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Dieter Birnbacher:
Posthumanity, Transhumanism and Human Nature
1. Introduction
'Posthumanity' labels human existence radically transformed by the most advanced medical techniques and by the use of neuro-, bio- and nano- and other technologies for human enhancement.
The concept of 'posthumanity' is bound-up in a debate over values.
Thinkers are divided across a wide spectrum of positions regarding these values. Nick Bostrom is a transhumanist. He has a positive view of posthumanism.
Leon Kass is a bioconservative. He sees a posthuman future as a threat and not a paradise.
Transhumanism is the movement striving to move beyond humanity to posthumanity by transcending our current human limits.
Of course, many people fall along the spectrum between transhumanism and bioconservatism.
2 Posthumanity and Transhumanism - Conceptual Puzzles
Posthumanity and transhumanism are more properly slogans than they are well-defined concepts. This is for two reasons:
1) both expression are inherently paradoxical if we take them literally,
2) and both expressions are misleading. They could just mean that humanity changes its "outfit" by means of science or technology. Or they could mean that humanity changes its very human nature.
Posthumanity and Transhumanity are Paradoxical
Posthumanity might be our species' state after we move beyond biological limits so to become an entirely new "species."
Or it might be a higher ontological level of being: finite gods, or superhumans who related to humans the way that we relate to animals now.
Yet others just see transhumanism as enhancing man's social and physical environment without altering the species itself.
Today, transhumanists seem to hold this view.
Bioconservatives value "tradition, spirituality, the ability to find some overarching value in life, or the readiness to leave certain pats of nature unexplored and unexploited." So for them, the term "dehumanising" strongly condemns transhumanist ideals.
Some forsee a radical biological change by means of genetic technologies. But it is not clear if such genetic enhancements could alter the human species enough to make it an entirely different species in the way that men are different from dogs.
There are some necessary conditions for being a human. One is that we need to have a substantial amount of organic tissue. So robots no matter how sophisticated cannot be human, but children born without a brain do fulfill this criterion. However, it is not clear how much tissue is needed. A robot with a human brain might qualify, where a human body with a computer brain might not.
So homo sapiens is more of a 'cluster concept' then a perfectly definable notion.
We will discuss three possible criteria used to qualify humans.
1) The essentialist criterion:
Humans share a common metaphysical essence. This criterion posses difficult epistemological and logical problems. For this criteria does not help in border-line cases. Also, there are inter-species hybrids. Which essence would a hybrid have?
2) Genealogical criterion:
The descendants of a species belong to that species. The problem is that we apply the criteria only after we define the species. It is also possible that humanity gives rise over time to another species that we would not consider human.
3) Genomic criterion:
[Humans are those with human genes.] The problem is defining the quantity of genetic variation allowed before one is no longer considered human. There does not seem to be a fixed class of genes that is common to all humans. Also, if future humans modify their genetic make-up, we will not know when they no longer qualify as humans.
A definition for humanity must fulfill the following four general conditions:
a) It must be empirical rather than metaphysical
b) it cannot merely be genealogical,
c) it must be disjunctive rather than conjunctive, and
d) it will have to include phenotypical features alongside purely genomic ones.
Even with these conditions fulfilled, borderline cases will challenge the clarity of our definition. Also, species change anyway, so the definition should account for some of changes thattranshumanists propose.
Regardless, it is doubtful that there exists a clear boundary between human and beyond-human in the transhumanist and posthumanist perspectives.
3 Human Nture and Its Ambiguities
So posthumanity might not be a step beyond the human species. But is it a step beyond human nature as we know it?
What makes-up our human nature is not clear. It could be our purely 'natural' features in contrast to our social and cultural ones. But then we cannot say we know of any humans exhibiting human nature.
More often we use the term to also refer to all of humanity's features including cultural ones.
We also cannot differentiate too much human nature vs human nurture. And consider that one thing that makes humans what they are is their scientific curiosity. So our current scientific advances really are an extension of our innate nature.
Culture influences how we develop humans in their concrete living. But it can have an influence on genes too, by regulating marriages and births."The genetic make-up of each generation is asmuch the result of cultural factors as it is the result of biological factors." (111d)
So if we are a cultural animal, that means we are a changing species. Thus changing our human nature by means of technology serves to affirm our nature.
Now we need to ask what sorts of technologies for human enhancement are admissible. But since we do not have a concrete definition for humanity, this question is difficult to answer.
We wonder then if there is an adequate definition for humanity that can satisfy both transhumanists and bioconservatives. Yet we find that any attempt to produce such a definition encounters this dilemma: either
a) our definition is too vague to rule-out any transformation that humans might undergo, or
b) it is too partisan to be acceptable to both parties.
We find that we cannot define humanity by either universal or specific properties.
Universal properties such as embodiment, mortality, or vulnerability are too vague to distinguish man from other animals. And, no posthuman technology could possibly overcome these traits.
Specific properties such as self-consciousness, elaborated language, and a complex morality do not exhaust our concept of humanity. Also the list would contain traits that are not human specific such as emotionality and the capacity for personal relationships.
We might better define humanity by determining what is typical of man as a biological species.
Typical properties have two features:
they are properties exemplified by most people most of the time. And they are properties with some special importance. They must be normal features such as having five senses, childhood development, and vulnerability to infectious diseases. But the typical property must be important and not trivial.
If we use a definition based on humanity's typical features, can we imagine posthumanity going beyond what is typical of the human species?
There are two obstacles in the way of affirming this question:
a) our judgments of what is typical for our species are historically relative. Whatever we say of humanity only applies to the species up to now, but does not tell us what it is allowed to become. It was once typical of humans to be hunter gatherers. Now we live in a fundamentally different mode.
Also, when we say what is normal for the species, we also imply a devaluation for what is not normal. For example, it was once normal for women to be considered as dependent and vulnerable.
So because of historical relativity, posthumans are beyond what is typical of humans now, but not beyond what is typical of humanity per se.
Also consider that humans have always improved themselves. So that is one typical feature of humanity. If we improve ourselves so to become posthumans, then we at least have maintained this one feature typical of humanity.
Another difficulty in defining what is typical for human nature is that concepts of humanity vary between cultures. For example, a Christian standard will emphasize human weakness and vulnerability. But secular humanists are more receptive to the idea of enhancing humanity. This would only be the next step in a human progress beginning in the stone age.
4 Conclusion
There is controversy surrounding the terms posthumanity and transhumanity. It centers around the issue of values.
For transhumanists, the state of posthumanity is a "positive vision of a future in which certain limits inherent in the human condition as we know it are overcome by means of further advances in science, technology, and medicine. " (116a)
For bioconservatives, posthumanity is a threat to the core of human nature.
We found that "posthumanity" and "transhumanity" are not well defined concepts. So we might instead consider them "slogans" for a looser cluster of related ideas and values.
We also found that there is no clear demarcation between humanity and posthumanity. Also, our concept of humanity is always changing anyway.
"From this perspective, 'posthumanism' is an unduly hyperbolic (and misleading) name for the next stage in a continued effort at self-perfection that has accompanied mankind from its very beginnings." (116c)
Birnbacher, Dieter. "Posthumanity, Transhumanism and Human Nature." in Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity. Springer Netherlands: 2009.
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