[ExI] Superhuman: The Uncharted Territory of Transhumanism

[Joseph Bloch]

I did an email interview with the author of this article last year, and he
later informed me that they only went with half of the whole article he
submitted. Obviously, this is going to be approaching Transhumanism from a
Catholic perspective, but still, I think it doesn't come across too badly. 
 
 
http://www.crisismagazine.com/may2007/pavlat.htm
 
 

“By responsible use of science, technology, and other rational means we
shall eventually manage to become posthuman.”
 
—Nick Bostrom

“The moral challenge of transhumanism will transcend those of abortion and
euthanasia. For this reason, the pro-life movement must become the pro-human
movement.”
 
—Nigel M. Cameron

Cryonics. Neural implants. Designer babies. Welcome to the future of
transhumanism. This energetic movement, comprising thousands of adherents,
actively promotes the enhancement of humans via cybernetics, genetics,
medicine, surgery, nanotechnology, and a full panoply of other scientific
advancements. This enhancement would, according to Nick Bostrom’s
“Transhumanist Declaration,” seek to advocate “the moral right for those who
wish to do so to extend their mental and physical (including reproductive)
capacities and to improve their control over their own lives. [They] seek
personal growth beyond [their] current biological limitations” (see
www.transhumanism.org).

 

This may sound like science fiction, but the philosophy behind the
movement—improving or extending human life by whatever means possible—has
already taken hold in society. Advances in modern medicine seem to offer us
the very Fountain of Youth, and we seem fully prepared to embrace it. But at
what cost? 

 

The question is not an easy one. Other issues touching on human
life—abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia—have all been
clearly defined by Church teaching. But the questions become more nuanced
when we move from wholesale destruction of the person to varying degrees of
interference with or enhancement of the body. The Church has not
definitively spoken on many areas of the transhumanist agenda, nor have
bioethicists made many public proclamations. “We’re not even asking the
right questions yet,” admits Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, a bioethicist at
Providence College. 

 

Radical Anti-Aging Technology


The search for eternal youth is an ancient human impulse, going back to the
world’s earliest recorded epic, Gilgamesh. But with modern medical
technology, we now seem closer to achieving that end than ever before.
 
The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, claiming more than 11,000
members, “seeks to disseminate information concerning innovative science and
research as well as treatment modalities designed to prolong the human life
span” (www.worldhealth.net). Among the most common lines of research are
gene therapy, stem cell therapy to grow everything from new nerves to hair,
the injection of human growth hormone, and cryonics, in which technicians
would freeze people’s bodies in the hopes of reviving them after years of
suspended animation or even death.
 
But does this go too far? Theological critics of anti-aging technology have
pointed out that aging has long been considered a consequence of the Fall,
and that we are undoing God’s command when we radically extend life through
medical means. Leon Kass, former chairman of the President’s Council on
Bioethics, sees other, more philosophical problems with anti-aging research:
“The desire to prolong youthfulness is not only a childish desire to eat
one’s life and keep it. . . . It seeks an endless present, isolated from
anything truly eternal, and severed from any true continuity with past and
future. It is in principle hostile to children, because children, those who
come after, are those who will take one’s place; they are life’s answer to
mortality” (First Things, May 2001). Meanwhile, in apparent agreement with
Kass, a 2002 document edited by then–Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Communion
and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, states,
“Disposing of death is in reality the most radical way of disposing of
life.” 
 
On the other hand, Father Austriaco points out, “A careful reading of
Communion and Stewardship does not seem to suggest that anything in Catholic
tradition would oppose longevity research that seeks to delay aging in the
human being.” He also says that while it is true that at the Fall, God
withdrew “supernatural gifts we would have had had we not sinned,” he points
out that, despite God’s injunction that women would suffer in childbirth,
the Church allows pain relief for women in labor per Pope Pius XII’s 1957
“Allocution to Doctors on the Moral Problems of Analgesia,” which states:
“Man keeps, even after the fall, his right to dominate the forces of nature,
to use them in his service, and thus to make profitable all the resources
that it offers him to avoid or remove the physical pain [of labor and
delivery].” By this reasoning, it would seem, anti-aging technology could be
morally acceptable. “We do all kinds of things in anticipation of the
resurrection,” says Father Austriaco, who is currently conducting research
into the aging mechanisms of yeast, in the hopes of one day applying that
research to humans.
 
