Human Dignity and Transhumanism: Do Anthro-Technological Devices Have Moral Status?

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on the concept of human dignity and critically assess whether such a concept, as used in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, is indeed a useful tool for bioethical debates. However, I consider this concept within the context of the development of emerging technologies, that is, with a particular focus on transhumanism. The question I address is not whether attaching artificial limbs or enhancing particular traits or capacities would dehumanize or undignify persons but whether nonbiological entities introduced into or attached to the human body contribute to the “augmentation” of human dignity. First, I outline briefly how the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights uses the concept of dignity. Second, I look at the possibility of a universal bioethics in relation to the concept of human dignity. Third, I examine the concept of posthuman dignity and whether the concept of human dignity as construed in the declaration has any relevance to posthuman dignity.

Keywords:

• human dignity
• posthuman dignity
• transhumanism
• UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics

Notes

¹ See Bostrom's claim that “transhumanists …see human and posthuman dignity as compatible and complementary. They insist that dignity, in its modern sense, consists in what we are and what we have the potential to become, not in our pedigree or our causal origin. What we are is not a function solely of our DNA but also of our technological and social context. Human nature in this broader sense is dynamic, partially human-made, and improvable” (Bostrom 2005, p. 213). “It seems that he [Mirandola] is suggesting both that our Human Dignity consists in our capacity for self-shaping, and also that we gain in Dignity as a Quality through the exercise of this capacity. It is thus possible to argue that the act of voluntary, deliberate enhancement adds to the dignity of the resulting trait, compared to possessing the same trait by mere default” (Bostrom 2007, p. 12).

²Actually 13 times if we include the reference to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine of the Council of Europe.

³ See Article 2(h) of the Declaration. One of the aims of the Declaration is “to underline the importance of biodiversity and its conservation as a common concern of humankind.”

⁵As quoted by Jonsen (1998, 345).

⁴This is not to say that the same problems occur in moral theory in general. However, the problem concerning the foundation of bioethical theory is even more salient as the traditional points of reference (i.e., sources of moral authority) in Western culture have collapsed. The result is a plurality of moral accounts, none of them being authoritative per se.

⁶For a critique of the concept of dignity in medical ethics see Macklin (2003).

⁷Other transhumanists not only argue that human nature is improvable but also that we have a moral obligation to make people better. See for instance Harris (2007).

⁸Bostrom defines enhancement as “an intervention that improves the functioning of some subsystem of an organism beyond its reference state; or that creates and entirely new functioning or subsystem that the organism previously lacked. The function of a subsystem can be construed as either natural (and be identified with the evolutionary role played by this subsystem, if it is an adaptation), or intentional (in which case the function is determined by the contribution that the subsystem makes to the attainment of relevant goals and intentions of the organism)” (Bostrom 2007, 7–8).

⁹Prominent bioconservatives like Kass reject the Kantian notion of human dignity as “personal dignity.” Rather, Kass defines human dignity as embodied human life: “The account of human dignity we seek goes beyond the said dignity of ‘persons,’ to reflect and embrace the worthiness of embodied human life, and therewith of our natural desires and passions, our natural origins and attachments, our sentiments and aversions, our loves and longings. What we need is a defense of the dignity of what Tolstoy called ‘real life,’ life as ordinarily lived, everyday life in its concreteness. It is a life lived always with and against necessity, struggling to meet it, not to eliminate it” (Kass 2002, 17–18). For Fukuyama, on the other hand, human dignity is based on the idea of belonging to the human species, hence giving human beings a higher moral status than other creatures. As he puts it, “denial of the concept of human dignity—that is, of the idea that there is something unique about the human race that entitles every member of the species to a higher moral status than the rest of the natural world—leads us down a very perilous path” (Fukuyama 2002, 160).

¹⁰For a critical reply to Bostrom's interpretation of “dignity as quality” as formulated by Aurel Kolnai, see Charles Rubin (2008a).

¹¹For the sake of clarity I define human nature “as a set of physical (movement, reproduction, nutrition, etc.) and neurological characteristics (self-determination/free will, reason, communication, etc.) developed in the course of human existence according to, but limited by one's biological/genetic make-up. Key to this definition is the idea that human nature is biologically determined, while recognizing that technology can help sustain notions of embodiment when threatened by disease or the outcome of unfortunate events (accidents, etc.)” (Jotterand 2008, 16).

¹²As Kurzweil puts it, “Uploading a human brain means scanning all of its salient details and then reinstantiating those details into a suitably powerful computational substrate. This process would capture a person's entire personality, memory, skills and history” (Kurzweil 2005, 198–199).