Transhumanism and the Limits of Democracy

A paper presented at the Workshop on Transhumanism and Democracy

Ronald Bailey | April 28, 2009

(Page 8 of 8)

^[xl] Buchanan. P.14.

^[xli] Francis Clines, "Research Clinic Opens in Ohio for Genetic Maladies that Haunt Amish Families," New York Times, June 20, 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/20/us/research-clinic-opens-in-ohio-for-genetic-maladies-that-haunt-amish-families.html?sec=health&&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

^[xlii] Savulescu, Julian.,"In Defense of Selection for Nondisease Genes. The American Journal of Bioethics - Volume 1, Number 1, Winter 2001, pp. 16-19

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.