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Posthumanism and Ethics

Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism

Abstract

In this chapter, critical posthumanist ethics is introduced as a type of inclusive ethics. Inclusive ethics responds to the problems associated with conventional exclusive ethical thinking, namely structural discrimination and oppression or reification. These challenges for exclusive ethics result from their general prioritization of relata (agents, subjects, and objects) over relations (the in-between). Inclusive ethics formulate alternatives to these ethical approaches by giving priority to relations over relata. Critical posthumanist ethics is exemplary of inclusive ethical thinking due to its questioning of humanism, its rejection of anthropocentrism, and its overcoming of anthropological essentialism. This chapter presents Donna Haraway’s ethics of kinship, Karen Barad’s ethics of entanglement and ethics of knowing, Rosi Braidotti’s ethics of becoming and affirmative ethics, and Patricia MacCormack’s vitalistic ethics as examples of critical posthumanist (and thus inclusive) ethics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stiftung Liebenau, Meckenbeuren, Germany

    Janina Loh

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  1. Janina Loh
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Correspondence to Janina Loh .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Stefan Herbrechter

  2. University of Malta, Msida, Malta

    Ivan Callus

  3. Independent Scholar, Basel, Switzerland

    Manuela Rossini

  4. University of Malta, Msida, Malta

    Marija Grech

  5. University of Southampton, Winchester, UK

    Megen de Bruin-Molé

  6. Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

    Christopher John Müller

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Loh, J. (2022). Posthumanism and Ethics. In: Herbrechter, S., Callus, I., Rossini, M., Grech, M., de Bruin-Molé, M., John Müller, C. (eds) Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42681-1_34-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42681-1_34-2

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-42681-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-42681-1

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Posthumanism and Ethics
    Published:
    26 May 2022

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42681-1_34-2

  2. Original

    Posthumanism and Ethics
    Published:
    08 February 2022

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42681-1_34-1

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