Pro-life bioethicist Nigel M. Cameron, president of the Institute on
Biotechnology and the Human Future (www.thehumanfuture.org), agrees:
“There’s something very human, and very properly human, about the desire to
keep the human machine going.” However, he adds a caveat: Supporting life
extension is different than supporting efforts to eliminate death
altogether. 
 
But other parts of Communion and Stewardship are less clear, such as the
Vatican’s apparent nixing of any strategies that “chang[e] the genetic
identity of man as a human person.” On one hand, the document says that such
changes clearly contradict Catholic bioecthical tradition, as they “imply
that man has full right of disposal over his own biological nature.” On the
other hand, the document also points out that “germ line genetic engineering
with a therapeutic goal” might be acceptable if it is accomplished in a way
that does not harm human embryos. Is extending the human lifespan beyond its
current limits a “therapeutic goal”? No document answers that question
fully.
 
Because the Vatican has not yet spoken definitively on this issue, several
key questions remain unanswered: What kinds of radical anti-aging
technology, if any, would be morally licit? If it becomes readily available,
and the methods being used respect human dignity, will the use of this
technology be obligatory for Catholics, under our moral requirement to take
care of our health (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2288 and
2290)? How long a life is too long—or is there any such thing? How would
married couples express their openness to new life if radical life extension
meant that women were fertile for 50 to 100 years instead of 30? In terms of
the Church’s social doctrine, how would one address the increased
socioeconomic gap between rich and poor that could follow the advent of
anti-aging technology, or the impact that anti-aging technology would have
on Medicare, much less health insurance?
 
Although we can give a cautious “thumbs up” to some anti-aging technologies,
we need to be cognizant of just how many questions currently have no
answers.
 
Computer Interfaces
 
Human-machine interfaces are becoming ever more intimate. Amazing progress
has been made in integrating technology with biology, progress that has
helped people tremendously. For example, former football player Jesse
Sullivan, who lost his arms in a utility line accident, now has two bionic
arms that can move in response to his thoughts. Claudia Mitchell, who lost
an arm in a motorcycle accident, now has a prosthesis so precise that she
can peel an orange. Researcher William Craelius, working on a different
track, has developed the Dextra, an artificial hand that allows users to
type and even play the piano. The next generation of limbs will even allow
wearers to sense touch and temperature.
 
Going a step further, consider the case of quadriplegic Matthew Nagle, who
“can now pick up objects, open e-mails, change the channel on the television
and play computer games” using only a link between a computer, a robotic
arm, and electrodes implanted in his brain, according to London’s
Independent. Scientists are also hard at work on a wearable exoskeleton that
would respond to his thought commands, allowing him to move his body again.
 
But what if technology is doing more than simply correcting a medical
condition? Dr. Steve Mann of the University of Toronto has been called “the
first cyborg” by DK Publishing for his “WearComp”—wearable hardware that
runs personal-applications software. “The assumption of wearable computing,”
reported Mann at a 1998 keynote speech, “is that the user will be doing
something else at the same time as . . . the computing. Thus the computer
should serve to augment the intellect, or augment the senses.”
 
Award-winning scientist and author Ray Kurzweil—an avid transhumanist and
proponent of radical life-extending technology—has pointed out that, when it
comes to computer interfaces, “We already have people with computers in
their brains—for example, Parkinson’s patients—and the latest generation of
this FDA-approved neural implant allows you to download new software to your
neural implant from outside the patient. . . . In the future we will have
non-invasive ways of extending our physical capabilities as we merge with
nonbiological systems.” 
 
So where do we draw the line? At what point does the interface between human
and computer present a challenge for human personhood? Going back to
Communion and Stewardship, we are told that “the being created in [God’s]
image cannot be the object of arbitrary human action,” and that four
guidelines in particular apply: “(1) there must be a question of an
intervention in the part of the body that is either affected or is the
direct cause of the life-threatening situation; (2) there can be no other
alternatives for preserving life; (3) there is a proportionate chance of
success in comparison with drawbacks; and (4) the patient must give assent
to the intervention.”
 
However, the document also points out that “the fundamental faculties which
essentially belong to human beings are never sacrificed, except when
necessary to save life.” In other words, the Vatican, via a tradition called
the “therapeutic principle,” gives an enthusiastic green light to
prosthetics that aim to restore “the fundamental faculties” of injured
persons, such as the ability to see, hear, and manipulate objects with one’s
hands.
 
That being said, David Plotz of Slate.com claims that “the distinction
between therapy and enhancement isn’t as clear as ethicists contend. Doctors
practice enhancement all the time—even frivolous enhancement.” There are
certainly those who would argue that vasectomies and tubal ligations are
“therapeutic.” 
 
Father Austriaco is interested in applying the traditional Catholic teaching
on reproductive technologies—“you can assist but not replace”—to these newer
technologies. Under this theory, someone who, in the future, was pursuing
elective amputation in favor of an advanced prosthetic device should be
rejected on ethical grounds because that would be intentionally “replacing.”
However, the types of applications pursued by Sullivan and Mitchell seem to
fit the “assisting” test perfectly, and would therefore be perfectly moral,
as long as the programs did not become “idols” to us.
 
As to Kurzweil’s ideas, the Vatican has not yet clearly articulated a
position, but Pope Benedict XVI recently used a visit to Lateran University
to warn about the apparent “primacy” given to “a sort of ‘artificial’
intelligence which becomes more and more overshadowed by experimental
technique.” He likened the “appetite for discovery without keeping in mind
the criteria which derive from a more profound vision” to the tragic flight
of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. However elegant the pope’s
observation, it remains more philosophical than doctrinally applicable.
 
As Father Austriaco points out, transhumanists like Kurzweil are “raising
questions that are unprecedented in the Catholic moral tradition.”
 
Super-Pills
 
Another unprecedented situation is discussed in Alexandra Robbins’s latest
book, The Overachievers, which describes the hyper-competitive world of high
school academics. Robbins relates how today’s children, either self-driven
or pushed by their parents, go to sometimes radical extremes to achieve
their goals. Her book includes discussions of college-level classes and
competitive sports, but it also focuses on chronic stress, teen suicide
rates, and the phenomenon of Ritalin and Adderall abuse. Apparently, these
medications (created to treat Attention Deficit Disorder), when taken by
people without the disorder, produce a clarity and goal-orientation that can
provide a competitive edge. Doctors have reported students asking for
prescriptions who obviously do not suffer from ADD, and anecdotal reports of
the drug’s use on college campuses and in the business world are common. 
 
Another drug in vogue for its off-label uses is Modafinil, a narcolepsy drug
more popularly known as Provigil. The New York Times reports that the
drug—which enables one to skip naps or even entire nights of sleep while
staying alert and non-jittery—is “becoming a fixture among college students,
long-haul truckers, computer programmers and others determined to burn the
midnight oil.” It is also used by soldiers on patrol in Iraq, according to
the Ottawa Citizen. When it comes to Ritalin and Adderall use, the World
Transhumanist Association’s (WTA) Joseph Bloch says, “Assuming—and it is a
huge assumption—that there are no longer-term side effects, I see nothing
wrong with providing my children with any competitive advantage. The fact
that it is pharmaceutical in nature is irrelevant.” 
 
When is a drug that enhances human abilities unacceptable for use? Steroid
use for athletic enhancement has been nearly universally deemed unethical,
and the Catechism expressly states that “the use of drugs inflicts very
grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly
therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense” (2291). 
 
However, there may be some “wiggle room” in the Catechism’s language that
would allow people, for example, to enhance their own thinking abilities.
Ampakines, which may in the next decade be available for Alzheimer’s
patients, aid in the formation of new memories. Apparently they could also
help a 40-year-old who simply wanted to regain the mental quickness of
youth. Father Austriaco says that the use of ampakines for this reason may
be licit, as it involves restoring “the preternatural abilities of Adam and
Eve before the Fall.” Pointing out that the account of the Fall in Genesis 3
includes the punishment that women would be dominated by men, he says it
would be absurd to insist that the repression of women is in allegiance with
Scripture. Therefore, he says, we can use science, including medicine, to
mitigate the effects of the Fall.
 
Cameron stakes out a middle ground, stating that steroids “manipulate” human
nature, while diet, nutrition, and exercise respect “human integrity” and
“perfect the givenness of human nature.” When it comes to giving Ritalin to
healthy children, Cameron allows that the trend is “inevitable and
understandable, but still bad.”
 
Of course, even regular “healthy living” can be taken to excess; the
Catechism refers to this “cult of the body,” which “idoliz[es] physical
perfection,” as a “neo-pagan notion” (2289). Matthew Eppinette, assistant
director of the Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity (www.cbhd.org),
develops the idea further by saying, “Society rightly recognizes conditions
like anorexia and the Adonis complex as unhealthy, not just physically
unhealthy, but also emotionally, mentally, and spiritually unhealthy.” In
this light, one could accuse some purveyors of these trends of an unhealthy
focus on what they wish bodies could do, rather than what is natural or
healthy for them to do.
 
Surgery
 
Dennis Avner is the Stalking Cat. No, not a comic book character, but a
part-Huron, part-Lakota Native American who has gone through tattooing and
multiple surgeries—including subdermal and transdermal implants, upper lip
bifurcation, and the pointing of his ears—in order to increase his physical
resemblance to a tiger, his totem animal (see photos at
www.stalkingcat.net). “I’m just taking a very old tradition, that to my
knowledge is not practiced anymore,” he told the Seattle Times. However, the
same article quotes bioethicist Glenn McGee of Albany Medical College in New
York as saying, “It is possible to have a coherent view that is nonetheless
detrimental to one’s well-being. This is a patient who’s being harmed by
medicine in the interest of his tradition.”
 
Of all possible types of body modification, none perhaps makes us as
uncomfortable as surgery. It seems so radical, so risky, to go “under the
knife,” that we normally think of surgery as a last resort.
 
That may well change. Dr. Stephen Genuis reports in Family Foundations that
“in 2005, there were more than 10 million cosmetic procedures undertaken in
the United States, representing a 38 [percent] increase compared with 2000.”
As of 2002, almost 24 percent of all married women in the United States had
been made surgically infertile (the vast majority through elective tubal
ligation), while about 15 percent of their male partners had had vasectomies
(“Contraceptive Sterilization,” EnGenderHealth). 
 
Other elective medical procedures on the immediate horizon involve the use
of stem cells. The theory, according to the Centre Daily Times, is that
“injecting stem cells into healthy muscles might increase [muscles’] size
and even restore them to their youthful capacity. ‘You could potentially
find a 40-year-old man with 20-year-old legs,’ [Paul] Griffiths [of
CryoGenesis International] said.” The article focuses mostly on applications
in the world of sporting, which is regularly rocked by steroid scandals. But
bioethicist John Harris contends that “enhancement in sports is only
problematic because there are rules against it.” (The article, while
implying that adult stem cells were being discussed instead of embryonic,
did not specify.)
 
Another way to keep in shape without exercising is through regular
injections of such compounds as insulin-like growth factor (IGF), artificial
hemoglobin, and EPO, “a natural compound whose function is stimulating the
bone marrow to produce more red blood cells,” according to Plotz. Striking
at the philosophical underpinnings of such practices, Eppinette asks, “What
is the ultimate goal one is striving for? Is it to be healthy? Is it to live
a very long life? Is it to maximize the competitiveness of one’s offspring?
Is this the ultimate attainment? For people of faith, none of these seem to
me to be ultimate.”
 
