[ExI] Morphological freedom and its limits

[Anders Sandberg]

A bit quiet here. I assume everybody are busy bringing about the 
singularity. Or the list is on holiday again :-)

In any case, here is a discussion topic: I am going to give a talk on 
morphological freedom in a few weeks, discussing how different 
conceptions of morphological freedom can approach questions on what 
human enhancements and extensions are ethical or wise. So, dear list, 
what are your views on how to draw lines about what modifications are 
"right" or "wrong"?


One approach is to keep to the old liberal civil rights approach I did 
in my paper. I am allowed to do whatever I want as long as I have the 
capacity to understand it, and does not infringe on the rights of 
others. If I want to have green skin it is my own choice, but I should 
not expect others to have to support it. I might not be allowed to use 
my IR vision for cheating at casinos.

Another approach is to view it as a right to explore the larger realm of 
(post)human modes of being. This means that I might be doing a public 
good by some experimental enhancements - maybe there are forms of beauty 
IR vision is required for and somebody needs to discover. Here I could 
get a bit of positive rights from this humanity-supporting exploration, 
and if I get hurt from it others may morally be obliged to help me.

An even more radical view is that we have some form of duty to approach 
posthumanity, either because the gradient of value points this way or 
because there is some form of telos. Here the problem becomes to detect 
the direction that is right: obviously going in the wrong direction is 
bad, even if it might be individually rational. It also seems to require 
some form of non-person affecting value.

Another approach is to say that morphological freedom has rules that are 
socially constructed within different domains. In sports the only 
acceptable form is traditional training, while in performance art it is 
whatever achieves the artistic aims and in science it is subjected to 
research ethics. The problems are (1) why these rules and not others? It 
all becomes pretty arbitrary, and it is hard to see how to condemn a 
group that decides to follow other rules. (2) Ethics tries to find 
overarching rules for good behavior: are there really none applying here?

Going all classical, one might think of a virtue ethics approach to 
morphological freedom. Reshape yourself to become a more excellent 
version of yourself, by actualizing your telos. Maybe one could even 
bring in existentialism here (just to annoy the audience, the conference 
is in Paris). Enhancements that make you more of yourself are right, 
enhancements that make you fit in with other people's preferences are 
bad. I think this might actually fit in with Nick Bostrom's paper about 
human dignity he wrote for the Presient's Council on Bioethics (it is 
hilarious, since he uses a super-conservative concept of human dignity).

In a standard medical ethics perspective, morphological freedom is all 
about autonomy. The other Beuchamp principles - non-maleficience, 
beneficience and justice - seem to imply mostly issues of how this deals 
with the medical profession and healthcare system. But one might argue 
there is a metaprinciple of cost-risk/benefit acting here: certain 
enhancements are too risky to be undertaken rationally, and one should 
hence not do them. But benefits can be very subjective, so it is hard to 
tell how to judge this.

In the end, where does this leave trepanationists, grinders, 
self-experimenters in neuroscience or gene therapy, whole-body 
tattooists, Stelarc or students taking Adderall?

-- 
Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University