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What Does it Mean to be Enhanced?
Ryan Wittingslow
Department of Philosophy
The University of Sydney
NSW, Australia, 2006
ryan.wittingslow@sydney.edu.au
ABSTRACT
In this paper, I attempt to question the very idea of ”en-
hancement” itself. Given the tool-using nature of human
beings, does the idea of enhancement have any critical trac-
tion, when it could be argued that all tool use is an attempt
to enhance experience? This has grave ramifications for the
public ethics that surrounds any discussion about the appli-
cation of transhuman technologies. If, as I argue, there is
nothing special about ”enhancement” - indeed, if it is that
very thing that makes us human - then the vocabulary of
the discourse itself may be occluding a genuine and honest
appraisal of these issues.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
H.5.1 [Multimedia
Information Systems]:
artificial, aug-
mented, and virtual realities
General Terms
Theory
Keywords
enhancement, transhumanism, recursion, artefacts
1.
INTRODUCTION
It is the wont of those who discuss transhumanism and
transhuman technologies to habitually refer to ”enhanced ex-
perience” or the ”enhanced human” — nomenclature adopted
not only by laypersons and public officials, but by those
who, by all rights, should know better: medical doctors, en-
gineers, philosophers, designers and scientists of all stripes.
But what exactly does ”enhanced experience” mean? Its
prevalence is certainly not indicative of a definition arrived
to by consensus; on the contrary, its prevalence appears to
be far more a product of carelessness than carefully consid-
ered debate. Exactly how one is supposed to meaningfully
grapple with the social, legal, technical and conceptual ram-
ifications of trans- and post-human technologies without, at
the very least, sharing the same assumptions seems an exer-
cise in futility. It is in the face of this complaint that I am
producing this paper — although the title of this conference
contains the words ”Enhancing Human Experience”, I would
like to question not so much the nature of the enhancement
itself or how it should be conducted but the nature of the
thing that is being enhanced — namely, the human itself.
Although it may be unfashionable in some circles to make
such a claim, it seems intuitively true that there is in fact
something
special
about human beings. Despite the fact
that we are only different in quantity — not kind — from
other animals in all relevant biological respects (the num-
ber and subsequent density of neurones in the brain, for in-
stance), we are special in that we have certain capacities that
other creatures do not. However, that being said, although
I will broadly accept that there is indeed something special
about human beings, being a philosopher whose pragma-
tism has mutated into a kind of brutish, heavy-browed anti-
intellectualism, I only have interest in pursuing what can be
considered
functional
definitions of humanity. Accordingly,
in this paper I am attempting to outline such a definition —
a definition that does not rely on outlandish metaphysics or
unsubstantiable claims regarding our ethical or moral char-
acter, but rather is premised upon the observation that we
are behaviourally
distinct
from other animals. That is to
say, I am far less interested in the human’s
Being
than I am
in the human’s
doing.
I will commence this paper with a brief outline of the
two general objections to the development and application
of transhuman technologies — positions I have dubbed the
”biological” and the ”ontological” positions, the former em-
blematised by Francis Fukuyama, and the latter by Martin
Heidegger. After which I will I provide an outline of my
own position — the ”functional” position, for lack of a better
term, and thereby comparing it with the two models previ-
ously discussed.
1
Finally, I will demonstrate that the func-
tional definition — or something very much like it — very
much needs to be adopted by both sides of the debate sur-
rounding transhuman technologies. In order to breach the
philosophical impasse between ”bioconservatives” and ”bi-
oliberals”, a more comprehensive (and mutually accessible)
means of discussing these issues is required.
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Laval Virtual VRIC’12, March 28-April 1, 2012
Laval, France
Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1243-1
Please note that the following discussion is not a complete
articulation of the model I am proposing; a more substantive
enunciation will follow in subsequent articles.
1
2.
THE OLD GUARD
When discussing bioethics in general and transhuman tech-
nologies in particular, interested parties are generally forced
into one of two broad camps, generally dubbed the ”bio-
conservative” and ”bioliberal” camps. Bioconservatives are
exactly what one would expect: those social and/or political
groups who fear that the ideas such as dignity, agency, equal-
ity and the human itself are fundamentally threatened by
the development of transhuman technologies; whereas bio-
progressives are, for all intents and purposes, varying stripes
of liberal eugenicist, embracing transhuman technologies as
not only permissible, but also desirable. However, the demo-
graphic makeup of these constituent camps is far less obvious
— although bioliberals may be broadly characterised as be-
ing libertarian in sentiment, bioconservatives by no means
comprise a monolithic political entity; in a surprise twist,
both the neoconservative right — comprised of figures such
as political scientist Francis Fukuyama and bioethicist Leon
Kass, former chairman of the much-maligned President’s
Council on Bioethics; and the ”egalitarian” left, comprised
of figures such as policy advocate Marcy Darnovsky and
philosopher Jurgen Habermas — find themselves in uneasy
alliance against the afore-mentioned bioliberals. Though
they are strange bedfellows indeed, more striking than their
differences are their similarities: despite these groups having
vastly different political agenda, their means of assessing and
articulating what it means to be human remains the same.
