Political values
A political values test is useful when it reveals competing commitments rather than assigning one broad label. Here is how to approach one honestly and read the result carefully.
Transhumanism: Enhancement, Risk and Politics
Transhumanism is a family of arguments about using technology to change human capacities and limits. It is not a single party programme, and its political implications depend on which part of the programme you emphasise.
Short answer: Transhumanism broadly supports using technology to improve human physical and cognitive capacities, extend healthy life and reduce biological limits. Supporters disagree sharply about regulation, access, risk and what human enhancement should be for, so the label does not determine a left, right, libertarian or authoritarian position.
What transhumanists broadly share
The common thread is a willingness to use technology to alter human capacities rather than treating the current body and lifespan as fixed limits. Proposals range from medicine and prosthetics to cognitive enhancement, genetic modification, life extension and interfaces between people and machines.
Many accounts also emphasise individual choice: people should be able to accept or refuse enhancement, and access should not be restricted to a privileged group. That emphasis is normative, not a description of how the technology would actually be governed.
The main disagreements
- Access: should enhancement be a market service, a public good or a regulated medical option?
- Risk: should precaution dominate until safety is established, or would excessive caution slow beneficial innovation?
- Consent: how can children, future people or people under pressure meaningfully agree to irreversible changes?
- Equality: could enhancement widen social gaps, and what redistribution or universal access would be required?
- Meaning: does changing human capacities threaten something valuable about embodiment, limitation or mortality?
- Environment: can technological substitution reduce ecological pressure, or does it risk new forms of extraction and waste?
Therapy, enhancement and the boundary problem
Transhumanist debate often distinguishes therapy from enhancement: restoring a function or treating a disease is usually treated differently from exceeding a commonly observed human capacity. The line is contested in practice. A prosthetic that restores walking and a prosthetic that exceeds ordinary strength may use related technology but raise different questions about access, fairness and risk.
Disability perspectives are important here. Some people reject the assumption that a different body is automatically a deficit to be corrected, while others argue for access to technologies that increase independence. Treating every difference as a problem to enhance away can distort both the ethics and the policy.
For political analysis, the boundary affects regulation, insurance, public funding and the burden of proof. A rule designed for medical treatment may fit poorly when the same intervention is chosen for convenience, performance or competitive advantage.
Why the politics do not map cleanly
A market-libertarian transhumanist may emphasise private research and individual choice. A social-democratic transhumanist may emphasise universal access and public regulation. A green transhumanist may support some technologies while rejecting growth-oriented deployment. An authoritarian moderniser may treat enhancement as a national capacity project.
The label therefore says more about openness to technological change than about the distribution of power. Two people who both call themselves transhumanist can disagree about patents, safety trials, disability, inequality and the proper limits of state authority.
Where 12Axes measures the debate
The Technology axis runs from precaution to acceleration. Rights concerns bodily autonomy, legal protection and limits on coercion. Welfare concerns who can access expensive interventions. Ecology concerns limits and resource use. Religion and Culture concern competing views of human nature and the value of inherited limits. Democracy and Structure concern who decides.
No single axis is a transhumanism score. A strong acceleration position plus strong welfare may suggest publicly funded enhancement; acceleration plus self-reliance may suggest a market-led version. Read the combination rather than looking for a label that is not there.
How to use a political profile here
Start with the axes that shape your view of enhancement: technology, rights, welfare, ecology and religion. Then ask what you would permit, fund, regulate or prohibit. The profile can show a broad disposition; it cannot decide whether a specific intervention is safe, just or worth the cost.
The library contains related profiles such as Accelerationism and Technological Precautionism. They are editorial readings for comparison, not claims that everyone interested in transhumanism belongs to either one.
A note on evidence and hype
Transhumanism is often discussed through confident predictions about technologies that do not yet exist. A political profile should not be treated as evidence that a particular technology will arrive, that it will be safe, or that its distribution will follow a preferred plan.
The useful political questions are conditional: if a technology works, who should have access, who should bear the risk, and who should decide? Those questions remain meaningful even when the timeline is uncertain.
Put the guide into practice
The explanation above is easier to judge against your own answers than against an abstract example. Choose a run length and see which political values move for you.
Frequently asked questions
Is transhumanism a political ideology?＋
It is better described as a family of views about human enhancement and technology. It can be combined with different political ideologies, which is why it does not imply one position on ownership, authority or welfare.
Is transhumanism left-wing or right-wing?＋
Neither exclusively. Market-oriented and social-democratic versions both exist, as do green, technocratic and authoritarian-modernist variants. The label alone does not settle economic or constitutional questions.
Does 12Axes have a transhumanism result?＋
It has no dedicated transhumanism axis. The Technology axis is the most direct, while rights, welfare, ecology, religion and culture shape the rest of the picture. The library includes related profiles such as Accelerationism and Technological Precautionism.
Is transhumanism only about artificial intelligence?＋
No. It also concerns medicine, prosthetics, genetics, life extension, cognitive enhancement and human-machine interfaces. Artificial intelligence is one area of debate, not the whole movement.
What is the difference between therapy and enhancement?＋
Therapy is usually framed as restoring or maintaining a function, while enhancement is framed as exceeding a typical human capacity. The boundary is contested, especially where an intervention can serve both purposes, so it should be argued explicitly rather than assumed.
Is transhumanism anti-religion?＋
Not necessarily. Religious traditions and individuals disagree about enhancement, and some religious thinkers engage with transhumanist proposals rather than rejecting technology as such. The political questions concern means, limits and distribution.
Read a related guide
The 12Axes test
The 12Axes test turns political statements into twelve separate readings rather than one left-versus-right score. This guide explains what happens before, during, and after a run.
Ideology matches
12Axes compares your vector with written profiles, but a match is not an endorsement or a biography. Here is how the three library sets differ and how to read them responsibly.
About the project
12Axes exists to make a political profile easier to explain and argue with: twelve defined dimensions, transparent comparisons, and clear limits on what a result means.
Or return to the 12Axes homepage for the product overview, report pricing and main FAQ.
Your political values are one run away
The test is free, needs no account, and scores your answers in this browser. Start with the recommended run, or take the longest one when two ideologies sit close together.