural refinement in exceptional individuals,” as Nietzsche
does, transhumanism is for him a continuation of the utilitarian concern for
universal well-being and even goes back to the “rational humanism” of the
Renaissance and Enlightenment (Bostrom 2005, 2-4).
Nietzscheans, in turn, have also tried to keep their philosopher distinct
from transhumanism, for a variety of reasons. Ansell-Pearson emphasizes
Nietzsche’s “experimentalism” but points out that “the experiment [that]
Nietzsche envisages, the experiment of the human future, is a modest one”
(Ansell-Pearson 2011, 6). Compared to the vast evolutionary outlooks of
transhumanism, it has more to do with a certain concern for “human
pluralization,” a more open understanding of the natureof human beings
(11). Others have been more critical, confirming indirectly Bostrom’s
point by stating that Nietzsche would have rejected all utilitarian attempts
at improving the human condition (Hauskeller 2011, 5), and that
transhumanism, from a Nietzschean point of view is but the “latest […]
instantiation of the ascetic ideal. One wants life, but one does not want life
as it is, with all its trouble and mess, with all its banality and its
limitations” (Babich 2011, 35).
“But What Do We Matter!” 173
What makes this debate a little tedious is the fact that it is not at all
clear what is compared here to what, or whom. To begin with, what
exactly is transhumanism? As a futurist movement, transhumanism
consists more of promises and hypotheses than of definite insights into the
coming form of human life. One can almost pick whatever one wants
transhumanism to be. For its critics, it is a technocratic fantasy of human
self-empowerment that will inevitably lead to a new master race. Those
who can afford, or a willing to adopt, the new cognitive and genetic
enhancements will rule over those who do not or cannot do so (Fukuyama
2002, 84). For its proponents, transhumanism will be the ultimate step of
human liberation, giving access to wholly new ways of being human and
creating new forms of interconnectedness among individuals (de
Val/Sorgner 2011, 4). For Bostrom, again, enhancing humans is fully
compatible with the assumption of human dignity (Bostrom 2005, 213);
there is for him, so to speak, nothing to lose in transhumanism but
everything to gain.
On the other hand, how are we supposed to read Nietzsche? One can
certainly emphasize the critical points mentioned above, which imply that
there is no positive relation between Nietzsche and transhumanism. But
then, it also seems clear that the former had hopes for some new, or
higher, type of human being in the future. See, for example, the
concluding remarks in the second treatise of his work On the Genealogy of
Morals:
This man of the future, who will release us from that earlier ideal just as
much as from what had to grow from it, from the great loathing, from the
will to nothingness, from nihilism—that stroke of noon and of the great
decision which makes the will free once again, who gives back to the earth
its purpose and to the human being his hope, this anti-Christ and anti-
nihilist, this conqueror of God and of nothingness—at some point he must
come . . . (GM II, 24).
Given such remarks, one of the attitudes that Nietzsche and

transhumanism undeniably share is a certain orientation towards the future.
It seems appropriate to start our comparison from that specific point. Still,
even this point has to be clearly defined. Nietzsche is obviously no futurist
philosopher, he does not engage in making statements about future facts.
In following his thought, we should not start from the question what for
him the future will bring, in whatever form of evolution, but rather what he
hopes that it can bring. That is, we should ask not for the endpoint of any
future development but for its goal, the telos that the development, if ever
it happens, is desired to reach. The same question then has to be raised
with respect to transhumanism. We have to disregard the prognoses and
174 Chapter Ten
predictions that are often made by transhumanists as statements about

future facts and read them instead as an articulation of attitudes toward
tendencies that exist in the present. This way, we compare the only things
that can actually be compared, which are the respective goals: Nietzsche’s
hopes and the prospects of transhumanism.
The essay will start from some remarks on the notion of the
overhuman, which plays an important role in the discussion of Nietzsche’s
relation to transhumanism. As we will see, many positions in the debate on
the overhuman get stuck on the question as to who will be, or is, an
overhuman. This question is far less interesting than it might seem. Instead
of asking who an overhuman is, it is much more revealing to ask what an
overhuman might be. What kind of humans has Nietzsche envisioned to be
qualifiable as overhumans (ch. 2)? In the last part of the essay, we will see
that Nietzsche’s vision is more radical, and perhaps more dangerous, than
the one that seems to guide transhumanism. The overhuman can be linked
to what presently would be qualified as evil. At least he would be wholly
other compared to the modern attitudes toward life. Given this otherness of
the overhuman, the humans that are envisioned by the transhumanist
movement look actually quite “human” (which means that in this sense at
least one should perhaps hope that Nietzsche will not prove to be the
ancestor of transhumanism). We will delineate Nietzsche’s vision through
a close reading of some of the sections in Beyond Good and Evil,
especially the ones at the end of the different chapters of the book. As we
will see, Nietzsche’s hopes are closely linked to his textual strategies, so
that we cannot understand the meaning of the former without paying
attention to the latter (ch. 3).
2. Overhumans exist
The overhuman, Übermensch, plays a significant role in the debate on
Nietzsche’s relation to transhumanism. Zarathustra’s famous words in the
beginning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra – “I teach you the Overhuman. The
human is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to
overcome it?” (TSZ, Prologue 3) – have been called an “extropic
challenge” (More 2010, 2), a challenge to alter and expand the given
human capabilities. If we accepted this interpretation, Zarathustra’s words
would directly invite us to become transhumanists. A crucial argument
supporting such a reading states that the idea of the overhuman has to be
read in an evolutionary light. The idea, so the argument goes, indicates a
future development of the human race, one that Nietzsche either expects or
wishes to bring about. Sorgner in particular has developed this argument.
He cites Nietzsche’s positive reception of Darwin and emphasizes the

parallels between natural selection and Nietzsche’s ideas of education:
“Classical education and genetic enhancement strike me as structurally
analogous procedures” (Sorgner 2010, 2). Sorgner does, however, not fail
to admit the potentially dangerous character of “the Nietzschean breeding
fantasies” (ibid., 16).
The evolutionary reading of the overhuman also concerns the possible
distinction between trans- and posthumanism. There is currently no
consensus on how this distinction should be understood, as both trans- and
posthumanism can be defined in various ways and are sometimes used
synonymously.1 Sorgner sees Nietzsche envisioning higher humans,
corresponding to the idea of transhumans, who would eventually give birth
to posthumans, who would then in turn constitute a new species. From this
viewpoint, the overhuman would not be a trans- but a posthuman,
representing a genuine “evolutionary step” (Sorgner 2009, 37-8). This
developmental interpretation of the terms contradicts another prominent
transhumanist, Bostrom, who seems to suggest that every radically
enhanced human being would be a posthuman, which means that
transhumanism would be less the result of a biological, or post-biological,
evolution than of technological interventions and the transformations they
create:
I shall define a posthuman as a being that has at least one posthuman
capacity. By a posthuman capacity, I mean a general central capacity
greatly exceeding the maximum attainable by any current human being
without recourse to new technological means (Bostrom 2008, 107).
Coming back to the question of the overhuman, many do in fact not see
him at all as endpoint of an evolutionary development of humans:
The overhuman has no need for improvement, having achieved
satisfaction with life. The overhuman is an ideal rather than an achievable
reality. Posthumans, as envisioned by most transhumanists, will be real
successors to humans and still struggling to improve (Hibbard 2010, 10).
According to this interpretation, the overhuman would be a goal that

guides humans in their endless attempts at transforming themselves into a
new type, but it would not be something they can reach or create by
themselves. For others, the overhuman is not even a remote ideal, but
merely an indication that human life, after God’s death, has to be led in an
experimental way: “I believe the emphasis is on human and social
experimentation so as to produce plural ‘peoples’” (Ansell-Pearson 2011,
10). Zarathustra’s words would so amount to no more than a “quasi-
176 Chapter Ten
evolutionary parable” that cannot be taken literally as announcement of a

future course in the development of humanity (ibid., 2). In fact, other
contributors to the discussion have pointed at the hermeneutic problems
that any reading of the Zarathustra has to face. Given the apparent
vagueness of the concept of the overhuman, and the fact that it is
pronounced by a literary figure, it is not at all clear which interpretive
strategy is most appropriate for it (Hauskeller 2010, 7).
In this essay, we can only present a few possible ways of approaching
the notion of the overhuman, all concerning the discussion of Nietzsche’s
relation to transhumanism. A more complete, and also more thorough,
examination of the notion would be necessary if we wanted to reach a final
understanding. But for the purpose of the essay it suffices to show that all
the interpretations mentioned here are, in one way or another, misled. A
central quote from the Anti-Christ can show that Nietzsche did in fact not
believe in a future evolution of humanity as a whole:
The problem that I raise here is not what ought to succeed mankind in the
sequence of species (–the human being is a conclusion–): but what type of
human being one ought to breed, ought to will, as more valuable, more
worthy of life, most certain of the future. / This more valuable type has
existed often enough in the past: but as a lucky accident, as an exception,
never as willed (A 3).
Although it is not clear why Nietzsche did think that a further

evolution of all human beings would be impossible – nothing in his
thought excludes it, technically – it seems evident that any new or
different type would be for him only a variation among human beings,
providing only an ‘exception’ to the way humans usually are. We can
therefore say that Zarathustra’s words are indeed only a ‘quasi-
evolutionary parable,’ that they do not refer to what will happen to the
human species but only to what one wants, or should want, to happen.
Still, the passage makes clear that a ‘more valuable type’ is no merely
imagined example of human life but a real possibility. The type has
existed and can exist again in the future. Eventually, the ‘more valuable
type’ is no other than the overhuman, a “higher type […] which in relation
to collective mankind is a kind of overhuman” (A 4).2 We can therefore
also say that for Nietzsche the overhuman has existed and can exist again.
For the evolutionary interpretation of the notion, this means that it is
doubly wrong: first, because the overhuman is not the result of any
biological development of the human race (or technological development,
if one prefers the transhumanist version), and second, because he is not
limited to future variations of the human race. The overhuman does
already exist. This means that the interpretation of the overhuman as an

ideal is also wrong, because the overhuman does not represent a merely
imagined perfection. And it is also wrong to assume that the overhuman is
a merely interpretive or rhetorical device meant only to entice us to
experiment with possibilities without having anything to do with real,
individual human persons. Nietzsche’s hope for the future, for a time that
will come after, and redeem humanity from the troubles of modernity, was
no wishful rumination but the attempt to show that human life has indeed
the potential to be different than it currently is. If the future does not
amount to a genuine evolution, it allows at least for the existence of
variations and real differences in the way humans exist.
As a real occurrence, the overhuman appears in an exemplary human
being, an exceptional individual (Ausnahme-Mensch; EH, Destiny 5). For
Nietzsche, the very purpose of culture lies in bringing “particular higher
examples” of humans about (SE 6). One of these examples is Goethe. In
later texts, such as Twilight of the Idols, Goethe is attributed some of the
characteristics of the overhuman, namely the ability to overcome any urge
to reject both the human condition and the totality of things to which it
belongs (TI, Expeditions 49). He is associated with Dionysus (ibid.) and
described in a similar way like Zarathustra (EH, Destiny 5). Although
Nietzsche does not say explicitly in the passages of Twilight that Goethe
can be seen as example of an overhuman, the similarity to Zarathustra,
who in fact is called a “relatively overhuman type” (ibid.), seems to
suggest that this quality can indeed be attributed to him. In addition, in the
later works Goethe is very closely linked to Napoleon. According to
Nietzsche, Goethe received the most important influence on his work
precisely from Napoleon (BGE 244). Goethe “had no greater experience
than that ens realissimum, called Napoleon” (TI, Expeditions 49).
Napoleon, in turn, is directly qualified as overhuman, or more precisely as
“the most singular and late-born man there ever was, […] this synthesis of
the inhuman and the overhuman…” (GM I, 16).3 Again, this seems to
allow us to infer that Goethe shared some of the qualities and experiences
of the overhuman. We should note that the “inhuman” dimension that is
mentioned with respect to Napoleon is also decisive for another example
of the overhuman, Cesare Borgia (TI, Expeditions 37).
Finally, Nietzsche himself has made overhuman experiences,
especially in his conception of Zarathustra. Of the latter, he says, “here at
every moment the human being is overcome, the concept ‘overhuman’ has
become here the greatest reality,—everything that hitherto was called great
in the human being lies in an infinite distance beneath him” (EH,
Zarathustra 6). Zarathustra, as Nietzsche famously pointed out, is no
178 Chapter Ten
merely literary figure but a “type” of life that “befell” him (EH,
Zarathustra 1) and so in a sense occupied and transformed, or better:
transfigured his whole existence into something divine, at least for a short
period of time (EC, Zarathustra 3).
The fact that overhumans are particular individuals, living at a
particular time without changing the shape of humanity as whole –
Nietzsche does not exclude the possibility that “even entire races, tribes,
nations can under certain circumstances represent such a lucky hit” (A 4),
but even then they would remain particular examples – can be used to
solve a controversy that has often emerged in the discussion of Nietzsche
and transhumanism. It concerns the idea of eternal recurrence. The third
part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra famously shows how Zarathustra struggles
with this idea. He is nauseated and overwhelmed by the thought that the
“small human being,” the man of whom he is so “weary” that he had
hoped to overcome him in the overhuman, will return forever: “All is the
same, nothing is worthwhile, knowledge chokes” (TSZ III, “The
Convalescent”). For very similar reasons, transhumanists have thought it
impossible to integrate eternal recurrence into their approach: “Both for its
inherent implausibility and for its opposition to progress, this concept
cannot be reconciled with transhumanism” (More 2010, 2). Some attempts
have been made to show that a reconciliation of eternal recurrence with
transhumanism is in fact possible (Loeb 2011, 14), while others have tried
to argue that Zarathustra’s major thoughts, the overhuman and eternal
recurrence, are in fact “not logically inseparable” (Sorgner 2010, 13),
which means that one might be able to claim one part of Nietzsche’s
thinking for transhumanism without having to accept the other.4 We
cannot engage here in a discussion of these rather intricate solutions.
While transhumanism, insofar as it is inevitably rooted in a linear
conception of history, might eventually not be able to adjust to the thought
of eternal recurrence, the idea of the overhuman can well be reconciled
with it in the context of Nietzsche’s work. The contradiction between the
two concepts arises only if the overhuman is thought in an evolutionary
way, as the result of a linear and irreversible development. As a particular
individual, he can recur infinitely and appear as an object of hope over and
over again. As a “convalescent,” once he finally accepts the idea of the
eternal recurrence, Zarathustra says:
—I come eternally again to this self-same life, in the greatest and smallest
respects, so that again I teach the eternal return of all things,— / […] and
again bring to human beings the tidings of the Overhuman (TSZ III,
Convalescent).
The most important lesson that Zarathustra learns here is that the
overhuman has to be prepared and desired despite the lack of any genuine
change that comes from him. Given the overwhelming, awe-inspiring and
extraordinary experience of the overhuman, it would even be contradictory
to hope for an irreversible change and a definite new species. If such a
hope came true, the overhuman would lose his transcendent qualities and
become the new normal. As Hibbard rightly points out (2010, 10), any
further stage of human life has to continue to struggle for improvement
and can never claim to have become a stable and permanent form of
overhuman life. From this perspective, it is precisely the fact that
overhumans do not last that makes them valuable. Only the masses of the
ordinary humans maintain themselves on a firm level (cf. TI, Expeditions
14).
The examples mentioned here document not only that overhumans do
exist for Nietzsche. They also indicate that one can have overhuman
experiences, which elevate life temporarily without turning the individual
into a definite overhuman type. “One suffers dearly for being immortal,”
Nietzsche states with respect to his Zarathustrian inspiration (EH,
Zarathustra 5). This shows that the question of who is, or will be, an
overhuman, is at the end not the most pressing one for Nietzsche. Insofar
as the idea is real, some individual has corresponded to it and another one
will correspond to it again. Much more interesting, it seems, is the
question of what the overhuman is.5 The question is not easy to address.
What exactly is the “over,” the “über,” in this type of human? The
examples mentioned above show that there are at least three aspects that
can be considered. Following Zarathustra’s speech in the prologue of the
book, the overhuman is a more daring and risk-taking individual, he is
committed to what he wants to create, unconcerned of his own self-
preservation: “I love those who do not know how to live except by going
under, for they are those who go over and across” (TSZ, Prologue 4).
Another aspect lies in the divine character of the overhuman. As we have
seen, part of the overhuman experience is to accept and embrace all facets
of life, in a way that humans normally cannot do. Only gods like
Dionysus, for whom suffering is a stimulus to life, are fully able to adopt
such a stance. But although it seems undeniable that the notion of the
overhuman connotes qualities of the divine, it is no easy task to explain
them against the background of Nietzsche’s criticism of religion. Finally,
there is the “inhuman” aspect, the fact that overhumans like Cesare Borgia
and Napoleon are free from moral inhibitions. Nietzsche mocked
interpretations of the overhuman that saw in him “an ‘idealistic’ type, a
higher kind of human bing, half ‘saint’ and half ‘genius’” (EH, Books 1).
180 Chapter Ten
But what exactly does this mean? Despite the criticism of morality, one
can hardly imagine Nietzsche to see mere brutality or evilness as an
overhuman quality. The “inhuman” aspect of the overhuman, therefore,
also needs more explanation.
In the following, we will make an attempt at explaining the nature of
the overhuman. As we said at the beginning, this attempt requires us to
follow Nietzsche’s texts, or one of his texts, more closely in order to see
where the hope for a different type of human emerges, and what it aspires
to reach.
3. At the limits of what can be thought and said

Our close reading will follow some lines of thought in Nietzsche’s
Beyond Good and Evil. The notion of the overhuman plays admittedly no
role in the book, but that in no way hinders or prevents our reading. The
overhuman is ex negativo present in Nietzsche’s reflection on the modern
human, and he is at least indirectly mentioned in the experiences,
overhuman experiences, that are described. We will focus mostly on the
sections that close the different chapters of the book. It is one of
Nietzsche’s textual strategies to leave the end of his chapters open, to let
them point beyond themselves at something that is left unsaid. At the end
of the chapters, the experimental and hypothetical character of his thinking
comes most clearly to the fore. For this reason, the end of the chapters is
also the best place to trace Nietzsche’s hopes. From the nine closing
sections, one ends with a question and a dash (BGE 44), another one with
a question (BGE 185), and five with three dots (BGE62, 203, 213, 239,
295).6 This repeated use of three dots is most certainly no random fact but
can be seen as a deliberate rhetoric of open-endedness. Obviously, not all
ending sections are equally suited for our inquiry, and the reading that we
suggest is in itself hypothetical, easily replaceable by other combinatory
linkages between the various sections and texts. Still, it seems to open us a
valid way of engaging Nietzsche’s thought, a way that also allows us to
pay attention to the composition of the text, which is often neglected in
favor of particular sections that are rich enough to be considered without
the context in which they appear.
The concluding section of Chapter 1 (BGE 23) seems to echo Socrates’
resolve to study first and foremost himself instead of engaging in the
investigation of remote or at least external things.7 Psychology, Nietzsche
states, has to become the leading science again, in order to give access to
“the fundamental problems” (ibid.). The purpose of psychology would be
to study all human life under the guiding idea of the will to power. But
studying the will to power is no easy research program, as any study has to
struggle with “unconscious resistances in the heart of the researcher”
(ibid.). Not only has the will to power not been studied properly so far, it
is not even clear that humans, psychologists or not, would be both willing
and able to engage with this dimension of human life, willing to go as
Nietzsche says, “into the depths” (ibid.). He shows why this is the case
through a veritable climax of intolerable insights: humans, he states, first
reject the idea that good and bad impulses mutually determine each other;
they find it even more repulsive to think that good impulses might be
derived from bad ones; and they ultimately cannot stomach the idea to see
“hatred, envy, greed, and power-lust as the conditioning affects of life”
(ibid.) that “need to be enhanced where life is enhanced” (ibid.). But not
even this last idea is the most horrifying one, as Nietzsche indicates: “And
yet even this hypothesis is far from being the most uncomfortable and
unfamiliar in this enormous, practically untouched realm of dangerous
knowledge” (ibid.). The text leaves unsaid what that ‘most unfamiliar,’
most foreign insight might be. What can be more painful than a world in
which the bad has become the most desired good? We can obviously only
speculate at this point. But if the last insight is indeed unbearable it must
refer to something that humans cannot grasp without feeling all their
attitudes toward life challenged and destroyed. They cannot bear it, we can
perhaps say, while they are still caring about the difference of good and
bad, and the sufferings and desires that are linked to it. This would mean
that they cannot bear it while they are alive and care, in one way or
another, for the way their life goes. If we follow this line of thought, the
last insight would not only concern the collapsing difference of good and
bad but eventually lead before the possibility of death. It would be the
insight through which individuals have to embrace their own, unthinkable
and therefore ‘most unfamiliar’ destruction. Nietzsche does in fact suggest
the idea of death in the text, by evoking a dangerous passage over the sea:
If you are ever cast loose here with your ship, well now! come on! clench
your teeth! open your eyes! and grab hold of the helm! – we are sailing
straight over and away from morality; we are crushing and perhaps
destroying the remnants of our own morality by daring to travel there – but
what do we matter!(ibid.).
Following these words, the final insight would be that no one matters,
and that especially no one’s suffering matters in the greater economy of
life (or better: that my and your suffering do not matter). This means that
the goal of Nietzsche’s new psychological inquiry would be precisely to
let go of oneself. Human consciousness is only the surface of life; what the
182 Chapter Ten
individual feels is ultimately irrelevant and only the appearance of a will-

to-power dynamic that pursues its own inevitable goals. Equally irrelevant
is it to hold on to one’s ‘own morality,’ as life is stimulated and enhanced
by the opposite, destructive impulses. But then again, such insights have to
remain at the limits of what can be said, or better: beyond the limits of
what can be said, as humans cannot grasp their own destruction while they
are alive.8
Our interpretation of the closing section of Chapter 1 can be confirmed
by a reading of the other final sections that will be considered here. In one
way or another, all of them point at an insight that has to be left unsaid
because there is no way it could be fully grasped and accepted as such.9
The concluding section of Chapter 2 (BGE 44) introduces the idea of “new
philosophers” that Nietzsche hopes to see coming in the future. The new
philosophers are different from the “free spirits” (ibid.) among which he
counts himself. Much is said in his text about the free spirits and the way
they are different from their surrounding culture. They are the “antipodes”
of “all modern ideology,” opposed to democratic egalitarianism and the
wish to improve the conditions of life. Contrary to the modern “levelers,”
the free spirits are willing to embrace all that seems dangerous or painful
in life:
We think that harshness, violence, slavery, danger in the streets and in the
heart, concealment, Stoicism, the art of experiment, and devilry of every
sort; that everything evil, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and snakelike in
humanity serves just as well as its opposite to enhance the species
‘humanity’ (ibid.).
This statement needs to be carefully read. Despite its bold and fear-
inducing tone it entails no direct and positive claim. Nietzsche does not
recommend the use of slavery or other cruelties but eventually only says
that if one wants to elevate the human species, one should also think of
harsh conditions as a stimulus for improvement. Seen in this light, the
claim is almost innocuous: who would not agree that humans can learn
from hardships and dangers? On the other hand, no one could obviously
desire and accept all the negative and destructive things that Nietzsche
mentions here. All he says, therefore, is that the free spirits would be open
to revise all traditional value judgments and admit that what cannot be
given value by humans can have value nonetheless. – We could add that
besides the psychological difficulty of accepting destructive experiences
one cannot say that one wants ‘devilry of every sort’ within the confines of
a philosophical argument, because in that case one would have to say that
devilry is something good, something desirable and beneficial, which
would be a contradiction in terms. Only in fiction and mythology it is

