Transhumanists have a deep antipathy for human exceptionalism. Indeed, in many ways, that loathing is the core of the movement. Which, when you think about it, isn’t surprising–given its philosophy that humans are not good enough, smart enough, strong enough, beautiful enough, or healthy enough–and we all die so soon! If human life is so lacking, why would they consider us exceptional?
But there’s more to it than that. Human exceptionalism is the prime philosophical impediment to the acceptance of transhumanism. If, we are going to engage in Utopian manipulation and remaking of human biology and existential meaning, humans must be reduced in moral status to merely another animal in the forest. Once we morally demoted ourselves, the would-be redesigners would have a much freer hand since nothing of fundamental value would be at risk.
Undermining human exceptionalism may be most easily undertaken indirectly and by stealth–that is by convincing society to elevate other species to our moral status. And so our old radical friends over at the Institute for Emerging Ethics and Technologies have decided to start an advocacy project intended to raise what we use to call the “higher mammals” (and parrots) to legal personhood, thereby granting them rights equal to our own. From the IEET announcement:
Owing to advances in several fields, including the neurosciences, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the human species no longer can ignore the rights of non-human persons. A number of non-human animals, including the great apes, cetaceans (i.e. dolphins and whales), elephants, and parrots, exhibit characteristics and tendencies consistent with that of a person—traits like self-awareness, intentionality, creativity, symbolic communication, and many others. It is a moral and legal imperative that we now extend the protection of ‘human rights’ from our species to all beings with those characteristics. The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, as a promoter of non-anthropocentric personhood ethics, defends the rights of non-human persons to live in liberty, free from undue confinement, slavery, torture, experimentation, and the threat of unnatural death. Further, the IEET defends the right of non-human persons to live freely in their natural habitats, and when that’s not possible, to be given the best quality of life and welfare possible in captivity (such as sanctuaries).
That’s just regurgitating Peter Singer’s Great Ape Project, but with greater diversity. And, of course, these so-called persons will have no responsibilities to go along with their rights, nor even, the knowledge that their moral status has been elevated. This is solely and completely, a human issue (because we are exceptional).
Such advocacy is par for the course. Thus, J. Hughes yearned in his book, Citizen Cyborg, to bio-engineer a chimpanzee to achieve human capacities. From page 94 his book:
Human racism will only fully be challenged by animals that have been modified to possess human cognitive and communication abilities. The complete chimpanzee genome has been decoded and is being compared strand by strand with the human genome…Soon we will be able to genetically enhance primates to have human intellectual capabilities, a project dubbed “uplifting” by writer David Brin. I firmly believe that uplifted chimps will force us to admint that intelligent personhood, not humanneess, is the ticket to citizenship.
That admits we are exceptional, it seem to me, since to prove we are not, we have to genetically engineer animals to be just like us! But logic isn’t the point. Tearing asunder society’s grip on human exceptionalism opens the door to doing anything.
I don’t worry about transhumanism actually achieving its technological goals. But I am concerned with the eugenics values it promotes on one hand, and the paradoxical degrading of human self worth on the other. Some will laugh and roll their eyes. But that would be a mistake.
HT: Tom Horn
February 13th, 2011 | 7:03 pm
Wesley, certainly we have to reject any elements of “Treanshumanism”, and its intellectual allies, that deny personhood status, to human babies, fetuses, dementia victims, or any other vulnerable humans, who do not fully exhibit rational traits. But the old metaphor of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, has applicability here.
I find the statement that you quoted from, entirely rational. nonanimals, many of them, at least, DO manifest traits, that would require one to conclude that they belong to the rights community. But we can still accept that, at least some animals have rights, and that ALL humans have rights. The key is to reject the philosophical foundation, of the singers, etc., that would deny some humans rights.
I get the clear impression that you are very sympathetic toward animals, Wesley. i’m guessing that you reject the animal rights movement, at least in part, because of, what you believe the implications for humans will be. But those implications do not necessarily follow. the key is to have a philosophical foundation, that accepts the rights of all humans, and sentient animals. We lose nothing, in this system, except, the ability to exploit other animals, but that’s a gain for humans, inour moral development.
February 13th, 2011 | 7:32 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, J. Robert Howell. J. Robert Howell said: Transhumanists Launch Campaign for Animal Personhood http://is.gd/cQms71 [...]
