Abstract
Our enlarged understanding of the universe, obtained through science, opens up possibilities for storytelling on a very large scale. Thus, science fiction depicts enormous structures and feats of engineering, the fates of entire planets or species, vast wars in space carried out with superweapons, and immensely consequential decisions of all kinds. All of this can evoke awe, or a sense of wonder, but at its most tawdry it is a (probably harmless) pornography of power. At its best, science fiction employs these elements for cognitive purposes and combines them with a recognizably literary approach to character development. In showing concern for environments and non-human Intelligent Others, science fiction may be tending to a posthumanist, post-anthropocentric ethic, whether as a substitute for or a supplement to its more traditional ethic of human destiny.
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Notes
- 1.
For an introduction to the therapy/enhancement distinction, and the difficulties that arise in attempting to draw a clear distinction , see Blackford 2014, 195–212.
- 2.
But note, this is not the occasion to investigate whether posthumanist critiques of humanism are accurate and fair.
- 3.
Note, however, that transhumanism and post humanism have their own precursors prior to the twentieth century. A separate book would be needed to investigate and explain these.
- 4.
I’ll return, later in this chapter, to the ethics of terraforming .
- 5.
In the end, as I discuss in Chapter 4, we learn that Eternity did not understand how its careful, incremental acts to protect humanity were actually undermining it.
References
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Blackford, R. (2014). Humanity enhanced: Genetic choice and the challenge for liberal democracies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Kelso, S. (2000). Tales of earth: Terraforming in recent women’s SF. Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, 78, 34–43.
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Wolfe, C. (2010). What is posthumanism? Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
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Blackford, R. (2017). Conclusion: Great Power and Great Responsibility. In: Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination. Science and Fiction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61685-8_8
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