human is not being in possession of any one of those qualities
in isolation, but rather having
all
of those relevant qualities.
Fukuyama calls this sufficient collection of necessary quali-
ties Factor X — an attribute that:
...cannot be reduced to the possession of moral
choice, or reason, or language, or sociability, or
sentience, or emotions, or consciousness, or any
other quality that has been put forth as a ground
for human dignity. It is all these qualities coming
together in a human whole that make up Factor
X. Every member of the human species possesses
a genetic endowment that distinguishes a human
in essence from other types of creatures.”[8]
Those familiar with Fukuyama’s work will be equally fa-
miliar with the philosophical sleight-of-hand he commits at
this point: observing the Gaussian curve of human gene ex-
pression, he conflates our capacity for Factor X — that is
to say, ”human nature” — with our biological character; he
believes that this curve is normative rather than descriptive,
our essence being ”the sum total of the behaviour and char-
acteristics that are typical of the human species, arising from
genetic rather than environmental factors.”[8] Furthermore,
in identifying Factor X with our genetic makeup, by his own
admission Fukuyama recommends a ”deference to nature”,
and thereafter articulates a resonating concern: ”[...] a fear
that, in the end, biotechnology will cause us in some way
to lose our humanity — that is, some essential quality that
has always underpinned our sense of who we are and where
we are going, despite all of the evident changes that have
taken place in the human condition through the course of
history.”[8] For Fukuyama, it is not enough to claim that
our nature will
change
or
evolve;
rather, he would have us
believe that a transhuman or post-human would be essen-
tially distinct from what we are now — potentially to the
point where our moral intelligence is either unrecognisable
or completely eradicated.
Curiously, despite the strength of this sentiment, Fukuyama
doesn’t actually advocate for the outright
banning
of tran-
shuman technologies, but rather advocates that biotechnol-
ogy be subject to government controls — controls, moreover,
that have been arrived at via a liberal democratic process. In
Fukuyama’s view, this would have two inevitable outcomes:
one, that a ”broad-brush ban”[8] on designer babies and hu-
man cloning take place; and two, that genetic engineering
only be used for therapeutic purposes. Of course, when we
address the concept of ”therapy”, that raises another issue:
when one is considering the full gamut of human gene ex-
pression, at what point can something be said to be ”ther-
apy”? This point is ably made by genetic scientist Lee M.
Silver, author of
Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering
and Cloning Will Transform the American Family,[18]
and
Fukuyama responds by claiming that is it more important
that legislative or judicial bodies have the capacity to discern
the difference between ”therapy” and ”enhancement”, rather
than debating exactly how such a distinction is possible:
Once we agree in principle that we will need a ca-
pability to draw red lines, it will not be a fruitful
exercise to spend a lot of time arguing precisely
where they should be placed. As in other areas
of regulation, many of these decisions will have
2.1 Design vs. Designer
Human nature is what gives us a moral sense,
provides us with the social skills to live in society,
and serves as a grounds for sophisticated philo-
sophical discussions of rights, justice and moral-
ity. What is ultimately at stake with biotech-
nology is not just some utilitarian cost-benefit
calculus concerning future medical technologies,
but the very grounding of the human moral sense,
which has been a constant ever since there were
human beings.[8]
One such means of defining the human is what I call the
”biological” position, adeptly articulated by political scien-
tist Francis Fukuyama in his
Our Posthuman Future.
