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Editorial

Onwards & Upwards?

by Rick Lewis

“I teach you the overman [Übermensch]. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment…” Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885)

A couple of years ago Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, of Philosophy Now’s US editorial board, got in touch to suggest that we should produce a special issue on the ethics of human enhancement. “Human what?”, I asked, blankly, with my trademark display of Socratic ignorance.

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