possible to make such claims. There is no practical philosophy, or rational
conduct of life, for which destructiveness could be a goal, and Nietzsche
seems well aware of this.
The end of the section documents again Nietzsche’s turn towards the
unspeakable. As he says, the free spirits are,
even scarecrows if the need arises – and today the need has arisen:
inasmuch as we are born, sworn, jealous friends of solitude, of our own
deepest, most midnightly, noon-likely solitude. This is the type of people
we are, we free spirits! and perhaps you are something of this yourselves,
you who are approaching? you new philosophers? —(ibid.).
This way of ending the aphorism is no doubt strange, not only in the
way the author turns away from his readers, into a solitude that seems to
break up all communication. Despite all that is said about the free spirits in
the text, at the end Nietzsche wants to make clear that they are not easily
understood or even identified. But the end seems also strange in its
personal tone, in the way the author reaches out to others who do not yet
exist, and might not even ever exist, but are only ‘approaching’ from an
uncertain future. Nietzsche engages in a rhetoric of personal closeness, of
intimacy almost, that replaces all arguments with a simple questioning
gesture. His philosophical text turns away from an argumentative account
toward a secret dialogue with individuals whose existence is hypothetical
at best. But as strange as this might seem, it only fulfills the overall
tendency of his text. The new philosophers will not be representatives of a
well-known discipline, they will not simply be other philosophers than the
ones we know now. In a sense, they will be completely other, individuals
who can only be guessed in their own withdrawn and unfathomable
solitude.10
In the following ending sections of the Chapters 3, 5, and 6 (BGE 62,
203, 213), the reader learns more about the new philosophers. The texts
are rich and full of detail, so that only a few points can be mentioned here.
The new philosophers can be compared to artists whose material would be
the human being himself (BGE 62), and to legislators who would set a
goal for all humans to follow (BGE 211). They would, however, “teach
humanity its future as its will, as dependent on a human will” (BGE 203),
which means that they would not so much force human beings into a
certain direction but convince them to follow it themselves. Still, the new
philosophers are supposed “to prepare for the great risk and wholesale
attempt at breeding and cultivation,” having their heart transformed “into
bronze” (ibid.) in order not to be tempted to preserve “what should be
184 Chapter Ten
destroyed” (BGE 62). But not only hardness and resolve would be
required for them, the philosophers would also have to be free from all
egalitarian assumptions. They would have to be “noble enough to see the
abysmally different orders of rank and chasms of rank between different
people” (ibid.).
Nietzsche’s descriptions are again bold and almost shocking. Still, the
context shows that they are again only made in an indirect way. The new
philosophers are introduced as the extreme opposite to the Christian ideas
that have dominated Europe in the last two millennia (ibid.), and they are
only an “image” that the author sees before his eyes, a possibility of new
“leaders” who could also “simply fail and degenerate” (BGE 203). In
admitting this possibility of failure, Nietzsche makes clear that there is no
way of foreseeing how the new philosophers will think, if they will even
genuinely exist. In fact, it is not even clear that one would recognize a new
philosopher if one saw one. “You need to have been born for any higher
world” (BGE 213), Nietzsche states, which means, again, that he can only
make a gesture toward the future, without being able to anticipate the
individuals that might respond.11
If this is so, then what is the purpose of the reference to new
philosophers? It seems almost natural to see them as a mere concept that is
used to highlight everything that modernity lacks. But Nietzsche’s gestures
are too personal for that, and the philosophers are addressed not as
incorporations of ideas but as individuals. They are someone, not
something. In a way, we can see this if we only think about the idea of
‘new’ philosophers. In philosophy, there can be no such thing, as all
engagement with the truth is definite. There can be no ‘new’ philosophers
like there can be new scientists or new artists, because philosophy cannot
assume that what one knows is at the same time contingent or incomplete
(because then, there would have to be another way of knowing which is
either known already or completely inaccessible). If there are new
philosophers, there has to be a new way of facing the truth, or a new truth
altogether, and that assumes a new and unforeseeable, wholly individual
ability. Nietzsche can only, so to speak, extend an invitation to the future
but not describe the new philosophers by using any general terms. His
texts follow what can be called a strategy of de-generalization: at the end,
all ways of thinking are for him historical, contingent, and individual, and
can therefore not be anticipated in reference to something that is already
known.12
At the same time, inviting the new philosophers means to invite the
reader to adopt a new outlook onto himself. We can perhaps best describe
the texts as attempts to show what a new, and utterly foreign, outlook on
contemporary human life could be. Humans, Nietzsche suggests, have

never looked beyond their current nature but always only wanted to
preserve it as it is. They never saw that it was only random, unaware “how
humanity has still not exhausted its greatest possibilities” (BGE 203).
Understanding this, however, is no merely intellectual challenge. The fact
that there are always more possibilities of life than have been realized is
trivial and can easily be seen. What really matters is the ability to see what
is missing, which includes the ability to feel and experience the lack in all
its urgency and weight. Nietzsche’s invocation of new philosophers can so
be read as an attempt to teach his contemporaries new emotions, a new
emotional tonality, which alone would separate them from their present.
Seen with the “mocking” eye of an Epicurean god, modernity might look
like a laughable “comedy” (BGE 62), but modern humans also have to feel
the necessary “pain” and “sense of alarm” about the missed opportunities
of human existence, not to mention the “disgust” that they themselves can
induce (BGE 203). The new philosophers, Nietzsche states, would “hardly
ever love […]” (BGE 213), which means that they would certainly not
love us contemporaries. From this point of view, Nietzsche not only
entices the reader to despise his contemporaries, which is easy enough,
given that one is always tempted to despise all others and exclude oneself
from that disdain. In imaging the new philosophers, the readers have to
imagine themselves being despised, being rejected as they are for not
realizing their potential. This way, his writing leads again to the limits of
what can be said and accepted at all. While even disgust can be a positive
emotion, insofar as it strongly motivates behavior, there is ultimately
something cold and foreign that appears in Nietzsche’s text, the
foreshadowing of an ultimate alienation from all existing attitudes towards
human nature and a certain inkling of the readiness that the new
philosophers would have in accepting the destruction of all current ways
of life.
Chapter 9 concludes the book. It has two concluding sections: number
296, which gives a sort of epilogue to the entire book, and the second to
last, 295, which can be taken as concluding aphorism for the section. In
section 296, Nietzsche laments his own art of writing, stating that his
written thoughts look more innocuous than they originally were: “Nobody
will guess […] how you looked in your morning, you sudden sparks and
wonders of my solitude, you, my old, beloved— wicked thoughts!” (BGE
296). Not only is it difficult to admit certain thoughts to oneself, from
these remarks it seems that it is also difficult, if not impossible, to express
and communicate them to others. If the depths of human destruction have
to be shared in propositional form, they can in fact not be shared at all.
186 Chapter Ten
Section 295, finally, is one of the most enigmatic aphorisms of the

book and again too rich in detail to be considered in its entirety here.
Nietzsche introduces the “genius of the heart,” in a gesture that is again
much more personal and evocative than descriptive. The genius of the
heart is Dionysus, who is also introduced as a philosopher: “Even the fact
that Dionysus is a philosopher and that, consequently, even gods
philosophize, seems to me like something new and not without its dangers,
something that might arouse mistrust precisely among philosophers”
(BGE 295). Nietzsche leaves it open whether Dionysus as philosopher
would be identical, or at least similar, to the new philosophers. The more
intimate way in which the former is introduced seems to be different from
the legislative function of the latter, which means that we should probably
not infer that all previous references to the future philosophers were a
hidden reference to Dionysus. Also, as we said before, we should not
overemphasize the question of the who. Much more important is the
question of what both the new philosophers and Dionysus give the reader
to think.13
But not only will we refrain from any attempt at unifying these various
themes in Beyond Good and Evil, we will also not engage in asking
whether Nietzsche’s reference to Dionysus can be taken literally or not. It
is by no means clear whether Dionysus is a mere figure of speech, an
ironical literary device, or an allegory invested with deeper meaning, or
perhaps just that, Dionysus, a god that has survived the rise and demise of
the monotheistic God. Instead of settling for any of these options, we
rather follow Nietzsche’s text in the surprising naturalness by which he
introduces the god and himself as his “last disciple and initiate” (ibid.). We
also follow Nietzsche’s text insofar as it seems to prohibit all approaches
that would try to rationalize and explain what he says. When the text
invokes “the genius of the heart, that makes everything loud and
complacent fall silent and learn to listen”(ibid.), it seems to immunize
itself against all attempts to be dragged into the light of reason, out of the
intimacy of the heart and its encounter with the “temptergod and born pied
piper of consciences, whose voice knows how to descend into the
underworld of every soul”(ibid.). Nietzsche seems to take good care at
assuring that his ideas are not misread as propositions and theorems but
left hovering, so to speak, in the undecided state of thoughts and images
that arise before one’s inner eye. We will respect here this attempt at
holding the reader’s intrusiveness at bay.14
If we so follow the text’s temptation, we are again faced with the terror
induced by dangerous thoughts. Dionysus says:
‘I love humans under certain circumstances’ […] ‘I am very fond of them:

I think about how I can help them advance and make them stronger, more
evil and more profound than they are.’ – ‘Stronger, more evil, and more
profound?’ I asked, startled. ‘Yes,’ he said again, ‘stronger, more evil, and
more profound; and more beautiful’ – and at that, the tempter god smiled
his halcyon smile […]. We humans are—more humane…(ibid.).
In these words, the author not only admits, more openly than before,
his own fears vis-à-vis the consequences of his thoughts. He also uses the
fact that for the first time in the book the look from above the human
condition is attributed to a real, present other, and not just a future and
hypothetical person. Dionysus actually sees what there is to see in the
human condition. This introduces a change in perspective and a wholly
different tone. While the destructiveness of a ‘more evil’ life would be
unbearable for humans, it would be ‘beautiful’ for the god. From the god’s
point of view, life can reveal what is divine, awe-inspiring and glorious in
it. This means that the shocking destructiveness of Nietzsche’s insights is
not the ultimate goal of his thought. It is not what his thinking is meant to
induce, because if this were the case it would amount to no more than a
sadistic play. What it wants to make the reader understand, or at least
glimpse at, is the divine beauty of life, the fact that life can be ‘profound’
and ‘strong’ precisely if its purpose is not mere preservation. The ultimate
Dionysian insight is positive and so restores the human desire for a
positive goal, for something that would ultimately not be bad but good.
Still, it is only from the god’s perspective that such a good can be
revealed. For humans, it remains inaccessible, hidden behind the terror and
alienation that they inevitably have to feel. Only if the reader follows
Dionysus’ temptation, he might succeed in trying to imagine the
possibility of a wholly foreign outlook on life.
4. Otherness missed
Our close reading of some of the passages in Beyond Good and Evil
has led us away from the notion of the overhuman, at least so it seems.
Still, Dionysus is linked to the experience of the overhuman in other texts,
as we have shown before, and there is no reason why certain philosophers, at
least the new ones, should not also be qualifiable as overhumans.
Dionysus’ intent of making humans “stronger, more evil, and more
profound; and more beautiful” seems to echo Zarathustra’s words when
the latter introduces his vision of the human being as a “rope over an
abyss”: “I love the great despisers, for they are the great reverers and
188 Chapter Ten
arrows of yearning for the other shore” (TSZ I, Prologue 4). There seems
to be no reason not to take the passages in Beyond Good and Evil as
indications of what, and how, an overhuman would be.
This allows us to come back to the initial question of Nietzsche’s
relation to transhumanism. As we have seen by now, what Nietzsche
hopes for is a different, foreign and terrifying outlook on human life, an
outlook that as such cannot be anticipated or predicted. The overhuman
would look very differently at the destruction of individual human life
than humans usually do. He would want to create new forms of existence
out of human life, and he would do so by disregarding what humans
usually care for and desire, such as the preservation of life, the avoidance
of harm, and the need for a comforting worldview and religion. Obviously,
we should not over-emphasize the cruelty of the overhuman here, as it is
not possible to make any determinate statements about him. The
overhuman can be a daring, creative individual, not at all tied to the
inhuman aspirations of a Borgia or Napoleon. But then again, one cannot
know.
The obvious question that arises here is why one should hope for
something that one cannot even desire and want. The answer is that for
Nietzsche only what one cannot want brings life to a new elevated level.
One has to face the idea of one’s own death not only if one wants to
understand what life is, but also if one wants to bring higher, more
enticing and creative possibilities of existence about. If the mediocrity of
modern life has to be overcome, there is for Nietzsche, so to speak, no way
to play it safe. But can any of his hopes be positively linked to the
prospects of transhumanism? The answer seems no. As a matter of fact,
the new technological master race, if ever it comes, might look at the
current humans in the indifferent way the overhuman does, but such a race
is certainly no goal that transhumanists pursue. Given the roots of the
movement in Enlightenment and the progress of science, cruelty cannot be
its desired end.15 What the transhumanists undoubtedly share with
Nietzsche is the idea of a more comprehensive, more tolerant and more
understanding outlook on life. But are they aware that such an outlook
would also be wholly other than what we currently know? That things
might not matter for it the way they do for us? Insofar as transhumanism is
following a linear narrative of progress, which assumes the next version of
human beings to be a continuation and improvement of the existing type, it
cannot account for the otherness of the overhuman. It cannot capture the
uniqueness and singularity of an overhuman’s attitude toward life.
Nietzsche and transhumanism, hence, hope for very different things: while
both hope to be amazed by a new type of human being, transhumanism
doesn’t seem to account for the possibility that a different human type will
not only be amazingly, but also terrifyingly new.
Notes
1 For an overview of the current debates see Ranisch/Sorgner 2014.
2 The translation has been modified to use “overhuman” instead of “superman”
(see Nietzsche 2003, 128).
3 The translation has been modified to use “overhuman” instead of “superhuman”
(see Nietzsche 2010, 26).
4 See for some of the older positions in the Nietzsche literature Ansell-Pearson
(1992).
5 The distinction between “who” and “what” is admittedly ambiguous. Ansell-
Pearson understands the question concerning the who as question for the “identity”
of the overhuman (1992, 310), which comprises both our question of the whatand
the question of the individuals to which the notion possibly refers.
6 The last section of Chapter 9 (BGE 296) can be considered an epilogue to the
entire book, which makes the second to last the closing section. Chapter 8 ends
with a mocking poem (BGE 256), while only Chapter 1 ends with a declarative
statement (BGE 23), which, however, also indicates an open-ended inquiry:
“Psychology is again the path to the fundamental problems.” Chapter 4 consists of
two-line aphorisms and will not be considered here, while Chapters 7 and 8 are
polemical and satirical, respectively. They will also not be considered.
7 Phaedrus 229 e, see also Apology 22 c.
8 In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche emphasizes the need for a “lethargic element”
that accompanies the enthusiastic experience of “destruction” in the Dionysian
state (BT 7).
9 Lampert’s excellent commentary of Beyond Good and Evil also emphasizes the
unsaid. Inspired by Leo Strauss, however, it focuses on what Nietzsche himself left
implicitly unsaid (Lampert 2001, 58 and 98), while our emphasis is on what cannot
be said.
10 Our reading differs from Nehamas’ attempt at understanding the gesture toward
the new philosophers “self-referentially,” as a way in which Nietzsche would have
presented his own views “obliquely,” “exemplifying” them as being held by
someone else (Nehamas 1988, 60-63). For Nehamas, this operation is necessary
because perspectivism cannot be presented as a universally valid position.
However, this interpretation seems unable to account for the dialogical character of
the text, not to mention the fact that Nietzsche’s perspectivism seems particularly
well-suited to embrace the possibility of perspectives held by other individuals.
11 This also means that it is not at all clear whether the new philosophers are given
an explicitly political task in the future, as Lampert suggests (2001, 135f.), or that
Nietzsche even saw himself as their “founding teacher” (ibid., 177). Would the
philosophers be ‘new’ if Nietzsche had already outlined what they were supposed
to achieve?
190 Chapter Ten
12 For the same reason, it is impossible to refute philosophical positions: “One

does not refute Christianity, ones does not refute a disease of the eye” (CW,
Epilogue). Each individual position is unique in the way it exists. One can only
leave it behind, or replace it with other ones. See also Burnham (2007, 149), about
the “necessity of experience” in philosophy, especially in reference to the new
philosophers.
13 At times, Nietzsche refers to the “concept of Dionysus,” indicating indeed more
the what than the whothat is referred to under this name (EH, Zarathustra 6). For
an overview of the reception of Dionysus in modern times, see Henrichs 1984.
14 For Lampert, the final section is a “theological tale” similar to the ones told by
Plato at the end of some of his dialogues (2001, 293). But besides the similarities
to Plato, the question remains what it means to employ such ‘tales.’
15 Even one of the mostrisk-friendly versions of transhumanism only calls, for
example, for “a democratically accountable, legally binding version of eugenics,”
rejecting any authoritarian use of such techniques (Fuller/Lipinska 2014, 128).
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NIETZSCHE, THE ÜBERMENSCH,

AND TRANSHUMANISM:
PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS
RUSSELL BLACKFORD
Introduction
In 2009, the Journal of Evolution and Technology (“JET”) published
what proved to be an especially fruitful article by Stefan Lorenz Sorgner:
“Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and the Transhuman”. It identified resemblances
between Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch (or, in Sorgner’s
preferred translation, “the overhuman”) and the concept of the posthuman
in contemporary transhumanist thought. The article inspired several
rounds of responses and counter-responses involving transhumanists,
Nietzsche experts, and other interested scholars. The exchanges continue –
here I am, adding to them! – and I doubt that an end is in sight.
As JET’s editor-in-chief, I called for reactions to Sorgner’s views:
either relatively brief commentaries on his thesis or full-length articles
stimulated by it. The result was a special issue of JET in 2010 with the title
“Nietzsche and European Posthumanisms”. That issue includes
contributions by, among others, Max More, Michael Hauskeller, Bill
Hibbard, and William Sims Bainbridge. Sorgner replied to objections in
the following issue, and the discussion continued in 2011 in The Agonist, a
journal dedicated more specifically to the work of Nietzsche scholars.
There, various points of disagreement were addressed by Paul S. Loeb and
Babette Babich, followed by a lengthy response from Sorgner – all
introduced by Keith Ansell-Pearson. The contributions by Loeb and
Babich contrast especially sharply. Loeb’s is broadly sympathetic to
transhumanism (and to the idea of an historical and structural relationship
between Nietzschean and transhumanist thought), while Babich’s is
192 Chapter Eleven
openly hostile to transhumanism (and portrays it as antithetical to

Nietzsche’s philosophical enterprise).
The debate has been complex and multifaceted, with authors on all
sides making (and responding to) a variety of points. In what follows, I
cannot deal with every live issue. I will, however, comment on a number
of important and recurring themes.
One complication (of many) is the difficulty even in finding an
adequate English word for Übermensch. Loeb examines the difficulties of
translation and announces a preference for the word “superhuman” (2011,
3-5). This can, however, have unwanted connotations in ordinary English.
I will simply employ the German word Übermensch, while remaining
mindful of various alternatives that have been offered by other scholars
(such as “superman” or “superhuman”, “overman” or “overhuman”). In
any event, Nietzsche’s prophetic figure, Zarathustra, describes our species
as a rope or a bridge between the animal and the Übermensch (Nietzsche
1961, 43-44). This shows at least some resemblance to core ideas in
transhumanist thought, where contemporary humans are imagined to be in
transition from Homo sapiens’ historical nature to the posthuman. Is the
resemblance merely coincidental and/or superficial?
To assist in thinking about that, I’ll begin with a brief overview of
transhumanism. Any such overview will be controversial to some extent,
but I’ll strive for what counts as orthodoxy in these unorthodox territories.
Technology and Transhumanism

We are technology-making animals. In the past, our technologies and
their products have helped us to survive in a diverse range of
environments, to manipulate the world around us in myriad ways, and to
improve our perceptual capacities. Scientific instruments have opened up
the universe for our inspection on new scales. Technologies such as
painting, writing, and computerization have extended human minds and
memories. Human technologies of all kinds have shaped the conditions
under which we live, and to an appreciable extent they have found their
way into our bodies, altering us subtly as individual creatures. I am not
thinking merely of superficial modifications, as with dental fillings
(though we should never underestimate modern dentistry’s effects on
human longevity and health). Consider, for example, how mastering tools,
instruments, and machines inevitably alters our neurological connections.
This can be seen as a kind of cyborgization.
Nietzsche, the Übermensch, and Transhumanism 193
Transhumanists expect the process to go much further. As they

frequently emphasize, technological advances throughout the twentieth
century, and most especially during the past few decades, offered new
prospects for deliberate modification of human bodies, human capacities,
and human nature. Emerging technologies promise – or threaten – to boost
our inherent cognitive, emotional, perceptual, and physical capability.
Through advanced genetics, prosthetics, and pharmaceutical technology,
for example, we may become smarter, stronger, healthier, happier, and/or
longer-lived. Transhumanist thinkers foresee a time, perhaps not very
distant, when technological interventions will lead to such dramatic
enhancement of human beings that it makes intuitive sense to think of the
radically altered people of that time as posthuman (adjective) or as
posthumans (noun).
Posthumans will emerge from – or perhaps be created by – ordinary
human beings, but they’ll be remarkably different. In one extreme
variation of the idea, we might upload our minds and personalities into
advanced, highly durable computer hardware, thereafter interfacing with
the world in numerous and complex ways. That will be going posthuman
with a vengeance!
Transhumanism is a broad intellectual movement with no body of
codified beliefs and no agreed agenda for change. It is not so much a
single philosophical system as a cluster of philosophies, agendas, and
associated cultural practices. It does, however, have an intellectual core
shared by anyone who plausibly claims to a transhumanist. One core idea
is that human beings (particularly in industrially advanced societies) are
increasingly in a state of transition. This word provides the “trans” in
“transhumanism”. What I have called “the great transition” (Blackford
2013) is from human beings, in our historically evolved form, to a state of
posthumanity. As a second core idea, the transition is viewed as essentially
desirable: we should do whatever we can to contribute to it. Transhumanist
philosophies can be understood as philosophies of self-transformation and
self-overcoming. When so described, of course, they sound rather
Nietzschean.
A substantial and complex history of ideas lies behind transhumanism,
even though the organized transhumanist movement dates only from the
1980s and is a product of rather recent advances in scientific
understanding and technological capability. Precursors can be found, for
example, in the futurist speculations of J.B.S. Haldane and J.D. Bernal in
the 1920s. Was Nietzsche also a precursor? Let’s investigate.
194 Chapter Eleven
Nietzsche and Transhumanism

In an oft-cited article on the history of transhumanist thought, Nick
Bostrom plays down any relationship between transhumanism and
Nietzsche’s project as a philosopher. Bostrom points out that Nietzsche’s
interest was not in transformations through technology but in “a kind of
soaring personal growth and cultural refinement in exceptional individuals”
(Bostrom 2005, 4). Bostrom discerns only superficial similarities between
the Nietzschean vision and transhumanism; he suggests that transhumanist
thought has as much, or more, in common with the liberal and utilitarian
philosophy of John Stuart Mill. Thus, Bostrom emphasizes what he sees as
transhumanism’s “Enlightenment roots, […] emphasis on individual
liberties, and […] humanistic concern for the welfare of all humans (and
other sentient beings)” (2005, 4).
In her more recent contribution to the debate, Babette Babich makes a
similar point. Commenting on Nietzsche’s undoubted elitism, she explains
that his project was based on the values of individual genius and sublime
cultural achievement:
Indeed his project from the start to the end of his creative life was nothing
other than the production of a higher culture in broad terms and on the
individual level of genius, whereby Nietzsche supposed the first to require
the second, i.e., that the restoration on the level of culture of a once and
yet higher culture called for that same rare genius.
Babich continues that, for Nietzsche, “this particular rarity will not
because it cannot turn out to be an upgrade money can buy.” For
Nietzsche, values on sale in the market will be “middle-rank values, what
he called mediocrity” (Babich 2011, 25).
In his 2009 article, Sorgner leaves open whether late twentieth-century
and contemporary transhumanist thinkers were consciously influenced by
Nietzsche. However, he suggests that the similarity between the concepts
of Übermensch and posthuman lies at a fundamental level. As Sorgner
develops his argument, Nietzsche rejects any concept of transcendent
meaning, but finds value in the interest of “higher humans” in permanently
and continually “overcoming” themselves (Sorgner 2009, 35-36). Ultimate
overcoming consists in surpassing the human species itself (Sorgner 2009,
40). The prospect of the Übermensch grants meaning to human beings
who are immersed in efforts of self-overcoming.
Sorgner shows how the relevant (Nietzschean and transhumanist)
styles of thought are alike in regarding humanity as a work in progress,
with only limited potential in the absence of a radical transformation. For
Nietzsche, as for transhumanists, humanity is an incomplete and imperfect

product of evolutionary forces. Sorgner adds that the idea of the
Übermensch provides Nietzsche with a grounding for values that appears
to be missing in current transhumanism, which might do well to
incorporate specifically Nietzschean ideas:
Transhumanists, at least in the articles which I have consulted, have not
explained why they hold the values they have, and why they want to bring
about posthumans. Nietzsche, on the other hand, explains the relevance of
the overhuman for his philosophy. The overhuman may even be the
ultimate foundation for his worldview. (Sorgner 2009, 39)
In response to this, Max More, a foundational (and still leading) figure

in transhumanism, confirmed that he was, indeed, influenced from the
beginning by Nietzsche. We can thus be confident that the broader
transhumanist movement was influenced by Nietzsche via More’s writings
and other contributions. At the same time, More emphasizes that,
“Although there are clear parallels between Nietzsche’s thinking and some
core transhumanist ideas, the latter are inspired very selectively by the
former” (More 2010, 1). He specifies the doctrine of an eternal recurrence
of events as one example of a Nietzschean idea that has not influenced
transhumanism, because it appears (to More, certainly, but no doubt to
many other transhumanists) inherently bizarre and contrary to standard
conceptions of progress (More 2010, 2).
Nonetheless, More emphasizes that he, personally, was inspired by
Nietzsche, and he records that he cited Thus Spoke Zarathustra and other
Nietzschean texts in his early writings and presentations (More 2010, 2-3).
In particular, he finds inspiration in Nietzsche’s ideas of self-overcoming
and interrogation of one’s own convictions. More does not claim that one
must be motivated by Nietzschean thinking to be a transhumanist – the
motivation could be more utilitarian, for example – but a Nietzschean
outlook is available to transhumanists as one strategic option, and it need
not be a politically harsh or illiberal one: “a Nietzschean transhumanist
would look upon the prospect of uplifting the masses as an expression of
overflowing personal power or well-being or health” (More 2010, 3).
At this stage, we may safely conclude that Nietzsche had at least some
influence, via More, on transhumanism. Indeed, More’s early work was so
crucial that the transhumanist movement would not exist in anything like
its actual form if he had not been inspired by Nietzsche’s oeuvre. That
said, it remains to be seen whether Nietzschean thinking and
transhumanist thinking support each other philosophically. Though More
was subjectively influenced and inspired by Nietzsche, we can wonder
196 Chapter Eleven
whether this served merely as a springboard to an essentially different,

