In light of the new developments in biotechnologies in recent years and their potentialities for human enhancement, the traditional division between conservative and progressive thinking has acquired new nuances. This article offers a historical examination of bioconservatism—the specific kind of conservatism that has developed in response to these technologies, the aim of which is to resist their potential future adverse effects. I differentiate between two types of bioconservatism: the one based on a defense of the anthropological openness of human beings (...) and the conditions that make ethical existence possible (Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas), and the other based on a more traditionally conservative defense of human nature (Francis Fukuyama). By proposing a more concise definition of bioconservatism, this article deepens our understanding of the new conservative responses to the accelerating rate of biotechnological developments and the rise of the intellectual movements of transhumanism and posthumanism. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt famously argued that acts of violence are corrosive to a free and plural politics. However, the broader implications of her critique of violence are less well known. Reading her concept of violence comprehensively, with regard to (ostensibly non-political) labor and work as well as action, this article reveals its broader relevance for contemporary political thought: the political question of violence lies at the heart of our ecological crisis and is crucial for the social structure of labor domination. While (...) Arendtian politics is without normative guarantees, the conceptual distinction between instrumental violence and free politics is crucial, because it renders the political judgment of violence possible. In every realm of human activity, the refusal to acknowledge violence stunts our capacity to care for the world. (shrink)