Transhumanism and the Limits of Democracy

A paper presented at the Workshop on Transhumanism and Democracy

Ronald Bailey | April 28, 2009

(Page 3 of 8)

Again, in this case, the HFEA's refusal was not based on safety or efficacy, but on the moral opinions of the Authority's governing panel. Such a regulatory authority necessarily turns differences over morality into win/lose propositions, with minority views—and rights—overridden by the majority.

Fortunately, Americans are allowed to use PGD to select "savior siblings" like James Whitaker and also to enable their progeny to avoid the risks of genetic diseases. For example, consider the 2002 case of a married 30-year-old geneticist who will almost certainly lose her mind to early-onset Alzheimer's disease by age 40 and who chose to have her embryos tested in vitro for the disease gene.^[xviii] She then implanted only embryos without the gene into her womb. The result was the birth of a healthy baby girl—one who will not suffer Alzheimer's in her 40s. The mother in this case certainly knows what would face any child of hers born with the disease gene. Her father, a sister, and a brother have all already succumbed to early Alzheimer's.

Bioethicist Jeffrey Kahn objected to using PGD in this case arguing, "It's a social decision. This really speaks to the need for a larger policy discussion, and regulation or some kind of oversight of assisted reproduction."^[xix] Kahn is right that parents will someday use PGD to screen embryos for desirable traits such as tougher immune systems, stronger bodies, and smarter brains. It is hard to see what is ethically wrong with parents taking advantage of such testing, since it is aimed at conferring general benefits that any child would want to have (see below for more on the issue of consent).

Kahn is wrong when he claims that the decision to use PGD by prospective parents is a "social decision" requiring more regulation. First of all, in the capacious sense implied by Kahn, any parent's decision to have a child, even by conventional means, has "social consequences" for us all. So would Kahn have neighbors, regulators, and bioethicists weigh in on everybody's reproductive decisions? Kahn would doubtless counter that, unlike conventional reproduction, assisted reproduction involves the use of scarce medical resources that could be used for other purposes (which they prefer).

Again, Kahn's notion of "social" could apply to anything—what if Kahn disapproved of someone buying non-union clothing or vacationing in the Caribbean rather than devoting his resources to building public parks or highways? In this case, the parents using assisted reproduction and PGD are spending their own money for the benefit of their own children to work with doctors who are freely devoting their skills.

Another often-heard objection is that genetic engineering will be imposed on "children-to-be" without their consent. First, I need to remind everyone reading this article that not one of you gave your consent to be born, much less to be born with the specific complement of genes that you bear. Thus, the children born by means of assisted reproductive therapies and those produced more conventionally stand in exactly the same ethical relationship to their parents. Habermas disagrees, claiming, "Eugenic interventions aiming at enhancement reduce ethical freedom insofar as they tie down the person concerned to rejected, but irreversible intentions of third parties, barring him from the spontaneous self-perception of being the undivided author of his own life."^[xx] However, Allen Buchanan correctly points out that Habermas does not actually make clear why a person who develops from a genetically enhanced embryo should feel that they are not the "author" of her life or be regarded as being somehow less free by others. Habermas "is assuming that how one's genome was selected is relevant to one's moral status as a person. This error is no less fundamental than thinking that a person's pedigree—for example, whether she is of noble blood or ‘base-born'—determines her moral status," explains Buchanan.^[xxi]

Another frequently heard assertion from opponents of enhancement technologies is that a genetically engineered child somehow feel less loved and appreciated than one who was born in the conventional way. Similar fears were expressed by many bioethicists when in vitro fertilization began to be used in the 1970s and 1980s. The good news is that recent research finds that IVF children and their parents are as well-adjusted as those born in the conventional way.^[xxii] And this should be the case for enhanced children as well. As Frances Kamm argues, "Not accepting whatever characteristics nature will bring but altering them ex-ante does not show lack of love... This is because no conscious being yet exists who has to work hard to achieve new traits or suffer fears of rejection at the idea they should be changed. Importantly, it is rational and acceptable to seek good characteristics in a new person, even though we know when the child comes to be and we love him or her, many of these characteristics may come and go and we will continue to love the particular person."^[xxiii]

