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Transhumanism: The Most Dangerous Idea?Why striving to be more than human is human

Ronald Bailey

"What ideas, if embraced, would pose the greatest threat to thewelfare of humanity?" That question was posed to eight prominent policy

intellectuals by the editors ofForeign Policy in its September/October issue(not yet available online). One of the eight savants consulted was FrancisFukuyama, professor of international political economy at Johns HopkinsSchool of Advanced International Studies, author of Our PosthumanFuture: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, and a member ofthe President's Council on Bioethics. His choice for the world's mostdangerous idea? Transhumanism.

In his Foreign Policyarticle, Fukuyama identifies transhumanism as "astrange liberation movement" that wants "nothing less than to liberate thehuman race from its biological constraints." Sounds ominous, no? But wait aminute, isn't human history (and prehistory) all about liberating more and

more people from their biological constraints? After all, it's not as thoughmost of us still live in our species' "natural state" as Pleistocene hunter-gatherers.

Human liberation from our biological constraints began when anancestor first sharpened a stick and used it to kill an animal for food. Furtherliberation from biological constraints followed with fire, the wheel,domesticating animals, agriculture, metallurgy, city building, textiles,information storage by means of writing, the internal combustion engine,electric power generation, antibiotics, vaccines, transplants, andcontraception. In a sense, the goal toward which humanity has been strivingfor millennia has been to liberate ourselves from more and more of ourancestors' biological constraints.

What is a human capacity anyway? Biologist Richard Dawkins haspropounded the notion of an extended phenotype. Genes not only moldthe bodies of organisms but also shape their behaviors. Some of thosebehaviors result in the creation of inanimate objects that help organisms tosurvive and reproduce, such as beaver dams and bird nests.

Our ancestors had no wings; now we fly. Our ancient forebears couldnot hear one another over 1,000 miles; now we phone. And our Stone Ageprogenitors averaged 25 years of life; now we live 75. Thanks to our knack

for technological innovation, humanity has by far the largest extendedphenotype of all creatures on planet Earth. Nothing could be more natural tohuman beings than striving to liberate ourselves from biological constraints.

But Fukuyama would undoubtedly respond that Pleistocene hunter-gatherers are still recognizably human, no different in their innate capacitiesthan people living today. What transhumanists seek is very different. Theywant to go beyond current innate human capacities. They want to changehuman bodies and brains.

Of course, humans have been deliberately changing their bodiesthrough athletic training and their brains through schooling. Nevertheless,

Fukuyama has a point. Can one be so transformed by technology as to beno longer human? "Our good characteristics are intimately connected to our

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bad ones: If we weren't violent and aggressive, we wouldn't be able todefend ourselves; if we didn't have feelings of exclusivity, we wouldn't beloyal to those close to us; if we never felt jealousy, we would also never feellove," asserts Fukuyama. He seems to be arguing that to be a human beingone must possess all of the emotional capacities characteristic of ourspecies. If biotechnological manipulations removed our ability to feelemotions like anger, hate, or violence, we would in some sense not behuman beings any more.

Let's say that future genetic engineers discover a gene for suicidaldepression, and learn how to suppress the gene, or adjust it. Would fixing itmake subsequent generations non-human beings? After all, most peopletoday do not fall into suicidal depressions, and those happy people are noless human than, say, Sylvia Plath.

Depression can already be fixed for many people by means of Prozacor Paxil. Surely, taking serotonin re-uptake inhibitors does not make people

other or less than human. Sufferers of depression will tell you that the drugsrestore them to their true selves. It seems unreasonable to claim that inorder to qualify as human beings, we all must have the capacity to succumbto berserker rage or religious ecstasy.

