Disability as Human Potential: Reorienting Transhumanism Through the Human Rights Model of Disability

ABSTRACT This article's central object of critical reflection is the ableist anthropological and ethical assumptions underpinning the transhumanist project's implicit normative stance towards people with disabilities, who are framed as defective and futureless beings. It argues that the transhumanist conviction that improving the human condition requires eradicating disability is unjustified. Drawing on the human rights model of disability, as embodied in the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and on concepts of disability developed in disability studies, it defends the view that disability can represent a generative human gain that expands the existential boundaries of humanity. This article further proposes that the human rights model of disability could provide a conceptual framework for improving the transhumanist project by broadening its vision of human potential and reorienting it from the pursuit of human perfection towards an embrace of human diversity. Ultimately, this article argues that human potential and its humanity‐enhancing effects can unfold in different ways, including through the experience of disability.