October 20, 2007
John Harris' Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People
It is significant that we have reached a point in human history at which further attempts to make the world a better place will have to include not only changes to the world, but also changes to humanity, perhaps with the consequence that we, or our descendants, will cease to be human in the sense in which we now understand that idea. This possibility of a new phase of evolution in which Darwinian evolution, by natural selection, will be replaced by a deliberately chosen process of selection, the results of which, instead of having to wait the millions of years over which Darwinian evolutionary change has taken place, will be seen and felt almost immediately. This new process of evolutionary change will replace natural selection with deliberate selection, Darwinian evolution with “enhancement evolution.”
One of the ways in which philosophy can contribute to a better world is to help clear away the bad arguments that stand as much in the way of human progress and human happiness as do reactionary forces of a political and even of a military kind. When new technologies are announced, the first reaction is often either “wow—this is amazing!” or “yuck—this is sick!” This book is about the reasons and arguments that underlie both reactions, and about how it can sometimes be rational to move from “yuck!” to “wow!”
Posted by Robin Varghese at 04:25 PM | Permalink
Comments
I've read the whole Intro, and even supposing one agrees with its argument for the sound ethics of genetically manipulating people to be healthier, smarter and altogether fitter -- which I sure don't -- it neglects to address a thorny problem, or to suggest the problem is discussed in the full text.
That problem is that a few billion people in utero could not be genetically manipulated all at once to come out roaring with superior fitness and smarts. Such a program as Harris endorses, then, would necessarily be played out on the basis of some kind of selectivity or other. Oh, let me guess -- the first few thousand souped-up people would be Euro-American, with a goodly quantity of South Asians and East Asians thrown in -- if only because if the trick worked, it would have to serve the power base, at least at first, or it wouldn't be funded. So, looking at the most Utopian outcome imaginable -- one with no pesky mistakes -- a master race would be hatched that would closely resemble the very people who are running things anyway, only they would be smarter, in all the ways the masters of the universe are already smart, and longer-lived. OK, I'm sick already.
Until the species starts doing a better job running itself and cleaning up the biosphere, the brightest among us should not go playing Frankenstein, for we are obviously not intelligent enough to conceive of what being made still more intelligent would even mean. There are very real questions for people who chew on the ethics of technology to ponder -- how to effect worldwide nuclear disarmament, for one. If we ever got that smart, well then -- those are the genes.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Oct 20, 2007 7:43:06 PM
His introduction doesn't give me the impression that he has an appreciation for either ethical complexity or the complexities of genetics. I could be wrong but it all seems very breezy.
I'm a poorly informed novice on the topic of genetics but it strikes me that the biggest breakthrough won't necessarily be finding out how to manipulate genes to get enhanced traits but actually finding out what components make up those traits. There are idealized notions about beauty, intelligence or fitness but our DNA is quite unaware of them. And on the matter of genetic enhancement: how do does one test these genetic techniques? What happens to the bad test results?
I also have a problem with Harris' attitude towards his readers. What if I don't want to be stuck on "wow"? I get nervous when ethics gets mixed with enthusiasm; that's a categorical gene-splice that's bound to produce a chimera.
Posted by: Pete Chapman | Oct 20, 2007 10:56:22 PM
Elatia for President.
And this guy is a professor of bioethics?
Of all the serious crises facing our species and our biosphere as a whole, our not being strong, smart, or fast enough doesn't even merit an honorable mention. Maybe a dishonorable one. As for health, the genes are there, on the whole, waiting for us to provide an environment for them to thrive in. Spending more billions on uneeded medical procedures is not going to bring that environment about any more swiftly.
I suppose after a half century of television commercials playing to our anxieties of not being good enough as we are, we have been conditioned not see repulsive books like this as the affront they are to humanity, if not to life as a whole.
Hard-nosed science types like to sneer that religion is nothing more than a comfort for weak minds who can't handle reality. But what is human bioengineering if not the vain hope to transcend the seemingly cruel limits of the life cycle, where we we each must yield to make room for the next, often (if not usually) sooner than we'd like? Do we imagine that our taste for longevity or omnicomptence is going to be satisfied by a few more decades, a few more cubic millimeters of forebrain? Professor Harris suggests as much in his introduction, anticipating life extension to the point of "practical" immortality.
He appears to recognise the implictions to global population size this outcome would present, which he intends to manage with a eugenical campaign. ("influencing the sorts of people that will be brought to birth and exist in the future.") He couches this in the language of choice and reproductive freedom, but one suspects some choices may be more free than others when life spans are extended to even marginally greater lengths. We're not even sure we can survive our own "grey tide," and the populations in Asia have their own pig in the python coming right behind ours.
Harris's introduction isn't written in the same reckless langauge as James Watson's recent comments about people of African heritage, but it amounts to the same thing: when it comes down to who is destined for greatness, it just happens to be the people favored by the present array of political and economic interest. What a coincidence!
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Oct 22, 2007 11:05:01 AM
Thank you, Elatia and Chris.
How arrogant, self serving and sick. But not surprising given our own penchant for promoting a hyper-competitive culture. The world of business, sports and beauty are awash with the more mundane manifestations. Breast enhancement, liposuction, complexion creams, anorexia / bulimia, magic in a pill or a syringe full of steroids and cheating. Those are not in-utero. So they are informed choices, right? Yeah, tell that to the young teenager aspiring to be a runway model, movie star, major league athlete or just plain "successful."
And where is the guarantee that these perfect humans will remain so perfect once they tumble out of the maternal womb? Ever heard of abuse, neglect, stress or a catastrophic auto accident?
Posted by: Ruchira | Oct 22, 2007 11:44:25 AM
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