Truly Human Enhancement: A Philosophical Defense of Limits

2. Two Ideals of Human Enhancement

2 Two Ideals of Human Enhancement This chapter presents two ideals that compete to direct the enhancement of human beings. According to the objective ideal, an enhancement has prudential value commensurate with the degree to which it objectively enhances a human capacity. Technologies that produce enhancements of greater objective magnitude are, all else equal, more valuable than technologies that produce enhancements of lesser magnitude. The objective ideal is strongly suggested by many of the statements of the members of an intellectual and cultural movement known as transhumanism. According to the anthropocentric ideal, some enhancements of greater objective magnitude are more prudentially valuable than enhancements of lesser magnitude . However, some enhancements of greater magnitude are less valuable than enhancements of lesser magnitude. Such assessments are warranted for enhancements of our capacities to levels significantly beyond human norms. Both the objective and anthropocentric ideals endorse human enhancement. They are therefore properly contrasted with the bioconservative view that purports to reject all forms of human enhancement.1 I respond to the blanket bioconservative rejection of enhancement in chapter 7.2 The philosophical task would be straightforward if we had merely to decide which of the objective or anthropocentric ideals was correct. We would then insist that, insofar as they are seeking to enhance humans, designers of enhancement technologies conform to the dictates of this true ideal of human enhancement. That will not be my conclusion. Rather, I argue that the objective and anthropocentric ideals correspond to two legitimate ways of assigning prudential value to human capacities—they imply two different ways in which the enhancement of our capacities can promote our interests or well-being. 18 Chapter 2 We can view our capacities as instrumentally valuable. Our cognitive capacities enable us to solve difficult problems. We use our muscles to lift heavy objects. The objective ideal describes the effect of enhancement technologies on our capacities’ instrumental value. Cognitive enhancements of greater objective magnitude enable more difficult problems to be solved, and objectively greater enhancements of physical strength enable heavier objects to be lifted. Enhancements therefore increase our capacities’ instrumental value. We can also view our capacities as intrinsically valuable. This value is independent of the results we use our capacities to bring about—it corresponds with an engagement that we feel with exercises of our capacities. I use some observations of Alasdair MacIntyre about the internal goods of our activities to clarify this somewhat vague-sounding statement. This chapter and chapters 3, 4, and 5 focus on the enhancement of our cognitive and physical capacities. These forms of enhancement have as their principal motivation new kinds of experience or achievement. They differ from the radical life extension that will have been achieved if we have much longer lives to fill with the kinds of human experience and achievement that are currently available to us. Radical life extension is the topic of chapter 6. Defining Human Enhancement An account of radical human enhancement stands in need of an account of human enhancement. It’s possible to identify two basic accounts of what it means to enhance a human being in the philosophical literature. The broadest concept of human enhancement identifies it with improvement.3 To enhance a human being is to improve him or her. The genetic enhancement of intelligence improves its subject’s intelligence by means of modifying genes. This approach requires a principled account of human improvement. What one person may view as an improvement another may view as a worsening . But even if we have such an account, a definition of enhancement as improvement seems too broad to highlight many of the philosophical issues raised by human enhancement. Once defined as improvement, human enhancement becomes unobjectionable. Enhancement as improvement seems to be an indispensable part of being human. We attend universities Two Ideals of Human Enhancement 19 in the hope that they will improve our minds. We seek to improve our health by consuming omega 3 tablets. Enhancement as improvement is not something that we can realistically contemplate rejecting. As Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu point out, “stripped of all such ‘enhancements’ it would be impossible for us to survive, and maybe we would not even be fully human in the few short days before we perished.”4 A definition that identifies human enhancement with human improvement risks shortchanging opponents of human enhancement. It seems to require opponents of human enhancement to reject teaching algebra to children, for example...