Goodbye Humanity. Towards a Post-Human Future.
Source:Jagannath Chatterjee’s Mail box
Saturday, 26 May 2012 4:19 PM
The Future of the
Human Species
Post Date: 03/05/2010
Author:
If a number of pundits are correct, we
have already taken some initial steps toward creating a posthuman future.[1] The goal of this project is nothing less
than the perfection of the human species. Specifically, human performance
will be enhanced and longevity extended through anticipated advances in
pharmacology, biotechnology, and bionics. Drugs, for example, can lessen the
need for sleep; genetic engineering will slow the aging process; artificial
limbs will enhance strength and agility; and brain implants will enhance the
speed of interacting with computers. The cyborg becomes the next stage of
human evolution.[2] Some visionaries foresee a day when, with
the aid of artificial intelligence and robotics, endless lives might be
achieved. The underlying binary information constituting one’s personality
would be uploaded into a computer and then downloaded into robotic bodies or
virtual reality programs. With sufficient and reliable memory storage, the
process could, in principle, be repeated indefinitely, thereby achieving
virtual immortality.[3] In the posthuman future, humans become
self-perfected artifacts by blurring, if not eliminating, the line separating
the natural from the artificial.[4]
The
promise of the posthuman project is the creation of beings that live healthy,
productive, and happy lives, and most importantly beings that live for very
long time—perhaps forever. The ultimate promise is immortality. The
accompanying peril, however, is that the cost is exorbitant. The price of
perfecting humankind is its destruction, for in becoming posthuman humans
cease being human. The peril of the posthuman project, in short, is that its
optimism disguises an underlying death-wish for the human species.
One
might be tempted to object that any worry about this peril is misplaced. The
peril presupposes a promise that is far from certain. Few, if any, of the
requisite technological advances have yet been achieved, and the likelihood
of dramatic breakthroughs any time soon is slim at best. A so-called posthuman
future is based on science fiction, not science. Consequently, time should
not be wasted worrying about a peril that might, but probably will never
present itself.
There
are two reasons why this temptation should be resisted. First, even in the
absence of the technical advances and breakthroughs that would be required,
we nonetheless must come to terms with the extent to which technology is
shaping the character and trajectories of contemporary life. As Martin
Heidegger and others have observed, technology has become the ontology of our
age; our mode of being in the world by mastering and reshaping it in an image
of what we want the world to become.[5] In large part, humans now live, and move, and have their
being within fabricated environments that have become their natural habitats.
It is through technology that they increasingly express who they are and what
they aspire to become. This is not a mere acknowledgement of the ubiquitous
presence of machines and gadgets within the fabric of daily life, but that in
increasingly turning to medicine to control their behavior, regulate their
biological processes, and repair and sculpt their bodies humans are literally
coming to embody a technological age. Focusing on the prospect of a posthuman
future, which is admittedly far from certain, helps us to come to terms with
the fact that, to invoke George Grant’s phrase, “in each lived moment of our
waking and sleeping, we are technological civilisation.”[6] To ponder the prospect of becoming posthuman requires
that we also ask the question of what it means to be human, and any answer we
offer cannot avoid the question of technology.
Second,
even if most, if not all, of the more immodest expectations—such as
immortality—never come true, posthuman discourse is nevertheless shaping a
vision of the future, and thereby derivatively our moral imagination. Like it
or not, how we envision the future informs our moral convictions and conduct
in the present, and it does not matter how improbable, strange, or fantastic
such a vision might appear to be in exerting such influence. Whether, for
example, I believe that I will either live a long and sickly life or a short
but robust one, goes a long way in shaping how I spend my time and money in
the meantime. Whether or not either scenario is likely is largely irrelevant,
for I become a certain kind of person in reaction to what I believe the
future entails; if I believe that my life will be short and sweet, I become a
free-spending bohemian. In a similar vein, if we believe, either implicitly
or explicitly, that we can and should exert greater mastery over nature and
human nature, that belief goes a long way in shaping what we do and how we
treat each other in the present. In this respect, N. Katherine Hayles is
correct in asserting that “People become posthuman because they think they
are posthuman.”[7] Such posthuman thinking should, at the very least,
prompt some deliberation on its good or ill effects in forming our moral
imagination, particularly in light of growing technological power and
potential for further development.
