Being Born Poorly

In this article, I engage with contemporary posthuman theories that aim to expand “life” beyond the merely organic. This theoretical move is often motivated by ethical or political concerns. I argue, instead, that we should remove life from our ontologies. I motivate this view first by tracing the instability and ambiguity of the concept in the life sciences before discussing the unfortunate eugenic consequences of centering an ethics or politics around life. I conclude by noting what work remains to be done to fully flesh out an eliminativist, postvital orientation in posthumanist philosophy, but maintain that both contemporary political and ethical theory and contemporary biology can do without life.