perhaps even incompatible, worldview.
Responses and Critiques

As I mentioned in my introduction, I do not propose to examine all the
criticisms advanced in response to Sorgner’s original (2009) paper. I’ll
sketch those of Bill Hibbard and Michael Hauskeller, however, and I’ll
return to Babich’s more recent (2011) critique.
Hibbard emphasizes that Nietzsche connected the idea of the
Übermensch with the doctrine of eternal recurrence. He imagined the
Übermensch as prepared to live life again, exactly repeated, having
achieved a state of satisfaction, and having no need, or wish, for self-
improvement. By contrast, says Hibbard, “Posthumans, as envisioned by
most transhumanists, will be real successors to humans and still struggling
to improve” (Hibbard 2010, 10). Thus, the Übermensch, within Hibbard’s
understanding, is an unattainable ideal of perfection, whereas posthumans,
as envisaged in transhumanist philosophies, will be, first, real and, second,
involved in continuing efforts to improve themselves. Hibbard goes on to
consider the potential problem of radical inequality in a world where
human beings have been altered and augmented by powerful emerging
technologies. He is concerned that we analyze this potential situation and
attempt to devise the terms of a social contract for future security and
stability. In that sense, he thinks, transhumanists should look more to
Thomas Hobbes than to Nietzsche as a “useful antecedent” for their
thinking (Hibbard 2010, 11). As we’ve seen, Bostrom directs us to Mill
rather than (or at least as much as) to Nietzsche; Hibbard directs us to the
social contract theory of Hobbes.
For some thinkers, it appears, Nietzsche is an embarrassment. As
Sorgner identifies, there is a danger – especially, but not solely, in
Germany – in being too closely identified with Nietzsche’s ideas. This
results from the harsher elements in his thought, plus, of course, the
frequent efforts by friend and foe alike to associate him with Nazism.
Accordingly, Nietzsche is not always welcome as a perceived influence or
precursor. As Sorgner wittily expresses the point, “No one wants to play
with Freddy” (Sorgner 2011, 4).
Michael Hauskeller denies that Nietzsche would have been likely to
favour genetic interventions in human potential, or, more generally, to
appreciate the modern transhumanist movement. Though he acknowledges
some possible common ground between Nietzsche and transhumanism,
Hauskeller is sceptical about Nietzsche as an inspiration for transhumanists,
and he discerns what he considers essential differences. In particular,

transhumanists typically aim at human happiness and well-being, whereas
Nietzsche scorned attempts to improve the mass of humanity or to reduce
suffering (Hauskeller 2010, 5). Instead, he called for a revaluation of all
values, rejecting the traditional concepts of good and evil in Christian
Europe. “Compassion, charity, loving one’s neighbour – traditional
Christian values, but not alien to transhumanists either – are scoffed at [by
Nietzsche] as symptoms of decadence” (Hauskeller 2010, 6).
Here, Hauskeller seems to be on strong ground, and the concerns
expressed by Bostrom and Hibbard provide supporting evidence – they
would rather play with Mill or Hobbes than with Freddy. Furthermore, as
is well known, Zarathustra presents the Last Men, or Ultimate Men in
Hollingdale’s translation (see Nietzsche 1961, 46), as contemptible in their
comforts and complacency. The Last Men have achieved a utopia of
health, equality, and mutual trust – and what they regard as sanity.
Unfortunately for Zarathustra, the crowd sees this as an ideal to aspire to,
rather than as a condition to be despised: “‘Give us this Ultimate Man, O
Zarathustra’ – so they cried – ‘make us into this Ultimate Man! You can
have the Superman!’And all the people laughed and shouted” (Nietzsche
1961, 47). We might think that some transhumanist philosophies resemble
not so much Zarathustra’s prophetic announcement of the coming
Übermensch as the yearning of the crowd for the easy lives of the Last
Men.
Hauskeller also sees a contradiction between transhumanist concepts of
the mind and rationality (and especially a concept such as mind uploading)
and Nietzsche’s emphasis on the body (Hauskeller 2010, 6). This appears
plausible, since Nietzsche mocked “despisers of the body” and rejected
any claims they might have to be bridges to the Übermensch (Nietzsche
1961, 61-63). Unlike transhumanists, moreover, Nietzsche was unattracted
by the idea of immortality, and he even thought we should celebrate and
welcome our deaths (Hauskeller 2010, 6-7). In conclusion, Hauskeller
states that Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch is vague and is most
characterized by a willingness to live life again exactly as it was, contrary
to the progressive dynamism of transhumanist thought (2010, 7). That is
difficult to reconcile with transhumanist conceptions of posthumanity.
In his second contribution to JET on Nietzsche and transhumanism,
Sorgner replied to More, Hibbard, and Hauskeller, and to others such as
William Sims Bainbridge (Bainbridge 2010; Sorgner 2010). For now, I’ll
defer discussion of this; I’ll consider it later, however, along with
Sorgner’s 2011 contribution to The Agonist. In between, Babich published
198 Chapter Eleven
her scathing and sarcastic critique of transhumanism, which she portrays

as “the latest […] instantiation of the ascetic ideal” (Babich 2011, 35).
As we’ve seen, Babich views transhumanism as likely to produce no
more than mediocrity – a mediocrity that Nietzsche would have despised.
She also views it (with evident disdain) as aspiring to life without trouble,
mess, banality, and limitations. Instead of life as we know it, with all these
irritating imperfections, “one wants video-game or gaming life, one wants
movie or television life: without suffering, without illness, without death
(save of the redeemable, corrigible kind), and although one wants sex, one
might well be inclined to exclude birth, generating children on demand”
(2011, 35). Babich sympathetically describes a view that she attributes to
Günther Anders: we seek to go beyond our humanity because we find it
deficient. Then she adds, with crushing rhetoric:
Thus transhumanism would only be the latest word for what Anders
diagnosed: a precipitate conviction of a consumerist capitalist world-ethos.
The obsolescence of the human is part and parcel of the obsolescence of
everything else from music and film in the culture industry to the media
we “consume” rather than “enjoy.” (Babich 2011, 38)
By contrast with Babich’s scorn for transhumanist thought, Paul S.

Loeb is mainly focused on the doctrine of eternal recurrence, arguing that
Nietzsche understood the idea seriously and literally, and that it was
central to his worldview. As Keith Ansell-Pearson notes, Loeb argues for
the compatibility of the doctrines of the Übermensch and eternal
recurrence, and, indeed, proposes that transhumanism needs the doctrine
of eternal recurrence (Ansell-Pearson 2011, 13-15). With some regret, I’ll
avoid entering deeply into this (it would take us too far into Nietzschean
exegesis, not to mention endless discussion of cosmology, determinism,
fatalism, and free will). I must, however, protest that Loeb is unfair when
he suggests, in effect, that Max More has an incoherent position on
Nietzsche:
He is so supremely confident of Nietzsche’s philosophy that he chooses to
base a whole movement on it, while at the same time he is so sceptical
about Nietzsche’s own philosophical system that he dismisses out of hand
the idea that Nietzsche himself said was his most important discovery
ever. (Loeb 2011, 6-7)
I see no contradiction here, since More never claims to have based a

whole movement solely on Nietzsche’s philosophy, but only to have been
influenced by specific elements of it (More 2010, 2-3). The more
philosophically important question is whether transhumanism (or More’s
version of it) is coherent in its own right, and nothing claimed by Loeb
suggests the contrary. As I see the situation, Nietzsche stands as a source
of inspiration and ideas for others to draw on. Nothing prevents them
incorporating specific Nietzschean (or similar) ideas into systems of their
own. Whatever the truth regarding various exegetical points debated by
Loeb, Sorgner (2011, 38-46), and Ansell-Pearson, I doubt that transhumanism
requires any such cosmic doctrine as eternal recurrence. Indeed, as we
shall see, Ted Chu has developed a neo-Nietzschean transhumanist
philosophy that gets by without it.
Loeb does make the useful point that Zarathustra himself is presented
by Nietzsche as “a transitional figure on the way to his ultimate goal of
creating the superhuman” (Loeb 2011, 4). Thus Spoke Zarathustra is,
accordingly, “about a singular individual who becomes transhuman as part
of his effort to envision and facilitate the emergence of the superhuman”,
which will not be a particular individual, but rather “a future descendant
species that will be stronger, healthier and more beautiful than the human
species” (Loeb 2011, 5).
Sorgner Writes Back

In his responses to objections, Sorgner grants that it is unclear how
Nietzsche would have viewed the kind of technologically mediated efforts
at self-overcoming favoured by transhumanists. However, he argues
strenuously, educational efforts to mould children are morally
indistinguishable from technologically enabled modification for similar
purposes. Since Nietzsche favoured educational means to assist in bringing
about the Übermensch, it seems to follow that he would favour parallel
efforts utilizing genetic technology (see esp. Sorgner 2010, 2-7). In
replying to Babich in The Agonist, Sorgner clarifies what he means by
education, which “has not much to do with the acquisition of degrees,
taking a course, or reading a book.” Rather, the important point is that
“Parents are making decisions whereby they influence the lives of their
offspring. The influence can be such that it can be reversible but also that
it can be irreversible” (Sorgner 2011, 22).
Sorgner also commends what he sees as a Nietzschean approach to
virtue ethics – he thinks that transhumanists could benefit by studying this
as an alternative to utilitarianism (Sorgner 2010, 9-10; compare Sorgner
2011, 29-30). He is (to put it mildly) unenthusiastic about Nietzsche’s
wish to establish a two-tier society with a small class of people who are
free to dedicate themselves to the creation of exalted culture. At the same
time, he emphasizes that Nietzsche is often unfairly associated with the
200 Chapter Eleven
Nazis – despite his clearly-expressed opposition to anti-Semitism – and

that he did not favour aristocratic rule in the ordinary sense conveyed by
that term (Sorgner 2010, 14-16). Here, Sorgner is especially provoked by
some comments from Bainbridge (2010, 37-38, 48-50), but also by long-
standing suspicions of Nietzsche among many German intellectuals –
exemplified in the influential writings of Jürgen Habermas.
In response to Hibbard, Sorgner acknowledges the importance, for
Nietzsche, of reaching a moment where we say Yes and thereby embrace
the eternal recurrence of everything. However, this does not entail that the
Übermensch will cease the process of self-overcoming and self-
betterment. Contrary to Hibbard, Sorgner does not accept that Nietzsche
intended to depict a literally infinite gulf between us and the Übermensch,
entailing that the latter can never come into existence (Sorgner 2010, 12-
13).
Sorgner agrees with Hauskeller that Nietzsche did not value such
things as health, subjective happiness, and long life. However, he had his
own conception of a good life – at least for himself, and for commendation
to others – based on a classical-cum-Renaissance ideal of a strong-minded,
creative, flourishing person (Sorgner 2010, 10-12). In response to
Hauskeller’s comments on immortality, Sorgner emphasizes that
Nietzsche rejected the idea in the historical context of Christian teachings
about an afterlife. He taught a version of immortality, however, in his
doctrine of eternal recurrence. Nietzsche was not interested in longevity,
as he did not see a will to survive as basic to our motivation, but rather a
will to power (primarily an intellectual power in understanding the world
and making our understanding of it compelling for others). By contrast,
transhumanists aspire to extend human life, as Sorgner acknowledges,
though he questions whether this is strictly necessary for transhumanism,
when the straightforward alternative is to assist individuals to obtain
whatever they personally value (Sorgner 2010, 13).
Sorgner also argues, against Hauskeller, that Nietzsche valued
consistency and reason, despite his emphasis on the body and his
insistence that reason has limitations in giving us an objectively true
understanding of the world. Nietzsche did seek to naturalize our
conceptions of mind and reason, and to deny any human exceptionalism
within the natural world, but with this transhumanists can surely agree
(Sorgner 2010, 14).
In an interesting discussion of humanism and transhumanism (see
Sorgner 2011, 27-29), Sorgner conceives of humanism as including a
metaphysically dualist understanding of human beings (a body and a
rational soul), and he associates this with the Enlightenment tradition –
particularly Immanuel Kant. Here, the main point appears to be a wish that
transhumanism explore its affinities, or even a potential alliance, with a
posthumanist philosophical anthropology that denies human exceptionalism. I
don’t entirely concur with Sorgner about a tight link between traditional
humanism, metaphysical dualism, and the European Enlightenment (the
picture might look very different if we focused on such figures as Hume
and D’Holbach, rather than on Kant), but his remarks about an affinity
between (mainly Anglo-American) transhumanism and (largely
continental European) posthumanism are suggestive and perhaps apt.
Accessories, Asceticism, Enhancement

Some more needs to be said, I think, in response to Babich’s fierce
rejection of transhumanism. Sorgner denies that the concern of transhumanists
is to live “an accessory life” (one with all the latest gadgets and mobile apps)
– any more, we might add, than a nineteenth-century equivalent of this
was the goal for Nietzsche. Transhumanism has more fundamental and
noble objectives: “Transhumanists aim for an enhancement of cognitive
and physiological capacities, a widening of the human health span and a
promotion of human emotional faculties so that the likelihood of the
coming about of the posthuman increases” (Sorgner 2011, 26). Nor,
according to Sorgner, do transhumanists maintain an ascetic ideal: rather,
much like Nietzche, they think in terms of realistic goals. In particular,
Sorgner suggests, most transhumanists are not focused on the unrealistic
goal of immortality but the achievable one of an extended span of human
health (Sorgner 2011, 34-35).
Babich’s view of transhumanism is dismal and illogical, yet evidently
alluring (for she is certainly far from alone in it). The underlying thought
seems to be that anyone who considers the human situation – including the
human body – to be imperfect must be some kind of ascetic, perhaps
willing to renounce bodily and sensual life altogether. But that thought is
mistaken. A particularly concerted and penetrating response to it can be
found in Max More’s chapter in a book that I recently co-edited with
Damien Broderick (More 2014; Blackford/Broderick 2014). In its
immediate context, More’s objection is to popular critiques of mind
uploading, but much of the analysis applies to similar objections to
transhumanism more generally. More argues that the transhumanist
impulse is not to seek an attenuated, purely intellectual existence; rather, it
is to extend our physical, social, and sensory lives beyond their current
limits, enhancing all the pleasures our senses can provide.
202 Chapter Eleven
Of course, we might be incredulous about the prospect of advanced

non-biological bodies with sensation and intelligence, and particularly
about how to trade up to such bodies while retaining our current identities.
Such philosophical problems have generated a large body of literature
(represented by many of the chapters in Blackford/Broderick 2014).
However, they are largely orthogonal to Nietzsche’s concerns – and of
course, these problems would not arise in the same way with respect to
biological enhancements employing such means as genetic or
pharmaceutical intervention.
In this context, and particularly while considering Babich’s comment
on Günther Anders and his views, it is also worth noting how LeRoy
Walters and Julie Gage Palmer approach the issue of human enhancement.
Walters and Palmer distinguish between people who broadly favour
changing human nature (and human capacities) and those (like Anders and
Babich, it seems) who stand in opposition. In The Ethics of Human Gene
Therapy, Walters and Palmer discuss some objections to “moral
enhancement” in the sense of genetically mediated stimulation of
friendliness to others. One possible objection is that such a choice implies
dissatisfaction with, or even disrespect for, our evolved human nature, but
the authors stand their ground: they state that they just are dissatisfied
with violent, aggressive characteristics (though they add that their goal
would merely be to moderate these, not achieve perfection)
(Walters/Palmer 1997, 127).
Later they make two related points: first, they are motivated by a
particular perspective on human nature and the human condition, one that
involves dissatisfaction with such aspects of the human condition as
disease, disability, and certain kinds of intellectual and moral failing;
second, their affirmative attitude toward genetic enhancement is
underpinned by a dynamic view of human nature, according to which we
are not fated to accept our historical situation and are free to provide a
better world for ourselves and future generations, including by changes in
the characteristics of human beings (Walters/Palmer 1997, 133). There is
nothing inviolable about our evolved, inherited phenotype. Looked at in
this light, a general openness to human enhancement may seem more
called for than contraindicated. Human nature and the human body are
legitimate objects for attempts at improvement.
Reflections
I have not tried to keep scores for each party to the many-sided debate,
to adjudicate every issue, or even to adjudicate the sub-set that I’ve
sketched above. As it seems to me, Sorgner makes plausible claims in

most of his responses to critics, although I have questioned whether he is
fair to the tradition of Enlightenment humanism as a whole when he
saddles it with the baggage of mind/body metaphysical dualism. I also
wonder whether he is too quick (and too keen) to absolve transhumanism
of any commitment to pursue physical immortality or the best possible
substitute. All of this merits further and deeper reflection that must await
another occasion.
It appears to me, as More also concludes (2014, 225), that some
opponents of transhumanism cannot imagine any alternative to human life,
in its historical form, other than some kind of purely spiritual and
otherworldly existence. This speaks strongly of the imaginative grip of a
Platonic-Christian philosophical paradigm even on critics who vehemently
denounce it. However, it tells us nothing about the possibility or
desirability of a physically embodied life involving greater capabilities,
sensation, and pleasure.
In the upshot, I doubt that transhumanists can or should adopt the
worldview of Thus Spoke Zarathustra – eternal recurrence and all – as a
package. Yet this in no way precludes them from taking inspiration from
whatever they find attractive in any of Nietzsche’s work: perhaps various
ideas of humanity in transition, or perhaps aspects of a Nietzschean value
system and approach to ethics. Even if Nietzsche’s own views are
considered too closely integrated to survive the removal of such a major
element as the doctrine of eternal recurrence, other elements may find
places in brave new worldviews that have their own emphases and internal
consistency.
Consider, for example, Ted Chu’s 2014 book, Human Purpose and
Transhuman Potential. This lists Nietzsche as one of the authors who have
previously posited one or another “concept of some conscious and
intelligent higher being, or transhuman” (Chu 2014, 3). Like Max More,
Chu is a thinker who has clearly been inspired by Nietzsche, although he
has a transhumanist philosophy of his own. He is impressed by what he
calls “a movement in the universe toward higher levels of complexity and
consciousness that is as convincing as experiencing the power of love or
the beauty of the natural world” (2014, 27). He envisages opening up a
cosmic, rather than merely human, frontier that will require our creation of
an endlessly adaptive Cosmic Being; this will, in turn, operate “on the
cutting edge of cosmic evolution” and appear “as an explosion of
conscious mind, to be all it can be” (Chu 2014, 37-38). For Chu,
humanity’s cosmic potential means passing on the baton of cosmic
evolution to new beings that will supersede us, much as Homo sapiens
204 Chapter Eleven
superseded Homo erectus and Homo habilis. Indeed, if Homo erectus had
understood that no species – or even the earthly environment – has a
permanent existence, it would have facilitated its supersession by Homo
sapiens (Chu 2014, 209-210).
Chu recognizes that many cultures have described a mythical state that
answers to human longings – a Golden Age of peace, harmony, and
freedom from the stresses of unfulfilled needs or desires, together with
eternal youth and health. Within one popular vision of the human future,
such an earthly paradise is the best we can hope for, though Chu believes
that it would not last, even if it could be created. By contrast with this
vision of a Golden Age, Chu proposes a Cosmic View in which humanity
plays a critical, but temporary, role in an unimaginable transformation of
the universe by expanding, proliferating intelligence. Within the Cosmic
View, “the pursuit of human happiness, and of purely human-centered
goals, cannot be the ultimate end” (Chu 2014, 177). Instead, “Humanity is
a critical transitional being, and there is nothing wrong or sad about our
transitory status, given what we know about human nature” (Chu 2014,
389).
Although Chu imagines an open-ended future, rather than an eternal
recurrence of events, his is a recognizably neo-Nietzschean version of
transhumanism. Within it, the seductive vision of a Golden Age plays a
role similar to that of the much-maligned Last Men in Thus Spoke
Zarathustra. However, Chu suggests that Nietzsche may have been too
harsh about his Last Men, whom Chu describes as satisfied bourgeois and
utilitarian human beings leading existences of leisured stasis “centered on
sensual pleasures and a satisfactory social life.” Such a life may not be
idle, and it may be personally challenging and interesting, but it lacks
“larger meaning or significance” and is ultimately childlike and
purposeless if it merely replicates itself until we “realize it is too late to
move beyond the human” (Chu 2014, 257-258).
It is not my aim here to endorse Chu’s neo-Nietzschean views. On the
contrary, I am somewhat tempted to side with Hibbard and Bostrom in
looking for inspiration to the likes of Hobbes and Mill. I am wary about
playing with Freddy – and also about playing with Ted. Nonetheless,
Chu’s efforts are impressive. Human Purpose and Transhuman Potential
does not adopt Nietzsche’s views as a package, but it contains an elaborate
philosophy that clearly descends from Thus Spoke Zarathustra’s. It shows,
in the most effective way, Nietzsche’s ongoing power to inspire
transhumanist thought.

CHAPTER TWELVE
NIETZSCHE ON ETHICAL TRANSHUMANISM
REBECCA BAMFORD
Initial debate on transhumanism has, appropriately, focused on

definitional questions. For instance, the well-known transhumanist scholar
Max More argues that transhumanism can be defined as a life philosophy,
as an area of study, and as a cultural movement, while contending that its
core content emphasizes two main points: the possibility and desirability
of progress, and taking responsibility for intervening in order to produce
such progress (More 2013, 4). Fabrice Jotterand identifies “perpetual
progress” and “self-transformation” as the features that are most clearly
characteristic of transhumanism, thus building on some of More’s early
work on establishing principles of transhumanism (Jotterand 2011, 3).
However, this initial focus on principles and definitions has become less
pressing than exploration of productive intersections between
transhumanism and other fields of inquiry, such as bioethics. Recent
debate on transhumanism in bioethics has begun to focus on exploration of
a specific issue with which I shall be concerned in this paper: moral
transhumanism, sometimes called moral bioenhancement in work by well-
known bioethicists writing on enhancement such as Ingmar Persson and
Julian Savulescu (Persson et al. 2008, 2010, 2013).
Discussion of Nietzsche and transhumanism has often tended to focus
on texts such as Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which seem to have immediate
bearing on the issue of Nietzsche’s relevance to transhumanism because of
the sustained attention given to the figure of the overhuman. However, in
an earlier text, Dawn, Nietzsche critically engages with customary
morality on the basis that such morality is unhealthy for us, and proposes a
way for at least some people to free themselves from such morality and to
adopt a fresh approach to ethics (Bamford 2014). If we take Nietzsche’s
critical engagement with customary morality seriously, then we can call
into question defenses of moral transhumanism that insufficiently question

206 Chapter Twelve
what form of morality, exactly, is to be enhanced. Put another way: my

proposal in this essay is that in light of Nietzsche, moral transhumanists
may need to consider whether or not their understanding of morality tout
court is sufficiently open to development. This is an important
consideration, because accounts based on a narrow conception of morality
may be placing an unforeseen and unnecessary limit on the scope of moral
transhumanism.
1. Altruism and Moral Transhumanism

Some initial definition of terminology is in order. The concept of moral
enhancement has been treated as equivalent to moral transhumanism; both
concepts refer directly to the broad proposal that we can, and should,
deploy scientific and technological interventions in order to make
“humans more moral” (Persson et al. 2010, 656). It is important to note
that the concept of moral enhancement is not limited to scholarship on
transhumanism: it has also become a key component of debate on
enhancement in contemporary bioethics (Ranisch et al 2014). Michael
Sandel describes the concept of enhancement in a well-known essay as the
use of medical means for non-medical ends (2004). Technological
interventions such as chemicals and implants developed by the biosciences
are often used to cure diseases, or to maintain symptoms of chronic health
conditions within clinically acceptable parameters; however, these same
interventions may also be used for the purpose of altering the characteristics
of people without known diseases (Douglas 2008, 228).
Persson and Savulescu have argued that moral enhancement is a
particularly pressing issue for bioethicists, because without “a moral
improvement of human nature” or “humankind” as science and technology
continue to advance, then the stability and continuity of civilization will be
under threat (Persson et al. 2008; 2010, 5, 11). By “human nature” Persson
and Savulescu mean, “biological and psychological dispositions to believe,
feel, sense, think, act, and be that are typical of human beings” (2010, 5).
They base their concern on the exponential growth of advanced
technology, which, they claim, has the capacity to pose massive — by
which is meant world-endangering — risk to humanity (2010, 11).
Grounding their position in an examination of human altruism as
distinctively fragile, Persson and Savulescu acknowledge that
contemporary democracies have helped to support a doctrine of equal
human worth, but also claim that egalitarian ideology has not sufficiently
expanded the human capacity for altruism, meaning that traditional moral
education is unlikely to produce this effect (2010). Because of this,

Nietzsche on Ethical Transhumanism 207
Persson and Savulescu propose that we explore biomedical methods for

developing “heightened moral sensitivity” and thereby promoting greater
social equality, through interventions involving genetic and neurochemical
technologies (2010, 11).
In a recent paper that expands further on their earlier moral
transhumanist defense, Persson and Savulescu have reaffirmed their
commitment to a framing biomedical context, while also rebranding their
position as “moral bioenhancement” in light of this explicitly biomedical
focus (Persson et al 2013, 125). As part of so doing, they explicitly point
out the necessity of pursuing moral enhancement through “genetic and
other biological” methods — “not merely by traditional means, such as
education” (2013, 125). Persson and Savulescu do acknowledge that even
given a biological basis for human moral behavior, it is possible to
influence behavior through education; they also acknowledge that there is
a long tradition of moral education and that this tradition is evident in
diverse world intellectual traditions (2013, 130). However, they also
contend that the pace of moral improvement has been slow compared with
the pace of technological innovation, and point out that “to be morally
good involves not just knowing what is good, but being so strongly
motivated to do it that this overpowers selfish, nepotistic, xenophobic, etc.
biases and impulses” (2013, 130). This pace of change argument leads
Persson and Savulescu to reaffirm their view that moral education cannot
be sufficient for moral enhancement, and that moral enhancement is
morally necessary, because without enhancement the pace of moral
improvement cannot keep up with the pace of technological innovation or
the associated potential for catastrophic misuse of new technology (2013,
130).
Persson and Savulescu suggest that one main aim in deploying moral
bioenhancement is to promote altruism, which they define as one of the
two core, biologically based, moral dispositions of humans (Persson et al
2013, 129).1 In earlier work they define their understanding of altruism as
the biologically based disposition “to sympathize with other beings, to
want their lives to go well rather than badly for their own sakes” and to be
concerned about avoiding risks to others; they contend that few would
deny that altruism is central to morality, citing Schopenhauer’s discussion
of altruism in the form of “compassion (Mitleid)” as “the ground of
morality” as well as Hume’s similar claim for the central moral role of
sympathy in support of this view (2008, 168-169, 172). Further, they claim
that moral enhancement can be deployed to mitigate technology misuse
based on behavior that is based on “selfish, nepotistic, xenophobic, etc.
biases and impulses” (2013, 128-130). While they do consider the possibility

208 Chapter Twelve
of executive virtues such as strength of will or conscientiousness as being

involved in moral behavior, they reject these as necessary to their account
because such virtues accompany strength of motivation; thus they propose
that by increasing altruistic motivation, risk of negligent failure to consider
the possible harmful effects of behavior on others would be decreased
(2008, 172).
As Persson and Savulescu’s position exemplifies, the type of enhancer
envisaged by moral transhumanists has typically tended to be conceived of
in the context of biomedical technology, such as genetic engineering,
neuromodulation implants, or neurochemical interventions. It is not
entirely clear why moral transhumanism has been so closely tied to
biomedicine, though this is perhaps not surprising given that biomedicine
is the source of so many of the technological innovations that moral
transhumanists see as relevant to their concerns, and that biomedical
scientists, including clinicians, are generally needed to access such
technology. In light of the strong focus transhumanism has tended to place
on biomedical technology, Mike McNamee and Steven Edwards have
suggested that transhumanism is at root a “quasi-medical” ideology
(McNamee et al. 2006, 513). However, as Robert Ranisch and Stefan
Sorgner consider, this strong biomedical focus may also be a product of
the close association between transhumanist scholarship and philosophers
from the “analytic and utilitarian tradition” working in contemporary
bioethics (2014, 14). In either case, the transhumanist focus on biomedical
technology as the route to moral enhancement opens up some important
initial defensibility concerns with moral transhumanism.
2. Evaluating Moral Transhumanism

Even while several of the aims of transhumanism do seem to aim at
producing unqualified goods, the scope of the transhumanism movement
understood as a whole is so broad that it seems to allow for unlimited
aspirations and interventions (McNamee et al. 2006, 517). In identifying
this, McNamee and Edwards also suggest that such limitlessness is
problematic because it seems to imply moral arbitrariness, or the view that
it becomes difficult to know “what, in principle, can ever be objected to”
(McNamee et al. 2006, 517). A related point is made in a paper defending
the psychedelic compound psilocybin as a safe type of moral enhancer by
Michael Tennison, who acknowledges that it is nonetheless important to
consider whether implementation of moral enhancement may result in
negative consequences, such as (i) exacerbation of social inequality, (ii)
issues with proper regulation of enhancement technologies, and (iii) a rise

in experience of forms of what Tennison calls “subtle” coercion, such as

the feeling that it is necessary to enhance oneself in order to remain
competitive for employment opportunities (2012, 406-407). Even while
biomedicine is undoubtedly important to moral enhancement, focusing on
biomedicine at the expense of other forms of intervention may involve
neglect of potentially useful, safe, and cost-effective means of enhancement
that are more inclusive and accessible.
While these justice concerns are important and worthwhile, it is
beyond the scope of my essay to engage further with them here. I do,
however, want to take up the issue of moral arbitrariness, but I will work
to develop a concern based on an additional sense of moral arbitrariness to
that identified by McNamee and Edwards (2006). To do so, I will draw on
an additional account recently offered by Stefan Sorgner (2015).
Responding to criticism of work on enhancement by Jürgen Habermas,
Sorgner provides a robust defense of education — defined broadly as
transmission of culture — as an effective and workable enhancer that is
commensurate with, and not inferior to, neurochemical and genetic
interventions (2015). Sorgner first shows that Habermas’s view that changes
wrought through educational intervention are necessarily reversible
whereas those wrought through genetic intervention are not is incorrect
(2015, 35-37). He argues that genetic and educational types of
enhancement are in fact parallel processes, using evidence from
epigenetics to defend this view. Specifically, Sorgner explains that
education — amongst other environmental influences, including stress,
diet, medicine, and drugs — can bring about epigenetic changes that lead
to cell structure changes, which can in turn activate or silence genes (2015,
43). For Sorgner, epigenetics provides us with clear reasons to accept that
“educational and genetic enhancements are processes that do not exist
independently of one another” and that on this basis, educational methods
of enhancement can be affirmed alongside genetic ones (2015, 31, 43).
Sorgner is very clear that “the subject status of the enhanced being is
touched no more or less in the case of genetic intervention than in the case
of educational intervention” (2015, 35). While his defense of education as
a functional type of enhancer does not directly engage with moral
transhumanism but rather focuses on the broader transhumanism
movement, his view may help to challenge Persson and Savulescu’s
defense of the primacy of biological enhancers.
Notice that Persson and Savulescu present education as sharply distinct
from genetic and other biological forms of moral enhancement (2013).
Their argument defending moral transhumanism is broadly consequentialist:
in essence, they claim that in order to prevent potentially civilization-

210 Chapter Twelve
ending misuse of risky new technology, we must ensure that people are
motivated to act in ways that do not amount to misuse of such technology,
and if people cannot be motivated to act altruistically and in accordance
with a sense of justice quickly or adequately enough through education,
then using moral bioenhancement to ensure appropriate motivation and
thus to prompt altruistic moral behaviors is defensible. However, this is
not commensurate with the available scientific evidence — and it is
important to note that Persson and Savulescu defend the primacy of
genetic and neurochemical methods even though, as mentioned earlier,
they acknowledge that it is possible to influence moral behavior through
traditional means such as education (2013). Educational intervention
remains just as plausible as genetic or pharmaceutical intervention:
according to the terms of Sorgner’s analysis of educational and
genetic/biological enhancement as parallel processes, we cannot separate
out these forms of intervention from one another clearly (2015).
Persson and Savulescu could respond to this criticism by claiming that
their main aim was with ensuring sufficient and rapid motivation for moral
action given the rapid pace of technological innovation and the associated
risk of catastrophic misuse. Focusing on motivation and even more
specifically on motivational speed might therefore help to sustain their
point that it is necessary to use genetic or other biological means in place
of traditional educational means to provide sufficient motivation, in time
for action to be effective. However, a logical response to this possibility
remains: if Sorgner is correct that genetic and educational enhancement
are parallel processes, then epigenetics evidence would still render the
scientific basis for the different value priority that Persson and Savulescu
assign to biological vs. traditional methods in their argument implausible
(2015). Moreover, as Persson and Savulescu acknowledge, moral
bioenhancement techniques themselves may take too much time to
develop and implement (2013, 130). Thus moral motivation need not be
presented as exclusively a matter of genetic or pharmaceutical intervention
and may also, and effectively, involve moral education.2
In addition to these concerns, it is not clear that altruistic action is
always morally correct or that altruistic behavior has an obvious
consequential advantage over and above other forms of behavior, in the
case of avoiding new technology misuse, or indeed more generally. For
example, it is feasible to imagine a desired outcome, such as proper safe
use of risky technology, as the product of self-preserving choices and
behaviors and/or as the product of elitist policy limiting access to a small
number of individuals with specific longer-term aims, instead of being
necessarily the product of altruism. Moreover, while it may well be the

case that very few scholars would deny that altruism is central to morality,
there is by no means a total absence of critique of altruism or compassion
in the history of philosophy. In what follows next, I shall focus on these
concerns with altruism, connecting them with Nietzsche’s critique of
customary morality.
3. Nietzsche on Morality and Enhancement

Nietzsche’s philosophy provides a substantial critical engagement with
moral thinking that is informed and directed by altruist assumptions.
Moreover, Nietzsche is well known for challenging not only Schopenhauer’s
influential thinking on compassion as the core of morality, but more
generally for opening up the possibility that morality itself may be a
problem.3 Much of the available literature on Nietzsche and transhumanism
has tended to focus more on later texts such as Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It
makes sense to do so given the detailed discussion of the figure of the
overhuman found in this text. However, attention to Nietzsche’s earlier
writings may be helpful to the task of evaluating the efficacy of current
thinking on moral transhumanism, especially with respect to the role of
altruism. To this end, I shall focus on Nietzsche’s critical engagement with
a specific form of morality in Dawn in the next part of my essay.4
In Dawn, Nietzsche’s main project is to identify, and counter, the
authority of what he calls “customary morality” (D 9). 5 Customary
morality refers to the notion that morality consists in the obedience to
“mores,” or customs, which Nietzsche identifies as “the traditional
manner of acting and evaluating” (D 9).6 He acknowledges that customary
morality represents the experiences of earlier peoples concerning what is
useful and harmful, but he also points out that our “feeling for custom” is
not based on those experiences, which would support their utility, but that
it is instead based on the age, sanctity, and inscrutability of custom (D 19).
The effect of this feeling for custom is that it inhibits us from pursuing
new experiences or changing customs (D 19). Nietzsche claims that
because this feeling “acts to prevent the rise of new and better mores” it
has a problematic effect: “it stupefies” (D 19).
Emotion is key to understanding Nietzsche’s concerns about customary
morality. Nietzsche suggests that social institutions foster in us the belief
that a passion, which he thinks is naturally a transitory phenomenon, can
have substantial, lifelong, duration (D 27). He uses the example of
marriage to support this claim, and his argument to this effect runs as
follows: (i) love is a passion; (ii) the social institution of marriage fosters
the belief that enduring, lifelong, love is not only possible but can be

212 Chapter Twelve
established as a rule; (iii) when human behavior does not meet the
standard of this rule, the belief in the rule is not undermined; (iv) thus the
social institution of marriage bestows a “higher nobility” on love in our
minds (D 27). Indeed, Nietzsche remarks, we feel “exalted” when seized
by a passion such as love, when this passion is conceived of and
experienced in these terms (D 27). His concern is that this kind of
transformation of passions in and through social institutions not only
introduces a great deal of “hypocrisy and lying” into the world, but also
“comes at the price of, a superhuman, human-exalting concept” (D 27). In
other words, the effects of such transformations may be negative.
This developmental concern directs Nietzsche’s main reason for
challenging customary morality. He suggests that such morality has
broadly negative effects on human health and flourishing, and makes a
number of claims about the importance of health, how health is affected by
customary morality, and how changing our understanding of, and
engagement with, the ethical is a key means of improving human health
(D 52, 54, 202, 203, 322). 7 For instance, Nietzsche criticizes what he
describes as the common view that life has a fundamental character of
suffering, describing this view of life as suffering as human beings’
“greatest disease” and attributing the emergence of this disease to
mistaken use of remedies, which he thinks has produced something much
worse than what the remedies were originally supposed to eliminate:
“momentarily effective, anesthetizing, and intoxicating” consolations have
themselves proven toxic to humans (D 52).
The moral emotion of compassion is one of Nietzsche’s most serious
concerns in his critical engagement with customary morality. As he points
out, self-serving motivations can be shown to inform expressions of
compassion (D 133).8 Added to this, compassion — literally suffering with
other/s — is an affect that may be injurious to the person who is
experiencing it, and which may harm the work of a “physician to
humanity” by interfering with his or her decision-making capability (D
134). Compassion can also be profoundly disempowering and
objectifying, because it exposes the person who becomes the object of the
moral emotion to humiliation in and through this transformative affective
process (D 135). As Nietzsche also claims, Schopenhauer may be counted
as the chief architect of our current understanding of this dimension of
customary morality, because in basing his understanding of morality on
compassion, he “took humanity’s suffering seriously” (D 52). Nietzsche’s
point is, of course, that he took it problematically seriously. In response to
Schopenhauer’s legacy to morality, Nietzsche prompts us to consider the
need for a “new physician of the soul” who will “take seriously the

antidotes to this suffering” and expose the “scandalous quackery” of

previous treatments (D 52). We have the potential, Nietzsche suggests, to
become our own physicians — and this is preferable because rules, or
“doctor’s orders,” simply make us more rash; we may in fact act more
responsibly if we tend to our own health instead (D 322).
Overcoming customary morality and pursuing a new way to
understand ethics is far from an easy task. Nietzsche presents three main
reasons as to why it is difficult for us even to engage critically with
customary morality, let alone to set it aside and pursue an alternative. The
first reason is that, as with his example of love as an enduring passion,
customary morality has acquired substantial authority; this is partly
because of its age and sanctity, and partly because of its content. Second,
and relatedly, the possibility of considering customary morality as
problematic appears immoral to us, not least because we occupy the
perspective of such morality; such authority does not willingly permit
itself to become the object of critique (D Preface 3). However, customary
morality does not only garner its power from tradition and authority; as
Nietzsche claims, the language of customary morality exerts a strong
influence upon our critical-rational imaginations, and is surprisingly
difficult to overcome. Nietzsche uses the example of anarchist rhetoric to
illustrate his point: anarchists, he claims, morally “evince in order to
convince” (D Preface 3). While anarchists should logically avoid
submitting themselves to any form of authority, they nonetheless attempt
to strengthen their position by describing their actions in terms of the
good, thus appealing to the authority of moral discourse to justify their
actions (D Preface 3).
The third reason also stems from Nietzsche’s focus on the relationship
between customary morality and the emotions and passions. Nietzsche
argues that customary morality perpetuates a mood of superstitious fear.
He suggests that when we obey a command of customary morality, we do
so out of fear, and that fear rooted in tradition is of a special order because
it involves us experiencing a distinctly superstitious fear, of an
“inexplicable, indeterminate power” beyond the personal (D 9). To
support this, he provides a genealogical reason for thinking that
superstitious fear informs all of our actions: originally, he writes,
“everything was a matter of custom;” anyone wishing to elevate themself
above custom therefore had to “create customs,” which according to this
logic, means becoming “lawgiver and medicine man and a demigod of
sorts” (D 9). In addition, Nietzsche contends that customary morality
places the expectation of sacrifice upon us, meaning that we sacrifice
individual wants in order to meet the conditions it imposes, and therefore

214 Chapter Twelve
that traditions and customs continue to benefit (D 9). Hence for Nietzsche,
customary morality depends on being embedded within and supported by
the obedient behavior of a cultural community; offenses against the
morality of custom result in negative consequences for that community; as
such, individual actions against morality cannot be tolerated. Individual
thinking and action provokes horror from the perspective of customary
morality; originality is considered, and considers itself, “evil and
dangerous” (D 9). Each of us is afraid that we might perform some anti-
traditional, non-customary, action just as much as we fear the negative
consequences for society of our performing such an action. Again, this
reinforces the presence of a pervasive mood of superstitious fear within a
society based on customary morality.
Nietzsche does, however, provide a substantial alternative for the
development of a new approach to ethics, distinct from customary
morality. He argues that we need to tackle the pervasive mood of fear that
supports adherence to customary morality by learning to think and to feel
differently (D 103).9 Just as mood supports customary morality, Nietzsche
thinks it may be used to challenge the authority of such morality, by
fostering a different mood that works against fear (D 28). He suggests that
our customary mood depends on “the mood in which we manage to
maintain our surroundings” (D 283). This opens up the possibility of
moving past superstitious fear as the reason to follow the rules of
customary morality. Moreover, he contends that “a higher and freer” way
of thinking would look beyond immediate negative consequences of our
actions for others, such as feelings of “doubt and dire distress,” to more
significant future benefits such as “further knowledge” (D 146). To the
possible objection that a move away from customary morality may harm
us, or may do harm to others, Nietzsche replies that furtherance of certain
aims may need to be done at the expense of the suffering of others and
indeed ourselves; we need, he thinks, to “get beyond our compassion” if
we are to be victorious over ourselves in combatting customary morality.
Looking towards the development of free spirits (who are free from,
amongst other things, the effects of customary morality), he suggests that
we aim to “strengthen and elevate the feeling of human power” even if we
achieved nothing further (D 146).
4. Ethical Transhumanism After Nietzsche

In light of the evidence from Nietzsche’s Dawn, let me now return to
issues I initially raised in the previous section. First, as we saw, the
defense of moral transhumanism presented by Persson and Savulescu is

directed at promoting altruism, which they treat as essentially coextensive

with compassion, based on their reading of Schopenhauer’s ethics (2008,
169). However, Nietzsche has provided some reasons for thinking that
Schopenhauer’s view may be challenged, and that compassion is not
always morally correct or clearly advantageous. There may be, as
Nietzsche suggests, reasons to pursue ethical aims that are not based on
compassion — such as long-term aims concerned with the flourishing of
humanity as a whole — and there are, demonstrably, circumstances in
which compassion may be harmful to oneself, to others, or even to the
broader project of developing better human health through moral critique.
What we have seen of Nietzsche’s ethics in Dawn is of course not
sufficient in itself to fully support a case against identifying altruism as the
appropriate main target of moral transhumanism, but it is sufficient to
suggest that much more work needs to be done to defend altruism as this
main target, scientifically and philosophically. But even so, Nietzsche’s
critical thinking on morality, at minimum, opens up further analysis of
issues with treating altruism as the main target of bioenhancement by
moral transhumanists.
Those moral transhumanists wishing to further defend the view that
morality is based on altruism, and hence to focus future bioenhancement
efforts on prompting altruistic behaviors, may well seek to challenge
Nietzsche’s critique. One possible way to do so would be to provide
convincing empirical and/or experimental evidence supporting the view
that altruism, in some form or other, is a core, biologically based, human
moral disposition. A relevant example of well-known research that might
be used to support such a defense is the work of Frans de Waal (2008). De
Waal defends empathy as the main motivation for individuals to continue
to exchange benefits and that a hardwired empathy mechanism seems
likely to underlie intentional altruism (2008, 292). For de Waal, it is
unclear what would motivate social animals to help one another other than
the emotional engagement that is provided by empathy (2008, 292). Yet
even given examples such as this, it remains an open intellectual question
as to whether altruism is indeed a core biologically based human moral
disposition, particularly in the ahistorical sense that is evident in accounts
such as that of Persson and Savulescu (2008, 2013).
Notice that my specific criticism here is not of the fact of the biological
component of such arguments — of course from a Nietzschean standpoint
there is a biological component to human behavior, including moral
behavior. Nietzsche endorses such a component by linking his critique of
customary morality in Dawn and his positive ethics to an understanding of
subjectivity and feeling as drive-based (Bamford 2014).10 My criticism is

216 Chapter Twelve
of the tacit assumption that altruism is an ahistorical core component of

human moral behavior. As Jesse Prinz has recently argued, morality is
plastic, genealogical — explicitly in Nietzsche’s sense, as he acknowledges
— and historical (2014, 115). Moral transhumanists wishing to retain the
focus on altruism could perhaps point to de Waal’s claims that empathy “is
the only mechanism capable of providing a unitary motivational
explanation for a wide variety of situations in which assistance is
dispensed according to need” and that empathy is a “phylogenetically
ancient capacity” in rebuttal (2008, 289, 292). However, while helpful for
their purposes, this would be insufficient as it would not do enough to
address concerns with historical and cultural context, and it would not
address the point that Nietzsche provides an alternative explanation for
occasions of social help such as development of humans free from the
toxic effects of customary morality. Moreover, as Prinz points out and as
Nietzsche’s argument in Dawn also shows, morality involves variation
across cultures and time periods; while a cultural science of morals may
trace factors leading to the emergence of certain values and the
disappearance of others, such a cultural science cannot responsibly ignore
the impact of social institutions (2014, 115).
If Nietzsche is right, then it would be concerning for moral
transhumanism to be grounded in customary morality, rather than in terms
of what ethics might become if set free from the conditions and rules of
this form of morality. An overly narrow focus on altruism poses an
unnecessary limit on the imagination of moral transhumanists, and on the
associated possibilities for ongoing exploration of human development.
Questioning altruism as a central aim of moral transhumanism via
Nietzsche’s critical engagement with customary morality thus opens up
the possibility that moral transhumanists need not limit their sense of their
project to enhancement of altruism, or indeed some other specific aspect of
moral behavior. Instead, moral transhumanists may plausibly engage in
more ambitious work to develop and enhance ethics tout court. As
Nietzsche’s critique of customary morality in Dawn makes clear, the work
of critical engagement with morality and pursuit of a fresh approach to the
ethical is commensurate with concern for health and human development.
Moral transhumanists also need not imagine, therefore, that they would
need to abandon either use of technological innovations from the
biomedical sciences, or biomedicine as an important factor in envisioning
the development of moral transhumanism within the broader transhumanist
project, should they decide to adopt a Nietzschean approach.

5. Conclusion
My aim in this essay has not been to defend the claim that Nietzsche
was committed to what we now refer to as transhumanism. Similarly, my
aim has not been to defend the claim that Nietzsche’s philosophy can, as a
whole, be understood as a distinctive contribution to the contemporary
transhumanist movement. My more modest claim is that there is textual
evidence to support the view that Nietzsche’s thinking on morality is
structurally similar to contemporary moral transhumanism, in so far as
both are concerned to promote improved human health as well as better
functioning in ethical matters. The concept of “structural similarity” to
which I appeal here is informed by Sorgner’s broader claim that
Nietzsche’s philosophy is structurally similar to transhumanist reflections
as a whole (2011).11
It is important to note that if moral transhumanists make a move
towards Nietzsche, they would not necessarily be required to adopt
Nietzsche’s suspicion of the appropriateness of moral emotions such as
compassion for health promotion, or indeed to affirm all aspects of
Nietzsche’s critical engagement with customary morality. All that would
be required for the purposes of my argument in this essay is acceptance of
a more minimal position: that at least some of what we assume we know
about morality, or what at least seems like a safe set of assumptions — for
example the notions that altruism is a biologically-based human
disposition, and that altruism is always morally best and advantageous —
is in fact an open research question that merits continuing scholarly
attention. Another issue that merits further investigation is what moral
transhumanism might look like if it were to connect its aims and goals
even more explicitly to Nietzsche’s positive ethics. Such an investigation
would connect Nietzsche’s middle writings with his remarks on the
overhuman in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and would make explicit the
methods by which Nietzsche would agree ethical transformation might
occur.12
I have sought to introduce contemporary transhumanists (and also
bioethicists working on enhancement issues who may not identify as
transhumanists but whose work is relevant to moral transhumanism) to
Nietzsche’s thinking on the ethical in Dawn as a fresh resource, one that
may be of direct use to the broad project of framing and developing an
account of moral transhumanism. As Sorgner has rightly pointed out,
identifying structural similarities between Nietzsche’s philosophy and
transhumanism has two distinct advantages: (i) this may facilitate further
development of transhumanism, and (ii) doing so opens up challenges that

218 Chapter Twelve
transhumanists must face (2011, 3). Accordingly, we can note that

Nietzsche’s ethics offers some constructive challenges to contemporary
calls for bioenhancement of altruism in moral transhumanism.
Specifically, we should not limit our framing of debate on moral
transhumanism to the narrow scope of a debate on the best form of
bioenhancement for ensuring specific behavioral outcomes. Instead,
following Nietzsche, moral transhumanists should now move to do more
work finding ways in which morality itself is open to development.
Notes
1 The other core biologically based moral disposition that Persson and Savulescu
identify is “a sense of justice” (Persson et al 2013, 129). I shall not address this
justice claim here for reasons of space, but I note that future work might consider
whether the concern that I identify with regard to altruism here is similarly
problematic for their claim concerning a sense of justice.
2 The form of such education is also an intellectual question, and I shall return to
this later in my discussion.
3 In Ecce Homo (‘Books,’ Dawn), Nietzsche explicitly notes that his campaign
against morality begins in Dawn. For an analysis of Nietzsche’s criticism of
Schopenhauer’s moral emphasis on compassion, see e.g. Janaway (2007,
especially 55-67).
4 Several components of this section of my essay are condensed and revised
versions of a more detailed discussion of mood and ethics in Dawn, developed in
Bamford (2014).
5 Simon Robertson discusses the “scope problem”: whether Nietzsche is critical of
all morality or certain forms of it, and if so, which forms; Robertson suggests that
Nietzsche’s critique is focused on customary morality, rather than on all possible
forms of morality (2012, 83-84).
6 Robertson points out that translating Nietzsche’s term Sittlichkeit der Sitte is
especially challenging, and suggests ‘customary life’ or ‘customary ethic’ as
alternatives to ‘morality of custom’ (2012, 83). I prefer ‘customary morality’ as I
think Nietzsche is aiming to distinguish between a problematic morality based on
custom, and a positive ethics that need not be informed by any existing customs. In
this use of terminology I also follow Bernard Williams, who draws a well-known
distinction between ethics and morality based in part on Nietzsche’s work on this
issue, taking ethics to incorporate a broader range of moral emotions than does
morality (1985).
7 Jessica Berry has shown that health remains fundamentally important to
Nietzsche’s critical engagement with value systems in later writings such as On the
Genealogy of Morals (2011, 135-136).
8 As well as remaining sensitive to the difficult issue of whether to translate
Mitleid as pity or compassion when examining Nietzsche’s wider analysis of these
moral emotions, Christopher Janaway has provided a helpful overview of

Nietzsche’s sustained critique of compassion in D 132-138, which as he notes

directly targets Schopenhauer’s ethics, and which he links to Nietzsche’s continued
critical engagement with Mitleid in On the Genealogy of Morals (2007, 64-67). On
Nietzsche’s view that it is defensible to express Mitleid while guarding against
experiencing this affect because of its self-injuring consequences, see also
Bamford (2007).
9 I follow work by Svendsen (2008) in treating fear as a mood.
10 Nietzsche’s attention to the effect of factors such as climate, environment, and
diet on human behavior is also well-known; see e.g. Pasley (1978). Sorgner
suggests that because Nietzsche proposes education as a means to development of
the posthuman, and given epigenetics, Nietzsche implicitly affirms genetic
enhancement (2015, 43). However, this does not commit Sorgner to the direct
claim that Nietzsche was a transhumanist or had transhumanist intentions. I follow
Sorgner in making this distinction.
11 In claiming this, Sorgner (2011) explicitly does not claim that Nietzsche is a
transhumanist and defends his position from this attribution by e.g. Babich (2011).
12 I have discussed writing as such a method in Bamford (2014).

