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Theor Med Bioeth (2014) 35:289–310
DOI 10.1007/s11017-014-9300-x
A Thomistic appraisal of human enhancement
technologies
Jason T. Eberl
Published online: 3 July 2014
Ó
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract
Debate concerning human enhancement often revolves around the ques-
tion of whether there is a common ‘‘nature’’ that all human beings share and which is
unwarrantedly violated by enhancing one’s capabilities beyond the ‘‘species-typical’’
norm. I explicate Thomas Aquinas’s influential theory of human nature, noting certain
key traits commonly shared among human beings that define each as a ‘‘person’’ who
possesses inviolable moral status. Understanding the specific qualities that define the
nature of human persons, which includes self-conscious awareness, capacity for
intellective thought, and volitional autonomy, informs the ethical assessment of
various forms of enhancement. Some forms of cognitive and physical enhancement
may be desirable from the perspective of what constitutes the ‘‘flourishing’’ of human
persons in our fundamental nature; while other forms of enhancement, such as
emotive or so-called ‘‘moral’’ enhancement, run the risk of detracting from human
flourishing when evaluated from the virtue-theoretic perspective Aquinas promotes.
Keywords
Enhancement
Á
Personhood
Á
Human nature
Á
Transhumanism
Á
Virtue
Á
Thomas Aquinas
Introduction
Debate concerning the enhancement of human capacities through genetic,
pharmacological, or technological means often revolves around the question of
whether there is a common ‘‘nature’’ that all human beings share and which is
unwarrantedly violated by enhancing a human being’s capabilities beyond the
normal levels defined by this shared nature. In this paper, I will explicate Thomas
J. T. Eberl (&)
Semler Endowed Chair for Medical Ethics, College of Osteopathic Medicine, Marian University,
3200 Cold Spring Road, Indianapolis, IN 46222-1997, USA
e-mail: jeberl@marian.edu
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J. T. Eberl
Aquinas’s view of human nature, noting certain key traits commonly shared among
human beings that define each as a ‘‘person’’ who possesses inviolable moral status.
While I have elected to focus upon Aquinas’s theory of human nature given the
degree of its influence, particularly among bioconservatives, I will note how other
historical and contemporary theories of human nature cohere with the Thomistic
account.
Understanding the specific qualities that define the nature of human persons,
which include self-conscious awareness, capacity for intellective thought, and
volitional autonomy, informs the ethical assessment of various forms of human
enhancement. Some forms of enhancement—assuming they are demonstrably safe
and efficacious—for certain types of capacities may be not only morally
permissible, but even desirable from the perspective of what constitutes the
‘‘flourishing’’ of human persons in our fundamental nature as
rational animals—for
example, enhancing one’s immune system or memory capacity. Other forms of
enhancement, however, run the risk of detracting from human flourishing or altering
one’s nature in ways that would lead to complicated social relationships with other
human persons or diminishing one’s moral agency, with the result that such forms of
enhancement ought not to be pursued—for example, attempts to enhance one’s
emotive responses. Finally, I will evaluate attempts to ‘‘morally enhance’’ human
beings from the virtue-theoretic perspective Aquinas promotes.
Caveats
A few caveats are in order before I proceed so as to define the scope of the present
analysis. Each of the issues raised by these caveats is only briefly addressed here but
merits its own detailed analysis, which I hope to provide in a longer treatment of the
ethics of human enhancement in another article. First, I will not enter into the ongoing
debate over whether there is a valid distinction between
treatment
versus
enhance-
ment
[1,
2].
Rather, I will assume that there are some clear-cut cases of human
enhancement beyond the ‘‘species-typical’’ norm [3, pp. 149–155]. The question at
hand is whether such forms of human enhancement are morally permissible or
problematic.
Second, I will not be discussing any of the
practical
issues related to developing
such enhancements, but will presume that the enhancements under discussion have
been proven—at present or at some future time—to be safe and efficacious. If any
proposed enhancements prove
not
to be safe and efficacious, then they would be
morally impermissible on even the most permissive ethical analysis. As Norman
Daniels notes, however, the experimental route to demonstrating that some forms of
human enhancement are safe and efficacious may be too disproportionate in terms of
the risk/benefit ratio such that we cannot ethically get there from here [4, p. 38]. If
Daniels is correct, then this entire discussion is moot—at least for those forms of
enhancement the long-term effects of which are not in principle determinable or even
reasonably predictable. Nevertheless, reasonable predictions may be made for some
forms of enhancement such that they may proceed
ceteris paribus
on the expectation
that the risk/benefit ratio—once verified empirically—will result in their favor.