February 14th, 2011 | 2:25 am
Yes, I count myself a transhumanist but I’ve never considered that intellectual position to be one of loathing humanity but rather of wishing what is already good thing to bemade even better. It is a long-standing and rather immature view that humanity is “good enough” without need of improvement with an especially rabid distaste for the “arrogance” of those who think they can “do better than the creator” … whoever, whatever that is. Such persons usually and finally agree that, yes, humanity needs much improving but only through “Jesus” or “the word of god” or some other such silliness. They do not so much disagree with man’s imperfections, only with the methods by which they are eliminated. And while millions sit in dark rooms, closets, boxes and corners praying to their stringed beads and manufactured idols for that magical day, others are doing the hard work of discovering how to make it so beyond simple wishful thinking.
The fact of the matter is, we are exceptional apes, but apes all the same. Those facts were discovered as truth not by the exceptionalists or the self-loathers but by realists who make no assumptions about what is fact, what is true, but rather carefully seek whatever happens to be true no matter how uncomfortable. The fact is, and this coming from a man who finds himself fifty years of age and quickly losing whatever physical and intellectual talents, skills and advantages he may have had, the human organism could use much improving and those who have the ability and the will to discover how to correct these perceived shortcomings will be the ones to finally offer options for doing so to anyone who desires it. As I understand it, anyone who promotes the idea of compulsory change for others is no transhumanist and may very well be an human being head in the opposite evolutionary direction.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 10:13 am
Maumadd: Making humanity better is “eugenics.” Laissez faire eugenics would be no better and would lead to forms of compulsion any way. But it is eugenics ideology that leads to the evil. And what makes you think we have the wisdom to select what is better? Not good. But thanks for commenting.
February 14th, 2011 | 2:46 am
The idea of “inalienable rights” or “natural rights” is hogwash. A “right” is simply the agreement of other living things not to interfere in your personal sovereignty. It is an invention but, of course, an essential one to that thing we humans call “civilization” – also an invention.
Naturally, the hungry lion that spots you walking the grasslands isn’t likely to give a damn about your “rights”. So much for “inalienable”.
February 14th, 2011 | 5:52 am
I draw my ethical reasoning from the ‘Golden Rule’.
I will grant to apes as a species exactly what they as a species are capable of reciprocating.
I have yet to see any reason to believe that animals are capable of accepting the responsibilities that go with the rights.
A right to go unconfined? Even human beings do not have a right to go unconfined if they are not willing to accept the behavioral expectations that go with those rights.
I also think we must secure rights for our own species – and settle that debate – before we start expanding rights to other species. Otherwise the natural and inevitable conclusion will be that, in areas where the two sets of rights overlap, we will cede human rights to the “rights” of animals, and I am not willing to say that any animal’s life is worth more than a human life. (Nor will I hold it against the animals if they decide their own family is worth more than a human life; if animals do have rights, then teaching an animal to preference a human life over its own kind would be a form of abuse, wouldn’t it?)
February 14th, 2011 | 12:04 pm
Naumadd:
The idea of “inalienable rights” or “natural rights” is hogwash. A “right” is simply the agreement of other living things not to interfere in your personal sovereignty. It is an invention but, of course, an essential one to that thing we humans call “civilization” – also an invention.
You may think that universal human rights are “hogwash”, but that doesn’t make it so. They exist as a philosophical imperative that stems from the unique status of humans as rational creatures. All human beings possess these rights, and it is the task of human beings to organize governments and societies that best respect and protect these rights. So goes the political philosophy of social contract/government by consent, at any rate.
Your example of the lion doesn’t prove much – rights are philosophical abstracts and it falls to people to protect and implement them. Were there a lion running around loose in my city, I’d imagine that the police/animal control/etc. would see to trapping or killing it. Thus would my right to a life free from predation be secured.
This seems to be a theme with a lot of transhumanists – the argument that we’re no different than animals. I think this is dangerous thinking, since it runs counter to any duties we may have to people who are powerless, disabled, different, or otherwise despised. Animal society is not something any of us would enjoy living under.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
SparkVark: Your last point is essential. Because they–and other human unexceptionalists–LIKE (usually) the duty to treat other humans properly, they treat it as a given, as if it has always been there. But it is only a given because of the first principle of human exceptionalism and the concomitant intrinsic dignity and importance of the human being. This came about, in part, because of Judeo/Christian faith, but became a secular philosophy, and hence, one need not be a believer to accept universal human equality that arises from the unique moral worth of humans. Wipe that out, and you are quite right, our self perception as duty bearing individuals toward each other would slowly, but surely, erode. Gas fumes from a better philosophy can only propel us for only so long.
February 14th, 2011 | 12:31 pm
For what its worth Wesley i respect you. Keep fighting the good fight against people who wish to destroy the human race and rebuild it in their image.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Thanks, anti transhumanist. I could use all the respect I can get.
