Normative Aspects of the Human Body
III. The Human Body as Basis of Social Rules and Sources of Values
Previously Siep outlined his four theses. The first is that our body is a source of social rules. Hence changing our body will have social consequences. The second was that pleasure and pain tell us what other bodies need. He writes now that these two theses are "descriptive."
The third thesis is that the body has inherited a form shaped by our common heritage. We do not have the right to change it. The fourth thesis is that we cannot decide for future generations what their genetic make-up should be. He now explains that these last two theses deal specifically with the ethical problems involved in genetic enhancement. (174-175)
(1) Siep previously wrote that he would not take a position on the mind-body problem. But if we say that we may use our body, that suggests some degree of distance from it. But our body is largely who we are. And, our body itself tells us what many of our social rules should be. So if we change our body we will change our rules.
Some see the body as a mechanism. It has many different parts that may be isolated and replaced without changing the whole. They arrive at this belief by seeing how transplants and tissue engineering have enabled us to make therapeutic replacements. Siep acknowledges that there are mechanical parts that can be replaced. Yet, by doing so, we discover how each part integrates with the whole. Hence really these replacements only serve to demonstrate the body's indivisibility.
In fact, consider the brain and the genome. We cannot so easily replace parts of the brain without also thereby making drastic changes. Also, most genes are multi-functional, and they interact with the other genes. So we see that the brain and the genome are holistic systems.
So perhaps someone changes or enhances part of his body or genetic-make-up. But he thereby changes its "overall shape." So some suggest that we might make select changes to the human genome. Grave diseases could be eradicated. And certain limitations to our functioning could be lifted. But all the genes work together. Changing even just one could cause a domino-effect that changes the functional role of all the other genes. Later Siep will address the ethical consequences of such an outcome.
Our body has systems for integrating the organic parts, and for "steering" them. If we change their functioning, this could risk our body's integrity and health.
But consider also that we have certain rights that depend on our body's integrity and abilities. These traits also lie at the source of some of our values. Even small-scale interventions could change our body's integrity and its abilities to a considerable degree. That would then risk our social system and its regulations. For, they are based on those values we derive from our traditional body shape.
Siep explains with an example. He considers two crucial social values: equality and diversity. Nature does not create us all as equal. However, universal equality is a moral and religious idea. Siep says there are three cultural and natural conditions that allowed for this value:
1) Modern science has depicted human bodies as unequal. But they find that the differences are not enough to indicate that we cannot have legal equality. To think otherwise means holding far-fetched opinions. For example, one could believe that the noble classes' bodies pump another type of blood than the rest of us. Aristotle regarded "natural slaves" as being creatures who are between man and beast. Only with such unscientific beliefs might we find legal equality an absurdity.
2) The differences between our bodies are not drastic. And we are not responsible for those slight differences anyway. Instead we are responsible for our health and education. However, at one time people married those who could produce more beautiful or successful children. So in that sense it would seem that the differences in our bodies are important. Yet, now we base our marriages more on love. This will cause little change in our children's genetic make-up, certainly much less than what we would happen if we used genetic technologies to alter their genome.
3) We have a wide variety of social systems. Different bodily traits promote success in sports, business, politics, arts, sciences, religion, and so forth. Hence our third condition for legal equality: a variety of social systems which call for different natural dispositions. Bodily inequalities are more tolerable if they serve specialized purposes.
The variety of social systems results in part from the functional differentiation that developed throughout our social evolution. But the physical traits that make one person successful in sports are far different from those that lead to success in the sciences. But we do not reward people based on the same criteria in each social system. Instead, we must maintain a sense of justice so that the different traits are rewarded equally, even though they are different for each domain.
So the first condition for equality was that our bodily differences do not justify different legal treatment. The second is that we are not responsible for the bodies we inherit, or the bodies we pass-on to our offspring. On account of these first two conditions, two things become important for our "normative balance between equality and diversity:"
a) the body's traditional shape, and
b) the contingency of the body's genetic make-up.
