In “Human Genetic Enhancements” (2012), Bostrom lays out some of the arguments in favor of genetic enhancements. While he explicitly states that his arguments draw from the movement known as transhumanism, he does not respond to criticisms of transhumanism itself as much as he does to arguments against genetic enhancements. In this post, I will outline some background information on transhumanism and an interesting debate between Francis Fukuyama and Bostrom.
According to Max More, a prominent supporter of transhumanism, it is a group of ideas that “refuses to accept traditional human limitations such as death, disease and other biological frailties” (from McNamee & Edwards 2006). It does not restrict itself to genetic engineering, but also space colonization, artificial intelligence, etc. (Bostrom gives some interesting information in a few YouTube interviews, such as this one). It can take one of two forms: strong transhumanism or weak transhumanism. Both strong and weak transhumanists advocate using technology to enhance humanity (e.g. in appearance, intelligence, lifespan). Strong transhumanists differ in arguing that we should use technology to become a new species (McNamee & Edwards 2006).
Because of the radical nature of its stronger supporters, transhumanism seems to have a rather dystopian connotation. But the basic aim, to improve the human condition through technology, is not so far-fetched. After all, improving technology is an important part of public health. This is salient if one considers examples like sewage systems and clean water supplies (McNamee & Edwards 2006). By and large, though, the term ‘transhumanism’ is more concerned with higher-level technology like genetic engineering (2006; Bostrom 2012).
Criticism of transhumanism has been vociferous. In a 2004 Foreign Policy report, eight public intellectuals wrote on what they considered “the world’s most dangerous ideas” that will have to be confronted in the future. Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist, wrote his article on transhumanism. He gives two main arguments against transhumanism. The first is that our political right to equality presupposes that there is a fundamental human essence that transcends sex, class, or race. That is to say, all members of the human species are afforded equality. In a sense, the post-humans that transhumanists advocate for throw a wrench in our conception of equality by changing the fundamental human essence (cf. Bostrom 2012 112-113).
The second argument against transhumanism is that it seems to gloss over the two-sided nature of human characteristics. “Our good characteristics” Fukuyama says, “are intimately connected to our bad ones” (2004). What is seen as a negative trait in one context could be a positive one in another. For instance, we may consider violence and aggression a negative characteristic in itself, but it is useful when we need to defend ourselves. The biggest risk, he says, is that we do not really know how intricately these characteristics are intertwined. Transhumanists take it upon themselves to determine what is good or bad in a human. We do not know the results of meddling with our biology in such a way (Fukuyama goes so far as to say that we cannot know).
In response to Fukuyama’s article, Bostrom (2004) argues that the Fukuyama’s argument is flawed. He argues that evolutionary biology has revealed that there can be no distinctive “human essence”, because the human gene pool is not fixed. Even if there were a human essence, he argues that this is not an argument for post-humans contradicting the basis to equal rights. On his view, transhumanism does not advocate for creating beings that lack moral agency (or somehow transcend it), which he considers more fundamental to our rights than our essence.
Works Cited
Fukuyama, Francis. 2004. “The World’s Most Dangerous Ideas: Transhumanism” Foreign Policy 144: 42-43.
Bostrom, Nick. 2004. “Transhumanism: The World’s Most Dangerous Idea?” Foreign Policy.
Bostrom, Nick. 2012. “Human Genetic Enhancements: A Transhumanist Perspective” in Arguing About Bioethics, ed. Stephen Holland. 105-115. New York: Routledge.
McNamee, S.D. and M.J. Edwards. 2006. “Transhumanism, Medical Technology and Slippery Slopes”, Journal of Medical Ethics 32.9: 513-518.
The concept of transhumanism is definitely an interesting one, and that grows more realistic as genetic engineering improves. When I first started reading this post I could only think of those futuristic movies where the human race has become too technologically advanced and have made another race (be it robots, zombies, diseased humans, etc) that has ruined normal life.
