Human Kinds
American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division
April 11, 2009
This was an invited symposium presentation on Human Kinds at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division meetings, held in Vancouver in April 2009. It features short (20 minute) talks from What Sorts Network members Gregor Wolbring, Edward Stein, Nick Agar, and Natasha Vita-More, and is introduced and moderated by Rob Wilson. Topics included the idea of disability as sub-normalcy, transhumanist views of technology and human advancement, and the nature of human variation. Videocasts of these talks are available below, and also from the What Sorts blog. We are currently preparing closed captioning for these videos.
There were several unusual features of this symposium. First, the panel is much more heterogenous in background than most APA symposia. Only one of the four speakers is a card-carrying philosopher: Nick Agar, who teaches in New Zealand. Gregor Wolbring is a biochemist who has recently made a career-switch to disability studies; Ed Stein teaches law at the Cardozo Law School in New York (although he does also have a Ph.D. in philosophy from MIT), and Natasha Vita-More is a trail-blazing transhumanist trained in visual media. Second, it was unusual to film a session at the APA, and special arrangements needed to be made for this which, unfortunately, and unlike other events we have sponsored, did not include permission to film audience members or to record their question. So the recordings below are just of the talks.
Rob Wilson: Panel Introduction
Natasha Vita-More: Design Issues Concerning Extreme Life Extension