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PAIN AND SUFFERING IN NIETZSCHE

AND TRANSHUMANISM
YUNUS TUNCEL
Nietzsche’s relationship to transhumanism has been a subject of debate

in recent times. One area of contention has been Nietzsche’s conception of
the overhuman; while some scholars do not see any close connection
between Nietzsche and transhumanism, like Bostrom (2005) and
Hauskeller (2009), others like More (2010), Sorgner (2009), and Loeb
(2011) do. The main focus of this essay is not the overhuman, although
this will be an inevitable part of it, but rather Nietzsche’s ideas on pain and
suffering and their relationship to the transhumanist position on the same.
It must be noted that there are many different transhumanists, and I will
consider a diverse selection on the topic. On the other hand, the topic of
pain and suffering is central to Nietzsche’s thought and a highly complex
one, which cannot be explored here comprehensively. I will start with
Nietzsche’s central ideas on suffering and then explore some related ideas
from transhumanism, including aging, longevity, immortality, and the role
of enhancement technologies. Finally, I will bring the two together and
evaluate their relationship.
I. Nietzsche and Suffering

Discussion of pain and suffering appears throughout Nietzsche’s
works, not to mention his discussion of their relation to other directly or
indirectly related phenomena such as suffering with others (Mitleid,
painfully translated as pity or compassion), cruelty, memory and memory-
making, and joy. On the other hand, his relationship to his own sufferings,
whether physical or otherwise, cannot be by-passed. Suffering, in
whatever form it is understood, is inevitable in life and many world-
interpretations, including religions and philosophies, are shaped by their

Pain and Suffering in Nietzsche and Transhumanism 221
conceptions of suffering. Before I survey those other positions, which

Nietzsche subjects to criticism in his writings, and his own position, I will
examine some core issues as they appear in his works, starting with the
Dionysian and the Apollonian. I will then move on to cruelty, suffering
with others, and memory.
In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche associates the Dionysian with
suffering and the Apollonian with joy; they are, however, intricately bound
together. These associations are all throughout the text, as Nietzsche
presents his ideas on image, appearance/illusion (Bild and Schein) and
oneness, intoxication and ecstasy: “Apollo, however, again appears to us
as the apotheosis of the principium individuationis, in which along is
consummated the perpetually attained goal of the primal unity, its
redemption through mere appearance. With his sublime gestures, he shows
us how necessary is the entire world of suffering…” (Nietzsche 2010, 45)
Suffering exists in the separation from the primal unity, which is the
process of individuation, as well as in being one with it or losing oneself in
it—the ultimate loss being one’s death. Ecstatic acts and states of being
bring about suffering, but they cannot be ontologically separated from
dreams and illusions and the joys they induce. Nietzsche’s fallacy or
shortcoming in this book was to give the appearance--partly due to the
dualistic framework through which these ideas are presented--as though
they can be separated. Although the language in this text is tinged with
Schopenhauerism, Nietzsche’s ideas on suffering are interesting to reflect
on, and they crystalize in his discussion of Hamlet. “Not reflection, no—
true knowledge, an insight into the horrible truth, outweighs any motive
for action, both in Hamlet and in the Dionysian man. Now no comfort
avails anymore; longing transcends a world after death, even the gods… ”
(Nietzsche 2010, 60) The Dionysian wisdom, the wisdom of destructibility
and mortality of all beings, which sees the “horror and absurdity of
existence,” would paralyze the person of action. To act one needs the veils
of illusion; here art, with its pleasurable illusions, comes as a “healing
enchantress.”
According to Nietzsche, cruelty, as a form of suffering and infliction of
suffering, has been a trademark of human psyche for millennia. “Cruelty is
one of the oldest festive joys of mankind..” (Nietzsche, D 18) Nietzsche
lists a variety of reasons to demonstrate how and why this has been so.
Gods demanded spectacles of cruelty so that they could feel delighted and
gratified; exercise of cruelty is a form of feeling of power, which brings
about pleasure; spiritual leaders have used cruelty against themselves to
show how strong they are and thus exercised power over their people (the
origin of a specific type of asceticism); and cruelty has been associated

222 Chapter Thirteen
with a set of desirable human qualities such as virtue and revenge. In

recent times, cruelty has been sublimated unto other things; in other
words, we have become far more cruel than we think: “Let us not be too
quick to think that we have by now freed ourselves completely from such
a logic of feeling!” Since we also suffer less, we do not feel, or feel it less,
the effect of our cruelty on others. Decisive eras of history counted
suffering as virtue; for us, that is not the case: “Perhaps in those
days…pain did not hurt as much as it does now…” (GM II, 68). Speaking
of “joy in cruelty” in the same section, Nietzsche writes: “…[it] does not
really have to have died out…” The cruelties we now have are religious or
ideological, subtler, more in the background, therefore, more insidious;
they destroy the soul and consequently the body. Without understanding
suffering or by wishing it away, we will never fathom to the depths of this
multi-layered, sublimated cruelty which has played its own tricks in power
relations in human history. As Nietzsche refers to cruelty as “savage cruel
beast” in BGE 229, he warns his readers: “We should reconsider cruelty
and open our eyes…That “savage animal” has not really been “mortified”;
it lives and flourishes, it has merely become—divine.” In its sublimated
forms, cruelty has been playing its games, hiding its sharp edge from the
one who uses it, unbeknownst that someday that sharp edge can turn
against him.
The other subject that must be examined on suffering is its connection
to memory. As Nietzsche observes in GM II, memories are made through
cruelty and suffering. “Man could never do without blood, torture, and
sacrifices when he felt the need to create a memory for himself…”
(Nietzsche 1967, 61) Referring to all religions as “systems of cruelties,”
Nietzsche concludes this part by saying that “…all this has its origin in the
instinct that realized that pain is the most powerful aid to mnemonics.”
Memories of suffering can be conscious or unconscious; in the former
case, one may remember them with more ease but also with discomfort. In
the latter case, repressed forms of suffering, like traumas, often hinder us
from becoming who we are, prevent us from an introspective life and from
growing, not to mention ruining our relations with others. There are layers
of individual or collective suffering that are stored into our memories; not
to acknowledge it means not to address them and to let them shape our
lives. On the other hand, a variety of phenomena, such as guilt,
punishment, and “bad conscience,” which still shape human life and
society, are, genealogically--not causally--rooted in suffering.
The last issue on suffering is on suffering with others, the question of
Mitleid. One cannot feel the pain of others but can relate to it, and there
are different ways of relating to the sufferings of others; some ways

downgrade us, some others push us upwards. In many of his writings,

Nietzsche exposes these different ways and questions the problematic
forms of Mitleid, often translated as ‘pity.’ This issue of Mitleid is so
crucial in Nietzsche’s thought that he made it Zarathustra’s biggest
obstacle on his path: ““Pity! Pity for the higher man!” he cried out, and his
face changed to bronze. “Well then, that has had its time! My suffering
and my pity for suffering…” (Nietzsche 1982, 439) This was Zarathustra’s
final sin. How we relate to our sufferings determines who we are and
where are, individually and culturally, in relation to overhumanly
achievements. Those who find a cold-hearted individual who opposes all
pity and compassion in Nietzsche are mistaken; like many others,
including transhumanists, he bets on the side of strength and calls for
bonds of strength and empowerment in achieving higher states and goals.
To conclude from these insights of Nietzsche, pain and suffering are
inevitable in human life. We must accept them as part of our being, as part
of amor fati, and develop a life-affirming way of experiencing them in
accordance with the teachings of the overhuman and the eternal recurrence
of the same. There are, at least, three conceptions of suffering Nietzsche
combats in his works: 1) Christian (or monotheistic in general, informed
by Stoic ideals): life is full of suffering; therefore, pleasures and joys are to
be thrown out and this life must be dismissed and negated for the sake of
after-life (condemnation of bodily regimes is connected to this pathos); 2)
Pessimistic: existence is dominated by non-rational forces, a primarily
non-rational will, as in Schopenhauer, and the best or the highest thing one
can do is to withdraw into nothingness; 3) Utilitarian (rooted in
Epicureanism to some extent): pain (and all the related) is a bad thing and
must be avoided and eliminated; one must diminish pain and maximize
pleasure and happiness in order to lead a good life. Nietzsche’s response
can be summarized in this way: there is only this life on earth, which
consists of many passions including those of joy and suffering. Deferring
to another life or mystical states of nothingness is inconsistent, as it
uproots the only life one has. On the other hand, suffering cannot be
wished away, as utilitarians want and demand, but rather is a source of
confrontation, growth, and empowerment. One thing that is common to all
three positions listed above is their ontological separation of suffering
from joy, which Nietzsche repudiates in his works.
Finally, love of one’s self or one’s fate (amor fati) demands that we
accept, among other things, our own sufferings, and, more importantly,
suffering as an existential fact. The eternal return posits that both joy and
suffering will recur eternally; life and death and their joys and sufferings
are bound together. Suffering is deep and joy may be deeper, but they

recur and are intricate aspects of life (Nietzsche 1982, 339-40 ). To be able
to overcome one’s self—and one can use all internal and external
resources to do so, not only technology—one must embrace one’s own self
and its sufferings.
II. Transhumanism on Pain and Suffering

The goal of transhumanism is to eliminate pain and all forms of
suffering, increase human longevity, and aim for human immortality, all of
these through technology, including recent enhancement technologies. As
the Transhumanist FAQ presents, transhumanism is “the intellectual and
cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of
fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason,
especially by developing and making widely available technologies to
eliminate aging…” (More 2013, 3) Many transhumanists consider pain to
be a bad thing, which is a utilitarian position. Presumably pain often
misguides the sentient being or complicates his/her life, a position held by
several transhumanists in the recent anthology The Transhumanist Reader.
Reflecting on augmented perception and Enhanced Reality, Chislenko
writes: “Unfortunately, pain is not a very accurate indicator of our bodily
problems. Many serious conditions do not produce any pain until it is too
late to act. Pain focuses our attention on symptoms of the disease rather
than causes and is non-descriptive, uncontrollable, and counter-
productive.” (More 2013, 143-44) He then suggests using pain techniques
for improving health conditions, while dismissing pain.
More reiterates a similar position in the Introduction to The
Transhumanist Reader when he states: “Becoming posthuman means
exceeding the limitations that define the less desirable aspects of the
“human condition.” Posthuman beings would no longer suffer from
disease, aging, and inevitable death (but they are likely to face other
challenges)” (More 2013, 4). Again, presenting the historical context and
referring to alchemists of the 13th to 18th centuries as proto-transhumanists,
More says: “Their research for the Philosopher’s Stone or the Elixir of
Life looks like the search for a magical form of technology capable of
transmuting elements, curing all disease, and granting immortality.” (More
2013, 4) In his utopian manifesto, The Hedonistic Imperative, David
Pearce predicts “…how nanotechnology and genetic engineering will
eliminate aversive experience from the living world. Over the next
thousand years or so, the biological substrates of suffering will be
eradicated completely. "Physical" and "mental" pain alike are destined to
disappear into evolutionary history.” 1 As a final point to this survey,

Number 5 of the “Transhumanist Declaration,” (More, Chapter 4) is listed

as “the alleviation of grave suffering” which is not clear. Related to
suffering are the issues of aging and death.
“Overcoming aging” is listed in number 1 of the “Transhumanist
Declaration,” (TR, Chapter 4). According to transhumanists, life is good
and death is bad; the goal is to eliminate aging and dying (More 2013,
213). In his The Prospect of Immortality (1964), Robert Ettinger defended
immortality and developed a scientific technique to do it, which he called
‘cryonics,’ a freezing technique; cryogenics is one branch of
transhumanism. He propounds a similar idea in his Man into Superhuman
(1972), as he approaches the issue of human immortality from the
standpoint of evolution. Part V of The Transhumanist Reader sums up the
transhumanist position on aging and death: “One point on which all
transhumanists agree – and one that distinguishes transhumanism from
humanism and other philosophies of life – is the view that it is both
possible and desirable to scientifically overcome biological aging and
death.” (More 2013, 213)2 Defending anti-aging arguments in bioethics,
Aubrey de Grey promotes ideas for life extension, as he believes death to
be repugnant (More 2013, 215-219). One thing that transhumanists do not
see is the arbitrariness, from a cosmic standpoint, of the length of human
life; it is important only from the perspective of the human being who
wants to live longer. Ultimately, it is an underlying humanistic trend to
consider only human beings to be worthy of long lives; the rest of the
universe does not care.
Health span and longevity are issues transhumanists frequently discuss;
in fact, many issues that they bring up are those things that majority would
like (they have abstract ideas as to what the majority is and what their likes
and dislikes are). They seem to have the goal of immediate gratification
for the many like their utilitarian ancestors. Bostrom is one of these
transhumanists; his essay, “Why I Want to be a Posthuman,” is full of
generalizations—another problem with transhumanists—, as he claims that
most humans desire a healthy life, longevity, and to be alive rather than
dead (More 2013, 33). The essay is also full of statistical information.
Bostrom looks at these issues from a limited perspective. I would like to
raise two points here: first, we cannot make such blank statements about
the human condition; there are as many desires on any of these things as
there are individuals. Second, whether the majority have these desires or
not, it does not matter from the standpoint of cultural production; without
suffering and illness there would not have been a Nietzsche, a Beethoven,
or a Van Gogh, to name only a few. Regarding longevity, what about the
quality of life or intensity of lived moments rather than a long banal life?

And what about those who make sacrifices, take risks, enter into a painful
enterprise as part of their passion such as boxing or risky winter sports, or
simply desire to die? They would fall outside the scope of such statistical
analysis.
Regarding suffering, More makes an interesting observation: “If the
transhumanist project is successful, we may no longer suffer some of the
miseries that have always plagued human existence. But that is not reason
to expect life to be free of risks, dangers, conflicts, and struggle.” (More
2013, 4) More rightly says “some of the miseries,” because it is not
possible to get rid of all human misery. We end some form of suffering,
but then we start new ones. Human life, or all life, consists of conflicts,
and conflicts often generate misery and suffering. There is no need to
consult with recent history, but, if one must, it is this recent history, the
history of technology, which transhumanists are proud of and which
brought humanity to the brink of self-destruction. One may argue that
there is nothing wrong with self-destruction; this would be the case if it
were not out of a hubristic act, while technology and those who defend its
hegemony pretend to be the sum-total of all life and human life.
Some transhumanists present immortality or longevity as a choice;
once available people will be able to choose them, as one chooses goods in
a shopping mall: “We do not know what immortality would be like. But
should that happy choice become available, we can still decide whether or
not we want to enjoy it. Even if the ultimate goal of this technological
quest is immortality what will be immediately available is only longevity.”
(More 2013, 333) Not only they are offering these interesting goods to the
many, but they also preach tolerance and equality, which means, that these
goods will be available to all, including the masses, tyrants, and all sorts of
Untermenschen. In this way, they will be empowered. Carrying on from
the previous quote, Ronald Bailey argues for “politics of toleration,” as
though any tolerant society can be possible with simple words in the
absence of cohesive, Dionysian forces.
As it can be seen from different texts written by transhumanists, pain,
suffering and all the related phenomena are undesirable to them and to
eliminate them is one of their goals; this is also a part of their conception
of human evolution. All of the points transhumanists raise about
elimination of pain and suffering, aging and mortality are consistent within
themselves; however, their philosophical suppositions are highly suspect
and are grounded in the old metaphysics, which, on the surface, they seem
to be critical of. This is what I will explore next in relation to Nietzsche’s
ideas.

III. Nietzsche and Transhumanism

From a Nietzschean standpoint, the problem lies, to a large extent, in
the philosophical framework of transhumanism, which is Enlightenment’s
materialism and its total faith in reason, (summed up in More’s chapter 1,
he attacks Nietzsche implicitly and some post-Nietzscheans explicitly and
then invokes Nietzsche). This is a position, which was undermined by
Nietzsche. First, we are not rational machines, as Nietzsche showed from
his first to last book, especially in his critique of Socratic (or in a broader
sense, Occidental) rationality. The soul, the body, even the language,
cannot be reduced to mind or mental phenomena, in whatever way the
mind is understood. Second, Enlightenment assumed an eschatological
movement towards an ideal place, an ideal society, inheriting it from
Christian/medieaval metaphyscis; this “progressive” or linear, conception
of existence has been jettisoned by Nietzsche, as he opposed to it with his
idea of eternal return of the same. Finally, Enlightenment separated the
material from the spiritual and the ideal, rooted in the Platonic/Christian
dualism, but such separation is not upheld by Nietzsche. Human being and
culture is an integral multiplicity of agonistic forces.
Furthermore, transhumanism operates with that dualism that separates
life from death and, concomitantly, pleasure from pain. However, life and
death are inseparable under the eternal return of the same. The
overhumanly effort lies not in the desire to eliminate death but rather in
facing it, in integrating it into life and in willing the past—and all that
there is, including joys and sufferings--in the form of ‘amor fati,’ which
includes mortality. Therefore, it revolves not around denial but rather
around a mnemonic power, as Loeb observes:
According to Nietzsche, Zarathustra’s initial steps in creating a stronger
and healthier species are only possible if his willing backward in circular
time allows him to shape the unchangeable past so that his creation is new
and intentional. Moreover, Zarathustra’s creative achievement can only
have lasting significance if eternal recurrence saves it from inevitable
entropic dissolution. Finally, this species will be superior to human beings,
that is, superhuman, precisely because it will fully utilize this new
mnemonic power over time granted by its complete affirmation of the
reality of cosmological eternal recurrence. Just as the human animal rose
above all other animals through its socially inculcated mnemonic control
of the future (GM II §1), so too the superhuman animal will rise above the
human animal through its additional recurrence-enabled mnemonic control
of the past. (Loeb 2011, 5)

Death is part of life and it is a sign of overhumanly power to know

when to die, which Zarathustra calls “free death.” All things that come to
be are bound to disappear, according to their cosmic necessity; their
coming-to-be and their death are bound together. Nietzsche understood
this ancient wisdom, but re-formulated it under the thought of eternal
return within the context of modern age which made this ancient wisdom
fall asunder and subordinated cosmic cycles to human order, its linear
progression in time.
Since pain is a form of passion, denying pain means denying passion
and life itself. Interestingly enough, this point exposes another weakness
in the transhumanist position on pain, an underlying ascetic idealism.
While operating at the level of science and technology and presumably
taking a position against metaphysics and religion, transhumanists fall into
the trap of “ascetic idealism” without god or religion. I agree with Ansell-
Pearson, Babich, and Woodward on why and how transhumanism is
caught up in the clutches of ascetic idealism. I will not reiterate what is in
Woodward’s essay in this collection, but rather add that transhumanism is
operating in a nihilistic vacuum. Nietzsche is the first thinker to
demonstrate in-depth, not the first to use the term, as to why and how
European civilization is in the midst of a nihilistic age. Nihilism, in the
many senses that Nietzsche uses, is something to be overcome; some
aspects of this historic phenomenon are the will-to-nothingness and the
laissez-faire attitude; the entire Third Essay of the Genealogy is dedicated
to this topic (Nietzsche 1967, 97-163). Industrial/technological being-in-
the-world had already nihilistic elements before transhumanism appeared
on stage; their embrace of technology in toto is another manifestation, or
rather, an intensification of technological nihilism. What transhumanists
would be hard-pressed to admit or be uncomfortable about is the fact that
it is the same level of technology, which has brought the capability of self-
destruction, the end of the planet, upon humanity and which has also
created all forms of enhancement. They see technology as a one-edged
sword, but it is not.
Another aspect of transhumanism, which is at odds with Nietzsche’s
thought is its disenfranchised way of thinking; I have already mentioned
that transhumanism is bereft of the Dionysian—if technology and
technologists were not hegemonic, this would not have been a problem;
not everyone has to be Dionysian. The reason why life is ontologically
separated from death, pleasure from pain is endemic to a specific form of
rationality that emerged in the Occidental world-order (what is diagnosed
as logocentricity in post-modern thought). This specific form of rationality
splits and isolates life forces into fragments, often disabling them; this is

another aspect of ascetic idealism in the technological world, which the

aforementioned Nietzsche scholars speak of. This unity of all life forces is
profoundly expressed by Nietzsche towards the end of his Twilight of the
Idols:
For it is only in the Dionysian mysteries, in the psychology of the
Dionysian state, that the basic fact of the Hellenic instinct finds
expression—its “will to life.” What was it that the Hellene guaranteed
himself by means of these mysteries? Eternal life, the eternal return of
life; the future promised and hallowed in the past; the triumphant Yes to
life beyond all death and change; true life as the over-all continuation of
life through procreation, through the mysteries of sexuality. For the Greeks
the sexual symbol was therefore the venerable symbol par excellence, the
real profundity in the whole of ancient piety. Every single element in the
act of procreation, of pregnancy, and of birth aroused the highest and most
solemn feelings. In the doctrine of the mysteries, pain is pronounced holy:
the pangs of the woman giving birth hallow all pain; all becoming and
growing—all that guarantees a future—involves pain… (Nietzsche 1982,
561-2)
Contrary to transhumanist belief, there is no growth (no progress, to

use their term) without pain and suffering for Nietzsche. To isolate pain
from all life forces is a fallacy, fallacy of the spirit, if not of logic.
Finally, transhumanists speak of enhancement, which seems on the
surface to be in agreement with Nietzsche’s idea of overhumanliness.
Although this is a different area to explore, I would like to make two
comments here, especially since overcoming or enhancement does often
include suffering. First, we do not need only technology for enhancement;
we need to include a variety of internal and external resources when we
speak of enhancement. Introspective self-analysis, or what Nietzsche
called “psychological observation,” for instance, is also a form of
enhancement for which one needs no tools or transhumanist gadgets.
Second, transhumanists, with their appeal to majority, do not consider
what is overhumanly, or, this is not in their discussions; this may be
implicit in their discourse and it must be kept in mind that there is always
a hierarchy of reigning values, whether they are liberal, egalitarian, or not.
Transhumanists are either dishonest about their hidden agenda, which may
be the rule of enhanced posthumans of a futuristic society, or they truly
profess some type of egalitarianism, both of which are inconsistent with
Nietzsche’s thought.