Those
familiar with the work will know that Fukuyama’s entire
program rests firstly on attempting to isolate that specific
quality or characteristic that renders us both unique and
special, and secondly on demonstrating a) that said quality
has intrinsic value and b) said value will be compromised
by the rampant application of transhuman technologies —
it is ”that essential human quality” that remains after ”we
strip all of a person’s contingent and accidental characteris-
tics away”.[8] As a result, Fukuyama explores those innate
capacities he believes to be specific to humankind, and after
much pontification, Fukuyama comes to the conclusion that
is humanity’s capacity for conscious action informed by a
kind of moral intelligence that makes us what we are. Of
course, having the capacities for moral intelligence and con-
scious action presuppose an entire host of other, parasitic
qualities — including, but not limited to, linguistic capac-
ity, the ability to reason abstractly, sociability, etcetera; it
would certainly be difficult to claim that we have moral in-
telligence without also having the capacity to render moral
claims linguistically, for example. Moreover, what it is to be
to be made on a trial-and-error basis by adminis-
trative agencies, based on knowledge and experi-
ence not available to us at present. What is more
important is to think about the design of institu-
tions that can make and enforce regulations on,
for example, the use of preimplantation diagno-
sis and screening for therapeutic rather than en-
hancement purposes, and how those institutions
can be extended internationally.[8]
On the contrary, I would think that it is a far more fruitful
exercise to debate the methodology to be utilised, given that
such a method would indeed shed much-needed light upon
this mysterious Factor X; although Fukuyama has given us
a series of necessary conditions a body must meet in order
that it be deemed to have ”X”, if he is unable to account for
the difference between therapy and enhancement, he accord-
ingly provides no method as to how X can be substantively
isolated or tested for. Furthermore, despite the fact the Fac-
tor X is supposedly an inalienable and intrinsically valuable
quality, Fukuyama seems quite happy to allow the concept
be subject to the whims of either legislators or the judiciary,
hoping that it can be apparent via some kind of common-
sense approach.
2
It hardly seems unfair to claim that if X
cannot be isolated beyond the vagaries of legislative and ju-
dicial trial and error, his claim that what makes us human
is a fundamentally biological quality is also unable to be
substantiated.
3
Although Factor X itself remains specific to Fukuyama’s
book, the general sentiment of similar bioconservative works
remain the same: that whatever comprises ”human nature”
is both intrinsically valuable and inherently biological, and
that, in utilising transhuman technologies — particularly
those that impinge upon our genetic identity — we run the
risk of somehow obviating that quality. Moreover, the se-
rious shortcomings with biological characterisations of the
human being — such as articulating the distinction between
”therapy” and ”enhancement”, let alone isolating exactly what
it is about the human genome that is so
special
— remain
difficult for biological essentialists to defend. Accordingly,
it is unsurprising that most bioconservatives, rather than
subscribing to the biological model, instead endorse some
variant of the ontological model: an articulation of the hu-
man that comes to us via the work of Martin Heidegger.
2.2
Design vs.
Dasein
Unlike biological essentialists such as Fukuyama, adher-
ents to the ontological model are far more concerned with
the phenomenological ramifications of transhuman technolo-
gies — concerns that increasing the development and appli-
cation of such technologies will inevitably lead to fetishisa-
tion; concerns that social alienation and the commodifica-
tion of reproductive practises will inevitably lead to human
beings becoming, in some kind of inverted Arendtian twist,
I believe that’s what they call ”the triumph of hope over
experience.”
3
Readers familiar with Habermas’
The Future of Human
Nature
will recognise a similar discomfort with the idea of
”enhancement”, in addition to a similar reticence to define
it, admitting that the natural/artificial distinction ”is no
longer connected with ontological claims”.[9] However, de-
spite these superficial similarities, Habermas remains firmly
entrenched within the ontological camp, articulated below.
2
unmoored from the Real
4
— a sentiment that owes a great
debt to the works of Martin Heidegger. To wit: instead of
describing the differences between animals and man in moral
terms, we could instead attempt to ascribe to the human
certain phenomenological properties: for instance, were I an
ontological essentialist, I would first rather describe the hu-
man as a specific kind of phenomenological entity. Not only
is it a being with a certain kind of body — that is to say, it
must possess an existence that is instantiated bodily — the
body in question must possess certain sensory and mechani-
cal apparatuses that allow that body to both experience and
impinge upon the world in a meaningful way. Moreover, the
nature of a human’s being is not purely physical, but rather
necessitates the presence of an appropriate form of mind that
is somehow associated with the body; a mind which is first
capable of sorting and correlating received sense data and
then applying those findings to direct its respective mechan-
ical apparatuses. But still this is not enough, for our very
rough sketch of the necessary conditions that a thing must
meet in order for it to be considered a human being also
describes the experiences of any number of lived bodies: not
only of human beings, but of all embodied beings — from
single-celled amoeboids to arthropods to primitive chordates
to higher vertebrates. Indeed, certain kinds of machine in-
telligence could also be argued to exhibit these properties.
