In moral philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness
of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally
right act (including omission from acting) is one that will produce a
good outcome. Consequentialism, along with eudaimonism, falls under the broader category of teleological ethics, a group of views which claim that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value. Consequentialists hold in general that an act is right if and only if
the act (or in some views, the rule under which it falls) will produce,
will probably produce, or is intended to produce, a greater balance of
good over evil than any available alternative. Different
consequentialist theories differ in how they define moral goods, with chief candidates including pleasure, the absence of pain, the satisfaction of one's preferences, and broader notions of the "general good".
Consequentialism is usually contrasted with deontological ethics
(or deontology): deontology, in which rules and moral duty are central,
derives the rightness or wrongness of one's conduct from the character
of the behaviour itself, rather than the outcomes of the conduct. It is
also contrasted with both virtue ethics, which is concerned with the character of the agent rather than on the nature or consequences of the act (or omission) itself, and pragmatic ethics, which treats morality like science: advancing collectively as a society over the course of many lifetimes, such that any moral criterion is subject to revision.
Some argue that consequentialist theories (such as utilitarianism) and deontological theories (such as Kantian ethics) are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, T. M. Scanlon advances the idea that human rights,
which are commonly considered to be deontological in nature, can only
be justified with reference to the consequences of having those rights. Similarly, Robert Nozick
argued for a theory that is mostly consequentialist, but incorporates
inviolable "side-constraints" which restrict the sort of actions agents
are permitted to do. Derek Parfit argued that, in practice, when understood properly, rule consequentialism, Kantian deontology, and contractualism would all end up prescribing the same behavior.
Etymology
The term consequentialism was coined by G. E. M. Anscombe in her essay "Modern Moral Philosophy" in 1958. However, the meaning of the word has changed over the time since
Anscombe used it: in the sense she coined it, she had explicitly placed J. S. Mill in the nonconsequentialist and W. D. Ross in the consequentialist camp, whereas, in the contemporary sense of the word, they would be classified the other way round. This is due to changes in the meaning of the word, not due to changes in perceptions of W.D. Ross's and J.S. Mill's views.
Classification
One common view is to classify consequentialism, together with virtue ethics, under a broader label of "teleological ethics". Proponents of teleological ethics (Greek: telos, 'end, purpose' and logos, 'science') argue that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value, meaning that an act is right if and only if
it, or the rule under which it falls, produces, will probably produce,
or is intended to produce, a greater balance of good over evil than any
alternative act. This concept is exemplified by the famous aphorism, "the end justifies the means," variously attributed to Machiavelli or Ovid i.e. if a goal is morally important enough, any method of achieving it is acceptable.
Teleological ethical theories are contrasted with deontological ethical theories, which hold that acts themselves are inherently
good or bad, rather than good or bad because of extrinsic factors (such
as the act's consequences or the moral character of the person who
acts).
Nature has placed mankind under the
governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them
alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we
shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other
the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They
govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think...
— Jeremy Bentham, The Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) Ch I, p 1
In summary, Jeremy Bentham
states that people are driven by their interests and their fears, but
their interests take precedence over their fears; their interests are
carried out in accordance with how people view the consequences that
might be involved with their interests. Happiness, in this account, is defined as the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. It can be argued that the existence of phenomenal consciousness and "qualia" is required for the experience of pleasure or pain to have an ethical significance.
Historically, hedonistic utilitarianism
is the paradigmatic example of a consequentialist moral theory. This
form of utilitarianism holds that what matters is to aggregate
happiness; the happiness of everyone, and not the happiness of any
particular person. John Stuart Mill,
in his exposition of hedonistic utilitarianism, proposed a hierarchy of
pleasures, meaning that the pursuit of certain kinds of pleasure is
more highly valued than the pursuit of other pleasures. However, some contemporary utilitarians, such as Peter Singer, are concerned with maximizing the satisfaction of preferences, hence preference utilitarianism. Other contemporary forms of utilitarianism mirror the forms of consequentialism outlined below.
In general, consequentialist theories focus on actions. However, this
need not be the case. Rule consequentialism is a theory that is
sometimes seen as an attempt to reconcile consequentialism with deontology, or rules-based ethics—and in some cases, this is stated as a criticism of rule consequentialism. Like deontology, rule consequentialism holds that moral behavior
involves following certain rules. However, rule consequentialism
chooses rules based on the consequences that the selection of those
rules has. Rule consequentialism exists in the forms of rule utilitarianism and rule egoism.
Various theorists are split as to whether the rules are the only determinant of moral behavior or not. For example, Robert Nozick held that a certain set of minimal rules, which he calls "side-constraints," are necessary to ensure appropriate actions. There are also differences as to how absolute these moral rules are.
Thus, while Nozick's side-constraints are absolute restrictions on
behavior, Amartya Sen proposes a theory that recognizes the importance of certain rules, but these rules are not absolute. That is, they may be violated if strict adherence to the rule would lead to much more undesirable consequences.
One of the most common objections to rule-consequentialism is
that it is incoherent, because it is based on the consequentialist
principle that what we should be concerned with is maximizing the good,
but then it tells us not to act to maximize the good, but to follow
rules (even in cases where we know that breaking the rule could produce
better results).
In Ideal Code, Real World, Brad Hooker avoids this objection by not basing his form of rule-consequentialism on the ideal of maximizing the good. He writes:
[T]he best argument for rule-consequentialism is not that
it derives from an overarching commitment to maximise the good. The
best argument for rule-consequentialism is that it does a better job
than its rivals of matching and tying together our moral convictions, as
well as offering us help with our moral disagreements and
uncertainties.
Derek Parfit described Hooker's book as the "best statement and defence, so far, of one of the most important moral theories."
It is the business of the
benevolent man to seek to promote what is beneficial to the world and to
eliminate what is harmful, and to provide a model for the world. What
benefits he will carry out; what does not benefit men he will leave
alone (Chinese: 仁之事者, 必务求于天下之利, 除天下之害, 将以为法乎天下. 利人乎, 即为; 不利人乎, 即止).
— Mozi, Mozi (5th century BC) (Chapter 8: Against Music Part I)
State consequentialism, also known as Mohist consequentialism, is an ethical theory that evaluates the moral worth of an action based on how much it contributes to the welfare of a state. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Mohist consequentialism, dating back to the 5th century BCE, is the
"world's earliest form of consequentialism, a remarkably sophisticated
version based on a plurality of intrinsic goods taken as constitutive of human welfare."
Unlike utilitarianism, which views utility as the sole moral good, "the basic goods in Mohist consequentialist thinking are...order, material wealth, and increase in population." The word "order" refers to Mozi's stance against warfare and violence, which he viewed as pointless and a threat to social stability; "material wealth" of Mohist consequentialism refers to basic needs, like shelter and clothing; and "increase in population" relates to the time of Mozi, war and famine were common, and population growth was seen as a moral necessity for a harmonious society. In The Cambridge History of Ancient China, StanfordsinologistDavid Shepherd Nivison writes that the moral goods of Mohism "are interrelated: more basic wealth, then more reproduction; more people, then more production and wealth...if people have plenty, they would be good, filial, kind, and so on unproblematically."
The Mohists believed that morality is based on "promoting the benefit of all under heaven and eliminating harm to all under heaven." In contrast to Jeremy Bentham's views, state consequentialism is not utilitarian because it is not hedonistic or individualistic. The importance of outcomes that are good for the community outweigh the importance of individual pleasure and pain. The term state consequentialism has also been applied to the political philosophy of the Confucian philosopherXunzi. On the other hand, "legalist"Han Fei "is motivated almost totally from the ruler's point of view."