"The first victim of transhumanism might be equality," writesFukuyama. "If we start transforming ourselves into something superior, whatrights will these enhanced creatures claim, and what rights will they possesswhen compared to those left behind?" Fukuyama seems to be entertainingan X-Men-like fantasy in which enhanced posthumans seek to destroyunenhanced naturals. But where Fukuyama is a bit coy, left-leaningbioethicists George Annas, Lori Andrews, and Rosario Isasi are brutally

blunt:

The new species, or "posthuman," will likely view the old"normal" humans as inferior, even savages, and fit for slaveryor slaughter. The normals, on the other hand, may see theposthumans as a threat and if they can, may engage in apreemptive strike by killing the posthumans before theythemselves are killed or enslaved by them. It is ultimately thispredictable potential for genocide that makes species-alteringexperiments potential weapons of mass destruction, andmakes the unaccountable genetic engineer a potential

bioterrorist.

Let's take their over-the-top scenario down a notch or two. Theenhancements that are likely to be available in the relatively near term topeople now living will be pharmacologicalpills and shots to increasestrength, lighten moods, and improve memory. Consequently, suchinterventions could be distributed to nearly everybody who wanted them.Later in this century, when safe genetic engineering becomes possible, itwill enable parents to give their children beneficial genes for improvedhealth and intelligence that other children already get naturally. Thus, safegenetic engineering in the long run is more likely to ameliorate than toexacerbate human inequality.

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In any case, political equality has never rested on the facts of humanbiology. In prior centuries, when humans were all "naturals," tyranny,slavery, and purdah were common social and political arrangements. Infact, political liberalism is already the answer to Fukuyama's question abouthuman and posthuman rights. In liberal societies the law is meant to applyequally to all, no matter how rich or poor, powerful or powerless, brilliant orstupid, enhanced or unenhanced.

The crowning achievement of the Enlightenment is the principle oftolerance, of putting up with people who look differently, talk differently,worship differently, and live differently than we do. In the future, ourdescendants may not all be natural homo sapiens, but they will still bemoral beings who can be held accountable for their actions. There is noreason to think that the same liberal political and moral principles that applyto diverse human beings today wouldn't apply to relations among futurehumans and posthumans.

But what if enhanced posthumans took the Nietzschean supermanoption? What if they really did see unenhanced people "as inferior, evensavages, and fit for slavery or slaughter"?

Let's face it, plenty of unenhanced humans have been quite capableof believing that millions of their fellow unenhanced humans were inferiorswho needed to be eradicated. However, as liberal political institutions havespread and strengthened, they have increasingly restrained technologicallysuperior groups from automatically wiping out less advanced peoples (whichwas usual throughout most of history). I suspect that this dynamic willcontinue in the future as biotechnology, nanotechnology, and computationaltechnologies progressively increase people's capabilities and widen their

choices.

In his famous book The End of History and the Last Man,Fukuyama declared that we are witnessing "the end point of mankind'sideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracyas the final form of human government." Fair enough. But for Fukuyama,the end of history is a "sad time" because "daring, courage, imagination,and idealism will be replaced by economic calculation." Also, he claims, "inthe post-historical period there will be neither art nor philosophy, just theperpetual caretaking of the museum of human history." How ironic thatFukuyama now spends his time demonizing transhumanism, a nascent

philosophical and political movement that epitomizes the most daring,courageous, imaginative, and idealistic aspirations of humanity.

"The environmental movement has taught us humility and respect forthe integrity of nonhuman nature. We need a similar humility concerningour human nature. If we do not develop it soon, we may unwittingly invitethe transhumanists to deface humanity with their genetic bulldozers andpsychotropic shopping malls," concludes Fukuyama. I say, bring on thosegenetic bulldozers and psychotropic shopping malls that help people to livehealthier, smarter, and happier lives.

I have my own nomination for an "idea [that], if embraced, would

pose the greatest threat to the welfare of humanity": Banning technologicalprogress in the name of "humility."

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Ronald Bailey is Reason's science correspondent. His new book, LiberationBiology: A Moral and Scientific Defense of the Biotech Revolution will be

published in early 2005.