Bioconservatives seek to counter the arguments made by
transhumanists who support the use of human enhancement technologies despite acknowledging the risks they involve. Transhumanists hold that certain technologies have the potential to significantly alter current conceptions of what it means to be human and consider them essential for the future development of humanity. Transhumanist philosophers such as
Nick Bostrom believe that genetic modification will be essential to improving human health in the future. that the existence of augmented humans poses a threat to "ordinary humans;" The first two of these elements are secular, the last derives "from religious or crypto-religious sentiments."
Michael Sandel Michael J. Sandel is an American political philosopher and a prominent bioconservative. His article and subsequent book, both titled
The Case Against Perfection, concern the moral permissibility of
genetic engineering or
genome editing. Sandel compares genetic and non-genetic forms of enhancement, pointing to the fact that much of non-genetic alteration has largely the same effect as genetic engineering. SAT tutors or study drugs such as Ritalin can have similar effects as minor tampering with natural born intelligence. Sandel uses such examples to argue that the most important moral issue with genetic engineering is not that the consequences of manipulating human nature will undermine human agency, but the perfectionist aspiration behind such a drive to mastery. For Sandel, "the deepest moral objection to enhancement lies less in the perfection it seeks than in the human disposition it expresses and promotes." For example, in the field of cognitive enhancement, he argues that moral question we should be concerned with is not the consequences of inequality of access to such technology in possibly creating two classes of humans but whether we should aspire to such enhancement at all. Similarly, he has argued that the ethical problem with
genetic engineering is not that it undermines the child's
autonomy, as this claim "wrongly implies that absent a designing parent, children are free to choose their characteristics for themselves." Sandel also criticizes the argument that a genetically engineered athlete would have an unfair advantage over his unenhanced competitors, suggesting that it has always been the case that some athletes are better endowed genetically than others.
Leon Kass argues for bioconservatism. His argument was first delivered as a lecture at the Washington D.C.
Ethics and Public Policy Center and later published as an article in
The Atlantic. Before he turns to these arguments, he focuses on the distinction between "therapy" and "
enhancement." While therapy has the aim of (re-)establishing the state of what could be considered as "normal" (e.g.
replacement of organs), enhancement gives people an advantage over the "normal workings" of the human body (e.g.
immortality). On the basis of this distinction, Kass argues, most people would support therapy, but remain sceptical towards enhancement. However, he believes this distinction is not clear, since it is hard to tell where
therapy stops and
enhancement begins. One reason he gives is that the "normal workings" of the human body cannot be unambiguously defined due to the variance within humans: someone may be born with perfect pitch, another deaf.
Bostrom and
Roache reply to this by giving an instance of a clearly permissible enhancement. They claim that extending a life (i.e. making it longer than it would
normally have been) means saving this particular life. Since one would believe it is morally permissible to save lives (as long as no harm is caused), they claim that there is no good reason to believe extending a life is impermissible. The relevance of the counterargument presented by Bostrom and Roache becomes clearer when the essence of Kass's skepticism with 'enhancement' is considered. Firstly, he labels natural human experiences like aging, death and unhappiness as preconditions of human flourishing. Given that technological enhancement diminishes these preconditions and therefore hinders human flourishing, he is able to assert that enhancement is not morally permissible. Bostrom and Roache challenge Kass's inherent assumption that extending life is different from saving it. In other words, they argue that by alleviating ageing and death, someone's life is being extended, which is no different from saving their life. By this argument, the concept of human flourishing becomes entirely irrelevant since it is morally permissible to save someone's life, regardless of whether they are leading a flourishing life or not.
The problematic attitude of biotechnological enhancement One of
Leon Kass' main arguments on this matter concern the attitude of 'mastery'. Kass implies that although the means are present to modify human nature (both body and mind), the ends remain unknown, filled with unintended consequences: Due to the unawareness of the goodness of potential ends, Kass claims this not to be mastery at all. Instead, humanity is acting on the momentary whims that it is being exposed to by nature, effectively making it impossible to escape from the "grip of our own nature." argument that transhumanists fail to properly recognise the 'giftedness' of the world. He agrees that this idea is useful in that it should teach mankind an attitude of modesty, restraint and humility. However, he believes it will not by itself sufficiently indicate which things can be manipulated and which should be left untouched. Therefore, Kass additionally proposes that mankind must also respect the 'givenness' of species-specified natures – 'given' in the sense of something fixed and specified.