Ethical egoism can be understood as a consequentialist theory
according to which the consequences for the individual agent are taken
to matter more than any other result. Thus, egoism will prescribe actions that may be beneficial, detrimental, or neutral to the welfare of others. Some, like Henry Sidgwick, argue that a certain degree of egoism promotes
the general welfare of society for two reasons: because individuals
know how to please themselves best, and because if everyone were an
austere altruist then general welfare would inevitably decrease.
Two-level consequentialism
The two-level approach
involves engaging in critical reasoning and considering all the
possible ramifications of one's actions before making an ethical
decision, but reverting to generally reliable moral rules when one is
not in a position to stand back and examine the dilemma as a whole. In
practice, this equates to adhering to rule consequentialism when one can
only reason on an intuitive level, and to act consequentialism when in a
position to stand back and reason on a more critical level.
This position can be described as a reconciliation between act consequentialism—in which the morality of an action is determined by that action's effects—and rule consequentialism—in which moral behavior is derived from following rules that lead to positive outcomes.
The two-level approach to consequentialism is most often associated with R. M. Hare and Peter Singer.
Motive consequentialism
Another consequentialist application view is motive consequentialism, which looks at whether the state of affairs
that results from the motive to choose an action is better or at least
as good as each alternative state of affairs that would have resulted
from alternative actions. This version gives relevance to the motive of
an act and links it to its consequences. An act can therefore not be
wrong if the decision to act was based on a right motive. A possible
inference is that one can not be blamed for mistaken judgments if the
motivation was to do good.
Issues
Action guidance
One important characteristic of many normative
moral theories such as consequentialism is the ability to produce
practical moral judgements. At the very least, any moral theory needs to
define the standpoint from which the goodness of the consequences are
to be determined. What is primarily at stake here is the responsibility of the agent.
The ideal observer
One common tactic among consequentialists, particularly those committed to an altruistic (selfless) account of consequentialism, is to employ an ideal, neutral observer from which moral judgements can be made. John Rawls,
a critic of utilitarianism, argues that utilitarianism, in common with
other forms of consequentialism, relies on the perspective of such an ideal observer. The particular characteristics of this ideal observer can vary from an omniscient
observer, who would grasp all the consequences of any action, to an
ideally informed observer, who knows as much as could reasonably be
expected, but not necessarily all the circumstances or all the possible
consequences. Consequentialist theories that adopt this paradigm hold
that right action is the action that will bring about the best
consequences from this ideal observer's perspective.
The real observer
In practice, it is very difficult, and at times arguably impossible, to adopt the point of view of an ideal observer. Individual moral agents
do not know everything about their particular situations, and thus do
not know all the possible consequences of their potential actions. For
this reason, some theorists have argued that consequentialist theories
can only require agents to choose the best action in line with what they
know about the situation. However, if this approach is naïvely adopted, then moral agents who,
for example, recklessly fail to reflect on their situation, and act in a
way that brings about terrible results, could be said to be acting in a
morally justifiable way. Acting in a situation without first informing
oneself of the circumstances of the situation can lead to even the most
well-intended actions yielding miserable consequences. As a result, it
could be argued that there is a moral imperative for agents to inform
themselves as much as possible about a situation before judging the
appropriate course of action. This imperative, of course, is derived
from consequential thinking: a better-informed agent is able to bring
about better consequences.
Acts and omissions
Since
pure consequentialism holds that an action is to be judged solely by
its result, most consequentialist theories hold that a deliberate action
is no different from a deliberate decision not to act. This contrasts
with the "acts and omissions doctrine", which is upheld by some
medical ethicists and some religions: it asserts there is a significant
moral distinction between acts and deliberate non-actions which lead to
the same outcome. This contrast is brought out in issues such as voluntary euthanasia.
Actualism and possibilism
This section is about actualism and possibilism in ethics. For actualism and possibilism in metaphysics, see Actualism.
The normative status of an action depends on its consequences
according to consequentialism. The consequences of the actions of an
agent may include other actions by this agent. Actualism and possibilism
disagree on how later possible actions impact the normative status of
the current action by the same agent. Actualists assert that it is only
relevant what the agent would actually do later for assessing the
value of an alternative. Possibilists, on the other hand, hold that we
should also take into account what the agent could do, even if she would not do it.
For example, assume that Gifre has the choice between two
alternatives, eating a cookie or not eating anything. Having eaten the
first cookie, Gifre could stop eating cookies, which is the best
alternative. But after having tasted one cookie, Gifre would freely
decide to continue eating cookies until the whole bag is finished, which
would result in a terrible stomach ache and would be the worst
alternative. Not eating any cookies at all, on the other hand, would be
the second-best alternative. Now the question is: should Gifre eat the
first cookie or not? Actualists are only concerned with the actual
consequences. According to them, Gifre should not eat any cookies at all
since it is better than the alternative leading to a stomach ache.
Possibilists, however, contend that the best possible course of action
involves eating the first cookie and this is therefore what Gifre should
do.
One counterintuitive consequence of actualism is that agents can avoid moral obligations simply by having an imperfect moral character.For example, a lazy person might justify rejecting a request to help a
friend by arguing that, due to her lazy character, she would not have
done the work anyway, even if she had accepted the request. By rejecting
the offer right away, she managed at least not to waste anyone's time.
Actualists might even consider her behavior praiseworthy since she did
what, according to actualism, she ought to have done. This seems to be a
very easy way to "get off the hook" that is avoided by possibilism. But
possibilism has to face the objection that in some cases it sanctions
and even recommends what actually leads to the worst outcome.
Douglas W. Portmore has suggested that these and other problems
of actualism and possibilism can be avoided by constraining what counts
as a genuine alternative for the agent. On his view, it is a requirement that the agent has rational control
over the event in question. For example, eating only one cookie and
stopping afterward only is an option for Gifre if she has the rational
capacity to repress her temptation to continue eating. If the temptation
is irrepressible then this course of action is not considered to be an
option and is therefore not relevant when assessing what the best
alternative is. Portmore suggests that, given this adjustment, we should
prefer a view very closely associated with possibilism called maximalism.
Consequences for whom
Moral
action always has consequences for certain people or things. Varieties
of consequentialism can be differentiated by the beneficiary of the good
consequences. That is, one might ask "Consequences for whom?"
Agent-focused or agent-neutral
A
fundamental distinction can be drawn between theories which require
that agents act for ends perhaps disconnected from their own interests
and drives, and theories which permit that agents act for ends in which
they have some personal interest or motivation. These are called "agent-neutral" and "agent-focused" theories respectively.
Agent-neutral consequentialism ignores the specific value a
state of affairs has for any particular agent. Thus, in an
agent-neutral theory, an actor's personal goals do not count any more
than anyone else's goals in evaluating what action the actor should
take. Agent-focused consequentialism, on the other hand, focuses
on the particular needs of the moral agent. Thus, in an agent-focused
account, such as one that Peter Railton outlines, the agent might be concerned with the general welfare, but the agent is more concerned with the immediate welfare of herself and her friends and family.
These two approaches could be reconciled by acknowledging the
tension between an agent's interests as an individual and as a member of
various groups, and seeking to somehow optimize among all of these
interests. For example, it may be meaningful to speak of an action as being good
for someone as an individual, but bad for them as a citizen of their
town.
Non-humans
Many
consequentialist theories may seem primarily concerned with human
beings and their relationships with other human beings. However, some
philosophers argue that we should not limit our ethical consideration to
the interests of human beings alone. Jeremy Bentham, who is regarded as the founder of utilitarianism,
argues that animals can experience pleasure and pain, thus demanding
that 'non-human animals' should be a serious object of moral concern.