If the wealthy or the powerful could enhance their genome, then some would be responsible for their own enhanced genetic constitution. This would undermine the foundation for the balance between equality and diversity. (177a)
Yet, some of us are luckier than others when it comes to our genetic inheritance. And the inequality of chance has not interfered with our legal and moral equalities. Also, most social inequality results from social injustice and not from differences in genetic luck. But because genetic differences are matters of chance, society may better tolerate genetic inequalities. "It takes the burden of justifying the distribution of chances off the shoulders of individuals and society." (177b)
Our social systems allow us to pursue happiness. The legal and moral equality of these systems is not obtained by enforcing overall equality. Rather, they presuppose that human bodes vary in their endowments, although to a limited extent. The differences result from chance, and not from individual or social planning. Social positions are distributed in part according to "lines of contingent variations of a 'rather equal' constitution of the human body." (177bc) As well, we distribute affection, sympathy, and admiration and so on according to the same bodily criteria. In other words, there are social norms that are based on the human body "as we know it." They would be altered if we change the body's genetic make-up. So we see that such a change is not just a personal issue. "It touches the basis of society." (177c) So the public together must thoroughly anticipate and evaluate the consequences of genetic manipulations.
(2) So there are differences between human bodies' natural faculties. But they remain within a certain limited scope. This has another social consequence. Society distributes valuable things, valuable events, valuable states of affairs, valuable goods, and so on. These are the means and conditions for many of our human values. Previously we noted the different ways society distributes these valuable things. In fact, there are two general ways society distributes them:
1) directly to individuals. These particular people require that the state provide for them or some other organization to do so, such as an international organization.
2) indirectly by establishing and maintaining such institutions as health care or education systems. These systems could be public. But they might be private also, or both. And they may also distribute their goods in some degree by means of markets. If the distribution is not so much governmental but rather in large part commercial, we still must provide a framework to determine the values for these products. We need to ask, what is heath? Education? The enjoyment of entertainment? The value of these commercial products always relates to the human body that either enjoys them or lacks them. (178a)
There are social, psychological, and mental components to the concept of health. Discussing them, however, will open another "Pandora's box." So Siep skips them for now. Instead he makes something clear: whoever provides people with valuable goods (be them social institutions or private producers) must follow some criteria for health, education, entertainment, and so forth. This criteria would be based on "a certain 'normal' constitution and state of the human body." (178b) The values we establish for the human body's integrity might allow varying degrees of enhancement. But without keeping in mind the body "as it is," we cannot easily imagine such things as its health, a good state of its nourishment, the development of its basic competences, and so on. So without such a notion of the body as it is, we cannot establish the criteria
a) for what is valuable to it, and
b) for what people can demand that society provide them.
In earlier times, society probably held a more limited range of possible values for the body. Before society may have scrutinized such sorts as ascetics, gourmands, sportsmen, lay people, and homosexuals. But today our broader array of values for the body considers them as treating their bodies in acceptable ways. But some people still do not have access to goods that are valuable to their body. So modern societies have developed procedures to distribute such goods as health and minimal nourishment required to sustain their bodies. Societies may go even further and furnish such goods as housing, clothing, and elementary education. But a criteria is needed for determining the values for those goods. "Thus an everyday, basically consensual, evaluative view of the human body is required even in modern 'individualistic’ societies." (178d)
There is another interesting related philosophical issue: whether we project this evaluative view onto the human body, or whether it is either one of the body's inherent qualities or one of its secondary qualities. Siep does not need to decide this debate to conduct his present inquiry. We only need to know that
1) there exists such an evaluative view of the human body, and
2) it results from a long natural and cultural history that spans to today.
Hence the body is not a "value-neutral natural object." Nor is it a tool for its owner's purposes. It has a 'general outlook.' This is its "natural heritage." Our modern societies and our values depend on this heritage. "To change it implies grave consequences for social values and norms. At least in this respect it has ‘normative aspects.'" (179a)
Siep, Ludwig. 'Normative Aspects of the Human Body.'Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. (2003) 28(2), pp.171-185. Available online at:
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