Norming Human Individuality: The Significance of Eugenification
There has been recent debate over whether relatively recent transformations to human sociality constitute an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI). These essentially diachronic investigations rest on questions about what antecedent and consequent forms of individuality amount to and these are norm-laden. Here I draw attention to actual practices of norming, departing from the emphasis on factors like cooperation, altruism, and competition that make an ETI a kind of success story. I explore three forms that norming of human individuality takes: racialization, eugenification, and transhumanization. Such aggressively antagonistic norming relies ultimately on a distinction between better and worse forms of human individuality, with the corresponding evaluations informing meliorative projects of human improvement. For this reason, eugenification—a concept I am introducing here—provides key to understanding both racialization (in the past) and transhumanization (in the future). I close by considering what this implies for the recent ETI debate with which I began.
Venue: Byrne House, University of Exeter (spaces limited)
Virtual: via Zoom
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