More recently, Peter Singer
has argued that it is unreasonable that we do not give equal
consideration to the interests of animals as to those of human beings
when we choose the way we are to treat them. Such equal consideration does not necessarily imply identical treatment
of humans and non-humans, any more than it necessarily implies
identical treatment of all humans.
Value of consequences
One
way to divide various consequentialisms is by the types of consequences
that are taken to matter most, that is, which consequences count as
good states of affairs. According to utilitarianism, a good action is one that results in an increase in pleasure, and the best action is one that results in the most pleasure for the greatest number. Closely related is eudaimonic
consequentialism, according to which a full, flourishing life, which
may or may not be the same as enjoying a great deal of pleasure, is the
ultimate aim. Similarly, one might adopt an aesthetic consequentialism,
in which the ultimate aim is to produce beauty. However, one might fix
on non-psychological goods as the relevant effect. Thus, one might
pursue an increase in material equality or political liberty
instead of something like the more ephemeral "pleasure". Other theories
adopt a package of several goods, all to be promoted equally. As the
consequentialist approach contains an inherent assumption that the
outcomes of a moral decision can be quantified in terms of "goodness" or
"badness," or at least put in order of increasing preference, it is an especially suited moral theory for a probabilistic and decision theoretical approach.
Criticisms
G. E. M. Anscombe
objects to the consequentialism of Sidgwick on the grounds that the
moral worth of an action is premised on the predictive capabilities of
the individual, relieving them of the responsibility for the "badness"
of an act should they "make out a case for not having foreseen" negative
consequences.
Immanuel Kant
makes a similar argument against consequentialism in the case of the
inquiring murder. The example asks whether or not it would be right to
give false statement to an inquiring murderer in order to misdirect the
individual away from the intended victim. He argues, in On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives,
that lying from "benevolent motives," here the motive to maximize the
good consequences by protecting the intended victim, should then make
the liar responsible for the consequences of the act. For example, it
could be that by misdirecting the inquiring murder away from where one
thought the intended victim was actually directed the murder to the
intended victim. That such an act is immoral mirrors Anscombe's objection to Sidgwick
that his consequentialism would problematically absolve the
consequentalist of moral responsibility when the consequentalist fails
to foresee the true consequences of an act.
Bernard Williams
has argued that consequentialism is alienating because it requires
moral agents to put too much distance between themselves and their own
projects and commitments. Williams argues that consequentialism requires
moral agents to take a strictly impersonal view of all actions, since
it is only the consequences, and not who produces them, that are said to
matter. Williams argues that this demands too much of moral
agents—since (he claims) consequentialism demands that they be willing
to sacrifice any and all personal projects and commitments in any given
circumstance in order to pursue the most beneficent course of action
possible. He argues further that consequentialism fails to make sense of
intuitions that it can matter whether or not someone is personally the
author of a particular consequence. For example, that participating in a
crime can matter, even if the crime would have been committed anyway,
or would even have been worse, without the agent's participation.
Some consequentialists—most notably Peter Railton—have
attempted to develop a form of consequentialism that acknowledges and
avoids the objections raised by Williams. Railton argues that Williams's
criticisms can be avoided by adopting a form of consequentialism in
which moral decisions are to be determined by the sort of life that they
express. On his account, the agent should choose the sort of life that
will, on the whole, produce the best overall effects.
Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations, as well as the ethics of using such technologies. Some transhumanists speculate that human beings may eventually be able
to transform themselves into beings of such vastly greater abilities as
to merit the label of posthuman beings.
The biologist Julian Huxley popularised the term "transhumanism" in a 1957 essay. The contemporary meaning of the term was foreshadowed by one of the first professors of futurology, a man who changed his name to FM-2030. In the 1960s, he taught "new concepts of the human" at The New School when he began to identify people who adopt technologies, lifestyles, and worldviews "transitional" to posthumanity as "transhuman". The assertion laid the intellectual groundwork for the British philosopher Max More to begin articulating the principles of transhumanism as a futurist
philosophy in 1990, organizing in California a school of thought that
has since grown into the worldwide transhumanist movement.
Influenced by seminal works of science fiction,
the transhumanist vision of a transformed future humanity has attracted
many supporters and detractors from a wide range of perspectives,
including philosophy and religion.
Transhumanists draw upon and claim continuity from intellectual and cultural traditions such as the ancient philosophy of Aristotle or the scientific tradition of Roger Bacon. In his Divine Comedy, Dante coined the word trasumanar meaning "to transcend human nature, to pass beyond human nature" in the first canto of Paradiso.
The interweaving of transhumanist aspirations with the scientific imagination can be seen in the works of some precursors of Enlightenment such as Francis Bacon.One of the early precursors to transhumanist ideas is René Descartes's Discourse on Method (1637), in which Descartes envisions a new kind of medicine that can grant both physical immortality and stronger minds.
There is debate about whether the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche can be considered an influence on transhumanism, despite its exaltation of the Übermensch (overhuman), due to its emphasis on self-actualization rather than technological transformation.The transhumanist philosophies of More and Sorgner have been influenced strongly by Nietzschean thinking. By contrast, The Transhumanist Declaration "advocates the well-being of all sentience (whether in artificial intellects, humans, posthumans, or non-human animals)".
The late 19th- to early 20th-century movement known as Russian cosmism, by Russian philosopher N. F. Fyodorov, is noted for anticipating transhumanist ideas. In 1966, FM-2030 (formerly F. M. Esfandiary), a futurist who taught "new concepts of the human" at The New School, in New York City, began to identify people who adopt technologies, lifestyles and worldviews transitional to posthumanity as "transhuman".
Early transhumanist thinking
Julian Huxley, the biologist who popularised the term transhumanism in an influential 1957 essay
Fundamental ideas of transhumanism were first advanced in 1923 by the British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane in his essay Daedalus: Science and the Future,
which predicted that great benefits would come from the application of
advanced sciences to human biology—and that every such advance would
first appear to someone as blasphemy or perversion, "indecent and
unnatural". In particular, he was interested in the development of the science of ectogenesis (creating and sustaining life in an artificial environment), eugenics, and the application of genetics to improve human characteristics such as health and intelligence.
His article inspired academic and popular interest. J. D. Bernal, a crystallographer at Cambridge, wrote The World, the Flesh and the Devil in 1929, in which he speculated on the prospects of space colonization and radical changes to human bodies and intelligence through bionic implants and cognitive enhancement. These ideas have been common transhumanist themes ever since.
The biologist Julian Huxley is generally regarded as the founder
of transhumanism after using the term for the title of an influential
1957 article. But the term derives from a 1940 paper by the Canadian philosopher W. D. Lighthall. Huxley describes transhumanism in these terms:
Up till now human life has generally been, as Hobbes
described it, "nasty, brutish and short"; the great majority of human
beings (if they have not already died young) have been afflicted with
misery… we can justifiably hold the belief that these lands of
possibility exist, and that the present limitations and miserable
frustrations of our existence could be in large measure surmounted… The
human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself—not just sporadically,
an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but
in its entirety, as humanity.
Huxley's definition differs, albeit not substantially, from the one
commonly in use since the 1980s. The ideas raised by these thinkers were
explored in the science fiction of the 1960s, notably in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which an alien artifact grants transcendent power to its wielder.
Japanese Metabolist architects produced a manifesto in 1960 which outlined goals to "encourage active metabolic development of our society" through design and technology. In the Material and Man section of the manifesto, Noboru Kawazoe suggests that:
After
several decades, with the rapid progress of communication technology,
every one will have a "brain wave receiver" in his ear, which conveys
directly and exactly what other people think about him and vice versa.