If I
have persuaded the reader that the peril of the posthuman project is, after
all, worthy of some scrutiny, how might we best proceed? A promising avenue
is suggested by the early work of the President’s Council on Bioethics in
which its members discussed Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, The
Birthmark.[8] Although the exercise was derided by many reporters and
bioethicists as a waste of time, it reflected the insight of its chairman,
Leon Kass, that fiction is often quite perceptive in revealing fundamental
convictions, hopes, and aspirations, offering a fruitful starting point for
moral deliberation and discernment.
The
Birthmark is a tale about a brilliant scientist who marries a
stunningly beautiful woman. Her appearance is perfect in every regard except
for a tiny birthmark on her cheek. The scientist becomes obsessed with this
tiny, barely imperceptible flaw, and he concocts various potions to remove
it. Over time his efforts succeed. The birthmark disappears, but only at the
moment that his wife dies. In Hawthorne’s words: “As the last crimson tint of
the birthmark—that sole token of human imperfection—faded from her cheek, the
parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere…”
In Rappaccini’s
Daughter we encounter the highly acclaimed physician, Dr.
Rappaccini, his lovely daughter, Beatrice, and a young medical student,
Giovanni, who is living in the guest room. One of the chief features of the
villa is a large garden that is filled with exotic plants, each one of them
highly poisonous. The slightest contact is lethal, and even a quick sniff of
their aroma causes illness. To stroll through this garden, one must keep his
distance. Yet Beatrice is seen embracing the plants and breathing deeply of
their fragrance. As the story unfolds we learn that since her birth her
father has been slowly giving her increased dosages of the poisons he has
been extracting from the garden. The effect has been to make her immune and
invulnerable to any disease.
Giovanni
and Beatrice fall in love. Yet through their courtship they never embrace,
kiss, or hold hands for, as with the plants from the garden, Beatrice is
lethal to the touch. We also learn that Dr. Rappaccini has been administering
the same procedure to Giovanni without his knowledge. The father wants to
create an intimate companion for his lonely daughter. When Giovanni learns
that he too is being made invulnerable by becoming poisonous, he is appalled.
A rival of Dr. Rappaccini on the medical faculty gives Giovanni an antidote
that purportedly will make both he and Beatrice normal again. The couple
makes a pact, but Beatrice insists that she take antidote first, and she
dies.
This
sad tale offers three lessons that may guide an assessment of the posthuman
project: First, the cost of invulnerability is high. Dr. Rappaccini has
purportedly achieved his goal of preventing his daughter, Beatrice, from
contracting any deadly disease. She will be spared needless pain and
suffering, and given a power and invincibility that few enjoy in confronting
a cruel world. But it will also be an isolated life, devoid of any physical
contact. She can neither touch nor be touched by others, for she is literally
poisonous to anyone other than herself. Her life will also be devoid of any
intimate and lasting relationships, a crushing fate as her father recognizes
in his desperate attempt to transform Giovanni into a suitable, and equally
poisonous, companion. Beatrice’s invulnerability has made her something less
than human. May we not say, then, that in attempting to transform humankind
into a superior species we run the risk of the death of our humanity?
Second,
there is no going back. When Beatrice finally finds someone with whom she can
purportedly share her life with fully, Giovanni is appalled by what he is
becoming. Out of her love she agrees to forsake her invulnerability and
return with her lover to a natural state where together they may risk a
vulnerable embrace. The attempt, however, proves futile and deadly, for her
transformation had been complete and irreversible. In Hawthorne’s haunting
words: “To Beatrice—so powerfully had her earthly part been wrought upon by
Rappaccini’s skill—as poison had been life, so the powerful antidote
was death.”[9] May we not say, then, that once we travel very far down
the posthuman path, it may prove difficult, if not impossible, to turn back?
Third,
even if the promise is achieved, the consequences are ambiguous and
uncertain. Because of Beatrice’s death we never know how the life of a
poisonous couple might unfold. Would they be able to fully embrace, or would
their respective lives prove too toxic to interlock in any meaningful sense?
Moreover, is there a significant difference between the embrace of two
invulnerable beings as opposed to vulnerable creatures? Would they be able to
have offspring? If so, would their children share with them a life of poison,
or would they be unable to touch what they have begotten until Rappaccini’s
skill worked its transformation once again? May we not say, then, that even
if the posthuman promise of a superior species is achieved, we do not know
what will become of the human spirit and soul, and thereby whether or not
these new beings will prove to be truly superior?