If genetically engineered humans became a mainstream occurrence I would hope that there would be regulations on what could and could not be done. Similar to the cloning debate, would transhumance be considered humans or would they have their own classification? Also what is the general populations accessibility to genetic engineering? Would certain classes/races/groups be left out? Genetically engineering humans could also be a stepping stone for cloning. If genetic engineering is accepted by society and is safe, cloning could be seen as the next thing for humanity. One could potential clone a genetically engineered being (who has super strength or a high IQ) and make copies of the superior being.
Realistically none of this will be occurring soon, but it something to think about. Personally, I have an issue with genetic engineering for a variety of reasons. The main one is that it goes against natural development of Homo sapiens. How would future humans look and act like if genetic engineering become predominant? Would there be a split between those who could afford genetic engineering and those who couldn’t in the future?
It can be very scary to think that one day cloning and genetic engineering could eventually control the genetic makeup of the population physically, but can also affect personalities and deeper characteristics such as morality. If I was born as one of the highly genetically modified “transhumans” I would be very grateful that I was born and allowed to live on the earth, but I would still be jealous of those “normal humans” who were born with two parents, whether divorced, deceased, incarcerated, etc. I would also be envious of the fact that I am “made to always do the moral thing”. What if the morally right thing to do at a time was not the choice I wanted to make? How much control and autonomy would I really have if my inner thoughts and characteristics were essentially predisposed PRIOR to my birth and development? Of course, we do not yet know what exactly can be controlled by the transhumanist procedures, however, I would still be without certain freedoms that others may possess. Yes, the genetic change should be targeted to bring good to society, however scientific research and novelty tends to back fire. We won’t know how strongly transhumanism will ricochet and possibly explode the societal construct that we have today.
And I am very glad you pointed out some things I may have glanced over which talked about transhumanists. In my opinion, it is sad that the human race is so unsatisfactory to some that they would implement serious changes and medical procedures in order to create “superhumans”? It once used to be that “superhumans” were make-believe, then became important figures in lives (like children who had superhero brothers/parents/cousns. Now, it is that these “superhumans” are actually humans that have been altered in a myriad of ways.
This post and discussion of transhumanism reminds me the movie Blade Runner directed by Ridley Scott. The futuristic movie introduces a sort of clone called a “replicant,” built to function as a slave. The replicants look identical to humans, but they have a built in four-year life span. Interestingly, this man-made lifespan makes the replicants conscious of their limited dates and brings about humanity in these so-called machines. The director juxtapositions these replicants to humans focused on power, technology, and superficial distractions. Thus, the viewer is left contemplating the humanity of humans versus these machine like clones. The replicants have more awareness and questions about their existence, their role, and their inevitable death than most humans do today, and the movie makes one question how the replicant existence would compare to that of clones. While clones would never be made to function as slaves, the identity as a clone, something related to concepts of beyond human, could cause them to be more conscious of life, death, and humanity.
The concept of transhumanism is an interesting concept for the public realm because it causes people to truly think about what is humanity defined by and could even cause greater gratitude for life. Ridley Scott through the creation of futuristic movie challenges the viewer with questions about humanity. While I do not believe transhumanism will be applied to such an extreme, I think conversation and debates on its application are essential for truly defining what is human, and then utilizing these discussions to help in conversing about a ban on cloning. I would recommend this movie for that reason in that it challenges the viewer to be able to define what is a human and also challenges one to embrace their humanity.
I found the argument very captivating and futuristic. I had not heard of transhumanism before this, but it definitely does not sound moral and human-like. A quote that stood out to me was transhumanism, “is a group of ideas that “refuses to accept traditional human limitations such as death, disease and other biological frailties” In my opinion death and disease are not biological frailties, they are a part of life as we know it. Everyone who has lived in the past has died and that does not mean that each and every one of them was frail. They were simply human, and humans do not live perfectly long and healthy lives in most cases. Another point that stood out to me was, “Transhumanists take it upon themselves to determine what is good or bad in a human. We do not know the results of meddling with our biology in such a way” (Fukuyama goes so far as to say that we cannot know). I completely agree with Fukuyama’s opinion on this in that biology is not made to mess with and good and bad traits work together to create who we are as a person. As stated, our bad traits can have many positive qualities such as violence/self-defense, anger/strong passion toward something, etc. Transhumanism eliminates everything seemingly “bad” and makes us all perfect and flawless and this is not human in itself.