This observation lies at the center of the argument surrounding surgical
alterations: How would elective surgery bring us closer to God? Restorative
surgery such as LASIK is remarkable, and the successes of plastic surgery
have brought relief to many survivors of disfiguring accidents. However,
some elective surgeries, such as sterilization, are plainly immoral, while
plastic surgery techniques such as breast enhancement, while perhaps not
“grave matter,” seem to serve vanity and promote the valuing of women for
their bodies instead of their full personhood. It is vital that the moral
implications of future elective surgical techniques are examined now, before
they come upon us.
 
Genetics and Eugenics
 
When it comes to beginning-of-life questions, Church teaching is clear.
Still, the current state of affairs is bleak: England now permits
“preimplantation genetic diagnosis,” a technique where IVF-created embryos
are diagnosed not only for birth defects, but for the potential of
adult-onset diseases, even treatable ones. Prenatal testing has become
common in Western nations, with the tacit assumption that a poor test result
will prompt an abortion. Researchers estimate that 90 percent of all
prenatal diagnoses of Down Syndrome result in abortion. On the flip side,
those with sufficient wealth can “shop” for sperm, eggs, and even embryos
based on specific characteristics of the donors.
 
Debate over some of these developments has already begun. For example, at a
recent dinner in Washington, D.C., bioethicist Adrienne Ashe said that when
people try to artificially create children with specific genetic traits,
they are “letting one trait stand in for a whole person,” which
depersonalizes the child. “The whole child-to-be is not imagined, just one
or two characteristics,” she adds. Eppinette further contends that
“‘designer babies’ are quite a change from how children have been
traditionally viewed, namely as gifts to be received and nurtured.”
 
Furthermore, genetic engineering and artificial chromosomes open the door to
“not just designer babies but designer baby boomers, something I am
personally more interested in,” says Kurzweil. One question, of course, is
what should happen to those who do not get “treated.” Princeton professor
and futurist Lee Silver opines, “The economy, the media, the entertainment
industry, and the knowledge industry [will be] controlled by members of the
GenRich class. . . . Naturals [will] work as low-paid service providers or
as laborers.”
 
Cameron sees genetic manipulation as leading to a “new feudalism,” wherein a
“very small number of people, basically a global elite,” will take advantage
of a “law of compounding,” using their genetic advantages to create a
society with “far greater disparities” in wealth and power than currently
exist. Once a certain proportion of the population has had fundamental
genetic or mechanical enhancements, these societal changes will become, he
says, “absolutely inevitable.”
 
Some foresee an Earth in which natural reproduction is viewed as
irresponsible, with IVF being the responsible choice for both society (since
you’re selecting only the best genes) and your children (since you’re
choosing what is best for them). Others, such as author John Glad, view
eugenics as “an integral component of an environmentalist policy” (Future
Human Evolution, 2006). He continues, “Abortion should be actively promoted,
since it often serves as the last and even only resort for many low-IQ
mothers.”
 
The Vatican has been emphatic in its stance against nearly all eugenic plans
and techniques. Even as far back as 1987, the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith’s “Instruction on Respect for Human Life” stated, “Certain
attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic
but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other
predetermined qualities. These manipulations are contrary to the personal
dignity of the human being and his or her integrity and identity.” Communion
and Stewardship repeats the stance: “Changing the genetic identity of man
through the production of an infrahuman [i.e., inferior] being is radically
immoral. The use of genetic modification to yield a superhuman or being with
essentially new spiritual faculties is unthinkable.” More recently, this
teaching was rearticulated by Castrillón Cardinal Hoyos late in 2006, when
he said, “Genetic manipulation, when it is not therapeutic, that is, when it
does not tend to the treatment of pathology of the genetic patrimony, must
be radically condemned. . . . It pursues modifications in an arbitrary way,
inducing to the formation of human individuals with different genetic
patrimonies established according to one’s discretion. Eugenics, the
creation of a superior human race, is an aberrant application.”
 
Still, there are some gray areas—for instance, in the definitions of
“therapeutic,” “reparative,” and “augmentative” gene therapy. Kurzweil, when
asked if there was a difference between genetic therapy for a person with
Down Syndrome and for a person who wanted an IQ of 135 instead of 100,
responded, “In my opinion, no. We are the species that goes beyond our
limitations.” One could take a similar approach along theological lines, but
with a view toward licitly undoing the effects of the Fall through
technology.
 
