Transcript Humanity and Nanotechnology: Judging Enhancements

A Critical Look at Kass and
Transhumanists on Ageless Bodies:
Enhancement and Degradation of the Human Person
Tihamer T. Toth-Fejel
[email protected]
Transvision ‘04
August 6-8, 2004
Toronto, Ontario
Contents
• Ethics, Metaphysics, and Epistemology
– Natural Law
– The Ultimate Questions
– Example: Enhancing Sight
• Ageless Bodies
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Social Consequences
Disparities of Wealth
An Interesting Life
A Meaningful Life
A Beautiful Life
A Virtuous Life
• Other Voices
• Conclusion
Introduction to Ethics
Decisions regarding ethics can be made at four levels:
• Politics: Should a particular enhancement be legal?
Example: Should seeing in the dark be legal?
• Ethics: How do we tell right from wrong? Is it right or
wrong to enhance our vision to see in the dark?
• Epistemology: What is knowledge? How do we get it?
What is the process by which can we discover if seeing in the
dark is good?
• Metaphysics: What is the fundamental nature of reality?
Is there actually such a thing as objective good? Does darkness
really exist, or is it just the absence of light?
Metaphysical Differences
Moral cognitivism: objectively true or false
– Moral realism: “The sky is blue”
– Moral constructivism: “Drive on the right side of the road”
Moral Non-cognitivism: no objective truth-value
– Moral nihilism: “The intelligence of rocks is curable”
– Moral relativism: “true for me” and “true for you”
Epistemological Differences
Sources of Moral Judgments
Individual: Sometimes individuals make good moral choices by
following their consciences. But individuals often disagree about
what is "good."
Society: There are many similar laws across cultures, as well as laws
that sharply disagree. Also, laws often change. Slavery and
genocide have both been codified into law.
God: Provides justification for judgments, holding us accountable to a
higher power. Also connects humans together as children of God,
made in His image and likeness. But sometimes our concept of God
and revelation is different.
Natural Law: Reciprocal, universal, consistent, practical. Well-defined
and rational method.
Natural Law
History
• Literature: Sophocles’ Antigone; Tolkien's The Two Towers
• Philosophy: pre-Socratic Greeks; Thomas Aquinas; John Paul II
Method
• Discover the essential nature of an entity
– "How does it function?" (or teleologically: "What is its purpose?")
• "Convertibility of being into good"
– Something that exists (light, sight) is better than it's parasitic opposite
(shadow, blindness).
Applying Natural Law
In what way is the characteristic that you’re trying to enhance
really real?
Does the phenomenon really have ontological existence?
Are other deficiencies confusing the phenomenon?
Is there an overlooked benefit in one of the phenomenon?
Will the consequence of the enhancement cancel out the
enhancement's original goal?
Does the enhancement helps achieve a desire but prevents
the fulfillment of a need?
Does increasing a capability change the nature of the person?
Determining Right and Wrong
What are the Ends?
What are the Means?
What are the Circumstances?
The Ultimate Questions
Does a change enhance or degrade our
humanity?
Since our humanity is defined by
personhood, what does it mean to be a
human person?
Objects and Happiness
Phenomenology
Philosophical zombie – no consciousness
Anthropomorphization
Persons are not Objects
Euidimonia: Happiness, Joy, Fulfillment
Existence, Truth, and Love
Four models of a good life
Contemplative
Active
Fatalistic (stoic)
Hedonistic
Example: Enhancing Sight
Two types: body and brain
Enhancing Sight: Removing blind spots, improving visual acuity,
resistance to intense brightness, and night vision.
Ends
Sight is better than blindness, but is more better? Is it just an
appetite? Is it necessary for apprehending beauty?
Means
Invasive or semi-automated surgery
Circumstances
Double effect: Cost, risk of permanent damage, and amount of
pain
Increased pride or vanity
Discriminate against those with normal sight.
Enhancing sight may also require an enhancement of a person's
character - a task that nanotechnology cannot do.
But if everyone is enhanced, then vanity, pride, or discrimination
won't be a problem.