We
may conveniently call the first strand nihilism. Nihilism is a
modern philosophical orientation which posits that the world is devoid of any
purpose or meaning. Consequently, there are no objective moral standards,
only a subjective will to power. We assert this will over inanimate objects
such as stones and cars, animate things such as plants or animals, or other
people such as children and students. As late moderns, technology is the
principal means that is used to assert this power. We transform minerals into
steel to build cars; we use genetic engineering to produce better plants and
animals; and we use drugs and psychological techniques to control the
behavior of children and students. The world, our lives, and the lives of
others are artifacts that we construct, and the future is largely what we
make of it and will it to be.
Friedrich
Nietzsche has become closely associated with this philosophical orientation.
It should be noted, however, that although he accurately describes the
nihilism of late modernity in all its lurid details, he does not commend it.
Indeed, he is alarmed by its destructive potential. Nihilists can too easily
conclude that in a world where there is nothing noble to will, it is better
to will nothing at all—a despair leading to unspeakable violence. This is why
he places his hope in the Űbermensch or Overman, a superior
being that will rise above the fray and provide some meaning and purpose in a
meaningless and purposeless world. Perhaps Nietzsche’s hope can be become
real in the transformation of the human into the posthuman. Why not direct
the otherwise directionless will to power toward the constructive goal of
creating and perfecting a superior species?
This
leads to the second strand that we may call Pelagianism.
Pelagianism is a theological doctrine that is derived from that arch heretic
Pelagius who caught the wrath of
In
their more sober moments, nihilists and Pelagians recognize, however, that
there are severe constraints that must be overcome in asserting the will to
power and the will to perfection. This leads us to the third strand, which we
may call Manicheism. Manicheism is a dualistic teaching that
draws a sharp divide between the physical body and what may be variously
described as an immaterial spirit, soul, or will. It is this immaterial
essence which defines who we are and what we aspire to be. Unfortunately,
this essence is trapped within a weak and fragile body that constrains the
will to power and perfection. No matter how much in my youth I may have
willed myself to be a major league pitcher, I did not have the body which
would enable me to perfect a blazing fastball and killer curve. No matter how
much we may will ourselves to live, eventually our bodies fail us and we die.
What Manicheans in every age long for is to be rescued, to be saved from
their bodies. The promise of virtual immortality, a life free of embodied
limitations, then, is also the promise of salvation.
Given
these formative strands, Christians are rightfully skeptical of the posthuman
project, for it represents a corruption of their faith. Christians may, in
good faith, concede that the patterns and trajectories of human life are to a
large extent a matter of the will, and such willing certainly entails gaining
and asserting various kinds of power. In the absence of such willful power
civil communities, for instance, could not exist. What Christians do not
affirm is that power itself is a proper object to be willed; rather, power is
a means of achieving that which is willed.
What
is the highest or greatest good that humans should will? The short answer is,
of course, God. If we direct our will toward any lesser goods, our subsequent
desires and lives become misdirected, disordered, or, to use a word that is
falling out of favor, sinful. And the consequences of sin are grave. When the
will is misaligned, for example, our attempts to fulfill the great command to
love God and neighbor ends up as love of self, which we expect God and our
neighbors to honor and support. The will to power, in short, is little more
than a thin justification for narcissistic self-indulgence. The great moral
task of any generation is not the triumph of the self-oriented will, but to
align what we will in obedience to God’s will.
Knowing
God’s will—much less aligning ourselves to it in faithful obedience—is,
admittedly, no easy task. The ways of God are inscrutable and unsearchable.
Contrary to Pelagius and his latter-day disciples, we do not have it within
us to know the mind and will of God, and therefore we cannot know how to will
and perfect the good. The great danger of Pelagianism is its underlying
arrogance that if we just keep trying harder we will somehow achieve
perfection, but the endeavor itself is a fantasy. In his book, The
Perfectibility of Man, John Passmore examines the unhappy legacy of
Pelagius within the history of Western civilization.[10] One of the more prominent problems is that the ideal
perfection to be achieved is a moving target, subject to changing social,
cultural, and political circumstances. At various times contemplation,
virtue, reason, politics, revolution, and eugenic purification have been
lifted up as models of the perfect life that should be pursued. As Passmore
notes, all of these projects failed miserably, and he adds the grim
observation that whenever the idea of perfection—whatever it may happen to
be—has seized public attention, there is increased intolerance directed
against those judged to be incapable or unwilling to attain the proffered
goal.