Eppinette zeroes in on this exact distinction: “We are in need of serious
ethical, philosophical, and theological contemplation of where we draw the
line between therapy and enhancement. The work of the late John Paul II on
embodiment is both a foundation to build on as well as an example of the
kind of reflection needed on just this point.”
 
They Think We’re the Enemy
 
So far, except for the issue of genetics and eugenics, surprisingly many of
the advancements in modern medicine and technology are compatible with
Catholicism. Unfortunately, many of their more radical proponents don’t feel
the same way. In fact, several notable and opinion-leading transhumanists
are strongly anti-Christian.
 
For example, prominent transhumanist William Sims Bainbridge, the author of
more than 15 books and numerous magazine and journal articles, opens an
article with the following abstract: “Cognitive science immediately
threatens religious faith in two ways, by explaining away religion as an
error resulting from accidents in the evolutionary history of the human
nervous system, and by failing to find evidence that humans possess souls.
Over the coming decades, information technology may undercut people’s need
for religion by offering practical forms of cyberimmortality (CI). The
plausibility of religion may also be eroded by the coming unification of
science and the associated convergence of [new] technologies.” 
 
Even more troubling is language on the Web site for the Future Technologies
Advisory Group (www.futuretag.net), a transhumanist organization
specializing in consulting and media: “While one of the objectives of the
firm will be facilitating the penetration of transhumanist ideas in
mainstream business and policy, we will not use the T word or insist on the
transhumanist worldview too explicitly. Rather, we will focus on delivering
practical advice appropriate to the intended audience.” The willingness
expressed here to dissemble their true intentions is disconcerting.
 
And yet there must be open and honest dialogue on these issues. “We are
moving way beyond these old challenges to human life,” argues Cameron, who
says we need to change our focus of attention. We need to “ask the right
questions” and work toward finding ethical answers—answers consistent with
the Catholic moral tradition—before the future arrives.
 
Lines of communication need to be opened between Christian bioethicists and
transhumanists. Cameron, for example, calls Kurzweil “a man of genius” and
“no mere academic theorist,” while Kurzweil makes the surprising statement
that through human-driven evolution, people can “grow exponentially in
intelligence, knowledge, creativity, beauty, and love, all of the qualities
people ascribe to God without limit,” implying that “we can view evolution
as a spiritual process, moving ever closer to this ideal.” Men of this
intellectual stature need forums in which they can communicate with each
other. (To be fair, Cameron is already in contact with WTA president Nick
Bostrom and others, but he’s one of the only pro-life leaders doing so.) 
 
Bloch writes that when transhumanist goals have been achieved, “Many of
humanity’s ills will be eliminated. I find that sufficient comfort in the
continuing march from lives which are nasty, brutal, and short to those
which are not quite as nasty, not as brutal, and hopefully longer.”
Statements like this illustrate that many in this movement simply want a
better future—an excellent starting point for dialogue.
 
Catholic journalists need to be aware of the underlying agendas in some of
these scientific movements (www.bioethics.com, co-edited by Eppinette, is an
excellent source for keeping up-to-date). Pro-life politicians and lobbying
groups need to stay attuned to scientific progress to know which
technologies to support, which to oppose, and which to treat with a
laissez-faire attitude of benign neglect. (A good starting point is the 2003
government report “Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of
Happiness,” available at bioethics.gov/reports/beyondtherapy/.) And
bioethicists need to start asking the right questions.
 
Eppinette advises us that, “for people of faith, and Christians in
particular, we know that technology is not to be our God, and technology is
most definitely not our Savior. Each of us has to examine the role of
technology in our own lives, and how it squares with what we consider to be
most important in life. This does not mean that we become luddites,
rejecting new forms of technology. What it means is that we carefully
consider how technology fits into our lives, whether it helps or hinders the
goals we’ve set for ourselves”—which, he adds, may involve taking a closer
look at those very goals.
 
New technologies always bring new ethical dilemmas. We can’t afford to be
unaware of the challenges facing us today. The future is almost here.
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