[ExI] Reframing transhumanism as good vs. evil

[Anders Sandberg]

Here is my take on it:

"Good and evil" tends to make discussions about morality stupid, but it 
is is important to think about what is good - what is desirable, what 
gives life and the world value, even what value is. A good way is to 
play the "why game":

Why do we do medicine? To become healthy. But why are we striving for 
this? Health in itself is not valuable. But being ill is often directly 
painful and indirectly prevents us from doing many things. Health means 
not just an adequate bodily state, but the ability to pursue one's life 
projects (whatever they are). So a reason to strive for health is that 
it allows us to achieve well-being, both the direct state of feeling 
well but also potentially the well-being that comes from living a good 
life (whatever we happen to think that good is).

Incidentally, remember the WHO definition of health as "a state of 
complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the 
absence of disease or infirmity." - that is pretty transhuman and seems 
to promote enhancement as valid.

Now, if the real good we are aiming at is well-being, then it becomes 
pointless to distinguish between therapy and enhancement. We might still 
have prioritarian concerns that the worst off deserve the most help or 
practical concerns that illness is easier to treat than mere normality. 
But both therapy and enhancement aim at the good.

AlgaeNymph wrote:
>
> That's the problem we have.  Even when we're not seen as evil, we're 
> seen as selfish nerds who are utterly indifferent to it.  The sad 
> thing is I find myself almost believing this.  Causes that comedians 
> can't brand as outright evil or obvious spin are pretty much about 
> fighting evil and/or saving innocents.  Citizen heroics, basically.

The problem is that there are relatively few clear-cut evils one can 
fight in an unambigious way. And that real attempts of making the world 
better often don't look very impressive (consider how most charity works 
- it is more about being seen as nice than actually achieving good 
outcomes. Utilitarian meta-charities like Giving What We Can look 
*weird* to most people - why focus on giving to Deworm The World (yuck!) 
when you can give to the local church charity?)

I don't think there is anything wrong with others not viewing us as 
heroic. Few of us are. And I do think we should stand up for our right 
to be rationally selfish: I love life, and I will do my best to enjoy it 
for the longest possible in the best way I can. That includes helping my 
friends and strangers, and I certainly hope they also get lives they like.


Many of the technologies we are discussing are not primarily developed 
for enhancement purposes (rather, enhancement is a side effect) and 
often enhancing technologies show "therapeutic" side effects. It is a 
mistake to think that if someone gets better everyone gets a bit worse 
off: the world is positive sum rather than negative. If we deworm 
Sub-Saharan Africa we are going to reap the benefit of many more brains 
that function well, helping both themselves, the region and the world. A 
good, safe and widespread cognitive enhancer would save lives (less 
accidents), speed up technological and economic development and no doubt 
enable many forms of human flourishing - even if you don't take it you 
might benefit from it.

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University