What
Pelagians of any age fail to recognize is that what little we know about what
perfection might mean is not a result of our will to power, but is a gift of
grace. We cannot will ourselves to be perfect; we can only admit that in our
imperfection we have been embraced and upheld by God in Christ. Receiving
this gift of grace should not only inspire a response of gratitude, but
should also make us mindful of the limits which are inherent to us as finite
creatures that are in great need of this gift. Consequently, humans are not
called to live lives in which they are constantly trying harder to obtain a
perfection that cannot be obtained, but to live grace-filled lives of
confession, repentance, and amendment of life. Or in other words, to live
lives as creatures of God who accept their finitude and mortality as a
blessing rather than curse.
It
is in respect to bodily limitations that humans encounter with great
intensity the inherent limitations of their creaturely status. Humans are not
only creatures; they are embodied creatures. As such they
are also finite and temporal beings, and therefore subject to bodily
limitations. Humans cannot do everything they want, and they cannot live
forever since their bodies are unable to withstand the ravages of time and
natural necessity. Posthumanists can only respond to these limits with a
Manichean disgust and disdain for the body, because it is the chief obstacle
preventing them from successfully achieving the will to power and perfection.
This
means, however, that the posthuman project is predicated upon a fundamental
contradiction: in order for humans to achieve their full potential they must
destroy their bodies, but in doing so they destroy the very thing which makes
them human. Despite all their rhetoric about enhancing the performance of
bodily functions, the posthuman project is nevertheless driven by a hatred
and loathing of the body. Extending longevity and improving physical and
mental functions is merely an interim strategy until such time that virtual
immortality is achieved, liberating humans from their weak and fragile
bodies. Yet is not this high-tech Manichean dream tantamount, as Paul Ramsey
once observed, to a suicidal death-wish for the human species?[11]
It
is embodiment which decisively separates posthumanists and Christians, for
their assessments of what it means to be human leads to differing beliefs
about salvation. Unlike posthumanists, Christians have never believed that
humans are creatures who unfortunately happen to have bodies. Rather, to
invoke Ramsey’s imagery again, humans are inextricably embodied souls and ensouled
bodies.[12] Consequently, humans are not saved from their bodies,
but it as embodied creatures that they are claimed, redeemed, and renewed by
God. This is why Christians are not driven by a death-wish, for as
If
my portrayal of the posthuman project as a religious movement incorporating
the formative strands of nihilism, Pelagianism, and Manicheism is at all
correct, then there are good reasons why Christians should not only be
skeptical but should also oppose it. There are, to be sure, rich resources
within their theological tradition they may draw upon in making their case
against the underlying false and heretical beliefs. But it is not enough to
be against something; simply opposing the posthuman project will not do. A
constructive proposal regarding what Christians affirm must also be offered.
If Christians are to help shape contemporary culture—particularly in a
setting in which I fear the posthuman message will prove attractive, if not
seductive—then they must offer an alternative and compelling vision; a
counter theological discourse so to speak. In the remainder of this essay I
want to sketch-out what some of the contours of this theological discourse
might entail by focusing on two anthropological questions: What does
it mean to be human? and What is the destiny of the human
species?[14]
In
addressing these questions, Christians begin with the simple affirmation that
anthropology isChristology. What this admittedly inelegant phrase
is meant to convey is that “Jesus Christ” is the short answer to both
questions. One turns to Christ to learn what being human means and to catch a
glimpse of our destiny as a species. In making this anthropological claim, it
is important to keep in mind that in fixing our gaze on Christ, we are also
encountering the triune God. The God who is in Christ the redeemer is the
same God who is the Creator and sustainer—the God who is also Father and Holy
Spirit. Being attentive to Christ is also attending to God in his fullness,
the eternal One who is the origin and end of creation and thereby the One who
gives creation and its creatures their direction and purpose. It is only in
this respect that Christ’s otherwise immodest claim that he is the Alpha and Omega is
explicable and illuminating.[15]
What
might we find by fixing our gaze on Jesus Christ? An exhaustive answer is
beyond the scope of a single paper, or the career of any single theologian
for that matter. More modestly, allow me to suggest three things to look for.