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Human enhancement technologies
291
Third, I will be limiting my analysis to whether certain forms of human
enhancement are permissible or problematic on the basis of whether they alter
human nature in ways that do not contribute to but, rather, inhibit the individual or
collective flourishing of human beings. Enhancement in general, or a particular form
of enhancement that may be judged permissible according to the present analysis,
may be evaluated as
in principle
morally impermissible due to other factors—for
example, it may erode our appreciation of the inherent ‘‘giftedness’’ of nature while
betraying a Promethean drive towards ‘‘mastery’’ over nature [5].
1
Fourth, I rule out as morally impermissible any means toward achieving human
enhancement that involves either the destruction or eugenic selection of human
embryos or fetuses. Rather, all approvable means of enhancement must respect the
inviolable life and bodily integrity of the individual being enhanced. In other words,
permissible enhancements involve making
this person
better, not selecting one
person over another as genetically superior.
Finally, I will not discuss the important issue of whether human societies, or the
‘‘global village’’ as a whole, may become socially disrupted by virtue of an increase
in socioeconomic disparity if enhancements are available for only a select few who
enjoy wealth or high social standing. Suffice it to say, given the Thomistic model of
human flourishing I will elucidate, such severe social disruption would likely render
such enhancements impermissible, or at least problematic in the absence of
alternative social support mechanisms for the unenhanced to ameliorate the effects
of such increased socioeconomic bifurcation.
2
In sum, then, the focus of this
analysis is whether particular forms of human enhancement, demonstrated to be safe
and efficacious, and which are readily available to all who desire them, are
in
principle
morally permissible or problematic with respect to a Thomistic concept of
human nature and flourishing.
Human enhancement
There are myriad forms of, means by, and ends for which human capabilities may be
enhanced. Hence, it is difficult to justify a blanket approval or disapproval of all
forms of enhancement.
3
Rather, each particular form of enhancement, or means by
which it is achieved, should be morally evaluated on its own merits:
1
Relatedly, I will not entertain any
theological
premises in my analysis that may support or weaken the
principled case for human enhancement. Rather, acknowledging that what I will describe is one aspect in
which human beings can be understood as created in the ‘‘image and likeness of God’’ (Genesis 1:27), I
will focus only upon Aquinas’s
philosophical
account of human nature and flourishing.
2
An excellent fictional presentation of such a bifurcated society due to genetic engineering is Andrew
Niccols’s film
Gattaca
(Columbia Pictures, 1997).
An example of a group who generally approves of any form of enhancement is the World
Transhumanist Association, also known as ‘‘Humanity?’’ [6]. General critical assessments of
¨
enhancement technologies are developed by Michael Sandel [5] and Jurgen Habermas [7]; Frances
Kamm [8] and Elizabeth Fenton [9] offer critical responses to Sandel and Habermas, respectively. The
President’s Council on Bioethics [10] provides a comprehensive evaluation of various forms of human
enhancement.
3
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J. T. Eberl
Whether we should employ a particular enhancement depends on the reasons
for and against that particular enhancement. Creating superimmunity to all
known biological and viral insults is very different from practicing sports
doping; choosing the personality traits of our offspring through genetic
selection is very different from taking a pill that temporarily boosts our ability
to concentrate. On this line of reasoning, it is time to take a further step, from
asking ‘‘Should we do it?’’ to analyzing the ‘‘it’’ and asking a number of much
more specific questions about concrete actions and policy options related to
particular enhancement issues within a given sociopolitical-cultural context.
The result of this will not be a yes or no to enhancement in general, but a more
contextualized and particularized set of ideas and recommendations for how
individuals, organizations, and states should move forward in an enhancement
era. [11, p. 19]
The basic forms of human enhancement I will discuss are
cognitive, physical,
emotive,
and
moral.
With respect to specific means by which such forms of
enhancement may be achieved, I do not draw any a priori moral distinctions
between genetic, technological, or pharmacological approaches; although, some
means may have more or less effect, for good or ill, on the ontology of human
nature as will be elucidated below.