What I think will be known by all the people. There is no more
individual consciousness, only the will of mankind as a whole.
Artificial intelligence and the technological singularity
Let an ultraintelligent machine be
defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual
activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is
one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could
design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an
"intelligence explosion," and the intelligence of man would be left far
behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention
that man need ever make.
Computer scientist Marvin Minsky wrote on relationships between human and artificial intelligence beginning in the 1960s. Over the succeeding decades, this field continued to generate influential thinkers, such as Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil, who oscillated between the technical arena and futuristic speculations in the transhumanist vein. The coalescence of an identifiable transhumanist movement began in the last decades of the 20th century. In 1972, Robert Ettinger, whose 1964 Prospect of Immortality founded the cryonics movement, contributed to the conceptualization of "transhumanity" with his 1972 Man into Superman. FM-2030 published the Upwingers Manifesto in 1973.
The first self-described transhumanists met formally in the early 1980s at the University of California, Los Angeles, which became the main center of transhumanist thought. Here, FM-2030 lectured on his "Third Way" futurist ideology. At the EZTV Media venue, frequented by transhumanists and other futurists, Natasha Vita-More presented Breaking Away,
her 1980 experimental film with the theme of humans breaking away from
their biological limitations and the Earth's gravity as they head into
space. FM-2030 and Vita-More soon began holding gatherings for transhumanists in Los Angeles,
which included students from FM-2030's courses and audiences from
Vita-More's artistic productions. In 1982, Vita-More authored the Transhumanist Arts Statement and in 1988 she produced the cable TV show TransCentury Update on transhumanity, a program that reached over 100,000 viewers.
In 1986, Eric Drexler published Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, which discussed the prospects for nanotechnology and molecular assemblers, and founded the Foresight Institute. As the first nonprofit organization to research, advocate for, and perform cryonics, the Southern California offices of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation became a center for futurists. In 1988, the first issue of Extropy Magazine was published by Max More
and Tom Morrow. In 1990, More, a strategic philosopher, created his own
particular transhumanist doctrine, which took the form of the Principles of Extropy, and laid the foundation of modern transhumanism by giving it a new definition:
Transhumanism is a class of
philosophies that seek to guide us towards a posthuman condition.
Transhumanism shares many elements of humanism, including a respect for
reason and science, a commitment to progress, and a valuing of human (or
transhuman) existence in this life. [...] Transhumanism differs from
humanism in recognizing and anticipating the radical alterations in the
nature and possibilities of our lives resulting from various sciences
and technologies [...]
In 1992, More and Morrow founded the Extropy Institute, a catalyst for networking futurists and brainstorming new memeplexes
by organizing a series of conferences and, more importantly, providing a
mailing list, which exposed many to transhumanist views for the first
time during the rise of cyberculture and the cyberdelic counterculture. In 1998, philosophers Nick Bostrom and David Pearce founded the World Transhumanist Association
(WTA), an international non-governmental organization working toward
the recognition of transhumanism as a legitimate subject of scientific inquiry and public policy. In 2002, the WTA modified and adopted The Transhumanist Declaration.The Transhumanist FAQ, prepared by the WTA (later Humanity+), gave two formal definitions for transhumanism:
The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the
possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human
condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making
widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance
human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.
The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of
technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human
limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in
developing and using such technologies.
In possible contrast with other transhumanist organizations, WTA
officials considered that social forces could undermine their futurist
visions and needed to be addressed. A particular concern is equal access to human enhancement technologies across classes and borders. In 2006, a political struggle within the transhumanist movement between the libertarian right and the liberal left resulted in a more centre-leftward positioning of the WTA under its former executive director James Hughes. In 2006, the board of directors of the Extropy Institute ceased
operations of the organization, saying that its mission was "essentially
completed". This left the World Transhumanist Association as the leading
international transhumanist organization. In 2008, as part of a
rebranding effort, the WTA changed its name to "Humanity+". In 2012, the transhumanist Longevity Party
had been initiated as an international union of people who promote the
development of scientific and technological means to significant life
extension that now has more than 30 national organisations throughout
the world.
The Mormon Transhumanist Association was founded in 2006. By 2012, it had hundreds of members.
The first transhumanist elected member of a parliament was Giuseppe Vatinno, in 2012 in Italy.
It is a matter of debate whether transhumanism is a branch of posthumanism and how this philosophical movement should be conceptualised with regard to transhumanism.Transhumanism is often referred to as a variant or activist form of posthumanism by its conservative, Christian and progressive critics.
A common feature of transhumanism and philosophical posthumanism
is the future vision of a new intelligent species, into which humanity
will evolve and which eventually will supplement or supersede it.
Transhumanism stresses the evolutionary perspective, including sometimes
the creation of a highly intelligent animal species by way of cognitive
enhancement (i.e. biological uplift), but clings to a "posthuman future" as the final goal of participant evolution.
Nevertheless, the idea of creating intelligent artificial beings (proposed, for example, by roboticist Hans Moravec) has influenced transhumanism. Moravec's ideas and transhumanism have also been characterised as a "complacent" or "apocalyptic" variant of posthumanism and contrasted with "cultural posthumanism" in humanities and the arts. While such a "cultural posthumanism" would offer resources for
rethinking the relationships between humans and increasingly
sophisticated machines, transhumanism and similar posthumanisms are, in
this view, not abandoning obsolete concepts of the "autonomous liberal subject", but are expanding its "prerogatives" into the realm of the posthuman. Transhumanist self-characterisations as a continuation of humanism and Enlightenment thinking correspond with this view.
Some secular humanists conceive transhumanism as an offspring of the humanist freethought
movement and argue that transhumanists differ from the humanist
mainstream by having a specific focus on technological approaches to
resolving human concerns (i.e. technocentrism) and on the issue of mortality. Other progressives have argued that posthumanism, in its philosophical
or activist forms, amounts to a shift away from concerns about social justice, from the reform of human institutions
and from other Enlightenment preoccupations, toward narcissistic
longings to transcend the human body in quest of more exquisite ways of
being.
The philosophy of transhumanism is closely related to technoself studies,
an interdisciplinary domain of scholarly research dealing with all
aspects of human identity in a technological society and focusing on the
changing nature of relationships between humans and technology.
Aims
You
awake one morning to find your brain has another lobe functioning.
Invisible, this auxiliary lobe answers your questions with information
beyond the realm of your own memory, suggests plausible courses of
action, and asks questions that help bring out relevant facts. You
quickly come to rely on the new lobe so much that you stop wondering how
it works. You just use it. This is the dream of artificial
intelligence.
While many transhumanist theorists and advocates seek to apply
reason, science and technology to reduce poverty, disease, disability,
and malnutrition around the globe, transhumanism is distinctive in its particular focus on the
applications of technologies to the improvement of human bodies at the
individual level. Many transhumanists actively assess the potential for
future technologies and innovative social systems to improve the quality
of all life,
while seeking to make the material reality of the human condition
fulfill the promise of legal and political equality by eliminating congenital mental and physical barriers.
Transhumanist philosophers argue that there not only exists a perfectionist ethical imperative
for humans to strive for progress and improvement of the human
condition, but that it is possible and desirable for humanity to enter a
transhuman phase of existence in which humans enhance themselves beyond
what is naturally human. In such a phase, natural evolution would be
replaced with deliberate participatory or directed evolution.