February 14th, 2011 | 7:05 pm
It is certainly true that much of what passes for “transhumanism” on the web is rather flaky. This certainly applies to much of the content on the IEET website.
However, in one sense the transhumanists do have a point. Any society is only as good as the human capital that comprises it. It is only sensible that any society would seek to improve the quality of its human capital, which would include the use of bioengineering.
February 14th, 2011 | 9:05 pm
Blake: We’ve discussed this issue, more times than anyone can count, but I do want to respond to your comments. Your assertion that a being must be able to recognize the rights of others, for it to have rights, is a common assertion, made by those who deny animals rights, but it’s fallacious.
February 15th, 2011 | 5:41 am
Abelard Lindsey: When you say “any society is only as good as the human capital that comprises it” – what do you imagine the point of society is, if the people exist to serve it rather than it existing to serve the people?
Most religious people believe that the point of society involves an external “ruling force” that is the power we call “divine”, with which humans must live in harmony or perish.
If you reject that, then there are only two other options. The first is that there is some other purpose, external to human life – an external “ruling force” or purpose that is not divine, yet somehow grants to us our purpose for being?
The other option is that the point of life is that we’re alive – in which case we do not exist to be “human capital” for the sake of our society, but rather our society is good or bad based on whether it takes care of us, the people whom the society exists for.
Am I missing a possibility here?
February 15th, 2011 | 8:05 am
When animals treat each other in a naturally helpful way, then someone somewhere may pay attention. Love is the answer.
February 15th, 2011 | 1:13 pm
The term personhood comes from the Greek “hypostasis” which was used to distinguish human nature (ousia) from the personhood. A person is a relational being in context of certain nature, in our case, human. So to look for personhood expansion is dishonest in terms I think. Secondly this is the natural result in not believing in traditional religion, pagan or otherwise. No pagan ever held that animals and humans were equal, and neither did the monotheistic religions; they taught they exist in a hierarchy. This transhumanist stuff is just the logical extension of seeing ONLY a material universe and 1. the need to be immortal, and 2. The idea of immanitizhing religious transcendence into material terms. This is religious at heart.
Human “rights” do not exist It IS a philosophical abstraction-yes, but abstractions are not actual, like unicorns. Life and all things are a gift and privilege of God, not a right.
February 15th, 2011 | 3:33 pm
It only makes sense to understand “rights” as those things which we have a duty to one another, not to violate, and which the civil powers have to duty to protect from such violations, or render justice when it occurs. In the the case of human rights, that duty exists by virtue of our humanity as such. In the case of civil rights, they exist because of the nature of our civil society.
By that definition, there are certainly such things as rights. When we speak of them as being “inalienable,” we mean with respect to any human agency having any legitimacy in doing so. We don’t mean that it’s impossible for man or immoral for God.
February 15th, 2011 | 4:19 pm
“What do you imagine the point of society is, if the people exist to serve it rather than it existing to serve the people?”
As a libertarian, I believe that society exists to serve individuals, not the other way around. The implication is that individuals have the right to use technology to increase the functionality of their minds and bodies (morphological freedom).
However, this freedom is often criticized on collectivist grounds. My point about human capital also relates to collectivist objectives. If you believe in the legitimacy of collectivist arguments to regulate “self-enhancement”, then you must accept as legitimate collectivist arguments mandating such self-enhancements as to improve the human capital. You cannot have one without the other.
The concept of external ruling force applies to those of external locus of control. As I am of internal locus of control, I have no need for any such external ruling force. I am quite capable of creating my own meaning and purpose in life. I have no need (nor do I want) these things to be defined by external agencies.
February 15th, 2011 | 4:26 pm
The same arguments can be applied to reproductive technologies. Any attempt to regulate or restrict reproductive technologies can be considered a violation of the 1948 Supreme Court ruling that declared reproduction as an “unfettered” right. If you decide that there should be certain restrictions on how people can have kids or what kind of kids they can have, a can of worms is opened in that such restrictions can be applied to those who are deemed “unfit” for reproduction on functional or cognitive grounds as well. Again, you cannot have one without the other.
Any argument on restricting the use of biotechnologies for either personal or reproductive purposes are inherently collectivist. People arguing for such restrictions seem to justify a maximum standard on what we can become. However, such arguments can also be used to justify a minimum standard on what we should be. The philosophical difference between a minimum and maximum standard is no more than a sleight of hand.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 15th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
No right is absolute, not even those that are actually enumerated. The SC made that statement when there was but one way to have babies. Things have changed. Reproduction should not be an absolute right in the way you have described it.