4
Finally, I contend that the only morally laudable
end for which enhancements may be pursued is the individual or collective
flourishing
of human persons, understood in the Thomistic sense. Enhancements for
purely
hedonistic
ends or as a mere exercise of
autonomy—understood
in a liberal,
individualist sense—are not commensurate with the Thomistic view adopted for this
analysis. The Thomistic concept of autonomy is similar to the Kantian concept
insofar as the unbridled exercise of an individual’s will without any internal or
external constraints is not the goal; rather, it is the will’s capacity to
self-legislate—
that is, to govern oneself in accordance with the rationally understood moral law
[13]. Thus, an agent’s exercise of her autonomy should lead to both individual and
collective flourishing. This
communitarian
perspective is at odds with a
libertarian
concept of an agent’s autonomy, which does not necessarily lead to one’s own
flourishing—if an agent wills to engage in self-destructive behavior—nor contribute
to the common good.
5
General reasons in favor of enhancement
Those who generally favor human enhancement—often self-identified as ‘‘transhu-
manists’’—typically offer a three-pronged argument to make their case [16–19].
They first highlight all the potential benefits that enhancement may yield in terms of
physical, cognitive, social, and moral improvement over our current, naturally
given, condition.
4
Descriptions of various present and potential near-future means by which forms of enhancement may
be brought about can be found among the contributions to [12].
The primary historical proponent of the libertarian concept of autonomy is John Stuart Mill [14]. Robert
Nozick [15] articulates an influential contemporary defense of libertarianism.
5
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Human enhancement technologies
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Second, they presume in favor of the liberal conception of individual autonomy,
such that the burden of demonstration is on those who would restrict the freedom of
individuals who wish to enhance themselves or their children. The contrast between
a liberal and a Thomistic conception of autonomy—as described above—is
premised upon the question of whether there is an
objective
standard for human
flourishing, such that certain forms of enhancement would be good or bad for human
beings generally, or whether what counts as ‘‘good’’ for a particular person can only
be defined
subjectively
by her and thus she should have the freedom to pursue her
own conception of what constitutes a flourishing life [20;
21,
pp. 5–6]. Transhu-
manists thus advocate a right to ‘‘morphological freedom,’’ defined as ‘‘the right to
modify and enhance one’s body, cognition, and emotions’’ [22,
23].
Such theorists
recognize reasonable limits to the exercise of such autonomy insofar as they foresee
legitimate enhancements as often contributing to the amelioration of social issues
and not merely the exercise of individual preferences; nevertheless, they advocate
the freedom to satisfy individual preferences so long as wider social harms do not
thereby result. The Thomistic view of autonomy differs insofar as such ‘‘wider
social harms’’ are objectively, and not merely conventionally, defined; furthermore,
individuals may be legitimately protected from objectively harming themselves
through the satisfaction of irrational preferences, even if no third-party harms are
implicated.
Third—and most relevant to the present discussion—they contend that human
nature, as given, is not fixed but malleable and that the application of human
intelligence is likely to result in superior alterations to the human form than the
‘‘blind’’ process of continued biological evolution:
Transhumanists view human nature as a work-in-progress, a half-baked
beginning that we can learn to remold in desirable ways. Current humanity
need not be the endpoint of evolution. Transhumanists hope that by
responsible use of science, technology, and other rational means we shall
eventually manage to become post-human, beings with vastly greater
capacities than present human beings have. [17, p. 493]
Representative of this viewpoint is the opening chapter of the collection,
Enhancing Human Capacities
[12], the authors of which reject as ‘‘ideological’’ any
understanding of enhancement that rests upon a
metaphysical
concept of human
nature and adopt a ‘‘welfarist’’ definition, in which an enhancement is ‘‘any change
in the biology or psychology of a person which increases the chances of leading a
good life in the relevant set of circumstances’’ [24, p. 7]. Of course, this definition,
consequentialist in tone, leaves open to debate what may be considered a ‘‘good
life’’ for human beings. Following John Rawls [25, pp. 78–81] and others [26,
pp. 167–170], the authors adopt a notion of ‘‘all-purpose goods,’’ which may
subserve human flourishing in a wide variety of lifestyle and career choices [24,
p. 11]. The list of such goods includes various cognitive abilities. Thus, they
conclude that, as safe and efficacious cognitive enhancement technology becomes
available and affordable, ‘‘parents will have a duty to enhance their children’’ [24,
p. 16]. Cognitive enhancements would be on an ethical par with enhancing the
immune system of one’s child through vaccinations.
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