Honda’s ASIMO certainly fulfils these requirements, being a
thing in possession of both sensory and mechanical appara-
tuses in addition to a limited decision-making faculty. Even
the swarm intelligence of Google PageRank could be said to
exhibit these properties in a certain sense, assuming that we
can accept that the PageRank algorithm is somehow embod-
ied
informationally.
Accordingly, in an attempt to account
for this experiential difference between these ”world-poor”
entities and a human’s bodily experience, a Heideggerian
would describe this missing quality as the infamous
Dasein
— that is, the property in the human’s Being that allows us
to consider our own Being.
Dasein
is something of a curious beast: curious in both its
uniqueness and curiosity as its
modus operandus.
It is the
wont of
Dasein
to test and probe the world, deriving theo-
ries and seeking inconsistencies. Indeed, one of the projects
of
Dasein
is that it explicitly pursues what Heidegger calls
aletheia
(translated as ”truth” or ”revealing”) via the pro-
cess of
poiesis,
or ”bringing-forth” of Being: ”in the realm
of thinking, a painstaking effort to think through still more
primally what was primally thought [...]”.[10] In this way,
technology (along with poetry) is some kind of attempt to
”It is this durability that gives the things of the world
their relative independence from men who produced and
used them, their ’objectivity’ that makes them withstand,
’stand against’ and endure at least for a time the voracious
needs and wants of living users. From this viewpoint, the
things of the world have the function of stabilising human
life, and their objectivity lies in the fact that men, their ever-
changing nature notwithstanding, can retrieve their identity
by being related to the enduring sameness of objects, the
same chair today and tomorrow, the same house formerly
from birth to death. Against the subjectivity of men stands
the objectivity of the man-made artifice, not the indifference
of nature. Only because we have erected a world of objects
from what nature gives us and have built this artificial en-
vironment into nature, thus protecting us from her, can we
look upon nature as being ’objective’. Without a world be-
tween men and nature, there would be eternal movement,
but no durability”.[3]
4
render the world clear to us. Technology serves to moor
us to Being; it allows us to make meaningful claims about
the world, not the least of which being that we are able to
conclude that the world retains certain qualities even when
we are not directly experiencing it: ”Enframing means the
gathering together of the setting-upon that sets upon man,
i.e. challenges him forth, to reveal the actual, in the mode of
ordering, as standing-reserve. If we give heed to this, then
another whole realm for the essence of technology will open
itself up to us. It is the realm of revealing, i.e., of truth”.[10]
And so it is that, to use Heidegger’s example, a windmill
serves as a form of
poiesis;
in harnessing the rhythms of the
world, the Being of the world may be revealed to us.
However, it with the advent of the Industrial Revolution
that sees
Dasein
become subject to its own vast hubris;
in ”challenging” (Herausfordern) the natural order by sub-
verting natural processes for our own nefarious ends; by no
longer being subject to the whims of the world, we are no
longer engaged in a process of
poiesis.
Rather, we may only
observe Being through a glass darkly, our vision occluded by
our own rapacity:
The hydroelectric plant is set into the current
of the Rhine. It sets the Rhine to supplying its
hydraulic pressure, which then sets the turbines
turning. This turning sets those machines in mo-
tion whose thrust sets going the electric current
for which the long-distance power station and its
network of cables are set up to dispatch electric-
ity. In the context of the interlocking processes
pertaining to the orderly disposition of electrical
energy, even the Rhine itself appears as some-
thing at our command. The hydroelectric plant
is not built into the Rhine River as was the old
wooden bridge that joined bank with bank for
hundreds of years. Rather the river is dammed
up into the power plant. What the river is now,
namely, a water power supplier, derives from out
of the essence of the power station.[10]
By Heidegger’s reckoning, we have in a sense
manufac-
tured
the river; we have compromised our capacity to recog-
nise its
aletheia
in some fundamental way; we can no longer
recognise the river’s essential Being, but instead can only
describe it in terms of its utility — Being subsumed within
function. Furthermore, although Heidegger’s thesis only ex-
plicitly concerns technology in the mid-20th century, his sen-
timent nonetheless rings true with regards to fears concern-
ing the application of transhuman technologies. Whereas
Fukuyama is troubled by the fact that our moral character
is ostensibly tied to our genetic makeup, latter-day Heideg-
gerians are more concerned that in ”challenging” the world
by subverting or reappropriating natural processes (in-vitro
fertilisation, gene therapy, cloning, etcetera), we are some-
how moving away from
aletheia,
or authentic Being. The
transhuman challenge for neo-Heideggerians is that even hu-
man reproduction — not to mention human life and human
capacities — has been reorganised in this way.