Epilogue
We are sentient beings, beings who feel pain and suffer, but also who
feel joy. The transhumanist idea or vision for a new type of human species
with no pain and suffering amounts to elimination of pleasure and joy at
the same time. In other words, their vision is for a new being who is not
sentient. If this is a correct assessment of the main transhumanist position,
I would ask why there is such a desire to be non-sentient, to be
impassionate. With due respect to beings that are non-sentient, why would
a non-sentient being be a “progress” over the sentient ones, since progress
is one of the goals of the transhumanist project?
The desire to get rid of pain and suffering is a utopia and must be
resisted (utopianisms, whether religious or secular, never took us to “better
places”). There are utopian trends in transhumanism, while transhumanists
like More rightly warn us against it. On the other hand, it is best to speak
of goals that are attainable. Within the context of enhancement
technologies, one can consider issues of longevity—average human life
span has doubled in the last two centuries—as opposed to elimination of
mortality (there is no evidence that this can ever be achieved, putting aside
whether it is desirable or not). On the other hand, wishing away that there
is no suffering is reflective of evading the more difficult task of addressing
one’s own sufferings. There is wisdom to be gained from suffering, as
Nietzsche observes in Daybreak Aphorism 114; one gains depth, one can
see one’s own self and one can see through. Any attempt to deny pain and
suffering falls into ascetic idealism, just as Christian morality fell into it by
denying the joys and pleasures of life. Finally, pains, sufferings, passions
all have to do with the soul and its regimes; by proposing to eliminate pain
and all the related feelings, do the transhumanists also propose to get rid of
the human soul?
Notes
1 http://www.hedweb.com/hedethic/hedonist.htm. 1/15/2015.
2 I do not think transhumanists are much different than humanistic metaphysics in
the way they separate life from death, a point I will revisit later, in the discussion
of the eternal return. I do not think transhumanists would make an attempt to
understand Nietzsche’s conception of the eternal return, just as they would not
want to understand the emphasis Nietzsche placed on arts and creativity and on the
body and bodily regimes. For them, it is all science and technology, another form
of logo-centricity.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
POSTMODERN REFLECTIONS
ON THE NIETZSCHE AND TRANSHUMANISM
EXCHANGE
ASHLEY WOODWARD
Although ‘the postmodern’ is often dismissed today as an outdated

trend, some of the ideas expressed under this name offer an invaluable
perspective on the Nietzsche and transhumanism exchange. Such ideas in
fact have a pressing relevance insofar as they treat of issues which are now
being raised again in relation to Nietzsche and transhumanism, issues
concerning the impact of science and technology on contemporary
existence, the status of the concept of the human, and the values which
orient our attitudes to these. I will not be able here to answer all of the
many questions which this debate provokes, but I will show how the
postmodern perspective implies answers – or at least, focuses lines of
response – to some of the key questions, and orients us to paths for further
investigation.
Of course, the meaning of ‘the postmodern’ was and remains a vexed,
contested issue, but I will take the expedient of selecting one of the most
prominent philosophers of the postmodern, Jean-François Lyotard, and
considering what it means for him. Briefly, the argument I will present
here is this. First, I will use the framework of the post/modern to
characterize Nietzsche as a critic of modernity. Contra Stefan Sorgner,
who too-simplistically reads Nietzsche as an affirmer of the value of
science, Nietzsche criticized many modern developments, including
science, as continuations of the ascetic ideal. This has been highlighted by
Keith Ansell-Pearson and Babette Babich, who have both argued that
transhumanism can be seen as the latest manifestation of the ascetic ideal,
a new ‘Platonism for the people.’ Following Ansell-Pearson, transhumanism
can also be seen as a persistent avatar of the metanarratives with which

232 Chapter Fourteen
Lyotard characterized, and criticized, modernity. From this perspective,

then, Nietzsche would appear as an enemy of transhumanism.
Second, I will argue that since Nietzsche was most concerned with
values, the strength to interpret and affirm life, and in short the existential
imperative, then the kinds of technologies Nietzscheans should be most
concerned with are in fact what Michel Foucault called the ‘technologies
of the self.’ However, drawing on the work of Bernard Stiegler, I will
argue that new technologies are not essentially separate from the
technologies of the self, and may be understood to be deeply implicated in
the processes through which individuals are formed. The challenge for a
Nietzschean form of transhumanism, then, would be to engage critically
with new technologies in order to understand how a ‘technics of the self,’
which strengthens rather than diminishes our capacities for life-
affirmation, might be possible. So while I will argue that a postmodern
perspective on the exchange leads us to countersign Ansell-Pearson and
Babich’s criticisms of transhumanism, it also opens the path to a possible
Nietzschean form of transhumanism, quite different from the forms which
are most popular today. Rather than reject Sorgner’s positioning of
Nietzsche as a precursor to transhumanism as simply wrongheaded, then,
we should welcome it as provoking much-needed critical reflection on the
values at stake in the transhuman condition.
A Postmodern Fable
The grand narrative today is likely to take the form of a facile quasi-
Hegelianism in which the rise of the machine is construed in linear and
perfectionist terms: the ever-growing inhuman character of “technology”
resides in the “simple” fact that it is machines that are proving to be more
successful in creating an adequate response to the tasks laid down by
evolution than the creatures whose existence first gave rise to it (Ansell
Pearson 1997, 4).
Despite his prolific and diverse output, Lyotard is probably still most
widely known for the three words with which he defined the postmodern
in The Postmodern Condition: ‘incredulity toward metanarratives.’
(Lyotard 1984, xxiv) This book is a report on the status of knowledge in
the most developed societies, which Lyotard analyzed through the idea of
the postindustrial and the – at the time – just developing ‘computerization’
of society. Lyotard understands the modern as a way of organizing
temporal events according to a narrative, a story with a beginning, middle,
and end – in other words, history as it is most frequently understood. A
metanarrative is a historical narrative which claims to give meaning to all

Postmodern Reflections on the Nietzsche and Transhumanism Exchange 233
events and all localized narratives, to tell ‘the story of all stories.’
According to Lyotard, modern metanarratives are teleological and
soteriological – they posit a hero of the story, and the origin and end of the
hero’s journey, which are typically the same – the hero finally ‘returns
home,’ but changed by the journey, as in Homer’s Odyssey.1 The story is
one of salvation, with the hero being saved once the goal is achieved.
Lyotard identifies the first modern form of narrativizing with Augustine,
and importantly sees the Christian narrative of the redemption of sin
through love as the prototype of the metanarrative in Western culture.2
Yet the metanarratives treated of in The Postmodern Condition are
principally the Enlightenment stories of the emancipation of humanity, the
‘collective subject’ of history, through the development of reason, and its
later avatars, Hegelianism and Marxism. Significantly, Lyotard sees the
secularization of the Christian narrative as maintaining what is most
essential to it, narrativity and historicity as such. Thus, while modern
narratives tend to construe science and technology as involved in a
progressive overcoming of myth and religion, Lyotard’s analysis stresses a
continuity with these. Lyotard then defines the postmodern as a loss of the
credibility of these metanarratives as a way of giving a meaning and value
to human existence. Lyotard identifies several reasons why he believes
this credibility has been lost, but the one most significant to our concerns
here involves the development of modern science and technology. Lyotard
points to the increasing autonomy of science and technology in relation to
human meaning and purpose, and suggests that metanarratives are no
longer required to justify research and development because the rationale
of ‘performativity’ (how efficiently something performs in terms of input-
output ratio) has in practice trumped reference to the human good. Lyotard
draws an explicit, if passing, parallel between the decline of metanarratives
and Nietzsche’s story of nihilism and the death of God (1984, 39). We can
extrapolate this parallel in the following way: if modernity faced the
nihilism of a decline of religion, it responded by secularizing the
metanarrative of salvation, replacing the salvation of the individual soul in
the afterlife with the salvation of humanity as the collective subject of
history in the future (another ‘beyond.’) But the postmodern decline of
metanarratives now creates another nihilistic crisis, disorienting us in our
lives and collective projects, removing the goal and the horizon of hope
towards which we previously moved.
Somewhat less well known are some of Lyotard’s later thoughts
around metanarratives and postmodernity, which draw his reflections very
close to transhumanism (without ever using this term). Neil Badmington
has placed Lyotard in the context of the posthuman by including his essay

“Can Thought Go On Without a Body?” in his 2000 anthology

Posthumanism. This essay, and a number of others written in the late
nineteen-eighties, present what Lyotard calls a ‘postmodern fable’ (morale
postmoderne).3 He suggests that it might be understood as a philosophical
‘morale,’ along the lines of those Voltaire wrote. The fable is this. In
approximately 4.5 billion years, our sun will die, consuming the Earth in
an inexorable conflagration. Will it be possible for humanity to survive the
death of our terrestrial home, and exist in some other way in the wider
cosmos? Lyotard ironically suggests that this is the most pressing problem
facing us today. Yet what is not ironic is his reflection that the system of
‘development’ is proceeding precisely as if this were the case, and is in
every respect trying to prepare our bodies for extraterrestrial survival, as
soon as possible. This is the meaning, Lyotard writes, of all the fast-paced
innovations going on today in all the most advance sciences and
industries: we are trying to understand, replicate, reproduce, and enhance
the human form to make it independent of the earth. (We can see this most
obviously in sciences such as artificial intelligence, robots, genetic
engineering, artificial life, and information technology, for example.)
Lyotard’s question is then this: if something succeeds in this great exodus
from the earth in 4.5 billion years’ time, will what survives be, in any
sense recognizable to us today, human?
What is the ‘moral’ of this morale postmoderne? Lyotard is working
here outside the mode of standard theoretical discourse, and his reflections
on this topic have frequently been misunderstood. Specifically, he has
been misunderstood as presenting us with a new metanarrative. Yet
Lyotard’s point is rather to engage critically what he saw as a kind of new,
postmodern metanarrative, replacing the old metanarratives. This new
story – which is arguably that of transhumanism – is “the great narrative
that the world persists in telling itself after the great narratives have
obviously failed” (Lyotard 1991, 81-2). Again there is a parallel with
Nietzsche: just as the latter realized that the shadow of the dead God
would long be cast over humanity (GS 108), Lyotard quickly realized that
the metanarrative form of organizing events was persisting in a new form.
And yet, there is a key difference, which justifies the specification of this
as a postmodern (not modern) fable. This difference is that the hero of the
narrative is no longer the human. Instead, and in line with incredulity
towards modern metanarratives, the human has been displaced in favor of
technoscientific development as such. Picking up on various scientific
discourses,4 Lyotard suggests that the new hero of the story is negentropy,
or simply the organization of matter and energy into complex form as
such. Considered in this way, what is of value is the heroic resistance to

entropic, disorganizing forces. Negentropy specifies the rare pockets of

complex organization in the cosmos, including the development of life,
and the potential continuation of evolutionary processes by technological
means. This narrative remains teleological and soteriological insofar as it
aims towards a particular end, that of increasing complexity, and – in
some extreme versions – posits a possible salvation from the entropic heat
death of the cosmos itself (a billion, billion, billion years from now)
through technological means (see Tippler 1994). The specific point of
difference between the ‘modern’ and the ‘postmodern’ metanarrative,
then, is precisely the issue of the (post)human.
Lyotard’s postmodern fable dramatizes and focuses the question of
what meaning and value existence has, and to what extent this is
dependent or independent of ‘the human.’ Will what is important in
human life be preserved by the negentropic systems which survive the
solar catastrophe, or will we have eradicated this through the very
attempted survival? Are we already eradicating these things through a
misguided thinking of the transhuman and the posthuman? Lyotard
specifies what he believes is in danger of disappearing with the advent of
posthuman forms of life: thinking as such, understood as existing only in
intimate relation with sexual difference and desire, and as accompanied by
an unavoidable kind of suffering. (I cannot expand on Lyotard’s
reflections here, but we shall return to the theme of suffering in relation to
Nietzsche below). Unless technologies are able to reproduce these
features, then whatever posthuman form of thinking might go on without a
body will be nothing but a “poor binarized ghost.” (Lyotard 1991, 17)
Lyotard’s postmodern fable presents a critical perspective on
transhumanist dreams, but does not necessarily disqualify them. He writes
that
[f]rom this point of view we should indeed have grounds not to give up on
techno-science. I have no idea whether such a ‘programme’ is achievable.
Is it even consistent to claim to be programming an experience that defies,
if not programming, then at least the programme – as does the vision of
the painter or writing? It’s up to you to give it a try. (Lyotard 1991, 17-18)
The broader question that is dramatized by this fable, however, is that

of the horizon of meaning and the values that animate transhumanism.
Sorgner aptly writes that “[a] topic that has been in the centre of most
ethical theories, at least until the end of the Renaissance, was that of the
good life. The replies to the question of the good put forward by
transhumanists and Nietzsche forces us to consider what can be said
concerning the final goal of human acts today.” (2010, 10) This is

precisely the question of the postmodern; an ‘updated’ reformulation of

the question put forward by Nietzsche concerning nihilism and the death
of God. To what horizon of meaning do we look forward when the idol not
only of God, but also now of Man, is falling? The postmodern is strongly
related to the posthuman, insofar as it understands modernity as dominated
by the figure of the human, acting as a substitute for God, today also on
the decline. As Lyotard’s postmodern fable is meant to illustrate, the
image of the human no longer orients our values and animates our
projects. In the next section, we will see that such postmodern themes
allow us to focus the Nietzsche and transhumanism debate insofar as
Nietzsche can and has been read as a postmodernist thinker, critical of
modernity, while transhumanism can be seen as motivated by the very
modern values that he criticizes.
Nietzsche as Postmodernist
As is well known, Nietzsche was a key source for various trends of
thought, and especially French poststructuralism, that came to be glossed
as ‘postmodernism’ in the nineteen-eighties. Nietzsche was read as a
powerful critic of modernity, who sowed the seeds for new forms of
postmodern thought, and whose prophetic announcements regarding
nihilism and its overcoming heralded a new postmodern era.5 There are
many and complex ways in which Nietzsche may be understood as a critic
of modernity, but I will continue to focus here on the value of science and
technology, since these are key to transhumanism. Nietzsche’s critical
views on modern science relate to a theme which has already significantly
featured in the Nietzsche and transhumanism debate: the ascetic ideal.
Sorgner has suggested that Nietzsche’s ideal for a post-nihilistic,
immanent life-affirmation involves a positive valuation of modern science,
and this is one of the contentions central to his situation of Nietzsche as a
precursor to transhumanism.6 Yet Nietzsche’s story about science is more
complex than this, and both Keith Ansell-Pearson and Babette Babich
have stridently criticized transhumanism as a manifestation of the ascetic
ideal. My aim in this section of the chapter is to underline and support this
criticism, construing it as consonant with Nietzsche’s critique of
modernity. Nietzsche, as postmodernist, would then appear as an enemy of
transhumanism (a position that I will, however, significantly complicate in
the following section).
Ansell-Pearson proclaims that “[t]he transhuman condition has become
transformed into a classic expression of an ancient ideal – the ascetic
ideal.” (1997, 33) Similarly, Babich declares: “Transhumanism turns out

to be the latest and maybe not even the best (we should probably wait for
the next model) instantiation of the ascetic ideal.” (2011, 35) What exactly
is the ascetic ideal? Nietzsche famously analyses this concept in the third
essay of the Genealogy of Morality, where he provides the following
insightful summary in the concluding section:
It is absolutely impossible for us to conceal what was actually expressed
by that whole willing that derives its direction from the ascetic ideal: this
hatred of the human, and even more of the animalistic, even more of the
material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness
and beauty, this longing to get away from appearance, transience, growth,
death, wishing, longing itself – all that means, let us dare to grasp it, a will
to nothingness, an aversion to life, a rebellion against the most
fundamental prerequisites of life …’ (GM III, 28)
Nietzsche’s conception of the ascetic ideal is the result of his analysis

of the psychology underlying ascetic (which means, at first glance, anti-
sensual) values and modes of behavior. For him it is equivalent to a will to
nothingness, a will which has turned against life itself, because the will
would rather will nothingness than not will at all. The ascetic ideal is a
response to a failure to find meaning in the suffering the life brings, and it
has a life-preservative value because it provides precisely such a meaning
in the form of a religious, transcendent ideal, supposedly higher than and
beyond this life. The ascetic ideal separates the suffering from life and
condemns it, valuing only an ‘afterworld’ thought to be free from
suffering. Life is then preserved by making it easier to cope with, since it
is given a meaning (and Nietzsche insists that it is not suffering itself that
we find so unbearable, but meaningless suffering). Yet the ascetic ideal
condemns life ‘here and now,’ and turns the will against life in the
immanent world, preserving life but in a nihilistic state, in mediocrity, at a
low level of will to power (in a state of sickness, Nietzsche insists).
Why then do Ansell-Pearson and Babich see transhumanism as a
manifestation of the ascetic ideal? Ansell-Pearson notes how the
transhumanist ideal is frequently very simplistically opposed to all that is
human, devaluing the latter. He comments that “[a] recent popular account
of ‘postbiological man,’ for example, treats the human condition as an
affliction which shouldn't happen to a dog.” (1997, 32) This opposition
negates the value of life here and now, as it is lived by we pathetic
humans. By contrast, he reminds us that for Nietzsche there is no such
simple opposition, and that the human is the ground from which the
overhuman develops as a constant process of self-overcoming. In failing to
see the complexity of this relationship, the transhuman tends to foster ‘the

hatred of the human’ Nietzsche refers to in the description of the ascetic

ideal quoted above.
For Babich, transhumanism appears as a form of the ascetic ideal
insofar as the latter “opposes everything that life involves and seeks an
improvement on that.” (2011, 35) In her earlier book Nietzsche’s
Philosophy of Science: Reflecting Science on the Ground of Art and Life
(1994), Babich details the way that Nietzsche not only sometimes affirms
science, but also at other times criticizes it as manifesting the ascetic ideal.
Her interpretation here acts as a useful counter to Sorgner’s too-simplistic
interpretation on this point, which seems to suggest that for Nietzsche
scientific values automatically mean immanent life-affirmation. Babich
draws our attention to the new Preface for the 1886 edition of The Birth of
Tragedy, where he states his aim in that work being “to look at science
through the prism of the artist, but also to look at art through the prism of
life.” (BT “Preface” 2) She then uses this clue as a coordinating structure
to examine all Nietzsche’s views on science, suggesting with reference to
art that Nietzsche’s perspectivism contrasts with the scientific pretension
to a single truth, and that he desired to reveal science as akin to art insofar
as both deal with limited perspectives, even illusions. With respect to life –
most significant for our concerns here – Nietzsche critically questions the
will that wants knowledge, truth, and scientific regularity, and aims at a
technological mastery of reality. (Babich 1994, 298)
Nietzsche examines the relationship between science and the ascetic
ideal in sections 23-25 of the third essay of the Genealogy of Morality.
After considering the possibility that modern science is the counter-ideal
to the ascetic ideal, that it is “a genuine philosophy of reality” which
“obviously believes only in itself, obviously possesses the courage to be
itself, the will to be itself, and has hitherto got by well enough without
God, the beyond and the virtues of denial,” (GM III, 23) he roundly rejects
this. Instead, he asserts that
[p]recisely the opposite […] is the truth: science today has absolutely no
faith in itself, let alone in an ideal above it, – where it is still passion, love,
fire, suffering, it is not the opposite of the ascetic ideal but rather the
latter’s own most recent and noble manifestation. (GM III, 23)
Nietzsche identifies science as a manifestation of the ascetic ideal

because it maintains an unquestioning faith in truth and remains
metaphysical in that respect. In the Genealogy of Morality he quotes
himself from The Gay Science:
The truthful man, in that daring and final sense in which faith in science
presupposes, thus affirms another world from the one of life, nature, and

history; and inasmuch as he affirms this “other world”, must he not

therefore deny its opposite, this world, our world, in doing so? … Our
faith in science is still based on a metaphysical faith, – even we knowers
of today, we godless anti-metaphysicians, still take our fire from the blaze
set alight by a faith thousands of years old, that faith of the Christians,
which was also Plato’s faith, that God is truth, that truth is divine … But
what if precisely this becomes more and more unbelievable, when nothing
any more turns out to be divine except for error, blindness and lies – and
what if God himself turned out to be our oldest lie? (GS 344; as quoted in
GM III 24)
Furthermore, Babich underlines that science is a manifestation of the

ascetic ideal because it is motivated by a will to preserve life. For
Nietzsche, the desire for self-preservation results from a low level of will
to power, while the strong are fully prepared to exhaust themselves and
meet their own self-destruction in their willful expression. It is this link
between the ascetic ideal and self-preservation that Babich again
highlights in her reply to Sorgner, insisting that “[t]he technological
singularity is about not dying. Transhumanism is about not dying.”
(Babich 2011, 30) And she concludes that “Nietzsche excludes the kind of
transhumanism Sorgner speaks of, because and qua ‘enhancement,’
transhumanism is not at all about self-overcoming but is very much about
self-preservation, self-assertion, self-advancement.” (Babich 2011, 24)
Sorgner in fact asserts that Nietzsche only opposed a ‘two-worldly’
form of immortality; that is, immortality in an afterlife, and so would not
exclude the kind of physical immortality transhumanists often dream of
(2010, 13). Yet I believe he goes wrong here, and this is precisely the
point of Nietzsche’s critique of modernity that Sorgner and others who
would uphold his supposed transhumanist credentials seem to miss:
Nietzsche sees very clearly that the nihilistic values previously associated
with religious, metaphysically transcendent worldviews can and do persist
in purportedly materialist, immanent metaphysical frameworks. Indeed,
this could even be understood as the entire import of the famous passage
of the madman proclaiming the death of God in the marketplace (GS 125):
the onlookers laugh because they think they already know the meaning of
the death of God, but the madman sees that they haven’t followed this
event to its full conclusions, since they still believe in Christian-moral
values. As the passages quoted above attest, Nietzsche sees modern
science, even when it takes itself to be materialist, as harboring a
metaphysical dualism insofar as it maintains a faith in truth.
Arguably, the key point of the ascetic ideal is the condemnation of
suffering and its separation from an idealized existence. Nietzsche
repeatedly asserts that the kind of life-affirmation he admires and

advocates is one which can affirm all of life, including suffering. This is
precisely what he admired in the tragic outlook of the ancient Greeks, and
which he hoped to reinvent in some sense through the ‘transvaluation of
all values.’ This tragic life-affirmation is well indicated in the following
passage from Ecce Homo:
I was the first to see the real opposition: - the degenerate instinct that turns
against life with subterranean vindictiveness (- Christianity, Schopenhauer’s
philosophy, and in a certain sense even Plato’s philosophy, the whole of
idealism as typical forms) and a formula of the highest affirmation born
out of fullness, out of overfullness, an unreserved yea-saying even to
suffering, even to guilt, even to everything questionable and strange about
existence … This final, most joyful, effusive, high-spirited yes to life is
not only the highest insight, it is also the most profound, the most
rigorously supported by truth and study. Nothing in existence should be
excluded, nothing is dispensable – the aspects of existence condemned by
Christians and other nihilists rank infinitely higher in the order of values
than anything the instinct of decadence is able to approve, to call good.
(EH, ‘BT’, 2)
Why is suffering to be affirmed? At least to some extent, this is

because Nietzsche viewed suffering as an indelible mark of existence, in
fact unavoidable. Transhumanists might object that we are now on the
cusp of being able to eradicate suffering through technological means
(genetic engineering which could modify pain receptors so that pain is no
longer so painful, for example). Yet Nietzsche’s argument about the value
of suffering is more profound. As Sorgner quite rightly notes (2009, 35),
self-overcoming is a key aspect of how Nietzsche understands the
enhanced capacities associated with higher types and the Übermensch. In a
related way, Nietzsche’s conception of the will to power involves the will
to overcome resistance – and thus requires resistance to be overcome. All
the aspects of existence which the ascetic ideal condemns have a certain
value for Nietzsche, because they provide resistances to be overcome, and
our own suffering, our own imperfections which cause us to suffer, give us
the opportunities for self-overcoming. This is why, according to Ansell-
Pearson, with transhumanism “[a]ll that which Nietzsche regarded as
providing fertile soil for an immanent process of continual self-
overcoming is here treated as a condition that is to be escaped from.”
(1997, 32-3)
We can now draw together Nietzsche’s critique of modern science as a
continued manifestation of the ascetic ideal with the idea of the
postmodern discussed in the previous section. We have seen above that
Nietzsche suspects apparently materialist science of harboring a

metaphysical dualism. Yet even if this is not the case, the postmodern
perspective suggests a way in which thoroughly materialist metanarratives
still maintain the nihilistic valence of the ascetic ideal. As we saw, the
postmodern critique of metanarratives argues that they replace the
transcendent goal with an immanent, but future goal. Like a transcendent,
metaphysical afterlife, the ideal of a utopian future gives life here and now
a source of meaning and value, but also separates us from this value, and
accords the here-and-now an only-derivative value. Like the Christian
afterlife, the dreams of the transhumanists are also not-yet-attained, and
are possibly even unattainable – and hence, a matter of faith. Babich
underscores this when she writes that “at the current time, the vaunted
enhancements of transhumanism are still so many motes in the eye of a
technological demon yet to be born. […] What fascinates us here is pure
promise, sheer potential.” (Babich 2011, 31) And further: “Hence when
we argue on behalf of transhumanism we argue as very dedicated devotees
of a cargo cult that has yet to deliver the goods – which is why it is a cult.”
(Babich 2011, 30) Among the most popular of transhumanist ideas are
physical immortality and artificial intelligence, both of which – despite
constant announcements of progress and imminent breakthroughs –
remain elusive, and philosophically problematic.7
Furthermore, we can see a corollary of Nietzsche’s critique of the
modern manifestation of the ascetic ideal in Lyotard’s postmodern fable,
insofar as only negentropic development is given value – as though
negentropy were somehow ‘good’ and entropy ‘evil.’ Most of nature,
insofar as it involves negentropic processes, is condemned. Throughout
Viroid Life, Ansell-Pearson astutely analyses the anthropomorphic
character of much transhuman thought, and we can see this in Lyotard’s
postmodern fable: the human values of good and evil are projected onto an
indifferent universe, and theorized to drive evolutionary processes.
Against this, Ansell-Pearson notes numerous scientific developments
which counter such a simplistic outlook, including Ilya Prigogine’s theory
of ‘disipative structures,’ which shows that both entropic and negentropic
processes can contribute to the formation of complex systems. See
Prigogine and Stengers 1985.
We can see that the postmodern perspectives rehearsed here give us
reasons for objecting to Sorgner’s situation of Nietzsche as a precursor to
transhumanism. The key point is this: the perspective of the ‘post-modern’
emphasizes that modernity remains thoroughly animated by the values
Nietzsche wished to criticize and overcome. Most significant for our
concerns here is Nietzsche’s critique of modern science as a manifestation
of the ascetic ideal. It is therefore insufficient for Sorgner to maintain that

a Nietzschean perspective is consonant with transhumanism because both

affirm the value of science. In fact, as Lyotard’s postmodern fable
emphasizes, our current science and technology, which are the fruits of
modernity, risk destroying everything that is valuable about the human
rather than bringing about a posthuman that would express a Nietzschean
Übermensch.
However, Nietzsche was a subtle, psychological thinker, and we
should resist any interpretation of his ideas in terms of black and white
categorical distinctions. More significant than outward forms, such as
sciences and technologies themselves, Nietzsche was concerned with the
quality of the will which manifests through forms, and the values giving
that will direction. Sorgner acknowledges this, and also notes that “[t]he
question of values and norms within the Nietzsche and transhumanism
comparison is a tricky one and one I have not yet considered in its
appropriate depth.” (2011, 5) It seems to me that this is the key issue of
concern, since Nietzsche was primarily concerned with existential
meaning, and largely understands such meaning in terms of values. If we
follow this line of reasoning, then this leads us to consider technologies of
human enhancement quite different from those usually entertained by
transhumanists.
Technics of the Self