The absurdity of a requirement for prenatal consent becomes transparent when you ask proponents of such a requirement if they would forbid fetal surgery to correct spina bifida or fetal heart defects? After all, those fetuses can't give their consent to those procedures, yet it is certainly the moral thing to do. For that matter, taking this strong position on consent to its logically extreme conclusion would mean that children couldn't be treated with drugs, or receive vaccinations. So using future biotechnical means to correct genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia at the embryonic stage will similarly be morally laudatory activity. Surely one can assume that the beneficiary—the not-yet-born, possibly even the not-yet-conceived child—would happily have chosen to have those diseases corrected.

But what about enhancements, not just therapeutic biotechnical interventions? Let's say a parent could choose genes that would guarantee her child a 20 point IQ boost. It is reasonable to presume that the child would be happy to consent to this enhancement of her capacities. How about plugging in genes that would boost her immune system and guarantee that she would never get colon cancer, Alzheimer's, AIDS, or the common cold? Again, it seems reasonable to assume consent. These enhancements are general capacities that any human being would reasonably want to have. In fact, lots of children already do have these capacities naturally, so it's hard to see that there is any moral justification for outlawing access to them for others.

Fritz Allhoff has grappled nicely with the issue of consent. Allhoff offers a principle derived from the second formulation of Kant's categorical imperative^[xxiv] that we treat individuals as ends and never merely as means or, more simply, to treat them in ways to which they would rationally consent.^[xxv] Allhoff turns next to philosopher John Rawls' notion of primary goods. In A Theory of Justice Rawls defines primary goods as those goods that every rational person should value, regardless of his conception of the good. These goods include rights, liberties, opportunities, health, intelligence, and imagination.^[xxvi] As Allhoff argues, "These are the things that, ex hypothesi, everyone should want; it would be irrational to turn them down when offered. Nobody could be better off with less health or with fewer talents, for example, regardless of her life goals.... Since primary goods are those that, by definition, any rational agent would want regardless of his conception of the good, all rational agents would consent to augmentation of their primary goods."

Allhoff then contends that such enhancements would be permissible if every future generation would consent to them. But the requirement that all future generations must consent adds nothing to the moral force of Allhoff's arguments since already all rational agents would consent to such enhancements. So again, safe genetic interventions that improve a prospective child's health, cognition, and so forth would be morally permissible because we can presume consent from the individuals who benefit from the enhancements.

Many opponents of human genetic engineering are either conscious or unconscious genetic determinists. They fear that biotechnological knowledge and practice will somehow undermine human freedom. In a sense, these genetic determinists believe that somehow human freedom resides in the gaps of our knowledge of our genetic makeup. If parents are allowed to choose their children's genes, then they will have damaged their children's autonomy and freedom. According to environmentalist Bill McKibben, "The person left without any choice at all [emphasis his] is the one you've engineered. You've decided, for once and for all, certain things about him: he'll have genes expressing proteins that send extra dopamine to alter his mood; he'll have genes expressing proteins to boost his memory; to shape his stature."^[xxvii] People like McKibben apparently believe that our freedom and autonomy somehow depend on the unknown and random combinations of genes that a person inherits. But even if they were right—and they are not—genetic ignorance of this type will not last.