Although later ontological essentialists may not explicitly
invoke Heidegger in the course of their analyses, their work
nonetheless retains a certain Heideggerian astringency. Ju-
rgen Habermas, by means of example, approvingly quotes
Rawls when he says that ”the ’just society’ ought to leave it
to individuals to choose how it is that they want to ’spend
the time they have for living.’ It guarantees to each an
equal freedom to develop an ethical self-understanding, so
as to realise a personal conception of the ’good life’ accord-
ing to one’s own abilities and choices”.[9] Like Heidegger’s
reading of
Dasein,
it presupposes some kind of teleological
purpose to human life — in Habermas’ case, that society
should facilitate some species of Aristotelian
eudaimonia
in
its citizens. Moreover, Habermas’ concern with transhuman
technologies and genetic tinkering is that they may serve
to compromise the possibility of achieving this eudaimonic
life: for instance, given that genetically modified humans
would be modified without their express consent, Habermas
believes that genetically modified humans would become
in-
strumentalised
— a concept anathema to his quasi-Kantian
ethics. Borrowing an idea from Hannah Arendt, he claims
that with ”every single birth, being invited with the hope
for something entirely other to come and break the chain of
eternal recurrence, is to be seen in the eschatological light
of the biblical promise: ’a child has been born to us’. [...]
On this indeterminate hope of something new, the power
of the past over the future is shattered.”[9] However, once
genetic engineering is introduced, this natality, this poten-
tial for change, is utterly compromised; the genetically en-
gineered body would have a far greater struggle to discover
the freedom of its own Being, because their genetic material
is subject to the discretionary powers of other bodies:
It is only by referring to this difference between
nature and culture, between beginnings not at
our disposal, and the plasticity of our historical
practises that the acting subject may proceed to
the self-ascriptions without which he could not
perceive himself as the instigator of his actions
and aspirations. For a person to be himself, a
point of reference is required which goes back
beyond the lines of tradition and the contexts of
interaction which constitute the process of forma-
tion through which personal identity is moulded
in the course of a life history. [...] We can achieve
continuity in the vicissitudes of a life history only
because we may refer, for establishing the differ-
ence between what
we
are and what happens
to
us,
to a bodily existence which is itself the con-
tinuation of a natural fate going back beyond the
socialisation process. The fact that this natural
fate, this past before our past, so to speak, is not
at our human disposal seems to be essential for
our awareness of freedom [...].[9]
Also amongst the legion of ontological essentialists are fig-
ures such as Leon Kass; however, unlike Habermas’ concerns
regarding the nature of free will and the possibility of in-
strumentalising human life, Kass is far more concerned with
making normative claims regarding the purposiveness and
subsequent intrinsic moral goodness of suffering certain life
hurdles. His argument is that it is our very finitude that
gives rise to our participation and consumption of those
things that ostensibly make life worthwhile: beauty, virtue,
community, the quest for meaning. His fear is that, with-
out the possibility that tomorrow will never arrive, human
beings will begin to wallow in our own complacency — and,
in so doing, freely relinquish that which gives us value and
purpose. In effect, Kass commits to the unintuitive position
that, in order for us to live our lives as well as we should
— by what standard of excellence we are not informed —
we must indeed die at the end of it; and, moreover, die
within a timely fashion: ”Might not even a moderate pro-
longation of life span with vigour lead to a prolongation
in the young of functional immaturity — of the sort that
has arguably already accompanied the great increase in av-
erage life expectancy experienced in the past century?”[12]
Like Heidegger, Habermas and other ontological essential-
ists, Kass would have use believe that there is some kind
of Being that is essential to humanity; though he does not,
like Fukuyama, conflate it with our biological characteris-
tics, he freely subscribes to the idea that there is something
phenomenologically distinct about humanity, and that the
utilisation of transhuman technologies could well serve to
contravene the nature of that Being.