First:
the Incarnation. The centerpiece of the gospel is the
extraordinary claim that in Jesus Christ God became a human being. The Word
became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth.[16] We may say, then, that in the Incarnation the necessity
of finitude and mortality, of human limitations more broadly, are affirmed
rather than eliminated. It is important to stress, however, that in emptying
himself and taking-on human likeness, Christ also shares the human condition,
complete with its suffering, pain, and death.[17] In his life and ministry Jesus does not avoid or escape
the constraints of finitude, but embraces them, and in doing so reconfirms a
divine blessing. The life and lives of God’s creatures, however vulnerable,
fragile, and imperfect they might be, are nonetheless good precisely because
they have been created and blessed by God, a doxology that is sung, in a
manner of speaking, in the Incarnation. Most importantly, Jesus does not
cheat death. Again, it is important to stress that Jesus dies on
the cross; the events of Good Friday produce a corpse that is placed in a
tomb. How could it be otherwise if indeed the Word had become mortal flesh?
But
death is not the final word, which leads to the second item to look for in
Jesus Christ: the resurrection. Drawing upon the work of Oliver
O’Donovan,[18] the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
vindicates Jesus’ life and ministry. Moreover, since God is incarnate in
human life, the vindication extends to all of creation. Because humans were
not “allowed to uncreate what God created,”[19] there is a created order to be discerned because it has
been vindicated by its Creator. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, in short,
entails the resurrection of humankind and with it the renewal of creation.
What
exactly does this vindication and renewal of creation entail? First and
foremost, it discloses a created order which provides an
objective standard and teleological order against which human desires are
both judged and conformed. This objectivity is seen in what O’Donovan
describes as the “natural ethic.”[20]Contrary to the posthuman project, the moral life is not a
constructed artifact that is designed to enable the will to power and
perfection. Rather, Christ’s resurrection discloses in greater clarity that
human life and lives should be oriented toward certain moral structures and
relationships that are inherent to the order of creation. Women and men, for
instance, are drawn to each other not merely to reproduce in perpetuating the
species, but to also form bonds of affection between themselves and with
their offspring. The generations are literally linked together through a
natural chain of mutual and sacrificial love.
The
teleological order of creation can be seen in social structures which order
and promote these bonds of love and affection. Marriage, for example, is
oriented not only toward enriching love, affection, and mutuality between
spouses, but also promoting mutual and self-sacrificial bonds between parents
and children. It is through one generation surrendering itself to the
following one that human life and lives flourish over time. What is
especially noteworthy is that the embodied character of human life is
absolutely crucial in obtaining these goods of marriage and family, for it is
only as embodied creatures that humans can interact and love one another in
any meaningful sense.[21] The physical, finite, and temporal limitations which
posthumanists decry are the very features which provide the rich texture of
human life beyond the bare minimum of natural necessity. It is the creaturely
finitude and mortality which are affirmed in the Incarnation and vindicated
in the resurrection that the posthuman project wishes to annihilate.
A
vindicated and renewed creation is also genuinely liberating, because it
provides the foundation ofobedient freedom.[22] Through Christ’s resurrection we simultaneously look
back to the origin of creation in Christ and to its destiny
in Christ. This Janus-like vision leads to the third and final theological
feature, namely, eschatology or the destiny of the human
species.
In
the absence of this dual orientation, humans become enslaved to a false
perception of nature in which any inkling of a natural moral order is
perceived as a threat. Consequently, finitude and mortality are inimical to
their survival and flourishing; they are threats to human welfare which must
be vanquished. Hence, the posthuman project of transforming humans into an invulnerable
and immortal species. The project, however, is based on the false assumption
that freedom is expanded by overcoming all finite and temporal limits. Only
the invulnerable and immortal being is purportedly free.