Some theorists such as Ray Kurzweil think that the pace of technological innovation is accelerating and that the next 50 years may yield not only radical technological advances, but possibly a technological singularity, which may fundamentally change the nature of human beings. Transhumanists who foresee this massive technological change generally
maintain that it is desirable, but some are concerned about the dangers
of extremely rapid technological change and propose options for ensuring
that advanced technology is used responsibly. For example, Bostrom has
written extensively on existential risks to humanity's future welfare, including ones that emerging technologies could create. In contrast, some proponents of transhumanism view it as essential to
humanity's survival. For instance, Stephen Hawking points out that the
"external transmission" phase of human evolution, where knowledge production and knowledge management is more important than transmission of information via evolution, may be the point at which human civilization becomes unstable and self-destructs, one of Hawking's explanations for the Fermi paradox. To counter this, Hawking emphasizes either self-design of the human genome or mechanical enhancement (e.g., brain-computer interface) to enhance human intelligence and reduce aggression,
without which he implies human civilization may be too stupid
collectively to survive an increasingly unstable system, resulting in societal collapse.
While many people believe that all transhumanists are striving
for immortality, that is not necessarily true. Hank Pellissier, managing
director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
(2011–2012), surveyed transhumanists. He found that, of the 818
respondents, 23.8% did not want immortality. Some of the reasons argued were boredom, Earth's overpopulation, and the desire "to go to an afterlife".
Ethics
Transhumanists engage in interdisciplinary approaches to understand and evaluate possibilities for overcoming biological limitations by drawing on futurology and various fields of ethics. Unlike many philosophers, social critics, and activists who morally
value preservation of natural systems, transhumanists see the concept of
the specifically natural as problematically nebulous at best and an
obstacle to progress at worst. In keeping with this, many prominent transhumanist advocates, such as
Dan Agin, call transhumanism's critics, on the political right and left
jointly, "bioconservatives" or "bioluddites", the latter term alluding to the 19th-century anti-industrialisation social movement that opposed the replacement of human manual labourers by machines.
A belief of counter-transhumanism is that transhumanism can cause
unfair human enhancement in many areas of life, but specifically on the
social plane. This can be compared to steroid use, where athletes who use steroids in sports have an advantage over those who do not.
The same disparity may happen when people have certain neural implants
that give them an advantage in the workplace and in education. Additionally, according to M.J. McNamee and S.D. Edwards, many fear
that the improvements afforded by a specific, privileged section of
society will lead to a division of the human species into two different
species. The idea of two human species, one at a great physical and economic
advantage over with the other, is troublesome at best. One may be
incapable of breeding with the other, and may by consequence of lower
physical health and ability, be considered of a lower moral standing
than the other.
Nick Bostrom has said that transhumanism advocates for the wellbeing of all sentient beings, including non-human animals, extraterrestrials, and artificial forms of life. This view is reiterated by David Pearce, who advocates the use of biotechnology to eradicate suffering in all sentient beings.
Currents
There
is a variety of opinions within transhumanist thought. Many of the
leading transhumanist thinkers hold views that are under constant
revision and development. Some distinctive currents of transhumanism are identified and listed here in alphabetical order:
Abolitionism, the concept of using biotechnology to eradicate suffering in all sentient beings.
Equalism,
a socioeconomic theory based upon the idea that emerging technologies
will put an end to social stratification through even distribution of
resources in the technological singularity era.
Extropianism, an early school of transhumanist thought characterized by a set of principles advocating a proactive approach to human evolution.
Immortalism, a moral ideology based upon the belief that radical life extension and technological immortality is possible and desirable, and advocating research and development to ensure its realization.
Postpoliticism, a transhumanist political proposal that aims to create a "postdemocratic state" based on reason and free access of enhancement technologies to people.
Singularitarianism, a moral ideology based upon the belief that a technological singularity is possible, and advocating deliberate action to effect it and ensure its safety.
Technogaianism,
an ecological ideology based upon the belief that emerging technologies
can help restore Earth's environment and that developing safe, clean, alternative technology should therefore be an important goal of environmentalists.
Spirituality
Although many transhumanists are atheists, agnostics, or secular humanists, some have religious or spiritual views. Despite the prevailing secular attitude, some transhumanists pursue
hopes traditionally espoused by religions, such as immortality, while several controversial new religious movements
from the late 20th century have explicitly embraced transhumanist goals
of transforming the human condition by applying technology to alter the
mind and body, such as Raëlism. But most thinkers associated with the transhumanism focus on the
practical goals of using technology to help achieve longer and healthier
lives, while speculating that future understanding of neurotheology and the application of neurotechnology will enable humans to gain greater control of altered states of consciousness, which were commonly interpreted as spiritual experiences, and thus achieve more profound self-knowledge. Transhumanist Buddhists have sought to explore areas of agreement between various types of Buddhism and Buddhist-derived meditation and mind-expanding neurotechnologies. They have been criticised for appropriating mindfulness as a tool for transcending humanness.
Some transhumanists believe in the compatibility between the
human mind and computer hardware, with the theoretical implication that
human consciousness may someday be transferred to alternative media (a
speculative technique commonly known as mind uploading). One extreme formulation of this idea that interests some transhumanists is the proposal of the Omega Point by Christian cosmologist Frank Tipler. Drawing upon ideas in digitalism, Tipler has advanced the notion that the collapse of the Universe billions of years hence could create the conditions for the perpetuation of humanity in a simulated reality within a megacomputer and thus achieve a form of "posthuman godhood". Before Tipler, the term Omega Point was used by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a paleontologist and Jesuit theologian who saw an evolutionary telos in the development of an encompassing noosphere, a global consciousness.
Viewed from the perspective of some Christian thinkers, the idea of mind uploading is asserted to represent a denigration of the human body, characteristic of gnostic manichaean belief. Transhumanism and its presumed intellectual progenitors have also been described as neo-gnostic by non-Christian and secular commentators.
The first dialogue between transhumanism and faith was a one-day conference at the University of Toronto in 2004. Religious critics alone faulted transhumanism for offering no eternal
truths or relationship with the divine. They commented that a philosophy
bereft of these beliefs leaves humanity adrift in a foggy sea of postmoderncynicism and anomie.
Transhumanists responded that such criticisms reflect a failure to look
at the actual content of transhumanist philosophy, which, far from
being cynical, is rooted in optimistic, idealistic attitudes that trace
back to the Enlightenment. Following this dialogue, William Sims Bainbridge, a sociologist of religion, conducted a pilot study, published in the Journal of Evolution and Technology,
suggesting that religious attitudes were negatively correlated with
acceptance of transhumanist ideas and indicating that people with highly
religious worldviews tended to perceive transhumanism as a direct,
competitive (though ultimately futile) affront to their spiritual
beliefs.
Since 2006, the Mormon Transhumanist Association sponsors
conferences and lectures on the intersection of technology and religion. The Christian Transhumanist Association was established in 2014.
Since 2009, the American Academy of Religion holds a "Transhumanism and Religion" consultation during its annual meeting, where scholars in the field of religious studies
seek to identify and critically evaluate any implicit religious beliefs
that might underlie key transhumanist claims and assumptions; consider
how transhumanism challenges religious traditions to develop their own
ideas of the human future, in particular the prospect of human
transformation, whether by technological or other means; and provide
critical and constructive assessments of an envisioned future that place
greater confidence in nanotechnology, robotics and information
technology to achieve virtual immortality and create a superior
posthuman species.
The physicist and transhumanist thinker Giulio Prisco
states that "cosmist religions based on science, might be our best
protection from reckless pursuit of superintelligence and other risky
technologies." He also recognizes the importance of spiritual ideas, such as those of Russian Orthodox philosopher Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov, to the origins of the transhumanism movement.
