Truly Human Enhancement: A Philosophical Defense of Limits

Preface

Preface Our humanity marks the point of convergence of increasingly powerful transformative technologies. Some of these technologies will modify human genetic material. Others will attach cybernetic implants and prostheses to human brains and bodies. This book is a philosophical exploration of the moral and prudential limits on the use of these technologies—specifically on their use to enhance human beings. It presents human enhancement as a good thing, but one that it’s possible to have too much of. I endorse moderate enhancement—the improvement of significant attributes and abilities to levels within or close to what is currently possible for human beings. I reject radical enhancement—the improvement of significant attributes and abilities to levels that greatly exceed what is currently possible for human beings. Chapter 1 introduces the notion of a transformative change. Transformative changes alter the state of an individual’s mental or physical characteristics in a way that warrants a significant change in how that individual evaluates his or her experiences, beliefs, or achievements. A human being who undergoes a transformative change may find that experiences properly viewed as very valuable prior to the change are significantly less valuable after the change. And vice versa. One gets a false impression of the significance of a transformative change by asking how a subject will feel about the change once he or she has undergone it. I use the process of body-snatching in the iconic movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers as an example of a transformative change. Body-snatching is a transformation rightly feared by humans even when told that they will be very happy to have undergone it. I present certain enhancements as species of transformative change. xii Preface Chapter 2 explores some motives for human enhancement. It presents two ways in which we can assign value to enhancements. What I call the objective ideal assigns prudential value commensurate with the degree to which a given modification objectively enhances a human capacity. As far as the individual who is a candidate for enhancement is concerned, more is always better. I contrast this with the anthropocentric ideal, which allows that some enhancements of greater objective magnitude are more prudentially valuable than enhancements of lesser magnitude but insists that some enhancements of greater magnitude are less valuable than enhancements of lesser magnitude. Such assessments are appropriate for enhancements of our capacities to levels significantly beyond human norms. Both the objective and anthropocentric ideals endorse human enhancement. I argue that the objective and anthropocentric ideals correspond to two different ways to assign value to human capacities. Our capacities’ instrumental value corresponds to the objective ideal; our capacities’ intrinsic value corresponds to the anthropocentric ideal. Chapter 3 explores the different verdicts on the radical enhancement of our physical and cognitive abilities recommended by the objective and anthropocentric ideals. I argue that we can resolve the apparent tension between interventions that preserve our capacities’ intrinsic value while forgoing increases in instrumental value and interventions that sacrifice intrinsic value in pursuit of increases in instrumental value. We should focus on making nonhuman technologies more instrumentally valuable. Chapter 4 advances philosophical considerations that are, in effect, the inverse of those presented in chapter 3. It focuses not on the feats enabled by radical enhancement, but instead on radical enhancement’s consequences for the identities of those who undergo it. I argue that too much enhancement undermines human identities. It makes our survival over time more precarious. Chapter 5 tackles a significant rationale for radical cognitive enhancement —the improvement of our species’ capacity to do science. More intelligent scientists should be better able to invent technologies that improve our lives. In addition, they should be better able to satisfy a deep and enduring curiosity about the universe and our place in it. This scientific curiosity is held by some to be the defining virtue of our species. I distinguish the science done by unenhanced human scientists from the science done by radically cognitively enhanced scientists in terms of the idealizations that they Preface xiii use. Idealization is an indispensable feature of science. One of its purposes is to simplify reality to make it tractable by cognitively limited explainers. There’s good reason to expect a systematic difference between the idealizations of radically enhanced scientists and those used by unenhanced scientists . I argue that we are entitled to place a greater value on unenhanced science. Furthermore, forgoing the degrees of cognitive enhancement...