Advances in human whole genome testing will likely become available by 2014 so that every person's entire complement of genes can be scanned and known at his or her physician's office for as little as $1,000.^[xxviii] Once whole genome testing is perfected we will all learn what even our randomly conferred genes may predispose us to do and from what future ills we are likely suffer. Already, my relatively inexpensive genotype scan from 23andMe tells me that I have alleles that give me a somewhat greater risk of developing celiac disease, a lower risk of rheumatoid arthritis, as well as having a higher sensitivity to warfarin, among other traits. With accumulation of genetic understanding, human freedom will then properly be seen as acting to overcome these predispositions, much like a former alcoholic can overcome his thirst for booze. Fortunately, biotech will help here as well as with the development of neuropharmaceuticals to enhance our cognitive abilities and change our moods.

Opponents of using biotechnical means to enhance humans often cite C.S. Lewis' worry: "If any one age really attains, by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendants what it pleases, all men who live after it are the patients of that power. They are weaker, not stronger: for though we may have put wonderful machines in their hands we have pre-ordained how they are to use them."^[xxix] In other words, Lewis asserts that the one decisive generation that first masters genetic technologies will control the fate of all future generations.

But when has it not been true that past generations control the genetic fate of future generations? Our ancestors—through their mating and breeding choices—determined for us the complement of genes that we all bear today. They just didn't know which specific genes they were picking. Fortunately, our descendants will have at their disposal ever more powerful technologies and the benefit of our own experiences to guide them in their future reproductive and enhancement decisions. In no sense are they prisoners of our decisions now. Of course, there is one case in which future generations would be prisoners of our decisions now, and that's if we fearfully elect to deny them access to the benefits of biotechnology and safe genetic engineering. The future will not be populated by robots who may look human but who are unable to choose for themselves their own destinies—genetic or otherwise.

Comments

Warty|4.28.09 @ 3:08PM|#

You could have covered this in the hate crimes post...

|4.28.09 @ 3:13PM|#

Way to ruin the thread from the get-go, Warty. Is there anything you can't screw up?

|4.28.09 @ 3:16PM|#

People should not be forced to use medicines and technologies that they find morally objectionable.

Wow! How generous of you!

Christian Scientists would perhaps reject most of modern biotechnology outright; Jehovah's Witnesses might remain leery of treatments that they interpret to being akin to using blood products or blood transfusions; Roman Catholics might refuse to use regenerative treatments derived from human embryonic stem cells; and still others will wish to take the fullest advantage of all biomedical enhancements and treatments. In this way, a pluralistic society respects the reasonable comprehensive doctrines of their fellow citizens and enables social peace among moral strangers.

And Jews will have the option of not using technologies which were helped along by Dr Mengele's hypothermia experiments at Dachau. Everybody wins!

I'm curious: do Catholic embryos have the option of not being dismembered so that their stem cells can be extracted?

|4.28.09 @ 3:22PM|#

Technologies dealing with birth, death, and the meaning of life need protection from meddling-even democratic meddling-by those who want to control them as a way to force their visions of right and wrong on the rest of us.

Birth and death are meaningless when viewed in separation from the persons who are being born and dying...yet transhumanists seem to have precious little concern for those people. Especially when they're in the way of hurrying along the Rapture, oops, I mean Singularity.

|4.28.09 @ 3:30PM|#

Crucially, Bostrom adds that "transhumanists typically place emphasis on individual freedom and individual choice in the area of enhancement technologies.

Unless such an individual happens to be hoarding the cells necessary for the advancement of transhumanist aspiration. In which case, get ready to be dismembered whether you like it or not.

Humans differ widely in their conceptions of what their own perfection or improvement would consist in. Some want to develop in one direction, others in different directions, and some prefer to stay the way they are. It would ... be morally unacceptable for anybody to impose a single standard to which we would all have to conform.

So it would be morally unacceptable to demand that scientific research not be done in a way that is expected to cause harm to individuals? I don't see where Bostrom leaves room for that standard. And if you don't have that standard, we're off and running into Mengele territory (Godwin hounds be damned).

|4.28.09 @ 3:30PM|#

Someone's taken his hyperbole pills today. You masochists have fun with that.

|4.28.09 @ 3:38PM|#

Godwin hounds be damned

Cheeky, coming from someone who Godwin'd twice in 15 minutes.

|4.28.09 @ 3:38PM|#

Predictable. Bailey writes a 6,645 word essay decrying how transhumanists are being persecuted by not having their pet projects federally funded, and that anyone who has ethical problems with said pet projects must be anti-Enlightenment...and I'm the only one who has a problem with it.