What the story so far shows is that Nietzsche wanted to transcend the
human condition on the level of values and strength of interpretation.
Now, it is not obvious that contemporary industrial or postindustrial
technologies have any significance at all in this regard, and Sorgner and
others in the debate have rightly pointed out that Nietzsche was more
interested in techniques, such as training, education, and self-discipline. I
want to suggest, then, that if there are any technologies relevant to
Nietzsche’s thinking of the Übermensch, then they are what Foucault
called the ‘technologies of the self,’ (techniques de soi) which are in fact
ancient technologies (or techniques – the French technique can be
translated as either term, and envelops the meanings of both). Such
technologies were developed and practiced by Hellenistic philosophical
schools such as Epicureanism and Stoicism, as Nietzsche well knew.
Foucault explains them as follows:
[T]echnologies of the self […] permit individuals to effect by their own
means, or with the help of others, a certain number of operations on their
own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to

transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity,

wisdom, perfection, or immortality. (Foucault 1988, 18)
Such technologies involve exercises such as reading, writing,

meditation, dietary regimes, and physical practices. They seem precisely
designed to engage what Nietzsche considered important – our psychological
constitution, our interpretations of life, and our values.
The ancient technologies of the self are already ‘transhuman’ in an
interesting sense, and exhibit the same kind of structural analogy Sorgner
draws between Nietzsche and contemporary transhumanism: the Sage is
an ideal of the ‘posthuman,’ an ideal towards which the philosopher, as
transhuman, moves. This is because the Sage, the ideal of one who has
attained wisdom, had a purely regulative function; for most of the
ancients, no Sage was believed ever to have lived. And as Socrates
famously specified, the philosopher is not a person who has attained
wisdom, but one who loves wisdom and tries to attain it. Moreover,
philosophy was characterized by some of the ancients as a transcendence
of the human condition. For example, the skeptic Pyrrho of Elis advocated
“stripping off man completely, or liberating oneself entirely from the
human point of view.” (Hadot 1995, 112-13) Similarly, the Stoics
understood their philosophy as a reversal of the human way of looking at
things (Hadot 2000, 133). While Nietzsche was certainly highly critical of
many of the actual values held by these ancient schools, the technologies
of physiological and psychological self-discipline which act to shape
strength of will, interpretations, attitudes, and values would seem far more
pertinent to his concerns than contemporary information technologies,
genetic engineering, or artificial intelligence.
Would the path of reflection we have followed here then lead one to
disdain philosophical engagement with contemporary technologies in
favor of a study and practice of ancient technologies, the techniques of the
self? I do not think so. First, postmodern perspectives such as Lyotard’s
tend to eschew the position of rejecting new technologies as reactionary.
Although he remains critical of aspects of these technologies, or more
precisely of their ontological dimension, Lyotard nevertheless advocates
an embrace of these technologies for their positive potentials. Lyotard
heeds the critique of modern technologies made by Heidegger in terms of
the Ge-Stell or enframing, which reduces all beings into Bestand,
‘standing reserve’ or resources to be used for our human purposes. Yet he
advocates an artistic experimentation with new technologies which would
lead in a direction beyond what Heidegger was able to see (Lyotard 1988,
42-3). It is the logic of performativity associated with technoscience (and

capitalism) that Lyotard sees as the proper target of critique, not

technologies themselves.
Second, one of Ansell-Pearson’s critiques of the transhumanist
movement is the simply binary distinctions they often subscribe too, such
as that between the natural and the artificial. Actually, the fact that
Foucault’s ‘techniques de soi’ might be translated as either ‘technologies
of the self’ or ‘techniques of the self’ usefully points to the lack of
fundamental distinction between technologies and techniques, an
ambiguity best brought out in English with the word ‘technics.’ The work
of contemporary French philosopher Bernard Stiegler has not only
questioned the supposed distinction between ‘natural’ traditional
techniques and ‘artificial’ modern technologies, but has reread Foucault’s
work on techniques de soi in relation to contemporary information and
communication technologies, and the role they can play in the constitution
of the self. Finally, then, I would like to briefly indicate that this is the
direction in which I believe the Nietzsche and transhumanism debate
might usefully lead: towards a transhumanism which, from a Nietzschean
perspective, asks the right kinds of questions – those of values, self-
creation, and self-overcoming – in relation to the new technologies.
From his first major work, Technics and Time 1: The Fault of
Epimetheus (Stiegler 1998), Stiegler has argued that the human is always
already constituted in a technical manner, that is, in relation to the tools,
techniques, and technologies used by human beings in their evolutionary
history. Drawing on the work of André Leroi-Gourhan, for whom
technologies are understood as externalized organs, taking over and
extending the functions of the human body, Stiegler emphasizes that these
technical functions are in turn internalized, conditioning the evolutionary
formation of the human organism. For Stiegler the most important
technologies in the constitution of the human are hypomnémata,
mnemonic devices (such as writing) which enable a ‘tertiary retention,’ a
memory independent of the human mind or the individual organism, able
to be transmitted through generations as ‘culture.’ The human is thus
fundamentally a technical being, yet – Stiegler argues – this originary
technicity has been systematically repressed and denied in the history of
Western thought.
More recently, and most extensively in his book Taking Care of Youth
and the Generations (Stiegler 2010), Stiegler has taken up Foucault’s
technologies of the self in relation to contemporary technologies. He
draws a fundamental parallel between such technologies, as the following
passages from the Ars Industrialis 2005 Manifesto clearly indicate:

…information and communication technologies are precisely spiritual

technologies, and this means that they just as much raise again the
question of memory techniques, which Foucault analyzed in the sense of
techniques of the “writing of the self.” He returned to this in order to
qualify the Greek term hypomnémata, which has been the major
philosophical question since Plato—he having already defined writing as
hypomnésis, that is, as a memory technique.
Considered as mnemo-technologies, industrial technologies of spirit

are new forms of hypomnémata; and as hypomnémata of another age,
particularly in the Stoic and Epicurean schools, and in primitive
Christianity, in the Rome in which the Greek skholè became the Roman
practice of the otium, industrial technologies of spirit call for new
practices, that is, after all is said and done, new social organizations.
(Stiegler 2014a, 13)
Stiegler himself is neither a Nietzschean nor a postmodernist, 8 and he

engages critically with the effects of the new technologies on processes of
self-formation in the name of values and institutions which seem in many
respects to be quite traditional. Nevertheless, I would argue that Stiegler’s
work maps out the coordinates for the terrain that a Nietzschean approach
to transhumanism should explore. As I have argued above, the ancient
technologies, which concerned themselves precisely with self-formation,
engage much more directly with the kinds of human enhancement
Nietzsche considered important. Yet as Stiegler shows, it is implausible to
try to separate any supposedly natural techniques from artificial
technologies, and contemporary ICTs are just as much technics of the self
as writing was for the ancients. The challenge for a Nietzschean
transhumanism, which I can only gesture towards but not explore here,
would be how to understand the predominant effects and the latent
potentials of such technologies in relation to the project of bringing forth
the Übermensch.
Conclusion
The main critical point that comes into focus when we view the
Nietzsche and transhumanism exchange through the lens of the postmodern
is that Nietzsche was himself a postmodern critic of modernity, including
modern science and its supposedly progressive character. Insofar as
transhumanism remains animated by a faith in science, and driven by
Enlightenment dreams of emancipation through technological advancement
alone, it seems thoroughly mired in the modernity Nietzsche critically
rejected. From this perspective then, Nietzsche would appear to be an

enemy, rather than a precursor, to the most popular current forms of

transhumanism.
Far more interesting, however, than the question of intellectual history
– Was Nietzsche a precursor of transhumanism? – is the question of how
Nietzsche’s thought can be inserted into transhumanist discourses to
stimulate a radical rethinking of the values which, often implicitly and
unreflectively, animate them. Thinking through this question reveals that
more than one form of transhumanism is possible and the differences
between them are matters of significant contestation. In Viroid Life Ansell-
Pearson wanted to critique a simplistic notion of the transhuman and open
it up to a more polysemous and undetermined future (1997, 1-8). By
introducing the specter of Nietzsche into transhuman discourses, the recent
debate sparked by Sorgner seems to be performing this very work of
showing that multiple perspectives on the transhuman are possible, and
that Nietzsche would force us to think a very different kind (or kinds) of
transhuman than the currently most popular varieties. I have tried here to
show this more clearly by reading the exchange from a postmodern
perspective, a perspective which works to emphasize the differences
between Nietzsche’s ‘posthumanism’ and current transhumanisms, but
which invites us to invent new transhumanisms rather than to reject the
technological enhancement of the human tout court.
Notes

1 See “Return Upon the Return” in Lyotard 1993.
2 In addition to The Postmodern Condition, I am drawing here on Lyotard’s
characterization of the modern in later works, such as 1992, 1994, and 1997.
3 See “A Postmodern Fable” in Lyotard 1997.
4 Lyotard is not very specific about his sources, but it is interesting to note that he
was frequently, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, a visiting scholar at the
University of California. California was the crucible of the transhumanist
movement, which emerged as the so-named phenomenon in the early nineteen-
nineties, shortly after Lyotard’s late-eighties discussions of the ‘postmodern fable.’
I can only speculate, but this is likely more than a coincidence – Lyotard may well
have been exposed to some of the same ideas regarding technological development
and human enhancement that fed into transhumanism.
5 For discussions of Nietzsche’s relation to the postmodern from a variety of
perspectives, see Koelb (1990).
6 Sorgner writes that Nietzsche “values scientific inquiry immensely […], even
though his respect for science has often been underestimated.” (2009, 32)
According to him, Nietzsche “thinks that the scientific spirit will govern the
forthcoming millennia and that this spirit will bring about the end of the
domination of dualist concepts of God and metaphysics, and the beginning of a

wider plausibility for his way of thinking.” (2009, 38) Moreover, he writes that “I
think that the relevance of the posthuman can only be fully appreciated if one
acknowledges that its ultimate foundation is that it gives meaning to scientifically
minded people.” (2009, 40)
7 If intelligence is in fact not reducible to processing power, as many philosophers
have argued, then the application of ‘More’s law’ in predicting the birth of true
artificial intelligence in ‘the coming singularity’ is null and void. Physical
immortality is philosophically problematic in a different way, as it has been
frequently argued that – even if possible – this would not necessarily be desirable.
8 Despite taking inspiration from both Nietzsche and Lyotard on some points,
Stiegler’s project of cultural regeneration seems far from a Nietzschean project of a
‘revaluation of all values,’ and he explicitly rejects Lyotard’s thesis that we are
living in a postmodern era. For his most extensive critical engagement with
Lyotard, see the chapter “Aprés coup, the differend” in Stiegler 2014b.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IMMORTALITY AS UTOPIA
AND THE RELEVANCE OF NIHILISM
The exchange between Nietzsche’s philosophy and transhumanism is

relevant for a great variety of reasons. The main reason for me to be
concerned with this topic is that it enables me to think philosophically about
some of the most pressing contemporary challenges, and transhumanism is
concerned with many of the most relevant ethical, political, social, and
artistic challenges we are currently facing. By promoting a discourse
between Nietzsche’s philosophical insights and transhumanist reflections,
it is possible to develop a more complex and more philosophically
informed way of thinking about many contemporary issues than if one
solely remained within specialized contemporary discourses, e.g. ethical
challenges related to pharmacological enhancements. In several articles
and books, I have been developing aspects of my own weak Nietzschean
transhumanism.1 It is a Nietzschean way of thinking because it is the result
of a permanent discourse with Nietzschean positions, and I am sharing
many philosophical insights with him, e.g. the relevance of perspectivism.
Perspectivism is also a central reason for referring to this approach as a
weak one. Weakness is the notion Vattimo uses to refer to his way of
thinking, weak thinking, pensiero debole. It is weak because it affirms a
version of Nietzsche’s perspectivism, i.e. every philosophical judgement is
an interpretation, but being an interpretation does not mean that it is false,
but merely that it can be false. The liar paradox does not apply to this
epistemological position, because it is not self-contradictory. Perspectivism
implies that any philosophical judgement can be false. This statement also
applies to perspectivism itself. Hence, it is a plausible position but not one
which claims absolute validity. This philosophical insight is particularly
strong due to its weakness, because it does not claim something it cannot
justify, and it promotes a non-violent attitude within philosophical
discourses as well as concerning ethical issues. Furthermore, this position
Immortality as Utopia and the Relevance of Nihilism 249
is plausible, because it follows from the insight of a non-dualist, naturalist,

and this-worldly anthropology. If one starts from such an ontology, I do
not yet see the option of affirming a correspondence theory of truth. This
is what I argued for in detail in my monograph Metaphysics without Truth:
On the Importance of consistency within Nietzsche’s Philosophy” (2007). I
will come back to this topic later in this article, as it is central to the
Nietzsche and transhumanism debate.
Furthermore, the position I am developing is a transhumanist one, as I
affirm the use of technologies in order to increase the likelihood of
breaking the traditional human limits, and this is the core of transhumanist
thinking from my perspective.2 Before I can deal with some of the central
claims which were made by the new contributions to the Nietzsche and
transhumanist debate, I need to briefly refer to three exegetical issues
which have been raised within these texts, too.
Firstly, I wish to acknowledge the importance of the issues Blackford
mentions when he critically deals with my remarks concerning Nietzsche
and health. Here, I merely wish to add to Blackford’s important remarks
that while Nietzsche did not regard health as an all-purpose goal, he did
affirm and argue for the importance of great health for a certain human
type. Still, a further detailed analysis, which is outside the scope of this
article, would be needed to give a just summary of Nietzsche’s position
concerning health (see Sorgner 2010, 207).
Secondly, Woodward stresses that Nietzsche holds that science
“maintains an unquestioning faith in truth.” I do not think that this is
necessarily the case. Even though Woodward’s judgement captures an
important aspect of Nietzsche’s thinking, it does not consider that science
like most other notions is not being used unambiguously in Nietzsche’s
writings. As a consequence of him not recognizing the plurality of uses of
science within Nietzsche’s writings, Woodward claims that Sorgner “too-
simplistically reads Nietzsche as an affirmer of the value of science,” and
holds that “Sorgner’s too simplistic interpretation on this point” “seems to
suggest that for Nietzsche scientific values automatically mean immanent
life-affirmation.” This is not correct, which I clearly spelt out in my
monograph Metaphysics without Truth (2007). If Woodward intends to
claim that Nietzsche identifies science always with an unquestioning faith
in reason, his interpretation is too simplistic. Woodward, however, is right
in stressing that Nietzsche holds that there are scientists who have an
unquestioning faith in truth. From my perspective, Woodward does not
appropriately acknowledge that science in Nietzsche is also being used in
order to stress a move away from dualist ontologies, life affirmation, and
the acknowledgement of the relevance of sensuality. This comes out
250 Chapter Fifteen
clearly when Nietzsche talks about the shift from a religious spirit of our
times towards a more scientifically orientated spirit of our time, e.g. in
Human all too Human:
But in our century, too, Schopenhauer’s metaphysics demonstrates that
even now the scientific spirit is not yet sufficiently strong: so that,
although all the dogmas of Christianity have long been demolished, the
whole medieval conception of the world and of the nature of man could in
Schopenhauer’s teaching celebrate a resurrection. [HAH 1, 26]
Here, the sciences are being affirmed. In a different context in

Nietzsche’s texts they are being criticised.
Thirdly, Steinman claims that Nietzsche argues against the position
that human beings are in the process of developing further in an
evolutionary sense. He primarily refers to A 3 and A 4. However, it is not
possible to reach this conclusion on the basis of these passages. The focus
of these passages is not the question whether humans will or will not
evolve toward posthumans or overhumans, but which type of development
is being affirmed by Nietzsche. Furthermore, Nietzsche here stresses the
importance of a shift concerning the focus of the question away from the
future of humanity towards the future of special human types. This shift is
important for him because his primary focus is the question of the good
life for exceptional human beings. Still, given these passages, the question
remains: why should the question concerning the human type be
important? Nietzsche’s position can only be fully grasped, if one takes his
remarks concerning evolution and the importance of seeing human beings
as a bridge between animals and the overhuman seriously.
In addition, Steinman refers to Goethe as Nietzsche’s example of an
overhuman. This is not a plausible reading either, as Nietzsche merely
refers to him and similar figures as higher beings. Higher beings still
belong to the human species and have existed before, whereas no
overhuman has yet existed, according to Nietzsche. Nietzsche can ascribe
to higher beings overhumanly qualities, but they are not being referred to
directly as overhumans by him (Sorgner 2010, 218-232). In A 4 Nietzsche
talks about these higher beings as a type of overhumans in relation to the
whole of humanity. Again Nietzsche merely talks about higher beings who
merely seem like overhumans when they are being compared to the rest of
humanity.
When dealing with Nietzsche’s writings, it is important to be a slow
and careful reader (for a more detailed analysis see Sorgner 2010, 218-
232). Nietzsche stressed this point himself, and it is particularly important
for my own way of dealing with philosophical questions, too. Being a
slow and careful reader and thinker does not mean to decelerate, but it is a
state of mind which can also be achieved by means of developing special
capacities so that most of the challenges one is facing can be perceived in
a quieter state of mind, because you know already how to deal with them.
It is much easier to solve a multiplication for a professor of mathematics
than it is for a primary school kid.
Even though the question of deceleration is a fascinating one, in this
article I will focus on some central philosophical challenges which were
raised within the additional contributions to this debate by Bamford,
Blackford, Steinman, Tuncel, and Woodward.
Immortality
I will start with an issue which has been raised by Blackford, Tuncel
and Woodward. All of them are concerned with the issue of immortality. It
was particularly striking for me to read that Blackford stresses that I “am
too quick (and too keen) to absolve transhumanism of any commitment to
pursue physical immortality.” He might be right. Still, I do not think that
this is the case, because naturalism and personal immortality just do not go
along well with each other, and most transhumanists are naturalists.
Blackford adds further that unlike transhumanists, “Nietzsche was
unattracted to the idea of immortality.” This is and is not correct, as it is
the case with most statements concerning Nietzsche’s philosophy.
Firstly, Nietzsche was interested in immortality in so far as he regards
his concept of the eternal recurrence as his most profound idea (Sorgner
2007, 1.2). Yet, by means of the eternal recurrence one can reach a special
kind of immortality. It is not a kind of immortality which implies that a
person cannot die or that a person does not have to die, whereby the
concept of living goes along with a continuous human existence.
Secondly, Nietzsche was not attracted to immortality insofar as he
would have affirmed the possibility of a continuous personal existence that
occurs before birth and after death, i.e. a view which demands that the
nature of a person lies in an immaterial entity.
Thirdly, it is a misunderstanding to claim that any serious
transhumanist affirms immortality in any literal sense, as it is not the case
that serious transhumanists strive for immortality, if immortality is taken
in the literal meaning of the word. Given a widespread acceptance of
several versions of a naturalist world-view among transhumanists,
immortality cannot even be thought of as a realistic option. Let us imagine
that it will be possible to download your personality first onto a hard drive
and then again into a new body, does this mean that you can be immortal?
252 Chapter Fifteen
Of course, this is not the case. Even in this case, you live in a solar system
which will exist for just another 5 billion years. Maybe, we will have been
able to move to another solar system by then so that humans or trans- or
even posthumans can continue to exist there. Even in that case, we do not
achieve immortality in this way, as it is highly likely that the movements
of the universe will either come to a complete standstill or that the entire
universe will collapse eventually and a black hole of infinite density will
come into existence. How should it be possible for any human or trans- or
posthuman to survive such a situation? Hence, there are plenty of reasons
for claiming that immortality in the literal meaning of the word is not a
realistic option.
Still, there are transhumanists who use the word immortality and refer
to it as a transhumanist goal. How are such utterances to be understood
then? Immortality in these cases needs to be grasped as a utopia, and in
most historical cases, utopias were written about and hence employed not
as realistic goals but in order to highlight the relevance of specific
qualities, situations or characteristics. In our case, the relevance of a long
and healthy life is being hinted at via the use of the word “immortality.”
Furthermore, it must be noted that in most cases human beings do not even
aim for a prolongation of their lifespan. What most people are aiming for
is a prolongation of their health span, i.e. of the duration of time during
which they live a healthy life.
By using the word ‘immortality’ the likelihood increases for getting
media attention, of getting financial support, and of being talked about in
many diverse social circles and circumstances, even in theology
departments. Employing the word ‘immortality’, in most cases, is being
done for rhetorical reasons only, if it is being done by a transhumanist who
wishes to be taken seriously. The same applies also to utterances which
claim that the first 1000-year-old person is already born. Aubrey de Grey
himself implicitly acknowledges that many of his claims have to be
understood as a way of advertising the relevance of a prolonged health
span, as he is also clearly aware that “We will still die, of course.”3 What
is important in this context is not that immortality is a realistic goal, but
that a prolongation of the health span is a realistic goal which deserves
further attention and that a prolongation of the health span is being
affirmed by most human beings around the world. When discussing
immortality and transhumanism, it is this issue which needs to be stressed.
Some transhumanists talk about immortality in order to get public
attention and to get funding for an event, but not because they regard
immortality as a realistic option.
Still, a prolonged health span is a realistic option and various

enhancement technologies provide us with several diverse options for
promoting this goal. That our life expectancy is not fixed becomes clear
when we are considering various life-expectancies in countries world-wide
today, which vary from less than 40 years in some countries in the
southern parts of Africa to more than 80 years in many countries in
Europe, Northern-America, Japan and Australia. Furthermore, the average
global life-expectancy has significantly changed in time, too, from an
average of 50 years in 1960 to an average of 65 years in 2010. Historical
research also confirms important alterations concerning the average life-
expectancy.4
Scientific research shows that the increase of our life expectancy is
related to a great multiplicity of enhancement technologies from hygiene
to education, from antibiotics and vaccinations to contemporary
biotechnologies. Consequently, there are reasons for claiming that
technologies have been extremely successful in promoting the human life-
span and also our health span, which again provides us with a reason for
expecting that emerging technologies will continue to help us in this
respect, so that this development continues. By promoting that our
scientific research focuses on the right questions, it can be expected that
this development continues in an exponential manner. Here the central
question is the following: What are the best possible research topics in this
respect? Aubrey de Grey stresses the relevance of the seven deadly sins of
aging (2008). Ray Kurweil refers to the option of mind-uploading (2006).
Bostrom stresses the potential of artificial superintelligence (2013). Max
More is particularly interested in cryonics.5 I am particularly fascinated by
genetic modification, genetic selection procedures after IVF (in vitro
fertilization) and PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) and gene
analysis in particular in combination with BIG GENE DATA (Sorgner
2015a, 31-48). Still, it is highly likely that no single answer will be the
right one, but that a great variety of technologies will be able to influence
and prolong our life-expectancy.
It might be interesting to note that even a bioconservative like
Habermas in the context of discussion on gene ethics acknowledges the
relevance of longevity. In some passages of his essay on liberal eugenics
he talks about preventive measures as well as a prolonged life expectancy
in the context of morally legitimate therapeutic purposes of eugenic
interventions, as all these measures can be seen as all-purpose goods.
(2001, 91) Unfortunately, he is not consistent within his reflections,
because a couple of pages later, he claims that genetic interventions can
only be justified to avoid extreme evils or illnesses (2001, 109). By solely
254 Chapter Fifteen
focussing on his former remarks Habermas could be seen as a