February 15th, 2011 | 8:29 pm
“Reproduction should not be an absolute right in the way you have described it.”
I agree with you completely. There are people who should not be allowed to reproduce, period.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 15th, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Abelard: That’s not how I meant it. I am not a eugenicist.
February 16th, 2011 | 9:33 am
Abelard, if you want to be something other than human, go ahead.
But don’t claim that you are entitled to human rights, if you don’t want to be a human.
If you want to be an animal, or a machine, that’s fine – but part of being an animal or a machine is that neither animals nor machines have or are entitled to human rights.
February 16th, 2011 | 8:43 pm
ANY discussion on restricting reproductive rights is really a discussion about what kind of people should be brought into the world. It is also arguable that ANY government regulation of reproduction is, by definition, a form of positive eugenics (even if the results are not positive). Personally, I think the government should butt out of reproductive issues. Its frankly none of their business.
Blake,
Sentience is the definition of being human. This is the essential trait that separates us from the animals. There is no other definition of human. As long as I am sentient, there is no reason why I should be accorded any less “rights” than yourself.
What makes you think I want to change myself? I actually rather like myself just as I am. I just want to get cured of the disease known as the aging process. In every other respect, I’m quite happy with my looks and abilities (cognitive and otherwise).
In any case, I think the debate over reproductive technology misses the point. How people make kids is a red herring. Its how they raise kids that is of importance. Are kids raised to have good character and to be responsible productive members of society? Do the parents raising them have good parenting skills? Are the kids of what my mother would refer to as “good breeding”? These are the important issues with regards to having and raising kids, not whether you used some kind of funky technology to produce the kids in the first place.
BTW, I do agree with the lot of you on the issue of animal “personhood” (what an oxymoron!).
February 17th, 2011 | 10:13 am
Blake,
Sentience is the definition of being human.
Says who?
February 17th, 2011 | 2:33 pm
[...] Is a Dog Is a Boy and an outspoken critic of both the transhumanism and animal rights movements has already come out swinging against the new program launched by IEET, calling it another attempt to “undermine human [...]
February 17th, 2011 | 5:36 pm
Sentience is the only meaningful concept of being human because it is not an arbitrary definition.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 5:44 pm
It is entirely arbitrary, Abelard. And what do you mean by sentience? Being a human organism is objective, not subjective. That’s the key.
February 18th, 2011 | 5:03 pm
I would define sentience in terms of consciousness, self-awareness, and goal-seeking orientation. These are traits that humans have and the animals do not. The IEET posting that kicked off this discussion claims that the cetaceans possess these traits. I disagree. Everything I have read suggests that dolphins have the intelligence and self-awareness comparable to dogs.
BTW, I agree with much of what you say with regards to national-socialist health care (ObamaCare), the global warming fraud, and even the fraud that passes for that California state funded stem cell research organization.
I think your positions on reproductive technologies are quite good, even though I disagree with them.
Where I disagree with you completely is on the feasibility and desirability of radical life extension. I think De Grey’s SENS approach is spot-on and should be pursued. Whether this should involve public funding (e.g. tax payers’ money) is open to question. I tend to lean against this because of the way government-funded science degenerates into unproductive pork-fests.
However, private parties should be free to invest in and pursue the development of radical life extensuon and to reap the benefit from its developments free from the interference of politicians and bureaucrats.
February 18th, 2011 | 9:41 pm
I forgot to mention it before. I think this blog is quite good.
February 22nd, 2011 | 8:17 pm
The argument stands to be won once the key “rational” is replaced with a more rational differentiation of men and animals. Animals are obviously rational in the sense that they use reason, although a far lesser quantity yet the same thing. The difference between animals and humans of obvious to the faithful; yet, not obvious to many of no faith in God being the Creator. You can’t win an argument with outdated words that have lost their original meaning. You have to find a way to redefine the difference. And that is the problem because nobody has yet done so. Read Aristotle and see that what he has done is simply to claim the qualitative difference … but he did not do a sufficient job of it, and by the time that St Thomas Aquinas got to the same task, evidently the word “rational” continued its “soundbite” role and went unchallenged. Now well into centuries of modern science, this word and its commonly understood concept fail to show the difference. I feel confident in claiming that nobody has come up with an airtight definition because if anyone had, then it would be argued about publically, and it’s not; therefore, creationists have a work set before them. Go to it.
February 23rd, 2011 | 4:46 am
[...] [...]
February 27th, 2011 | 9:25 pm
I hate this blog so much. I wish google would let me completely block it from my news feeds, but it only gives me the option to “show fewer”. Sigh.
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