JW Gacy|4.28.09 @ 3:39PM|#

crimethink, have you already forgotten what Dear Leader has taught us? Moral qualms are merely ideological opposition to Science. All hail.

|4.28.09 @ 3:44PM|#

Marc, I can't help it if Bailey and his coreligionists demand so much leeway in pursuing their aspirations that the atrocities of the past would be permitted under their regime.

And Godwin's Law doesn't mean what many people think it means...

Godwin's Law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is an informal adage created by Mike Godwin in 1990. The adage states: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."...

The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that the likelihood of such a reference or comparison arising increases in direct proportion to the length of the discussion. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

[emphasis mine]

|4.28.09 @ 3:46PM|#

Bailey writes a 6,645 word essay

Well at least he didn't write another 21 words, then you'd be really pissed.

|4.28.09 @ 3:51PM|#

People should not be forced to use provide medicines and technologies that they find morally objectionable.

Agree/Disagree?

|4.28.09 @ 3:52PM|#

THreadJack:

Anyone else see the SCOTUS Decision FCC v Fox that came out ? 5 - 4 in favor of the FCC BUT it's an interesting case with multiple concurrences and multiple dissents.

Thomas, while ruling for the FCC (Ruling that they had the authority to levy the fines in question) filed a separate concurrence suggests that the pervasiveness of the Internet, plus cable and satellite tv (and V-chips and other technologies available for same) means that maybe there's no longer a constitutional basis for the FCC to regulate anything anymore.

Kennedy, in a concurrence, explicitly states that he isn't ruling on the Constitutionality of the FCC

The holding of the Court of Appeals turned on its conclusion that the agency's explanation for its change of policy was insufficient, and that is the only question presented here. I agree with the Court that as this case comes to us from the Court of Appeals we must reserve judgment on the question whether the agency's action is consistent with the guarantees of the Constitution.

Gisnburg, in a dissent, also seems to be hinting that maybe the Pacifica decision should re-examined:

"The Pacifica decision, however it might fare on reassessment, was tightly cabined, and for good reason. In dissent, Justice Brennan observed that the Government should take care before enjoining the broadcast of words or expressions spoken by many "in our land of cultural pluralism." That comment, fitting in the 1970's, is even more potent today. If the reserved constitutional question reaches this Court, we should be mindful that words unpalatable to some may be "commonplace" for others, "the stuff of everyday conversations."

This turned out to be a pretty interesting decision, and it doesn't seem that far fetched to think that the FCC's days of censoring the airwaves MIGHT be numbered.

Warty|4.28.09 @ 4:00PM|#

This thread was doomed, Epi. I was just trying to extract some dick jokes out of it, but nooooooo you're too mature for that.

|4.28.09 @ 4:48PM|#

The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate.

Understood.

And nevertheless: GOD-WIN. Godwin.

|4.28.09 @ 4:49PM|#

If the embryos do not consent, then they have to live with the consequences of decisions that formed them, not just obscure decisions about their birth method. They are not comparable at all.
The industrial process of genetic engineering may be ethical, but I'm not so sure about the research to get there, as there will be mistakes. Could it be done in such a manner as to ensure that no-one would have to live with the consequences? What would be the expense of doing so? Can a few - only a few - mistakes be lived with, written off as aceidents, we're very sorry, be lived with in order to benefit a great many people to some degree?
These seem to me to be the relevant questions.

|4.28.09 @ 6:22PM|#

Catholics might refuse to use regenerative treatments derived from human embryonic stem cells

Or, they might go ahead and make use of the treatments, and confess afterward. This is one of the more popular aspects of the Church: you can do bad stuff and then make it all better with a few Hail Marys.

|4.28.09 @ 6:30PM|#

There is nothing wrong with merely using technologies/treatments that have been developed by immoral means. Seriously, most of us in the US live on land that was stolen from the native inhabitants, who were forcibly moved and/or killed if they dared resist. There aren't many good and useful things in this world that don't bear the stain of blood upon them from sometime in history.

