Melinda Hall
Stetson University, Philosophy, Faculty Member
- Vanderbilt University, Philosophy, Alumnusadd
- Bioethics, Continental Philosophy, Ethics, Critical Bioethics, Disability Studies, Feminist Theory, and 47 morePolitical Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy, 19th Century Political Philosophy, Public Health, Critical Public Health, Philosophy, Philosophy Of Horror, Horror, Preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Biocitizenship, Food Studies, Food, Gender, Culture, Feminism, Michel Foucault, Feminist Disability Studies, Human Enhancement, Critical Disability Studies, Political Theory, Philosophy of Science, Gender and Sexuality, Psychoanalysis, Phenomenology, Social Philosophy, Gender Studies, Feminist Philosophy, Embodiment, Applied Ethics, Sociology, Medical Ethics, Aesthetics, Cultural Studies, Posthumanism, Transhumanism, Bioethics, Death, Life extension, Life Extension, Martin Heidegger, Semiotics, Social Change, Politics, Critical Theory, Social Theory, History of Philosophy, Reproductive Ethics, 20th Century Continental Philosophy, Enhancement, Biopolitics, and Bioethics Reproductive Technologyedit
- I specialize in bioethics and continental philosophy. My research interests include the intersection of contemporary ... moreI specialize in bioethics and continental philosophy. My research interests include the intersection of contemporary bioethics and disability studies, the ethics of human enhancement and social and cultural constructions of disability.edit
- Kelly Oliveredit
In a critical intervention into the bioethics debate over human enhancement, I tackle the claim that the expansion and development of human capacities is a moral obligation. I draw on French philosopher Michel Foucault to reveal and... more
In a critical intervention into the bioethics debate over human enhancement, I tackle the claim that the expansion and development of human capacities is a moral obligation. I draw on French philosopher Michel Foucault to reveal and challenge the ways disability is central to the conversation. The Bioethics of Enhancement includes a close reading and analysis of the last century of enhancement thinking and contemporary transhumanist thinkers, the strongest promoters of the obligation to pursue enhancement technology. With specific attention to the work of bioethicists Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, the book challenges the rhetoric and strategies of enhancement thinking. These include the desire to transcend the body and decide who should live in future generations through emerging technologies such as genetic selection. I provide new analyses rethinking both the philosophy of enhancement and disability, arguing that enhancement should be a matter of social and political interventions, not genetic and biological interventions. I conclude that human vulnerability and difference should be cherished rather than extinguished.
Research Interests: Future Studies, Ethics, Applied Ethics, Bioethics, History Of Eugenics, and 23 moreDisability Studies, Critical Disability Studies, Feminist Philosophy, Reproduction, Embodiment, Continental Philosophy, Risk and Vulnerability, Enhancement, Transhumanism, Critical Bioethics, Michel Foucault, Biopolitics, Vulnerability, Feminist Ethics, Bioethics Reproductive Technology, Feminist ethics (Philosophy), Human Enhancement, Transhumanism/Posthumanism, Disability, Social Control, Eugenics, Genetic determinism, and Eugenics and Bioethics
Transhumanist arguments in support of radical human enhancement are inimical to disability justice projects. Transhumanist thinkers, the strongest promoters of human enhancement, and fellow travelers who claim enhancement is a moral... more
Transhumanist arguments in support of radical human enhancement are inimical to disability justice projects. Transhumanist thinkers, the strongest promoters of human enhancement, and fellow travelers who claim enhancement is a moral obligation, make arguments that rely on the denigration of disabled embodiment and lives. These arguments link disability with risk. The promotion of human enhancement is therefore open to significant disability critique despite transhumanism’s claims to allyship with disability justice activism. This chapter lays out such a disability critique of enhancement and further supports its claims by describing bioethics, and therefore transhumanism, as biopolitical in the sense Michel Foucault uses the term. Finally, this chapter develops an alternative vision of enhancement. This alternative vision poses a disability-inclusive future, accepts the risks of embodiment, and lays groundwork for a counterdiscourse of enhancement.
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Understanding disability requires understanding its social construction, and social construction can be read in cultural products. In this essay, I look to one major locus for images of persons with disabilities—horror. Horror films and... more
Understanding disability requires understanding its social construction, and social construction can be read in cultural products. In this essay, I look to one major locus for images of persons with disabilities—horror. Horror films and fiction use disability imagery to create and augment horror. I first situate my understanding of disability imagery in the horror genre using a case study read through the work of Julia Kristeva. But, I go on to argue that trademark moves in the horror genre, which typically support ableist assumptions, can be used to subvert ableism and open space for alternative social and political thinking about disability. I point to the work of Tim Burton and Stephen King to demonstrate these possibilities in horror.
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Bioethics influences public policy, scientific research, and clinical practice. Thinkers in Continental traditions have increasingly contributed scholarship to this field and their approaches allow new insights and alternative normative... more
Bioethics influences public policy, scientific research, and clinical practice. Thinkers in Continental traditions have increasingly contributed scholarship to this field and their approaches allow new insights and alternative normative guidance. In this essay, examples of the following Continental approaches in bioethics are presented and considered: phenomenology and existentialism; deconstruction; Foucauldian methodologies; and biopolitical analyses. Also highlighted are Continental feminisms and the philosophy of disability. Continental approaches are importantly diverse, but those I focus upon here reveal embedded models of individualized autonomy in medical discourses and encourage awareness of medicine’s normalizing edges, thereby drawing attention to lacunae in traditional bioethical frameworks.
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In this paper, I critically assess transhumanist philosophy and its influence in bioethics by turning to resources in the work of Michel Foucault. I begin by outlining transhumanism and drawing out some of the primary goals of... more
In this paper, I critically assess transhumanist philosophy and its influence in bioethics by turning to resources in the work of Michel Foucault. I begin by outlining transhumanism and drawing out some of the primary goals of transhumanist philosophy. In order to do so, I focus on the work of Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, two prominent contributors to this thinking. I then move to explicate Foucault’s work, in the early iterations of the Abnormal lecture series, on the concept of vile sovereignty (1999/2003). Foucault used vile sovereignty to critique psychiatric witnesses utilized in French courts of law; the concept expresses the role and function of discredited expert witnesses in discourses with jurisdiction over life and death. Turning back to transhumanism, I analyze it on the basis of Foucault’s vile sovereignty. Transhumanists promote human enhancement in a way that rejects the body — especially the disabled body — and also pose and attempt to answer the question of what lives are worth living. I conclude that because of the undeserved influence and ableism of transhumanism, it is important for feminist philosophers, philosophers of disability, and other disability scholars, who collide at the nexus of bioethical debate (especially with regard to reproductive technology and the body) to work together to intervene upon transhumanist discourse.
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The disability critique of negative genetic selection is frequently accused of threatening reproductive liberty. This paper describes the disability critique and defends it against this objection. It also contends that the critique can... more
The disability critique of negative genetic selection is frequently accused of threatening reproductive liberty. This paper describes the disability critique and defends it against this objection. It also contends that the critique can work to deflate belief in genetic determinism. Recognizing the influence of genetic determinism helps advocate for existing persons in the disability community and protect reproductive liberty. The disability critique can point to genetic determinism but does not suggest a ban or obstacles to the choice of negative genetic selection; therefore, it is not antithetical to reproductive liberty, as has been charged.