But
the posthuman project is actually enslaving, for it leads to an inability to
be obedient, and as such disabled beings, humans disfigure their proper
dominion over and stewardship of creation into a domination and mastery of
nature and human nature. By looking to creation’s destiny in Christ, however,
these so-called “threats” are revealed as given and necessary limits that
define and order human life and lives; humans are free to love their fate,
because it has already been taken up into the eternal life and fellowship of
their Creator and redeemer. In this respect, true freedom is a gift of the
Spirit that frees us to be obedient to the definitive limits which shape our
lives as finite and mortal creatures. In short, we are free only by being
limited. To return to the previous example, we are only free to be married
when we limit our intimacy exclusively to one other person; we are only free
to be parents when we constrain our self-interests for the benefit of our
descendants.
More
broadly, Christ’s resurrection from the dead discloses the destiny of
creation and its creatures. There is a future trajectory revealed in the
resurrection of the incarnate One, signifying its destiny in the exalted
Christ. Such a future orientation inspires an ordering of human life that is
teleological rather than perfectionist. Creation and its creatures will be
transformed in the fullness of time, and humans will contribute to this
transformation. Posthumanists are correct in this regard, but they have been
seized by a half-truth which in its incompleteness proves destructive and
dangerous. For our transformation is shaped by Christ, and not our attempts
to overcome the finite and mortal limits of a created order. The Creator who
has vindicated creation will also redeem it fully in the fullness of time. In
this respect, a life of obedient freedom is also a life of preparation for
eternal and timeless fellowship with God instead of a quest for immortality
and endless time, a consenting to God’s will being done on earth rather than
the triumph of our will to power and perfection. In this respect humans look
forward to this completion, this divine perfection, when even the created and
natural goods of marriage and family, for instance, are no longer necessary,
for the roles of wife, husband, parent, and child are transformed into the
eternal fellowship of sisterhood and brotherhood in Christ.
If
the preceding analysis is at all correct, then we are offered sharply
contrasting options regarding the future of the human species. On the one
hand, the posthuman project, with its will to power and perfection, and
hatred of the body, offers the construction of a superior and immortal
species. On the other hand, there is the Christian offer of eternal
fellowship with God through a life of obedient conformity to God’s will, but
it is not a future that offers any escape from finitude, suffering, and
death. We must be careful about which destiny we choose, taking precautions
that our choice is not the result of inattention or naivety. The practical
decisions that are made today in regard to research and development in such
areas as medicine, biotechnology, nanotechnology, bionics and the like, will
not be inconsequential for the future. We must choose wisely, for contrary to
the spirit of our age the future is not something we construct; rather, we
are enveloped and enfolded into the particular destiny that we choose.
In
his essay, “Thinking about Technology,” George Grant provides an insightful
meditation on this question of destiny.[23] He contends that we perceive technology as a collection
of neutral instruments that we use in ways that we choose. Like any other
technology, we use a computer, for instance, to read an e-book, keep a ledger,
or surf the Internet. The computer simply does not impose upon its user the
ways it should be used.[24]
Grant
believes that this reassuring image of technological neutrality is
misleading. Of course the computer, like any technology, imposes the ways it
should be used upon its users; otherwise it could not be used for the
purposes for which it was designed. Reading an e-book, for instance, is not
the same as reading a printed book. More broadly, we cannot easily pick and
choose how technologies are used because they incorporate certain values and
purposes which cannot be separated. Any project of technological development
enfolds and shapes its users in its accompanying logic and destiny. As Grant
has observed: “To put the matter crudely: when we represent technology to
ourselves through its own common sense we think of ourselves as picking and
choosing in a supermarket, rather than within the analogy of the package
deal. We have bought a package deal of far more fundamental novelness than
simply a set of instruments under our control. It is a destiny which enfolds
us in its own conceptions of instrumentality, neutrality and purposiveness.”[25] Technological development inevitably transforms, for
good or ill, those who are undertaking the project in the first place; it
transforms who they think we are, and what they aspire to become.
If
Grant is right then we should be wary of the posthuman project, for once we
initiate a process of transforming the human species, we become enveloped in
a destiny that takes-on a life of its own, one that is not subject to our control.
And like any destiny it imposes itself, and its imposition has stark and
unavoidable moral consequences. Again in Grant’s trenchant words: “The coming
to be of technology has required changes in what we think is good, what we
think good is, how we conceive sanity and madness, justice and injustice,
rationality and irrationality, beauty and ugliness.”[26]
Although Grant overstates his case for
technological determinism, he nonetheless offers salient and sobering advice
in regard to the posthuman project, that once we start down the road of
transforming ourselves it will be difficult to slow the momentum, much less
change or reverse course. The danger is that such momentum might carry
humankind toward a destiny whose consequences are both unforeseen and
unwanted. Yet we become locked into a new set of circumstances that we can
neither change nor control, for there is no going back. To return to the
computer as an example, when the Internet was introduced with the great
promise of easy and instant access to abundant information, who foresaw that
it would also become a cesspool of pornography, child predators, and
financial theft and fraud? Yet are there any serious proposals for tearing-up
or even staying-off the information highway?
To a large extent, Grant reinforces the
messages of
Is not finding the perfect future in
the present the moral and religious challenge that confronts us in the
prospect of a posthuman future? And is this not a particularly difficult
challenge in a late modern world which has largely forgotten how and where to
look? This difficulty stems largely, I think, from a prevalent cultural
conceit regarding creativity. We have come to believe that we are a creative
people who have the power to create our world, ourselves, and our future. We
are a creative people who are masters of our own fate, so why bother to look
in the present when our gaze is fixed permanently toward the future?
Yet arguably as creatures we create
nothing, for that is a task that is reserved exclusively by and for theCreator.
We make things, but that does not make us creative. Art best exemplifies the
difference between making and creating. Artists make such things as paintings
and sculptures. Skilled artists make beautiful objects, but they do not
create beauty. Rather, their art reveals the beautiful, drawing the beholder
into a realm that is beyond either the work of art or the artist. In this
respect, art at its best is iconic, for it points beyond itself to the
Creator of beauty. When we encounter good art we look in and through it to
the source of its beauty. Art is, in short, revelatory of something greater
than itself, and is debased when it serves only to glorify and immortalize
the so-called creativity of the artist.
In a similar manner, may we not say
that the posthuman project is the attempt to create a
superior species as the triumph of the will to power over nature and human
nature, and thereby draws attention to its own ingenuity and creativity? And
in re-creating ourselves as self-made artifacts of the will to perfection,
are not posthumanists trying to glorify and immortalize their own skill and
creativity? Yet the end result will not so much be a superior and perfected
species, but a debased humanity that has forgotten that they are creatures
and not creators. In short, posthumans can point to nothing greater than
themselves: beings that have drunk deeply from the poisonous wells of
Manicheism, Pelagianism, and nihilism.
As we take our first, tentative steps
toward a posthuman future, it is not enough for Christians to be critics
only. They must also embody and bear witness to an alternative future, a
perfect future which in Christ is already in the present. In this respect,
they must insist that technology generally should be developed and used in
iconic ways which reveal the ways of the Creator who is the source of all
that is good, true, and beautiful. In particular, Christians must strive to
recover and preserve medicine as a healing art that discloses Jesus Christ as
the true nature and destiny of the human species.
Endnotes
[1] See, e.g. Francis
Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology
Revolution (
[3] See, e.g. Ray
Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human
Intelligence (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), and The
Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Penguin
Books, 2005); see also Hans Moravec, Mind Children: The Future of
Robot and Human Intelligence(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1988) and Hans Moravec, Robot: Mere Machines to Transcendent Mind (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
[4] I examine the
emergence of a posthuman world in much greater detail in my book, From
Human to Posthuman: Christian Theology and Technology in a Postmodern World (
[5] See Martin
Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and other Essays (New
Yor: Harper and Row, 1977); see also Michael E. Zimmerman, Heidegger’s
Confrontation with Modernity: Technology, Politics, Art(Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press, 1990).
[6] George Parkin Grant, Technology
and Justice (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1986), p.
11 (emphasis added).
[7] M. Katherine
Hayles, How we became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics,
Literature, and Informatics(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999),
p. 7.
[8] See “Meeting
Transcript,” January 17, 2002,http://www.bioethics.gov/transcripts/jan02/jan17full.html#2
[11] See Paul Ramsey, Fabricated Man: The Ethics of
Genetic Control (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970), pp.
151-152.
[18] See Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and
Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1986).
[21] See Robert Spaemann, Persons: The
Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’ (
[23] See George Parkin Grant, Technology
and Justice (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1986), pp.
11-34.
_____________________________
Editor’s Note: This article is adapted
from a lecture given at the conference, Bioethics
Nexus: The Future of Healthcare, Science, and Humanity, held at
 \ |
--
No comments:
Post a Comment