To go back to my death camp hypothermia experiment example, if there had been some medical breakthrough as a result of the experiments in which Jews (and Polish priests, everyone conveniently forgets) were held submerged in freezing water until they died, I don't think it would be unethical at all to make use of it. Acknowledging the fact that good things sometimes result from terrible actions doesn't justify the terrible deeds.

MaterialMonkee|4.28.09 @ 6:36PM|#

That is a damn well written bit of text

really excellent stuff

Its actually good to see a yank use the term liberalism correctly

"the dispute between liberalism and radical democracy has "to do with how one can reconcile equality with liberty, unity with diversity, or the right of the majority with the right of the minority. Liberals begin with the legal institutionalization of equal liberties, conceiving these as rights held by individual subjects. In their view, human rights enjoy normative priority over democracy, and the constitutional separation of powers has priority over the will of the democratic legislature"

That is what liberalism is all about

Social progress through rational application of science and reason with the utmost respect for the INDIVIDUAl

great stuff

|4.28.09 @ 6:36PM|#

I should add that Bailey's condescending faux-compromising pronouncement that Catholics don't have to use treatments developed from ESCR is a laughable attempt to change the subject and portray anyone who opposes ESCR as an ignorant Luddite.

Few Catholics have a problem with developing new and revolutionary medical treatments. What we have a problem with is destroying human life in order to get there. A Google search will probably reveal thousands of posts on H&R where I have said this, yet Bailey et al seem not to have gotten the memo. Strange for a community that welcomes debate and discourse, as Bailey claims of the transhumanist movement.

|4.28.09 @ 6:46PM|#

I keep finding more outrageous quotes in this article with every reading. It's almost a blessing:

The absurdity of a requirement for prenatal consent becomes transparent when you ask proponents of such a requirement if they would forbid fetal surgery to correct spina bifida or fetal heart defects? After all, those fetuses can't give their consent to those procedures, yet it is certainly the moral thing to do. For that matter, taking this strong position on consent to its logically extreme conclusion would mean that children couldn't be treated with drugs, or receive vaccinations.

Nonsense. There's a big difference between treating spina bifida in utero and tinkering with eye color. A good rule of thumb is, would it be ethical to perform this procedure on an unconscious adult? If the answer is no, you shouldn't be doing it to an embryo either.

anarch|4.28.09 @ 10:34PM|#

Must say, I appreciate crimethink's posts.

jtuf|4.28.09 @ 10:41PM|#

The future is now. Times of India reported on a topical cure for erectile disfunction that uses nanoparticles.

The Albert Eistein College of Medicine website also reports on nanoparticles used to fight microbes.

Dr. Adam Friedman, resident in medicine (dermatology), was awarded second place at the annual dermatology research competition of the New York Academy of Medicine, for his presentation "Nitric Oxide Releasing Nanoparticles: A Novel Antimicrobial Agent for the Treatment of Resistant Pathogenic Organisms." He also received co-first-place honors for a poster presentation at the Resident/Fellow Research Symposium sponsored by Montefiore's department of medicine. The poster was one of four winners out of 65 entries.

shut it|4.29.09 @ 7:57AM|#

Chicago Tom,
Get your own frakkin' site or shut the fuck up.