Ageless Bodies
Extreme Life Extension
Six mechanisms of aging
Fear of death
Life is intrinsic good
Many negative social consequences
Social Consequences
Kass:
• Overpopulation
• Reduced innovation
• Skewed demographics
Anissimov:
Negative social consequences are challenges that will
need to be faced head on, not avoided… technological
capacity is extremely likely to soften or eliminate the
negative social impact of widespread life extension
usage.
Technology rarely solves social problems
“There is no problem no big and complicated that it can’t
be run away from.”
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Children and “giveness”
Is there anything worth dying for?
Disparities of Wealth
Kass: rich vs poor, and mortal vs immortal.
Anissimov: medical advances initially more
accessible to the wealthy, but they filter down.
We should thank the rich for volunteering to be
the guinea pigs.
An Interesting Life
Kass: a limited human life span offers the benefits of
interest and engagement. Will personal happiness
increases proportionally to life span?
Anissimov: we didn’t lose interest and engagement in life
when average lifespan increased from 30 to 70…. thanks
to the explosion of culture and technology; there are
more exciting things to do than ever before.
Suicide rates are higher in developed countries than in
undeveloped ones.
“Millions yearn for immortality, but know not what to do
with a rainy Sunday afternoon.”
What it is about life that makes it interesting?
A Meaningful Life
Kass: Could life be meaningful without the limit of mortality?
Anissimov: Life only becomes unserious, devoid of meaning, etc, if
we want it to be.
Will any philosophy going to lead to a meaningful life?
A life without love and truth will be a hollow one for everyone.
Kass: the boundaries and shape of the life cycle give possible
meaning to life… reminding us that we will someday die, and
that we must live in a way that takes heed of that reality.”
The solution isn’t relinquishing life extension; it is finding other
ways for people to take heed of the reality of death, even if it is
hundreds of years away.
“No matter how long you live, you’ll be dead much longer”
A Beautiful Life
Kass: “Death is the mother of beauty”
Classical response: Doesn’t God create beauty?
Anissimov: Our appreciation of beauty probably has
evolutionary roots, and as we enhance our brains and
discover new elegant structures in this universe, our
appreciation for beauty will increase.
Darwinists have admitted that beauty has little evolutionary
purpose.
We cannot program what we cannot understand.
Kass places love on same footing as beauty, and Anissimov
misses it. Are these guys human?
Heinlein: “I want to live long enough to love every decent
human being.”
A Virtuous Life
Kass: “Immortals cannot be noble.”
Classical response: Isn’t God immortal? Aren’t angels noble?
Anissimov: some aspects of our present-day consensus morality
do probably rest upon limited lifespan, [but] the injustice of
nonconsensual death far overwhelms the small portions of our
morality which will be thrown off balance with the
introduction of extreme life extension… In almost every case,
it's easier to do more good if one is able to live longer, than
through sacrifice.”
The connection of morality to death is rather slim. The
connection to sacrifice is not.
“Nonconsensual death”? Inalienable rights can be relinquished?
Other Voices
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: “When one tries to rise above Nature,
one is liable to fall below it. … The spiritual would not avoid
the call to something higher. It would become the survival of
the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world
become?”
Bill McKibben : Death makes us human; Avoiding death is nasty.
Robert Freitas: Death is an outrage.
Isaac Asimov: The social costs of immortality are too high.
Conclusion
Natural Law helps us discover the morality of enhancements.
Enhancement must improve a characteristic of a human without
changing the ordering of goods inherent to personhood.
Enhancements must not degrade our humanity, must not turn us
into objects, nor contradict who we are as persons.
Our difficulties:
Recognizing which enhancements are degrading us,
Discovering how this degradation occurs, and
Resisting the seductive promises they make.
Study Questions
Is the millennia old Natural Law theory the best method of
dealing with 21st century moral issues? Why or why not? If
not, what method is better?
Can you think of an example of something evil that exists
independently and not parasitically?
What is a human person? How is that essentially different from
a zombie, sentient robot, or uplifted animal?
What are the “goods of personhood” How are they ordered?
Would you like to have a youthful, ageless body? Why? Would
you tend towards teenage recklessness or old-age overcautiousness. Why?
How would you recognize if some medical procedure was
degrading? How might it be seductive? What concrete steps
could you take to resist its temptation?