transhumanist thinker, at least with respect to the importance of a
prolonged health span. However, such a reading is clearly not in tune with
what Habermas has in mind. Still, it needs to be noted that even for a
bioconservative thinker such as Habermas, it is not out of the question to
employ gene technologies in order to prolong the human lifespan, which
reveals the widespread importance of this goal and the praiseworthiness of
transhumanists who bring this goal into the right focus by employing
special rhetorical methods, e.g. the use of words such as immortality. It is
also a timely endeavor, as scientific research reveals that the presence of
certain genes in specific circumstances seems to indicate a higher
likelihood of longevity, e.g. CETP genes.6
If longevity or a prolonged health span is seen as or identified with a
widespread or even an all-purpose good, than there are reasons for
allowing genetic enhancements in order to promote these genes. There are
several options for how this can be done: 1. Genetic enhancement by
modification: Studies reveal that such a modification can be done without
there having to be any side effects, and elsewhere I have shown that,
morally, such modifications ought to be evaluated in the same way as
parental education (Sorgner 2015a, 31-48); 2. Genetic enhancements by
selection after IVF and PGD (Sorgner 2014, 199-212): Again it is clear
that this procedure is already a reliable one, but also whose use is still
forbidden or at least radically restricted in many countries, e.g. Germany;
3. Pharmacological, cyborg or morphological enhancements which take
into consideration a gene analysis: It is this option which can gain wider
acceptance due to the enormous amount of information collected through
big gene data. The impact of this research and the relevance of related
moral issues such as that of bioprivacy can hardly be underestimated.
(Sorgner 2015b, 273-291)
Health
Even though, here the relevance of a prolonged health span is stressed,
it immediately needs to be relativized again. A great percentage of humans
identify an increase of their health span with a good life. However, it is
important for me to stress that this connection is not a universally valid
one, and it is dangerous and violent not to seriously consider this
difference or to make overtly bold general claims. The following example
might reveal what I am hinting at.
Tuncel criticizes Bostrom by claiming that “we cannot make such
blank statements about the human condition” as they were made by
Bostrom concerning what humans desire. I am not in agreement with

many of Bostrom’s judgements on the good life myself, but it must be
acknowledged that Bostrom in the text Tuncel is referring to is not making
a universalist ethical claim when discussing goodness (Bostrom 2009,
107-136). He refers to empirical studies which support his position, and he
does so in order to stress the plausibility of his position. On the basis of
empirical studies, he claims that a majority or a great percentage of human
beings desire a prolonged healthspan. This judgement implies that these
claims are not universally valid. The studies merely show that an increased
healthspan is being identified with a good life by a great percentage of
human beings. How could Tuncel argue against this claim, if this is what
he wishes to do? One option would be to attack the plausibility of
psychological studies in general. A second option could be to provide
references to other empirical studies that show that Bostrom’s claims are
implausible and that the psychological studies he uses are superior to the
ones Bostrom refers to. In this case, it seems to me that the attack on
Bostrom concerning him making overtly bold statements was itself quite a
bold statement.
Nihilism
The above-mentioned difference between a universally valid concept
of the good and a concept of the good, which might be plausible for a
certain percentage of human beings, is an elementary one. It has many
significant consequences, e.g. concerning the issue of nihilism.
“Nihilism, in the many senses that Nietzsche uses, is something to be
overcome” according to Tuncel. I disagree with Tuncel and with Nietzsche
in this respect. There are two types of nihilism, which I distinguish
(Sorgner 2013, 55-60). Alethic and ethical nihilism and I affirm both of
them. The following short descriptions explain essential elements of these
two types of nihilism.
Aletheic nihilism affirms that all philosophical perspectives can be
false. This theory is both philosophically plausible, because there has not
yet been a philosophy which clearly proved itself as true, as well as
morally helpful, because it promotes the avoidance of violence against
psychophysiological entities affirming a different philosophy.
Ethical nihilism affirms that all non-formal concepts of the good are
bound to be implausible. This insight considers that all psychophysiological
entities differ from each other, which implies that a different concept of
the good is valid for each entity. This reflection leads to the affirmation of
a radical plurality of concepts of the good. If this insight is legally
256 Chapter Fifteen
acknowledged in an appropriate manner, it reduces the violence done to

psychophysiological entities.
Firstly, ethical nihilism demands to permanently criticize encrusted
totalitarian structures; secondly, ethical nihilism rejects the necessity of
transcending a nihilist society so that a new culture gets established;
thirdly, ethical nihilism demands to promote institutional changes so that
plurality gets acknowledged, recognized, and considered appropriately at
legal, ethical and social levels. Even though the remarks so far have been
rather formal ones, it is possible to specify them further.
Ethical nihilism can also be applied to the question of the evaluation of
a prolonged healthspan, and from this perspective it needs to be noted that
a prolonged healthspan is not necessarily in everyone’s interest. This
perspective takes seriously that a concept of the good life is closely
connected to someone’s psychophysiology. This view implies and takes
seriously that it can be an authentic human wish, a desire and want to
finish their lives. If someone wishes to commit suicide, because she
regards her life as not worth living, this can be an authentic wish.
Criticising her as a psychologically ill does not have to be an appropriate
reaction to someone uttering such a wish.
However, even given ethical nihilism, it needs to be acknowledged that
certain capacities are widely identified with a good life, and there are
many psychological studies which support that a long health span,
intelligence, cognitive capacities, a good memory, and a lasting capacity to
concentrate are qualities many people identify with a good life. This
means that the common sense concept of the good life, which Savulescu
suggested, is indeed a widely shared concept. However, in contrast to his
claim I suggest that it is not a universally valid position. Universal validity
implies that it is actually valid for everyone, and someone who disagrees
can be judged as psychologically disturbed. This also applies to longevity.
It is a widely shared, but not a universally valid quality which promises to
promote good lives of many human beings.
Truth
Both types of nihilism are connected to a certain take on the question
of truth, and Nietzsche’s claims concerning truth have been particularly
influential, in particular concerning him being the intellectual founder of
postmodernism. Many contemporary American Nietzsche scholars, on the
other hand, primarily focus on Nietzsche’s naturalism. Both interpretative
traditions grasp a central element of his thinking. I think that he has
affirmed both positions, and that he is consistent in doing so (Sorgner

2007).
Quite a few critical comments within the new contributions to this
debate are concerned with the issue of truth. Tuncel’s article is a prime
example in question concerning the issue of truth, as he attacks the
philosophical framework of transhumanism by claiming that it affirms
“Enlightenment’s materialism and its total faith in reason.” He does have a
good point. His criticism applies to many transhumanist philosophies.
However, it must be noted that the qualities he refers to are no necessary
constituents of transhumanism. James Hughes, for example, affirms a
Buddhist ontology, and not a materialist one.7
The real challenge of Tuncel’s criticism, however, has to do with the
concept of reason. Tuncel is correct in so far as the affirmation of reason is
indeed strong within transhumanism. The philosophical challenge is to
analyse what is being meant when the concept of reason is being invoked.
It is important to realize that a transhumanist understanding of reason (at
least in most cases) cannot be identified with the Enlightenment concept of
reason concerning its ontological status, because the Enlightenment
concept of reason attributes immateriality to the concept of reason. This
comes out clearly in the philosophies of Descartes and Kant. Both are
paradigmatic thinkers of the Enlightenment tradition (Sorgner 2010, 82-
108). Most transhumanists, however, affirm a naturalist ontology which
excludes the possibility of there being an immaterial reason. Tuncel
himself acknowledges this point by claiming that transhumanists are
simple-minded materialists. In that case, too, an unconditional faith in
reason, which is essential for the Enlightenment tradition, is not a position
which can be consistent with a simple materialism, because here reason
would have to be material, too, and a material account of reason cannot
provide us with truth according to the correspondence theory of truth.
Given the necessary difference between the Enlightenment and the
transhumanist concept of reason, both concepts also need to differ
concerning the associated theories of truth. While it is possible for the
Enlightenment concept of reason to claim that reason can provide us with
truth in correspondence to the world, this is not a claim which
transhumanists can affirm, if they wish to be philosophically consistent.
An evolutionary account of reason needs to imply a more modest take on
truth. If reason has come about by means of evolutionary processes, it can
still be useful for us in dealing with worldly challenges, so that reason can
still be of value to us, e.g. an evolutionary account of reason can still
affirm a pragmatic theory of truth. Yet, once one has moved away from a
258 Chapter Fifteen
correspondence theory of truth, at least aletheic nihilism needs to be

affirmed.
Moral Bioenhancement
I am happy to say that not all authors focussed solely on the most
abstract philosophical questions, because in particular when we are dealing
with applied ethical issues, the value and relevance of this comparison
between Nietzsche and transhumanism can become particularly clear.
Bamford, for example, put together a great argument in which she
successfully connected applied ethical reflections to general philosophical
ones where she focuses on moral bioenhancement; this has been discussed
intensely in bioethical circles during the previous years, and I can very
much relate to her analysis of moral bioenhancement, Nietzsche and
transhumanism.
However, there are a few remarks I would like to add to her analysis
which might provide a further perspective concerning Persson’s and
Savulescu’s argument and their take on moral bioenhancement, as I do not
think that their approach can solve the goals it is supposed to solve.
Persson and Savulescu stress the importance of moral bioenhancement in
order to reduce the risk of human extinction by means of an abuse of
emergent technologies (Persson & Savulescu 2012, 46-59). Even though
I cannot exclude the possibility of moral bioenhancement, current
scientific research does not allow us to hope for it being a reliable
method within the forthcoming decades. Still, this does not have to
worry us from my perspective, as there are reasons for claiming that
there is a correlation between morality and cognitive capacities, and that
there has been a non-linear progression concerning both during the
previous centuries. If we manage to increase our cognitive capacities
during the forthcoming decades, we have reasons for hoping that
morality will increase analogously. The Flynn effect (2012) and Pinker’s
psychological studies (2011) are empirical studies which provide some
scientific support concerning the plausibility of this hope (Sorgner 2016,
83-93).
The Pars Pro Toto Fallacy

There were many other important topics which were addressed in the
additional articles of this philosophical exchange. However, in quite a few
cases, I would have been forced to use the same line of thought as a reply,
which is the reason why I have decided to refer to the general fallacy
which various authors committed, the pars pro toto fallacy. Thereby, the
authors are making a bold general statement y about x, whereby y is
correct for some individuals who subscribe to x. However, it is not correct
for all subscribers of x, as it is not a core element of x. Then they show
that y is a highly problematic position. The following statements ought to
be understood in the above mentioned manner:
1. According to Steinman, transhumanists affirm a “linear narrative of

progress, which assumes the next version of human beings to be a
continuation and improvement of the existing kind.”
2. According to Woodward, Nietzsche was concerned with and affirmed
the use of “technologies of physiological and psychological self-
discipline” which is supposedly not the case for transhumanists.
3. According to Woodward, Ansell Pearson is right in claiming that
transhumanism affirms “binary distinctions” like the one between
the “natural and the artificial”.
4. According to Tuncel “it is an underlying humanistic trend to
consider only human beings to be worthy of long lives.”
In all of these cases, the pars pro toto fallacy applies. The author
focuses on one example, assumes that it stands for the general phenomena
and then argues against it. By the way, the pars pro toto fallacy does not
apply to following two cases, as here the general claim was relativized
again:
1. According to Woodward, Ansell-Pearson is right in stressing the

“anthropomorphic character of much of transhuman thought.”
Ansell-Pearson does not claim that all transhumanists have an
anthropomorphic way of thinking.
2. According to Tuncel, “the goal of transhumanism is to eliminate
pain and all forms of suffering, increase human longevity, and aim
for human immortality.” This statement contains a pars pro toto
fallacy. However, Tuncel himself relativizes his own claim by
stating: “Many transhumanists consider pain to be a bad thing,”
which is correct.
It is important to realize that a general criticism of a movement has to

focus on an essential element of that movement. If you wish to criticise
utilitarianism, you need to say what is wrong with maximization of
utilities in general. If you wish to criticize transhumanism, then you need
to focus on the essence of transhumanism and not on qualities that are
260 Chapter Fifteen
being affirmed by selected transhumanists only. Eliminating suffering is

not an essential characteristic of transhumanism. The affirmation of
technologies in order to break human limitations, on the other hand, is a
core characteristic of transhumanism. By focussing on non-core elements,
a critique is not a criticism of transhumanism, but merely a rhetorical
enterprise. In that case, certain rhetoric is used to criticize a movement,
even though what is criticized merely stands for a part of the movement,
i.e. the pars pro toto fallacy.
Conclusions
The above reflections have taken us from abstract reflections on truth
via methodological and exegetical issues towards applied ethical
questions. It can be said that by reflecting upon the relationship between
Nietzsche and transhumanism, thinkers get confronted with many varieties
of pressing timely and traditional philosophical questions. If these
reflections help us getting a better understanding of the world we live in,
they are doing a great job. Personally, I must say that I benefitted
enormously from reading Nietzsche and from applying his way of thinking
to contemporary issues. These reflections enabled me to develop my own
weak Nietzschean transhumanist way of thinking.
Notes
1 Another way of referring to the approach which I have been developing is that it
is a metahumanist one, because it lies beyond a humanist approach which affirms
categorical ontological dualities and in between posthumanism and
transhumanism. Nietzsche’s philosophy is closely related to posthumanist
approaches, but bears many parallels to transhumanism, too. Meta means both
beyond as well as in between. Consequently is captures all the central elements of
this way of thinking.
2 See the interview with me which was published in the special Nietzsche edition
of the French edition of the Philosophie Magazine. (Posthumain, transhumain. In:
Philosophie Magazine_hors-série. Nietzsche. L'Antisystème. 2015, 134-135.
Translated into the French). See also: Ranisch & Sorgner 2014, in particular
Ranisch & Sorgner 2014, 7-28.
3 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/4003063.stm (5.1.2016)
4 See for example the data provided by the WHO:
http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/life_tables/en/ (5.1.2016)
5 http://www.alcor.org/blog/alcor-life-extension-foundation-names-max-more-
phd-as-chief-executive-officer/ (5.1.2016)
6 http://genomics.senescence.info/longevity/gene.php?id=CETP (5.1.2016)
http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/news/20141106/longevity-gene-
one-key-to-long-life-research-suggests (5.1.2016)
7 http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/author/james-hughes/ (5.1.2016)

CONTRIBUTORS
Keith Ansell-Pearson holds a Personal Chair in Philosophy at the

University of Warwick, England, which he has held since 1998. In 2013-
14 he was Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Humanities Research
Center at Rice University. He is the author of close to 80 essays in journals
and edited book collections. His books include Nietzsche contra Rousseau
(Cambridge University Press 1991/1994), Germinal Life: The Difference
and Repetition of Deleuze (Routledge 1999), and Bergson and the Time of
Life (Routledge 2002). He is also the editor of Bergson: Key Writings
(2006, 2014), A Companion to Nietzsche (Blackwell 2006), and The
Nietzsche Reader (Blackwell 2006). He is currently researching a book on
the search for a joyful science and wisdom and centred on Epicurus,
Spinoza, and Nietzsche.
Babette Babich is Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University in New

York City. She is the author of The Hallelujah Effect (Surrey, 2013) a
book on Facebook/YouTube culture with a central chapter on Adorno on
music and radio sociology and concluding with Nietzsche, the Greeks, and
Beethoven. Her books include Un politique brisé. Le souci d’autrui,
l’humanisme, et les juifs chez Heidegger (Paris, 2016); La fin de la
pensée? Philosophie analytique contre philosophie continentale (Paris
2012); »Eines Gottes Glück, voller Macht und Liebe« (Weimar, 2009)
Words in Blood, Like Flowers (Albany, 2006). Her book, Nietzsche’s
Philosophy of Science (Albany, 1994) was translated into Italian as
Nietzsche e la scienza (Milan 1996) and, in a revised edition, in German:
Nietzsches Wissenschaftsphilosophie (Oxford, 2010). She has edited more
than eight book collections in addition to preparing a posthumous edition
of Patrick Aidan Heelan, The Observable: Heisenberg’s Philosophy of
Quantum Mechanics (Oxford, 2016).
Rebecca Bamford is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department

of Philosophy and Political Science at Quinnipiac University. Her research
is done at the interface of nineteenth-century philosophy, ethics, social and
political philosophy, and the history and philosophy of science and mind.
She is the editor of Nietzsche’s Free Spirit Philosophy (2015), and has

published multiple articles on Nietzsche’s philosophy and on problems in

contemporary bioethics.
Russell Blackford is an Australian philosopher, author, and literary critic

based at the University of Newcastle, NSW. He is a Fellow of the Institute
for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, editor-in-chief of The Journal of
Evolution and Technology, and a regular op-ed contributor to Free
Inquiry. In 2014, he was inducted as a Laureate of the International
Academy of Humanism. Dr Blackford’s many books include Freedom of
Religion and the Secular State (Wiley-Blackwell 2012), Humanity
Enhanced: Genetic Choice and the Challenge for Liberal Democracies
(MIT Press 2014), and The Mystery of Moral Authority (Palgrave Pivot
2016). He is a frequent commentator on social, cultural, and political
controversies, including debates about the human future and the
contemporary role of religion.
Michael Hauskeller is Professor of Philosophy at the University of

Exeter, UK. He specializes in moral philosophy, but has also worked in
various other areas, including the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of
art and beauty, phenomenology, and the philosophy of human
enhancement. So far he has published 14 monographs, 6 edited volumes,
and more than 100 single-authored research papers. Important recent
publications include Biotechnology and the Integrity of Life (Ashgate
2007), Better Humans? Understanding the Enhancement Project (Acumen
2013), Sex and the Posthuman Condition (Palgrave Macmillan 2014), The
Palgrave Handbook of Posthumanism in Film and Television (co-ed.,
Palgrave Macmillan 2015), and Mythologies of Transhumanism (Palgrave
Macmillan 2016, in press).
Bill Hibbard is an Emeritus Senior Scientist at the University of

Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center working on
visualization and machine intelligence. Dr. Hibbard is principal author of
the Vis5D, Cave5D and VisAD open source visualization systems. He is
also author of papers about machine intelligence and of Ethical Artificial
Intelligence, available at arxiv.org/abs/1411.1373.
Paul S. Loeb is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of

Puget Sound. He is the author of The Death of Nietzsche's Zarathustra
(Cambridge University Press, 2010). His current projects include a
monograph on Nietzsche's theory of will to power and a collaborative
translation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Unpublished Fragments from
the Period of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (Volumes 7, 14, and 15 of The

264 Contributors
Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche from Stanford University Press).
Max More is president and CEO of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation,
in addition to being an internationally acclaimed strategic futurist who
writes, speaks, and organizes events about the fundamental challenges of
emerging technologies. He co-founded and until 2007 acted as Chairman
of Extropy Institute, a diverse network of innovative thinkers committed to
creating solutions to enduring human problems, and he has a degree in
Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from St. Anne’s College, Oxford
University (1984-87), and was awarded a Dean’s Fellowship in Philosophy
in 1987 by the University of Southern California. At USC, he studied and
taught philosophy with an emphasis on philosophy of mind, ethics, and
personal identity, and there he also completed his Ph.D. in 1995.
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner is Associate Professor of Philosophy at John

Cabot University in Rome, director and co-founder of the Beyond
Humanism Network, Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging
Technologies (IEET), Visiting Fellow at the Ethics Centre of the
Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena and Research Fellow at the Ewha
Institute for the Humanities at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. He is
Editor-in-Chief and Founding Editor of the “Journal of Posthuman
Studies: Philosophy, Technology, Media” (Penn State University Press)
and author and editor of more than 10 books, e.g. "Metaphysics without
Truth" (Marquette University Press 2007); “Menschenwürde nach
Nietzsche” (WBG 2010); "Transhumanismus" (Herder 2016).
Furthermore, he is in great demand as a speaker in all parts of the world
(e.g. TEDx; World Humanities Forum) and a regular contact person of
national and international journalists and media representatives.
Michael Steinmann is Professor of Philosophy at Stevens Institute of

Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. He received his Ph.D. at the
University of Tuebingen and his Habilitation at the University of Freiburg.
Steinmann is interested in questions of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and
ethics. He reads Nietzsche as a thinker of limits: limits at which our
assumptions about the world and human life break down, or at which a
new, uncontrollable meaning appears. Selected books: The Ethics of
Friedrich Nietzsche (de Gruyter, 2000), The Openness of Meaning.
Investigations on Language and Logic in Martin Heidegger (Mohr
Siebeck, 2008). Recent articles: “Nietzsche, Darwin, and the Greeks: On
the Aesthetic Interpretation of Life.” The Agonist. A Nietzsche Circle
Journal 9 (2015/16), 1-42 (e-journal). “Openness to Disappointment. The

Role of the Subject in Gadamer’s Hermeneutics.” Ekstasis: Revista de

Hermenêutica e Fenomenologia 2/1 (2013), 16-32 (e-journal).
Yunus Tuncel, Ph.D. (New School for Social Research), is a co-founder

of the Nietzsche Circle based in New York City and serves on its Board of
Directors and the Editorial Board of its electronic journal, The Agonist.
Yunus Tuncel has been teaching philosophy at the New School since 1999
and NYU’s Liberal Studies Program since 2001. In addition to Nietzsche
and history of philosophy, he is interested in the twentieth century French
thought and recent artistic, philosophical, and cultural movements,
including postmodernity and post-humanism. He is one of the organizers
of NY Posthuman Research Group. His book Towards a Genealogy of
Spectacle (Eye Corner Press, 2011) addresses issues in theories of art and
spectacle, and his most recent book, Agon in Nietzsche, was published in
2013 by Marquette University Press.
Ashley Woodward is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Dundee.

He is a founding member of the Melbourne School of Continental
Philosophy, and an editor of Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy.
His research focuses on meaning and value in the contemporary world,
with particular reference to the information revolution and avant-garde art,
and in relation to debates surrounding the postmodern and the posthuman.
His most recent book is Lyotard and the Inhuman Condition: Reflections
on Nihilism, Information, and Art (EUP, 2016).

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Standard Abbreviations of Nietzsche’s Works:

A = The Antichrist
AOM = Assorted Opinions and Maxims
BGE = Beyond Good and Evil
BT = The Birth of Tragedy
CW = The Case of Wagner
D = Daybreak / Dawn
DS = David Strauss, the Writer and the Confessor
E = Estate from the 80s
EH = Ecce Homo [“Wise,” “Clever,” “Books,” “Destiny”]
FEI = “On the Future of our Educational Institutions”
GM = On the Genealogy of Morals
GOA = Nietzsches Werke (Grossoktavausgabe)
GD = Götzen-Dämmerung
GS = The Gay Science / Joyful Wisdom
HS = “Homer’s Contest”
HCP = “Homer and Classical Philology”
HH = Human, All Too Human
HL = On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life
JGB = Jenseits von Gut und Böse
KGB = Briefwechsel: Kritische Gesamtausgabe
KGW = Kritische Gesamtausgabe
KSA = Kritische Studienausgabe
KSB = Sämtliche Briefe: Kritische Studienausgabe
LR = “Lectures on Rhetoric”
MA = Nietzsches Gesammelte Werke (Musarionausgabe)
NCW = Nietzsche contra Wagner
PPP = Pre-Platonic Philosophers
PTA = Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
RWB = Richard Wagner in Bayreuth
SE = Schopenhauer as Educator
TI = Twilight of the Idols [“Maxims,” “Socrates,” “Reason,” “World,”
“Morality,” “Errors,” “Improvers,” “Germans,” “Skirmishes,”
“Ancients,” “Hammer”]
TL = “On Truth and Lies in an Extra-moral Sense”
UM = Untimely Meditations / Thoughts Out of Season
WDB or W = Werke in drei Bänden (Ed. Karl Schlechta)
WP = The Will to Power
WPh = “We Philologists”
WS = The Wanderer and his Shadow
WLN = Writings from the Late Notebooks

Z or TSZ = Thus Spoke Zarathustra

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Edited by Yunus Tuncel

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Cambridge Scholars Publishing

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ISBN (10): 1-4438-7287-3

Chapter One ............................................................................................... 14

Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 27

Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 32

Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 37

Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 41

Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 70

Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 101

Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 133

Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 172

Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 191

Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 205

Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 220

Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 231

Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 248

Contributors’ Bios ................................................................................... 262

Bibliography ............................................................................................ 266

Nietzsche’s relationship to transhumanism has been debated for the

In Part I, Chapter 1, “Nietzsche, the Overhuman1 and Transhumanism,”

rejects it. It must be noted here that this is a complicated topic in

and there is no ethical foundation universally applicable to all. According

demonstrates how the idea of eternal recurrence enables Zarathustra to

Chapter 10 of the anthology. Steinmann offers a comparative study

proceeds to explore Nietzsche and transhumanism connection; after

contra Persson and Savulescu, that “…moral motivation need not be

relations to Enlightenment, metaphysical dualism, logocentricity, and the

is his main criticism of some of the contributors of Part III, me,

NIETZSCHE, THE OVERHUMAN,

STEFAN LORENZ SORGNER

1 The posthuman and Nietzsche’s overhuman

1.1 The evolution of human nature, and values

because it is a community whose members have the potential to reproduce

Nietzsche agrees that values have undergone many changes. He

1.2 Science, enhancement, and education

Transhumanism is in favour of technologies and other means which could

1.3 The perspectival view of values, and the Renaissance genius

Not only the aspect of the “fully-developed and well-rounded

1.4 The posthuman, the transhuman, and Nietzsche’s

various transhumanists have tried to describe a posthuman in more detail.

eugenics present in the Third Reich, which is morally despicable, and

developing their various capacities. According to Nietzsche, Goethe

transhumanists. However, there are transhumanists whose concept of the

2 The Overhuman, and Nietzsche’s Hope for the Future

Nietzsche’s thought is correct, then an inverted version of the personal

abominable about that.

Acknowledgment: A German version of this article is in preparation:

THE OVERHUMAN IN THE TRANSHUMAN

actual, physical reality. Not only is eternal recurrence a bizarre piece of

Utilitarianism, slave-morality, and heroic

masses as an expression of overflowing personal power or well-being or

NIETZSCHE, THE OVERHUMAN

Beyond good and evil

denounced as a “blockhead” (Flachkopf) because Mill still believed in

Revaluation of all values

overhuman over the merely human is precisely his indifference to common