Idea Of Individual Immortality In Transhumanism: Basic Value Or Antihuman Utopia

The paper analyzes the philosophical and ethical status of the idea of transhumanism concerning the possibility of achieving practical individual immortality of a person in the public consciousness. This idea is studied within the framework of cryonics. The arguments to two opposite approaches are considered, within the framework of which this idea appears either as the basic value of modern civilization or an inhumane utopian attitude. Thus, the paper concludes on the adequacy of the latter approach. The authors conclude that the idea of implementing the project of practical immortality from an ethical point of view is quite doubtful, conflicting not only with traditional Christian values, but also with humanistic values that are generally valid for the global world. As such, this utopia relies on scientific hypotheses extrapolated into an uncertain future about the possibility of radical improvement of human nature, and in practice it turns out to be an economic exploitation of a person’s natural psychological fear of death and only serves as an expression of a hedonistic worldview. Besides, its justification and implementation as a leading value faces intractable existential and ethical problems. The key unresolved problem underlying this utopia and retouching by faith in the future development of science and technology as a place of evaluation of the original hypothetical idea is the impossibility of preserving (restoring) the life of a holistic person after the biological death of an individual.