Kozhevnikova M. Concerning Family Ties of the Future Man

Abstract: The article reviews the role of family ties in the human life and their possible transformation due to the anticipated significant prolongation of life in the future. There are so called NBICS technologies being widely developed in many countries now. These technologies refer to the human enhancement research and deasl with both human mind and body. At the present time there is a prevailing number of technologies aimed at inproving one's health and prolonging human life. Those who oppose to the 'human enhancement' fear, among other things, that human might lose the family and family-related values as an important element of human culture. The author of the present article argues that the kinship structure currently functioning in both biological and cultural fields will be preserved. The author applies the interdisciplinary approach to prove her point of view. Kozhevnikova conducts a comparative analysis of the kinship displays in different cultures and describes how the kinship phenomenon has been transformed as a result of the biotechnological development such as development of assisted reproduction. The main conclusion of the research is that the kinship structure of the society is dynamic by its nature. It evolves together with biotechnologies, yet it doesn’t disappear at that. It is most probably that even the post-human deprived of its biology will preserve its nonbiological (cultural) relative ties.

Keywords: