target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_086e3c49-aed1-5d6e-bbd8-d5418304e1ea">64 These arguments do not constitute an objection to SGT or SGE.65 65 See note 25, Resnik, Langer, and Steinkraus 1999.
66 66 Feinberg J. Social Philosophy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice‐Hall, 1973.
67 67 Feinberg J. The child’s right to an open future. In: Aiken W. and Lafollette H. eds. Whose Child? Children’s Rights, Parental Authority, and State Power. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adam, 1980: 124–53.
68 68 See note 7, McGee 1997.
69 69 For further discussion of eugenics, see Paul D. Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1995.
70 70 Kitcher P. The Lives to Come. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.
71 71 Robertson J. Children of Choice. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994.
72 72 For further discussion, see Parens E. Taking behavioral genetics seriously. Hastings Center Report 1996; 26(4): 13–18.
73 73 Rachels J. Active and passive euthanasia. New England Journal of Medicine 1975; 292(2): 78–80.
74 74 See note 15, Resnik 1993.
15 In Defense of Posthuman Dignity
Nick Bostrom
Transhumanists vs. Bioconservatives
Transhumanism is a loosely defined movement that has developed gradually over the past two decades, and can be viewed as an outgrowth of secular humanism and the Enlightenment. It holds that current human nature is improvable through the use of applied science and other rational methods, which may make it possible to increase human health‐span, extend our intellectual and physical capacities, and give us increased control over our own mental states and moods.1 Technologies of concern include not only current ones, like genetic engineering and information technology, but also anticipated future developments such as fully immersive virtual reality, machine‐phase nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence.
Transhumanists promote the view that human enhancement technologies should be made widely available, and that individuals should have broad discretion over which of these technologies to apply to themselves (morphological freedom), and that parents should normally get to decide which reproductive technologies to use when having children (reproductive freedom).2 Transhumanists believe that, while there are hazards that need to be identified and avoided, human enhancement technologies will offer enormous potential for deeply valuable and humanly beneficial uses. Ultimately, it is possible that such enhancements may make us, or our descendants, ‘posthuman’, beings who may have indefinite health‐spans, much greater intellectual faculties than any current human being – and perhaps entirely new sensibilities or modalities – as well as the ability to control their own emotions. The wisest approach vis‐à‐vis these prospects, argue transhumanists, is to embrace technological progress, while strongly defending human rights and individual choice, and taking action specifically against concrete threats, such as military or terrorist abuse of bioweapons, and against unwanted environmental or social side‐effects.
In opposition to this transhumanist view stands a bioconservative camp that argues against the use of technology to modify human nature. Prominent bioconservative writers include Leon Kass, Francis Fukuyama, George Annas, Wesley Smith, Jeremy Rifkin, and Bill McKibben. One of the central concerns of the bioconservatives is that human enhancement technologies might be ‘dehumanizing’. The worry, which has been variously expressed, is that these technologies might undermine our human dignity or inadvertently erode something that is deeply valuable about being human but that is difficult to put into words or to factor into a cost‐benefit analysis. In some cases (for example, Leon Kass) the unease seems to derive from religious or crypto‐religious sentiments, whereas for others (for example, Francis Fukuyama) it stems from secular grounds. The best approach, these bioconservatives argue, is to implement global bans on swathes of promising human enhancement technologies to forestall a slide down a slippery slope towards an ultimately debased, posthuman state.
While any brief description necessarily skirts significant nuances that differentiate between the writers within the two camps, I believe the above characterization nevertheless highlights a principal fault line in one of the great debates of our times: how we should look at the future of humankind and whether we should attempt to use technology to make ourselves ‘more than human’. This paper will distinguish two common fears about the posthuman and argue that they are partly unfounded and that, to the extent that they correspond to real risks, there are better responses than trying to implement broad bans on technology. I will make some remarks on the concept of dignity, which bioconservatives believe to be imperiled by coming human enhancement technologies, and suggest that we need to recognize that not only humans in their current form, but posthumans too could have dignity.
Two Fears about the Posthuman
The prospect of posthumanity is feared for at least two reasons. One is that the state of being posthuman might in itself be degrading, so that by becoming posthuman we might be harming ourselves. Another is that posthumans might pose a threat to ‘ordinary’ humans. (I shall set aside a third possible reason, that the development of posthumans might offend some supernatural being.)
The most prominent bioethicist to focus on the first fear is Leon Kass:
Most of the given bestowals of nature have their given species‐specified natures: they are each and all of a given sort. Cockroaches and humans are equally bestowed but differently natured. To turn a man into a cockroach – as we don’t need Kafka to show us – would be dehumanizing. To try to turn a man into more than a man might be so as well. We need more than generalized appreciation for nature’s gifts. We need a particular regard and respect for the special gift that is our own given nature …3
Transhumanists counter that nature’s gifts are sometimes poisoned and should not always be accepted. Cancer, malaria, dementia, aging, starvation, unnecessary suffering, and cognitive shortcomings are all among the presents that we would wisely refuse. Our own species‐specified natures are a rich source of much of the thoroughly unrespectable and unacceptable – susceptibility for disease, murder, rape, genocide, cheating, torture, racism. The horrors of nature in general, and of our own nature in particular, are so well documented4 that it is astonishing that somebody as distinguished as Leon Kass should still in this day and age be tempted to rely on the natural as a guide as to what is desirable or normatively right. We should be grateful