After reading more into the arguments for and against transhumanism, I found that Francis Fukuyama (who claimed transhumanism is he world’s most dangerous idea”) is a well-respected professor that focuses heavily on political science, bioethics, law, and public policy. He has a good point, but there are many negative points surrounding transhumanism than can easily become slippery slopes, as well as the positive points. Many of these arguments mirror those of cloning.
In favor of transhumanism, we already use lower-level technology to extend and manipulate human life. We can eliminate suffering and be healthier and smarter. But who says this is necessarily a good thing? Maybe we need to balance exceptionality with normality. Will the new technology even work perfectly? There could be ethical implications with autonomy and survival rates, just like the issues with cloning.
We can also essentially skip the natural evolutionary process by creating a perfect being- instead of relying on random genetic mutations and development of the human species, we can make an ideal model of a human. The issue with this is the possibility for complications. Can these “new” humans function normally and reproduce with the “normal” humans? Also, who is to say what qualities of humans are “good” and “bad”? There are qualities that can be classified as both: perfectionism can be a “bad” obsessive problem or the “good” quality of a neat, successful person, aggression and aggression could be a “bad” tendency to get violent or a “good” defense mechanism.
A third interesting point in favor of transhumanism is the idea that morality and personhood can be separate from a species biologically, and instead belong to a person intellectually. If this were true, all moral arguments are ineffective. The morality lies in the next developing species, not because they are a species, but because they have intellectual capacity and can think freely. However, will this create an impossible moral standard? And, as Joyelle mentioned, this entire idea of transhumanism might be a matter of wealth. There will be more opportunities for inequality and separation of class. There is the basic “weirdness” of it all, too. All of the money and turmoil invested in the fight for human engineering could be a big failure, however, we may never know the worthiness until we try.
McNamee, M. J., & Edwards, S. D. (2005). Transhumanism, medical technology and slippery slopes. Journal of Medical Ethics, 32(9), 513-518. doi: 10.1136/jme.2005.013789
Francis fukuyama: Biography. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://fukuyama.stanford.edu/
sorry, can you delete this one?
After reading more into the arguments for and against transhumanism, I found that Francis Fukuyama (who claimed transhumanism is he world’s most dangerous idea”) is a well-respected professor that focuses heavily on political science, bioethics, law, and public policy. He has a good point, but there are many negative points surrounding transhumanism than can easily become slippery slopes, as well as the positive points. Many of these arguments mirror those of cloning.
In favor of transhumanism, we already use lower-level technology to extend and manipulate human life. We can eliminate suffering and be healthier and smarter. But who says this is necessarily a good thing? Maybe we need to balance exceptionality with normality. Will the new technology even work perfectly? There could be ethical implications with autonomy and survival rates, just like the issues with cloning.
We can also essentially skip the natural evolutionary process by creating a perfect being- instead of relying on random genetic mutations and development of the human species, we can make an ideal model of a human. The issue with this is the possibility for complications. Can these “new” humans function normally and reproduce with the “normal” humans? Also, who is to say what qualities of humans are “good” and “bad”? There are qualities that can be classified as both: perfectionism can be a “bad” obsessive problem or the “good” quality of a neat, successful person, aggression and aggression could be a “bad” tendency to get violent or a “good” defense mechanism.
A third interesting point in favor of transhumanism is the idea that morality and personhood can be separate from a species biologically, and instead belong to a person intellectually. If this were true, all moral arguments are ineffective. The morality lies in the next developing species, not because they are a species, but because they have intellectual capacity and can think freely. However, will this create an impossible moral standard? And, as Joyelle mentioned, this entire idea of transhumanism might be a matter of wealth. There will be more opportunities for inequality and separation of class. There is the basic “weirdness” of it all, too. All of the money and turmoil invested in the fight for human engineering could be a big failure, however, we may never know the worthiness until we try.
McNamee, M. J., & Edwards, S. D. (2005). Transhumanism, medical technology and slippery slopes. Journal of Medical Ethics, 32(9), 513-518. doi: 10.1136/jme.2005.013789
Francis fukuyama: Biography. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://fukuyama.stanford.edu/