Bayertz, Human Nature: How Normative Might It Be?, I. The Technological Contingency of Human Nature. III Justifying the Moral Status of Human Nature,

by Corry Shores
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Kurt Bayertz

Human Nature: How Normative Might It Be?

III. Justifying the Moral Status of Human Nature

We see then that it is characteristic of our "nature" to change our nature. So we are by nature artificial. Hence defining human nature is highly problematic. But Bayertz will presume now that we have fashioned a definition for human nature that is adequate for the practical concerns of giving a normative status to humanity, even if we do not have a theoretically satisfactory definition. We ask now which arguments might justify such a normative status.

III. A Human Nature as Basis of Personality

We might obtain a normative status for humanity by following Kant. We cannot imagine life without our body. And we may only act freely by means of our body. So the body is part of our selves. But then, we do not have a right to interfere with our instrument of freedom. Hegel connects the human person with the human body.

Habermas offers his argumentation. He does not want to re-sacralize humanity. So we must not protect human nature "as such." Rather we must protect the self-image humanity has as a whole. Genetics threatens to weed-out traits that grant us our individual freedoms. This could make us no longer see ourselves as morally free beings oriented to norms and reasons.

Bayertz offers two remarks:

1) Habermas' conclusions are based on assumptions regarding the way genetic technology will advance. But we really do not know how the technology will unfold.

2) Habermas shifts the question to a social level. The problem is that the norms become binding to all of society instead of to individuals. This subordinates the individual's wishes to the abstract ideas of society.

[The rest of this text is not summarized, but it is available in full here.]

[Other entries in this series.]

Bayertz, Kurt. "Human Nature: How Normative Might It Be?" Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2003 28(2):131-150.

Available online at:

http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/28/2/131