Practice
While
some transhumanists such as Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec take an
abstract and theoretical approach to the perceived benefits of emerging
technologies, others have offered specific proposals for modifications
to the human body, including heritable ones. Transhumanists are often
concerned with methods of enhancing the human nervous system. Though some, such as Kevin Warwick, propose modification of the peripheral nervous system, the brain is considered the common denominator of personhood and is thus a primary focus of transhumanist ambitions.
In fact, Warwick has gone a lot further than merely making a
proposal. In 2002 he had a 100 electrode array surgically implanted into
the median nerves of his left arm to link his nervous system directly
with a computer and thus to also connect with the internet. As a
consequence, he carried out a series of experiments. He was able to
directly control a robot hand using his neural signals and to feel the
force applied by the hand through feedback from the fingertips. He also
experienced a form of ultrasonic sensory input and conducted the first
purely electronic communication between his own nervous system and that
of his wife who also had electrodes implanted.
As proponents of self-improvement and body modification,
transhumanists tend to use existing technologies and techniques that
supposedly improve cognitive and physical performance, while engaging in
routines and lifestyles designed to improve health and longevity. Depending on their age, some transhumanists, such as Kurzweil, express
concern that they will not live to reap the benefits of future
technologies. However, many have a great interest in life extension strategies and in funding research in cryonics to make the latter a viable option of last resort, rather than remaining an unproven method.
While most transhumanist theory focuses on future technologies
and the changes they may bring, many today are already involved in the
practice on a very basic level. It is not uncommon for many to receive
cosmetic changes to their physical form via cosmetic surgery, even if it
is not required for health reasons. Human growth hormones attempt to
alter the natural development of shorter children or those who have been
born with a physical deficiency. Doctors prescribe medicines such as
Ritalin and Adderall to improve cognitive focus, and many people take
"lifestyle" drugs such as Viagra, Propecia, and Botox to restore aspects
of youthfulness that have been lost in maturity.
Other transhumanists, such as cyborg artist Neil Harbisson,
use technologies and techniques to improve their senses and perception
of reality. Harbisson's antenna, which is permanently implanted in his
skull, allows him to sense colours beyond human perception such as
infrareds and ultraviolets.
Some reports on the converging technologies and NBIC concepts
have criticised their transhumanist orientation and alleged science
fictional character. At the same time, research on brain and body alteration technologies has been accelerated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Defense, which is interested in the battlefield advantages they would provide to the supersoldiers of the United States and its allies. There has already been a brain research program to "extend the ability
to manage information", while military scientists are now looking at
stretching the human capacity for combat to a maximum 168 hours without
sleep.
The very notion and prospect of human enhancement and related issues arouse public controversy. Criticisms of transhumanism and its proposals take two main forms:
those objecting to the likelihood of transhumanist goals being achieved
(practical criticisms) and those objecting to the moral principles or
worldview sustaining transhumanist proposals or underlying transhumanism
itself (ethical criticisms). Critics and opponents often see
transhumanists' goals as posing threats to human values.
The human enhancement debate is, for some, framed by the opposition between strong bioconservatism
and transhumanism. The former opposes any form of human enhancement,
whereas the latter advocates for all possible human enhancements. But many philosophers hold a more nuanced view in favour of some
enhancements while rejecting the transhumanist carte blanche approach.
Transhumanists argue that parents have a moral responsibility called procreative beneficence
to make use of these methods, if and when they are shown to be
reasonably safe and effective, to have the healthiest children possible.
They believe this responsibility is a moral judgment best left to
individual conscience, rather than imposed by law, in all but extreme
cases. In this context, the emphasis on freedom of choice is called procreative liberty.
Some of the best-known critiques of the transhumanist program are
novels and fictional films. These works, despite presenting imagined
worlds rather than philosophical analyses, are touchstones for some of
the more formal arguments. Various arguments have been made to the effect that a society that
adopts human enhancement technologies may come to resemble the dystopia depicted in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World.
Some authors consider humanity already transhuman, because recent
medical advances have significantly altered our species. But this has
not happened in a conscious and therefore transhumanistic way. From such a perspective, transhumanism is perpetually aspirational: as
new technologies become mainstream, the adoption of still unadopted
technologies becomes a new shifting goal.
Giuseppe Vattino, a member of Italy's parliament, believes
transhumanism will make people "less subject to the whims of nature,
such as illness or climate extremes".
Feasibility
In
a 1992 book, sociologist Max Dublin pointed to many past failed
predictions of technological progress and argued that modern futurist
predictions would prove similarly inaccurate. He also objected to what
he saw as scientism, fanaticism and nihilism by a few in advancing transhumanist causes. Dublin also said that historical parallels existed between Millenarian religions and Communist doctrines.
Although generally sympathetic to transhumanism, public health professor Gregory Stock is skeptical of the technical feasibility and mass appeal of the cyborgization of humanity predicted by Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, and Kevin Warwick.
He said that, throughout the 21st century, many humans will be deeply
integrated into systems of machines, but remain biological. Primary
changes to their own form and character would arise not from cyberware, but from the direct manipulation of their genetics, metabolism and biochemistry.
In her 1992 book Science as Salvation, philosopher Mary Midgley traces the notion of achieving immortality by transcendence
of the material human body (echoed in the transhumanist tenet of mind
uploading) to a group of male scientific thinkers of the early 20th
century, including J. B. S. Haldane and members of his circle. She characterizes these ideas as "quasi-scientific dreams and prophesies" involving visions of escape from the body coupled with "self-indulgent, uncontrolled power-fantasies". Her argument focuses on what she perceives as the pseudoscientific speculations and irrational, fear-of-death-driven fantasies of these thinkers, their disregard for laymen and the remoteness of their eschatological visions.
Another critique is aimed mainly at "algeny" (a portmanteau of alchemy and genetics), which Jeremy Rifkin
defined as "the upgrading of existing organisms and the design of
wholly new ones with the intent of 'perfecting' their performance". It emphasizes the issue of biocomplexity and the unpredictability of attempts to guide the development of products of biological evolution. This argument, elaborated in particular by the biologist Stuart Newman, is based on the recognition that cloning and germlinegenetic engineering of animals are error-prone and inherently disruptive of embryonic development.
Accordingly, so it is argued, it would create unacceptable risks to use
such methods on human embryos. Performing experiments, particularly
ones with permanent biological consequences, on developing humans would
thus be in violation of accepted principles governing research on human
subjects (see the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki).
Moreover, because improvements in experimental outcomes in one species
are not automatically transferable to a new species without further
experimentation, it is claimed that there is no ethical route to genetic
manipulation of humans at early developmental stages.
As a practical matter, international protocols on human subject
research may not present a legal obstacle to attempts by transhumanists
and others to improve their offspring by germinal choice technology.
According to legal scholar Kirsten Rabe Smolensky, existing laws protect
parents who choose to enhance their child's genome from future
liability arising from adverse outcomes of the procedure.
Transhumanists and other supporters of human genetic engineering
do not dismiss practical concerns out of hand, insofar as there is a
high degree of uncertainty about the timelines and likely outcomes of
genetic modification experiments in humans. But bioethicistJames Hughes
suggests that one possible ethical route to the genetic manipulation of
humans at early developmental stages is the building of computer models
of the human genome, the proteins it specifies and the tissue
engineering he argues that it also codes for. With the exponential
progress in bioinformatics,
Hughes believes that a virtual model of genetic expression in the human
body will not be far behind and that it will soon be possible to
accelerate approval of genetic modifications by simulating their effects
on virtual humans.[7]Public health professor Gregory Stock points to artificial chromosomes as a safer alternative to existing genetic engineering techniques.
Thinkers who defend the likelihood of accelerating change
point to a past pattern of exponential increases in humanity's
technological capacities. Kurzweil developed this position in his 2005
book The Singularity Is Near.