'Unnatural' means of biotechnological enhancement Kass refers to biotechnological enhancement as cheating or 'cheap,' because it undermines the feeling of having worked hard to achieve a certain aim. He writes, "The naturalness of means matters. It lies not in the fact that the assisting drugs and devices are artifacts, but in the danger of violating or deforming the deep structure of the natural human activity." By nature, there is "an experiential and intelligible connection between means and ends." Therefore, they build character. He maintains that biotechnology as a shortcut does not build character but instead erodes self-control. This can be seen in how confronting fearful things might eventually enable us to cope with our fears, unlike a pill which merely prevents people from experiencing fear and thereby doesn't help us overcome it. As Kass notes, "people who take pills to block out from memory the painful or hateful aspects of new experience will not learn how to deal with suffering or sorrow. A drug to induce fearlessness does not produce courage." This creates a world "hostile to children," and arguably "increasingly dominated by anxiety over health and the fear of death." This is because the existence of decline and decay is precisely what allows us to accept mortality. The hostility towards children is resultant of the redundancy of new generations to the progression of the human species, given infinite lifespan; progression and evolution of the human race would no longer arise from procreation and succession, but from the engineered enhancement of existing generations. Secondly, He explains that one needs to grieve in order to love, and that one must feel a lack to be capable of aspiration: [...] human fulfillment depends on our being creatures of need and finitude and hence of longings and attachment. Finally, Kass warns, "the engaged and energetic being-at-work of what uniquely gave to us is what we need to treasure and defend. All other perfection is at best a passing illusion, at worst a
Faustian bargain that will cost us our full and flourishing humanity."
Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Habermas has also written against genetic human enhancement. In his book "The Future of Human Nature," Habermas rejects the use of prenatal genetic technologies to enhance offspring. Habermas rejects genetic human enhancement on two main grounds: the violation of ethical freedom, and the production of asymmetrical relationships. He broadens this discussion by then discussing the tensions between the evolution of science with religion and moral principles.
Violation of ethical freedom Habermas points out that a genetic modification produces an external imposition on a person's life that is qualitatively different from any social influence. This prenatal genetic modification will most likely be chosen by one's parents, therefore threatening the ethical freedom and equality that one is entitled to as a birthright. For Habermas, the difference relies in that while socialisation processes can always be contested, genetic designs cannot therefore possess a level of unpredictability. This argument builds on Habermas'
magnum opus discourse ethics. For Habermas: Eugenic interventions aiming at enhancement reduce ethical freedom insofar as they tie down the person concerned to rejected, but irreversible intentions of third parties, barring him from the spontaneous self-perception of being the undivided author of his own life.
Asymmetrical relationships Habermas suggested that genetic human enhancements would create asymmetric relationships that endanger democracy, which is premised on the idea of moral equality. He claims that regardless of the scope of the modifications, the very knowledge of enhancement obstructs symmetrical relationships between parents and their children. The child's genome was interfered with nonconsensually, making predecessors responsible for the traits in question. Unlike for thinkers like
Fukuyama, Habermas' point is not that these traits might produce different 'types of humans'. Rather, he placed the emphasis on how
others are responsible in choosing these traits. This is the fundamental difference between natural traits and human enhancement, and it is what bears decisive weight for Habermas: the child's autonomy as self-determination is violated. However, Habermas does acknowledge that, for example, making one's son very tall in the hope that they will become a basketball player does not automatically determine that he will choose this path. However, although the opportunity can be turned down, this does not make it any less of a violation from being forced into an irreversible situation. Genetic modification has two large-scale consequences. Firstly, no action the child undertakes can be ascribed to her own negotiation with the natural lottery, since a 'third party' has negotiated on the child's behalf. This imperils the sense of responsibility for one's own life that comes along with freedom. As such, individuals' self-understanding as ethical beings is endangered, opening the door to
ethical nihilism. This is so because the genetic modification creates a type of dependence in which one of the parts does not even have the hypothetical possibility of changing social places with the other. Secondly, it becomes impossible to collectively and democratically establish moral rules through communication, since a condition for their establishment is the possibility to
question assertions. Genetically modified individuals, however, never realise if their very questioning might have been informed by enhancement, nor can they question it. That being said, Habermas acknowledges that societies are full of asymmetric relationships, such as oppression of minorities or exploitation. However, these conditions could be different. On the contrary, genetic modification cannot be reverted once it is performed. ==Criticism==