imals, or mutilating a corpse, or eating human
flesh, or even just (just!) raping or murdering
another human being? Would anybody’s failure
to give full rational justification for his or her
revulsion at these practices make that revulsion
ethically suspect? Not at all. On the contrary,
we are suspicious of those who think that they
can rationalise away our horror, say, by trying
to explain the enormity of incest with arguments
only about the genetic risks of inbreeding.[11]
Denial of the concept of human dignity — that is,
of the idea that there is something unique about
the human race that entitles every member of the
species to a higher moral status than the rest of
the natural world — leads us down a very per-
ilous path.[8]
Unfortunately, this leaves debates between bioconserva-
tives and bioliberals at something of an impasse; it seems
that, in some perverse evocation of a schoolyard dispute, bi-
oliberals mock bioconservatives for being irrational, whilst
the bioconservatives simply refuse to engage entirely. As
Roache and Clarke note, ”this disagreement centres around
intuitions: bioconservatives feel, without fully articulating,
that human nature is sacred; whereas bioliberals [...] lack
this intuition and therefore find bioconservatives’ unexplained
insistence on the value of human nature puzzling”[17] —
there is a fundamental conceptual impasse between the two
positions, with seemingly no means to meaningfully bridge
the gap, leaving us with very little meaningful communica-
tion between the two camps. So where does this leave us?
Nowhere good, unfortunately; without some kind of mean-
ingful dialogue between bioconservatives and bioliberals, the
possibility of developing substantive public policy regarding
the development and application of transhuman technologies
seems very small indeed. What, then, is the answer?
3.
THE YOUNG TURKS
It seems that, for bioconservatives of all stripes, the ques-
tion of the human’s Being is the single most salient factor
when assessing questions regarding the development and ap-
plication of transhuman technologies. But what of the bi-
oliberals? Do bioliberals also question what it means to be
human, or is something else at stake? According to a soon-
to-be-published paper by Rebecca Roach and Steve Clarke,
the answer appears to be a resounding ”no”. As Roache and
Clarke note, bioliberals, rather than contesting the claims of
bioconservatives with their own articulations of the human,
simply attempt to dismantle what are seen as the intellectual
conceits of the bioconservative movement. The biological
essentialism of Fukuyama or the respective ontologies pro-
posed by the post-Heideggerians are seen as the good and
proper locus of criticism; academic positions premised upon
intuition rather than muscular, rigorous analysis. As Nick
Bostrom notes: ”[o]ur own species-specified natures are a
rich source of much of the thoroughly unrespectable and un-
acceptable — susceptibility for disease, murder, rape, geno-
cide, cheating, torture, racism”[5]; hardly the optimistic and
self-serving sentiments that characterise a good deal of bio-
conservative literature. Furthermore, the two camps are not
only separated by their respective ethoi, but also by a fun-
damental methodological difference: as Roache and Clarke
observe, the sanctity of Being that is presumed in biocon-
servative literature is instead subject to brute analysis by
bioliberal commentators. As we have demonstrated, even a
superficial reading of the works of leading figures in the bio-
conservative movement will reveal substantial philosophical
holes, and bioliberals freely take advantage of that: ”if what
bioconservatives are trying to protect cannot be properly de-
fined; or if, having identified it, it turns out not to be worth
protecting according to values and principles that even bio-
conservatives must recognise; or if enhancement poses no
greater threat to it than existing, accepted practices; then —
the bioliberal argues — bioconservatives’ opposition to en-
hancement is irrational and should be dismissed.”[17] Given
that the sanctity of our Being is an intuitively held belief
that is only justified post hoc, it is unsurprising that bio-
conservatives rarely choose to engage with such sentiments
— and indeed, both Kass and Fukuyama have warned us of
the moral inadequacies of such a position:
Can anyone really give an argument fully ade-
quate to the horror which is father-daughter in-
cest (even with consent), or having sex with an-
4. THE HUMAN DOING
It seems that we require a model of the human than can
appeal to both camps: a model that not only articulates
our ”specialness” — that is to say, a model that can ably
and substantively articulate what distinguishes us from an-
imals — but also our mutability, correctly identifying that
a definition of our being must accurately reflect the inde-
terminacy of our natures. Moreover, this model cannot, in
order to satisfy the analytical urges of bioliberals, resort to
anything beyond a superficial description of biological char-
acteristics, nor can it rely on the apperception of intuitive
metaphysical or moral truths, but must rather appeal to
human behaviour. Finally, the model must have
utility
—
it should be able to provide a list of assessable criteria by
which something can be judged to have a being that is in
meaningful respects like ours. It is with this in mind that I
cautiously propose the following: not a definition premised
upon either our biological being or ontological Being, but
rather a definition premised upon our functional
doing.
4.1
Morality and Language
There are two popular answers to the question of what dis-
tinguishes us from animals in a behavioural respect: moral
sense and language. However, insofar as I am concerned, the
former does not pass muster, not even superficially. Recent
years have seen a plethora of papers released indicating that

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