Intrinsic immorality
Some argue that, in transhumanist thought, humans attempt to substitute themselves for God. The 2002 Vatican statement Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, stated that "changing the genetic identity of man as a human person through the production of an infrahuman
being is radically immoral", implying, that "man has full right of
disposal over his own biological nature". The statement also argues that
creation of a superhuman or spiritually superior being is
"unthinkable", since true improvement can come only through religious
experience and "realizing more fully the image of God".
Christian theologians and lay activists of several churches and
denominations have expressed similar objections to transhumanism and
claimed that Christians attain in the afterlife what radical
transhumanism promises, such as indefinite life extension or the abolition of suffering. In this view, transhumanism is just another representative of the long line of utopian movements which seek to create "heaven on earth". On the other hand, religious thinkers allied with transhumanist goals such as the theologians Ronald Cole-Turner and Ted Peters hold that the doctrine of "co-creation" provides an obligation to use genetic engineering to improve human biology.
Other critics target what they claim to be an instrumental
conception of the human body in the writings of Minsky, Moravec, and
some other transhumanists. Reflecting a strain of feminist criticism of the transhumanist program, philosopher Susan Bordo
points to "contemporary obsessions with slenderness, youth and physical
perfection", which she sees as affecting both men and women, but in
distinct ways, as "the logical (if extreme) manifestations of anxieties
and fantasies fostered by our culture." Some critics question other social implications of the movement's focus on body modification.
Political scientist Klaus-Gerd Giesen, in particular, has asserted that
transhumanism's concentration on altering the human body represents the
logical yet tragic consequence of atomized individualism and body commodification within a consumer culture.
Bostrom responds that the desire to regain youth,
specifically, and transcend the natural limitations of the human body,
in general, is pan-cultural and pan-historical, not uniquely tied to the
culture of the 20th century. He argues that the transhumanist program
is an attempt to channel that desire into a scientific project on par
with the Human Genome Project and achieve humanity's oldest hope, rather than a puerile fantasy or social trend.
Loss of human identity
In the U.S., the Amish
are a religious group most known for their avoidance of certain modern
technologies. Transhumanists draw a parallel by arguing that in the
near-future there will probably be "humanish", people who choose to
"stay human" by not adopting human enhancement technologies. They
believe their choice must be respected and protected.
In his 2003 book Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, environmental ethicistBill McKibben argued at length against many of the technologies that are postulated or supported by transhumanists, including germinal choice technology, nanomedicine
and life extension strategies. He claims that it would be morally wrong
for humans to tamper with fundamental aspects of themselves (or their
children) in an attempt to overcome universal human limitations, such as
vulnerability to aging, maximum life span
and biological constraints on physical and cognitive ability. Attempts
to "improve" themselves through such manipulation would remove
limitations that provide a necessary context for the experience of
meaningful human choice. He claims that human lives would no longer seem
meaningful in a world where such limitations could be overcome
technologically. Even the goal of using germinal choice technology for
clearly therapeutic purposes should be relinquished, since it would
inevitably produce temptations to tamper with such things as cognitive
capacities. He argues that it is possible for societies to benefit from
renouncing particular technologies, using as examples Ming China, Tokugawa Japan and the contemporary Amish.
Biopolitical activist Jeremy Rifkin and biologist Stuart Newman accept that biotechnology has the power to make profound changes in organismal
identity. They argue against the genetic engineering of human beings
because they fear the blurring of the boundary between human and artifact.Philosopher Keekok Lee sees such developments as part of an accelerating trend in modernization in which technology has been used to transform the "natural" into the "artefactual". In the extreme, this could lead to the manufacturing and enslavement of "monsters" such as human clones, human-animalchimeras, or bioroids, but even lesser dislocations of humans and non-humans from social and ecological systems are seen as problematic. The film Blade Runner (1982) and the novels The Boys From Brazil (1976) and The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) depict elements of such scenarios, but Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is most often alluded to by critics who suggest that biotechnologies could create objectified and socially unmoored people as well as subhumans. Such critics propose that strict measures be implemented to prevent what they portray as dehumanizing possibilities from ever happening, usually in the form of an international ban on human genetic engineering.
Science journalistRonald Bailey claims that McKibben's historical examples are flawed and support different conclusions when studied more closely. For example, few groups are more cautious than the Amish about
embracing new technologies, but, though they shun television and use
horses and buggies, some are welcoming the possibilities of gene therapy since inbreeding has afflicted them with a number of rare genetic diseases. Bailey and other supporters of technological alteration of human
biology also reject the claim that life would be experienced as
meaningless if some human limitations are overcome with enhancement technologies as extremely subjective.
Writing in Reason magazine, Bailey has accused opponents of research involving the modification of animals as indulging in alarmism when they speculate about the creation of subhuman creatures with human-like intelligence and brains resembling those of Homo sapiens. Bailey insists that the aim of conducting research on animals is simply to produce human health care benefits.
A different response comes from transhumanist personhood theorists
who object to what they characterize as the anthropomorphobia fueling
some criticisms of this research, which science fiction writer Isaac Asimov termed the "Frankenstein complex". For example, Woody Evans argues that, provided they are self-aware, human clones, human-animal chimeras and uplifted animals would all be unique persons deserving of respect, dignity, rights, responsibilities, and citizenship. They conclude that the coming ethical issue is not the creation of so-called monsters, but what they characterize as the "yuck factor" and "human-racism", that would judge and treat these creations as monstrous. In book 3 of his Corrupting the Image
series, Douglas Hamp goes so far as to suggest that the Beast of John's
Apocalypse is himself a hybrid who will induce humanity to take "the mark of the Beast", in the hopes of obtaining perfection and immortality.
Some critics of libertarian transhumanism have focused on the likely socioeconomic consequences in societies in which divisions between rich and poor are on the rise. Bill McKibben,
for example, suggests that emerging human enhancement technologies
would be disproportionately available to those with greater financial
resources, thereby exacerbating the gap between rich and poor and
creating a "genetic divide". Even Lee M. Silver, the biologist and science writer who coined the term "reprogenetics"
and supports its applications, has expressed concern that these methods
could create a two-tiered society of genetically engineered "haves" and
"have nots" if social democratic reforms lag behind implementation of enhancement technologies. The 1997 film Gattaca
depicts a dystopian society in which one's social class depends
entirely on genetic potential and is often cited by critics in support
of these views.
Sometimes, as in the writings of Leon Kass, the fear is that various institutions and practices judged as fundamental to civilized society would be damaged or destroyed. In his 2002 book Our Posthuman Future and in a 2004 Foreign Policy magazine article, political economist and philosopher Francis Fukuyama designates transhumanism as the world's most dangerous idea because he believes it may undermine the egalitarian ideals of democracy (in general) and liberal democracy (in particular) through a fundamental alteration of "human nature". Social philosopher Jürgen Habermas makes a similar argument in his 2003 book The Future of Human Nature,
in which he asserts that moral autonomy depends on not being subject to
another's unilaterally imposed specifications. Habermas thus suggests
that the human "species ethic" would be undermined by embryo-stage
genetic alteration. Critics such as Kass and Fukuyama hold that attempts to significantly
alter human biology are not only inherently immoral, but also threaten
the social order. Alternatively, they argue that implementation of such technologies would likely lead to the "naturalizing" of social hierarchies or place new means of control in the hands of totalitarian regimes. AI pioneer Joseph Weizenbaum criticizes what he sees as misanthropic
tendencies in the language and ideas of some of his colleagues, in
particular Minsky and Moravec, which, by devaluing the human organism
per se, promotes a discourse that enables divisive and undemocratic
social policies.