Mr. Rational|4.29.09 @ 11:58AM|#

Blah,Blah,Blah. The majority is always going to dictate to the minority, and human idiocy guarantees that the majority will dictate stupidity a large portion of the time.

|4.29.09 @ 12:47PM|#

The majority is always going to dictate to the minority,

Actually, historically (and currently) it is generally a minority dictating to the majority.

|4.29.09 @ 1:22PM|#

I don't know. I'm still torn on whether a doctor should be allowed to remove the organs from some patient who is a donor match for more than one life-saving transplant.

Letting 4 people die so 1 person can live just seems so... narcissistic.

|4.29.09 @ 1:25PM|#

B.T.W. We like to be referred to as Neo Humans, not transhumans. Please be sensitive to this.

Craig|4.29.09 @ 1:33PM|#

Or to summarize, left-liberals hope to use the tyranny of the majority to force us recalcitrant individualists to join the Borg, not realizing that it is much more likely to be the science-fearing masses who actually use democratic power to prevent any significant trans-humanistic progress at all.

|4.29.09 @ 1:40PM|#

What if a genetic mod became available which allowed me to control other people's minds?

Or if a therapy became available to increase the surface area of the cerebral cortex to give a large boost to perceptive ability, but it had a side effect that caused mental injuries in 0.001% of the people around me?

Should I be allowed to undergo these mods which would increase my relative chance of being successful in life?

|4.29.09 @ 1:42PM|#

What if I wanted to become sub-human?

civil servant|4.29.09 @ 4:09PM|#

Take a number.

stand in for civil servant |4.29.09 @ 11:09PM|#

Who says you're not already sub-human?

Btw, those examples would be clear acts of aggression towards others. Next!

|5.5.09 @ 6:31AM|#

Rawls argues, "reasonable persons will think it unreasonable to use political power, should they possess it, to repress comprehensive views that are not unreasonable though different from their own."

And what does 'unreasonable' mean? You could drive a truck through that statement. You could put people in jail for offensive speech, force people to go to conventional doctors, force children to go to public school, and ban flag burning under Rawl´s terms.

"Once we accept the fact that reasonable pluralism is a permanent condition of public culture under free institutions, the idea of the reasonable is more suitable as part of the basis of public justification for a constitutional regime than the idea of moral truth."





Yes, let´s chuck out moral principles and natural law out the window in favor of convenience. I´m assuming that because Rawls is speaking about free institutions he accepts that people can leave those institutions if they disagree with them strongly enough, either in the specific or as a general concept, or is that unreasonable opposition?
¨
"to do with how one can reconcile equality with liberty, unity with diversity, or the right of the majority with the right of the minority. Liberals begin with the legal institutionalization of equal liberties, conceiving these as rights held by individual subjects. In their view, human rights enjoy normative priority over democracy, and the constitutional separation of powers has priority over the will of the democratic legislature"

a) You can´t reconcile liberty with equality. Pick one.
b) Unity can be reconciled with diversity if you´re talking about skin color. If you´re talking about extremely different political views, i.e. Nazis and Zionists living in the same country, then the answer is no. Culture is a stickier subject and depends on what two cultures meet.

c) There are no rights of the majority. There are only the rights of the individual. Rights of the majority are the rights of the lynch mob.

d) The last part looks good on paper. Too bad it always ends up going to shit.

Democracy was never conceived to work beyond a small town, like a New England Town Meeting. A true republic was never conceived to work beyond perhaps a county or small state like Delaware. The US will either fragment or transition into a totalitarian state, democratic or otherwise. It´s too unwieldy, important checks on democratic inclinations have been undone, there is an ever increasing desire to centralize power, political culture has been eroded, and government is ever expanding.

Our current system sucks.

|5.6.09 @ 5:40PM|#

It still baffles me as to how many of America's intellegentsia will still blatantly showcase their ignorance of Nietszche's philosophy by making such comments regarding his only constructive positive philosophical idea.

|5.6.09 @ 5:45PM|#

I should learn to use the "preview" feature for submitting comments. It is Nietzsche not Nietszche. I apologize for the typo.