Human Progress: The Vicious Circle

In the past decades, many thinkers have discussed transhumanism and human enhancement. They are the result of centuries of progress and represent for a lot of us the ultimate human attempt to transcend himself. Hence the critics that many formulate: this progress will affect us forever and we should be careful about it. However, the problem of progress in itself is not a recent one. Since humanity exists, it has not ceased to progress and every step that humanity took was criticized in its time. So while the need to discuss transhumanism and human enhancement is legitimate, it is also interesting to wonder about human progress in a broader general view.

It is undeniable that throughout times, humanity has been progressing in all fields, but what drove humankind to do so and what still drives us to invent things to improve our lives and ourselves remains a bit mysterious. What drives us to progress and towards what end is it aimed? The phenomenon seems to be unstoppable; a simple glance at History textbooks will tell you this. In addition, it seems to be a cycle of improvement followed by destructions: for example, the invention of the automobile destroyed the use of horses as a means of transportation. Therefore, it seems to me that humanity is condemned to progress and never to attain its goal.

This paper will thus first wonder why humanity always progresses. Is it simply an intrinsic feature of human beings, or is it a need to survive? Second, what is its goal in this process? Last, it will discuss the consequences of progress for humanity.

With Enlightenment came the idea that Man is capable to understand and shape the world that surrounds him. Human beings no longer rely on an all-powerful God that decides everything; in...

... middle of paper ...

...we are condemned: we cannot stop progressing and we are/will be punished for it. It implies that the recent instances of progress, i.e. in human enhancement, will not bring about only positive things, we will “pay” for them; but we cannot simply deny those progresses, so we might have to learn to live in the vicious circle in which we are stuck.

Works Cited

- Bostrom, Nick, ‘A History of Transhumanist Thought’, Journal of Evolution and Technology, 14 (2005), nr. 1.

- Huber, Eduard, ‘On Progress, Values and Marx’, Studies in Soviet Thought, 30 (1985), nr.4, 365–377.

- Meek Lange, Margaret, ‘Progress’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edited. by Edward N. Zalta, 2011.

- The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).

- Weng, Frank, ‘On Freedom and Progress: Comparing Marx and Mill’, Student Pulse, 11 (2013), nr.5.