In a 2004 article in the libertarian monthly Reason, science journalist Ronald Bailey
contested Fukuyama's assertions by arguing that political equality has
never rested on the facts of human biology. He asserts that liberalism was founded not on the proposition of effective equality of human beings, or de facto equality, but on the assertion of an equality in political rights and before the law, or de jure
equality. Bailey asserts that the products of genetic engineering may
well ameliorate rather than exacerbate human inequality, giving to the
many what were once the privileges of the few. Moreover, he argues, "the
crowning achievement of the Enlightenment is the principle of
tolerance". In fact, he says, political liberalism is already the
solution to the issue of human and posthuman
rights since in liberal societies the law is meant to apply equally to
all, no matter how rich or poor, powerful or powerless, educated or
ignorant, enhanced or unenhanced. Other thinkers sympathetic to transhumanist ideas, such as Russell Blackford, have also objected to the appeal to tradition and what they see as alarmism involved in Brave New World-type arguments.
Cultural aesthetics
In
addition to the socioeconomic risks and implications of transhumanism,
there are indeed implications and possible consequences in regard to
cultural aesthetics. Currently, there are a number of ways in which
people choose to represent themselves in society. The way in which a
person dresses, hair styles, and body alteration all serve to identify
the way a person presents themselves and is perceived by society.
According to Foucault, society already governs and controls bodies by making them feel
watched. This "surveillance" of society dictates how the majority of
individuals choose to express themselves aesthetically.
One of the risks outlined in a 2004 article by Jerold Abrams is
the elimination of differences in favor of universality. This, he
argues, will eliminate the ability of individuals to subvert the
possibly oppressive, dominant structure of society by way of uniquely
expressing themselves externally. Such control over a population would
have dangerous implications of tyranny. Yet another consequence of
enhancing the human form not only cognitively, but physically, will be
the reinforcement of "desirable" traits which are perpetuated by the
dominant social structure.
The tradition of human enhancement originated with the eugenics
movement that was once prominent in the biological sciences, and was
later politicized in various ways. This continuity is especially clear in the case of Julian Huxley himself.
The major transhumanist organizations strongly condemn the coercion involved in such policies and reject the racist and classist assumptions on which they were based, along with the pseudoscientific
notions that eugenic improvements could be accomplished in a
practically meaningful time frame through selective human breeding. Instead, most transhumanist thinkers advocate a "new eugenics", a form of egalitarianliberal eugenics. In their 2000 book From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice,
non-transhumanist bioethicists Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman
Daniels and Daniel Wikler have argued that liberal societies have an
obligation to encourage as wide an adoption of eugenic enhancement
technologies as possible (so long as such policies do not infringe on
individuals' reproductive rights or exert undue pressures on prospective parents to use these technologies) to maximize public health and minimize the inequalities that may result from both natural genetic endowments and unequal access to genetic enhancements. Most transhumanists holding similar views nonetheless distance themselves from the term "eugenics" (preferring "germinal choice" or "reprogenetics") to avoid having their position confused with the discredited theories and practices of early-20th-century eugenic movements.
Health law professor George Annas and technology law professor Lori Andrews are prominent advocates of the position that the use of these technologies could lead to human-posthuman caste warfare.
In his 2003 book Our Final Hour, British Astronomer RoyalMartin Rees
argues that advanced science and technology bring as much risk of
disaster as opportunity for progress. However, Rees does not advocate a
halt to scientific activity. Instead, he calls for tighter security and
perhaps an end to traditional scientific openness. Advocates of the precautionary principle, such as many in the environmental movement,
also favor slow, careful progress or a halt in potentially dangerous
areas. Some precautionists believe that artificial intelligence and robotics present possibilities of alternative forms of cognition that may threaten human life.
Transhumanists do not necessarily rule out specific restrictions
on emerging technologies so as to lessen the prospect of existential
risk. Generally, however, they counter that proposals based on the
precautionary principle are often unrealistic and sometimes even counter-productive as opposed to the technogaian current of transhumanism, which they claim is both realistic and productive. In his television series Connections, science historian James Burke dissects several views on technological change, including precautionism and the restriction of open inquiry. Burke questions the practicality of some of these views, but concludes that maintaining the status quo
of inquiry and development poses hazards of its own, such as a
disorienting rate of change and the depletion of our planet's resources.
The common transhumanist position is a pragmatic one where society
takes deliberate action to ensure the early arrival of the benefits of
safe, clean, alternative technology, rather than fostering what it considers to be anti-scientific views and technophobia.
Nick Bostrom argues that even barring the occurrence of a singular global catastrophic event, basic Malthusian and evolutionary forces facilitated by technological progress threaten to eliminate the positive aspects of human society.
One transhumanist solution proposed by Bostrom to counter existential risks is control of differential technological development,
a series of attempts to influence the sequence in which technologies
are developed. In this approach, planners would strive to retard the
development of possibly harmful technologies and their applications,
while accelerating the development of likely beneficial technologies,
especially those that offer protection against the harmful effects of
others.
In their 2021 book Calamity Theory, Joshua Schuster and
Derek Woods critique existential risks by arguing against Bostrom's
transhumanist perspective, which emphasizes controlling and mitigating
these risks through technological advancements. They contend that this
approach relies too much on fringe science
and speculative technologies and fails to address deeper philosophical
and ethical problems about the nature of human existence and its
limitations. Instead, they advocate an approach more grounded in secular
existentialist philosophy, focusing on mental fortitude, community resilience, international peacebuilding, and environmental stewardship to better cope with existential risks.
Antinatalism and pronatalism
Although
most people focus on the scientific and technological barriers on the
road to human enhancement, Robbert Zandbergen argues that contemporary
transhumanists' failure to critically engage the cultural current of antinatalism is a far bigger obstacle to a posthuman future. Antinatalism is a stance seeking to discourage, restrict, or terminate human reproduction
to solve existential problems. If transhumanists fail to take this
threat to human continuity seriously, they run the risk of seeing the
collapse of the entire edifice of radical enhancement.
Simone and Malcolm Collins,
founders of Pronatalist.org, are activists known primarily for their
views and advocacy related to a secular and voluntaristic form of pronatalism, a stance encouraging higher birth rates to reverse demographic decline and its negative implications for the viability of modern societies and the possibility of a better future. Critical of transhumanism, they have expressed concern that life extension would worsen the problem of gerontocracy, causing toxic imbalances in power. The Collinses lament that voluntarily childfree
transhumanists who "want to live forever believe they are the epitome
of centuries of human cultural and biological evolution. They don’t
think they can make kids that are better than them."
Political scientists like Markus Linden point out that Putin, in
his speeches, argues against the so-called "liberal-globalist American
egocentrism" and cancel culture, which parallels the agitation seen in alternative media. These discourses also occur on platforms like Nachdenkseiten, Rubikon, and Compact, where they are presented as analyses of the decline of Western democracy.
The propagandistic use of the term "transhumanism" aims to create a comprehensive counter-narrative that unites right-wing extremists, theocratic
groups, and liberals. Transhumanism is portrayed as a threat to
traditional values and human nature. These narratives can also be found
among ideologues like Alexander Dugin,
who condemns transhumanism as the work of the devil, and Christian
fundamentalists who equate it with the denial of traditional values.
The use of the term "transhumanism" as an ideological rallying point for the Querfront is also evident in the fusion of right-wing, left-wing,
and libertarian ideas that collectively oppose liberal democracies.
This development emphasizes individual conceptions of humanity that are
often incompatible with a pluralistic society.
It requires a critical examination of the political implications of
transhumanism and its instrumentalization by anti-democratic forces.
