Places for Transhumanists to Pursue Graduate Studies in Bioethics
Occasionally transhumanist students ask us what professors, departments or programs are interested in or conducive to research on transhumanism.
Since transhumanism is quite interdisciplinary, the answer is that many people in academe are interested in or sympathetic to one aspect or another of the transhumanist agenda, if not to “transhumanism.”
For instance, departments of computer science are very tolerant of investigations of artificial intelligence and neuroprosthetics, while many departments of biological sciences would be congenial for research on aging mechanisms or cognitive function. Although scientists are often anxious not to be perceived as “kooky” or as advocating pseudoscience, there is probably much less resistance or hostility to someone having transhumanist views in the natural sciences than in the social sciences and humanities.
Even the transhumanist pursuing a graduate degree in engineering or the information or biological sciences, however, will eventually want to engage with their school’s bioethicists, philosophers and health policy scholars. There, the reception to “transhumanism,” or even discussion of “human enhancement,” can often be dismissive.
Here are some of our initial thoughts about where to find scholars and programs in bioethics and philosophy that are supportive of transhumanist enquiries, even if they aren’t explicitly transhumanist. Of course, transhumanists can also learn a lot in programs that are hostile to transhumanism, so long as the scholars are talking about the issues and willing to support student work in the topic. There is no school or department I know of in which transhumanists are the majority. You might as well find the rare scholar(s) with some sympathies for transhumanism to work with since you will be able to find bioconservative critics without much effort.
- James J. Hughes Ph.D., Secretary, WTA
A note from Paul Root Wolpe (February 12, 2007)
We have posted a downloadable list of 31 universities and programs that offer internships (summer or semester) for undergraduates (and a few graduate internships as well). Please feel free to download and post on your own website or distribute it as you like, and please notify your students and colleagues of its availability. Please also let me know of inaccuracies or additions. We will try to update it every year.
The list can be accessed now at: http://bioethics.upenn.edu/ugrad/?pageId=3
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Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D.
Departments of Psychiatry, Medical Ethics, and Sociology and Center for Bioethics University of Pennsylvania Penn homepage:
Chief of Bioethics
(Care and Protection of Research Subjects and Patients) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Center for Bioethics:
3401 Market St., Suite 320
Philadelphia PA 19104
(215) 573-9378 or 898-7136
(215) 573-3036 (fax)
Penn’s Center for Bioethics:
American Journal of Bioethics: www.bioethics.net
IN THE UNITED STATES
Center for Bioethics & Dept of Medical Ethics
University of Pennsylvania
http://www.bioethics.upenn.edu
Arthur Caplan is probably the leading U.S. bioethicist, and is relatively open to human enhancement for a bioethicist. His large, prominent program at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia is central to American bioethics.
Interdisciplinary Bioethics Project
Yale University
http://www.yale.edu/bioethics/
Yale University has a very active set of bioethics working groups, many of which are of interest to transhumanists, all of which are tolerant of transhumanists, and one of which is the Ethics and Technology group, led by transhumanist Bonnie Kaplan and with James Hughes, the WTA Director, as a participant.
Program on Medicine, Technology, and Society
University of California Los Angeles
http://research.arc2.ucla.edu/pmts/
The transhumanist Gregory Stock, author of Redesigning Humans, runs this program at UCLA. Write to Dr. Stock to find out what kind of research possibilities you might have under its auspices.
Department of Bioethics
Case Western Reserve University
http://www.cwru.edu/med/bioethics/faculty.htm
This is a large collection of influential bioethicists, among them Maxwell Mehlman, author of a book on human enhancement; Eric T. Juengst, who has written extensively and relatively sympathetically about human enhancement; Stuart Youngner, one of the leading scholars of brain death and personhood; and Dena Davis, a leading scholar of genetic and reproductive technology.
Department of Philosophy
University of Alabama
http://www.uab.edu/philosophy/faculty/pence/
Greg Pence is one of the leading transhumanist-inclined bioethicists. He has written in defense of reproductive cloning and human enhancement.
Department of Philosophy
Brown University
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Philosophy/brock.html
Dan Brock, at Brown, is a very prestigious bioethicist, and co-author of the very important transhumanist-leaning text From Chance to Choice.
Department of Population and Int. Health
Harvard School of Public Health
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/facres/pihindx.html
Daniel Wikler and Norman Daniels are very prestigious bioethicists at Harvard, and co-authors of the very important transhumanist-leaning text From Chance to Choice.
Center for Human Values
Princeton University
http://www.princeton.edu/~uchv/
Peter Singer
http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/
Peter Singer is one of the most influential philosophers among transhumanists, and he is a defender of access to human enhancement (among many other controversial views.) He also teaches half-time in Australia. At Princeton he is part of their Center for Human Values.
UNITED KINGDOM
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
Oxford University
http://www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/
WTA Chair Nick Bostrom and transhumanist-sympathizing bioethicist Julian Savulescu are both in the Uehiro Ethics center at Oxford University. This is the place for transhumanist philosophy, if you can get there.
Centre for Social Ethics and Policy
University of Manchester
http://www.law.manchester.ac.uk/research/csep.htm
John Harris, a transhumanist-inclined bioethicist who wrote the pioneering pro-enhancement Superman and Wonderwoman and the more recent defense of reproductive cloning On Cloning, runs this Centre.
CANADA
Centre for Bioethics
University of Toronto
http://www.utoronto.ca/jcb/
This center has been pursuing great and exciting stuff, from a generally pro-tech point of view, under director Peter Singer (who is not the Australian/Princeton Peter Singer). They have some transhumanists among their students and associates.
Department of Philosophy
Dalhousie University
http://philosophy.dal.ca
Jason Scott Robert and Francoise Baylis are transhumanist-inclined bioethicists who teach in the philosophy program at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.
http://bioethics.medicine.dal.ca/
AUSTRALIA
Centre for Bioethics
Monash University
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/bioethics/
Russell Blackford
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/phil/postgraduate/blackford/
Russell Blackford is a transhumanist-sympathizing philosopher, and a Fellow of the IEET, who lectures in Monash’s bioethics program while he is finishing a doctorate on human enhancement. Peter Singer is also at Monash half the year.
Send us more suggestions: director (at-sign) transhumanism.org.
DISTANCE LEARNING GRADUATE PROGRAMS IN BIOETHICS
Albany Medical College (USA):
http://www.bioethics.union.edu/
Medical College of Wisconsin (USA):
http://www.mcw.edu/bioethics/depage.html
Cleveland State University (USA):
http://www.csuohio.edu/philosophy/bioethics.htm#study
Loyola U (Chicago, USA):
http://www.meddean.luc.edu/depts/bioethics/index.htm
Monash University (Australia):
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/bioethics/degree_programs/
Univ of Manchester (UK):
http://www.law.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/admissions/mabydl.htm
