- Source: Stefan Lorenz Sorgner
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner is a German metahumanist philosopher, a Nietzsche scholar, a philosopher of music and an authority in the field of ethics of emerging technologies.
Life
Sorgner was born on 15 October 1973 in Wetzlar (Germany). He studied philosophy at King's College London (BA), the University of Durham (MA by thesis; examiners: David E. Cooper, Durham; David Owen, Southampton), the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen and the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (Dr. phil.; Examiners: Wolfgang Welsch, Jena; Gianni Vattimo, Turin). He taught philosophy and ethics at the Universities of Giessen, Jena, Erfurt and Erlangen. Currently, he teaches at a US Liberal Arts College, John Cabot University. Sorgner is a member of several editorial and advisory boards.
Nietzsche, posthumanism and transhumanism
In issue 20(1) of the Journal of Evolution and Technology, Sorgner's article "Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism" was published. In it, he shows that there are significant similarities between Nietzsche's concept of the overhuman and the concept of the posthuman according to the view of some transhumanists. Sorgner is in explicit controversy with Nick Bostrom, who is keen to differentiate his type of transhumanism from Nietzsche's philosophy. Sorgner's interpretation brought about a response both among Nietzsche scholars as well as among transhumanists. The editors of the Journal of Evolution and Technology dedicated a special issue to the question concerning the relationship between transhumanism, Nietzsche and European posthumanist philosophies (posthumanism). Vol. 21 Issue 1, January 2010 of the Journal of Evolution and Technology was entitled "Nietzsche and European Posthumanisms", and it included other responses to Sorgner's article, for example by Max More, Michael Hauskeller.
Due to the intense debate, the editors of the journal decided to give Sorgner the chance to react to the articles. In vol. 21 Issue 2 – October 2010, Sorgner replied to the various responses in his article "Beyond Humanism: Reflections on Trans- and Posthumanism".
Going back to Bostrom's criticism of Nietzsche in the reply to his critics, Sorgner also dealt with the views of Jürgen Habermas, who had also identified a similarity between Nietzsche and transhumanism, but for reasons opposite to Sorgner's and at odds with Bostrom's observations. Sorgner had argued that Nietzsche's philosophy could be shared by transhumanists due to its progressive aspect regarding man's freedom to self-overcome and pursue self-betterment. According to Habermas, who rejected all procedures of genetic enhancement, transhumanism was unacceptable due to the danger that a new "Nietzschean-elite" could impose a "liberal eugenics", which would be essentially "fascist". Sorgner criticized Habermas, accusing him of being just "rhetorically gifted", and claimed that Habermas 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".
Sorgner also criticized what Habermas had said about the difference between education and genetic engineering. According to Habermas, genetic manipulation would be very different from education due to its irreversibility. Sorger disputed both that the outcomes of education could always be modified by children, and that genetic modifications were always irreversible, as demonstrated by developments, above all, in the field of epigenetics.
Sorgner also put forward some aspects of his own philosophical position, which was strongly influenced by his teacher Gianni Vattimo. Sorgner, accepts Vattimo's "weak thought" (Italian: "pensiero debole"), but criticises Vattimo's understanding of the history of the "weakening of Being". As an alternative, Sorgner suggests a this-worldly, naturalist and perspectivist interpretation of the world, a view that he explained in more detail in his 2010 monograph Menschenwürde nach Nietzsche: Die Geschichte eines Begriffs (Human dignity after Nietzsche: history of a concept). Sorgner regards "nihilism", as described by Nietzsche, "entirely a gain":
"This also means that the dominant concept of human dignity, from the perspective of perspectivism, has no higher status in terms of knowing the truth in correspondence to reality than the conceptions of Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot". After bioethicists and transhumanists discussed the relationship between Nietzsche and transhumanism, the debate was taken up by some leading Nietzsche scholars. Keith Ansell-Pearson, Paul Loeb and Babette Babich wrote responses in the journal The Agonist which is being published by the Nietzsche Circle (New York). Sorgner's perspectivist "metahumanism" and in particular his Menschenwürde nach Nietzsche was dealt with in a symposium organised by the "Nietzsche Forum Munich" which had been co-founded by Thomas Mann. Leading German philosophers, e.g. Annemarie Pieper, responded to Sorgner's radical suggestions concerning the need to revise the prevalent conception of human dignity at this event.
In May 2013, the weekly newspaper Die Zeit published an interview with Sorgner in which several of his suggestions concerning human dignity, emerging technologies and trans- and posthumanism were summarized. In Autumn 2014, an essay collection entitled Umwertung der Menschenwürde (Transvaluation of human dignity), edited by Beatrix Vogel, was published by Alber Verlag in which leading international theologians, philosophers, and ethicists wrote critical replies to Sorgner's suggestions concerning the notion "human dignity".
Sorgner has been an invited and keynote speaker at many important events and conferences, e.g. phil.cologne, TED, and the World Humanities Forum, ICISTS-KAIST. According to Rainer Zimmmermann of the "Identity Foundation", a recently set-up German private think tank, Sorgner is "Germany's leading post- and transhumanist philosopher ("Deutschlands führender post- und transhumanistischer Philosoph").
In 2021, Sorgner published We Have Always Been Cyborgs, in which the author argues that since one can define a "cyborg" as "a governed, a steered organism", then "we have always been cyborgs". The kind of transhumanism proposed by Sorgner relies above all on what he calls "carbon-based transhuman technologies", that is gene editing, genetic engineering and gene selection, which he refers to as mankind's "most important scientific invention". As for him gene modification is "structurally analogous to traditional parental education", also from an ethical point of view we should not use different moral criteria for "traditional" education and for genetic engineering, if the latter is aimed at achieving the greatest good for humanity. For the same reason, according to Sorgner, all ethical reservations advanced so far against moral enhancement disappear.
References
External links
Official website
Review of the English translation of On Trans-humanism