This chapter depicts the essence of cyborgization of social relations in sports, art, music, traffic. This harkens back to the pioneering cybernetic work of Norbert Weiner and extends into the current and future reconfigurations of man-machine relations that are shaping human life and society from human enhancement to driverless cars. The chapter shows that procedures of scientific work cyborgize the historical reality of man into the era of scientific humanism as naturalism, and that it is not the future, but in fact the present, that we are acclimatizing to as we have not become fully aware of the present future.
Top8.1 Cyborgization In Sports
A bionic race would take away from true competition. It is not my desire to give athletes a device that takes them beyond what their body can do.
Marlon Shirley1
In this chapter, we analyse particular aspects of culture in the age of scientific humanism as naturalism to show their non-human nature. The analysis is divided into four parts.
The first section in this chapter Natural body modifications – the issue of body enhancements in sports will provide the basic insights into cyborgization of the human body and the desire for creating a stronger, faster, and a more resilient human body. The second section Creating cyborgized athletes – prostheses as aids in sports analyses the possibilities offered by cyborgization procedures by looking into details of the case of Oscar Pistorius, the disabled athlete whose legs were amputated and replaced with prosthetic ones. By analysing different options which are becoming available in this domain, we are also faced with an ever-increasing need to distinguish between cyborg athletes and natural athletes. The third section Improving athlete's competitive capabilities – morally justified or not? questions the moral and legal justification of enhancing healthy human bodies. The fourth section Selecting the winner and defining fairness in terms of enhancements – creating artificial winners in the age of scientific humanism as naturalism questions whether the current system creates artificial winners, how to achieve fairness in competition between natural and cyborgized athletes, and whether the two should be even allowed to compete.
Figure 1. Oscar Pistorius (Moreton, 2012)
The core idea and the motto of sports “a healthy mind in a healthy body” has been brought into question by cyborgization tendencies in sports, which call for critical scrutiny and ethical questioning of boundaries of cyborgization in sports. Complete and uncritical faith in the scientific and technological progress of society could put us in a position in which man is completely reliant on technology, paying no attention to the consequences which may arise from this.
With the help of science and technology of today, a healthy human body (its structure, functions, capabilities) can be codified and transformed into an artificial cyborgized body. Accelerating the evolution of man includes improving the human species with the aim of creating a stronger, faster and a more resilient body with an improved health and an extended lifespan. It also denotes the tendency of overcoming the limited mental capabilities, deficient sensory and physical capabilities, all of which are ideas advocated by the transhumanist movement.2
The Transhumanist Declaration from 1998 states: “Transhumanists advocate the moral right for those who so wish to use technology to extend their mental and physical (including reproductive) capacities and to improve their control over their own lives. We seek personal growth beyond our current biological limitations.” (Bostrom, 2005, p. 21). This goes to show that the transhumanists advocate reshaping biological human capabilities, i.e. creating a kind of a superhuman entity with changed and enhanced functions. This way a healthy human individual becomes an experiment within itself, which will ultimately result in the creation of an artificial body far superior than that of current man. Contrary to the transhumanist perspective, the bioconservatives oppose the use of contemporary technology for the sake of enhancement of man and accelerating evolution. Their fundamental ethical principles are that of natural order and the authority of the divine creation.3