|
A peer-reviewed electronic journal
published by the Institute for Ethics and ISSN 1541-0099 26(2) – September 2016 |
Confronting Existential
Risks With Voluntary Moral Bioenhancement
Vojin Rakić
Center for the Study of Bioethics, Institute for Social
Sciences, Serbian Unit and European Division of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics,
Cambridge Working Group for Bioethics Education
University
of Belgrade
Milan
M. Ćirković
Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade
and
Center for the Study of Bioethics
University
of Belgrade
Journal
of Evolution and Technology -
Vol. 26 Issue 2 – September 2016 - pgs 48-59
Abstract
We outline an argument favoring
voluntary moral bioenhancement as a response to
existential risks humanity exposes itself to. We consider this type of
enhancement a solution to the antithesis between the extinction of humanity and
the imperative of humanity to survive at any cost (e.g., by adopting illiberal
strategies). By opting for voluntary moral bioenhancement,
we refrain from advocating illiberal or even totalitarian strategies that would
allegedly help humanity preserve itself. We argue that
such strategies, by encroaching upon the freedom of individuals, already
inflict a degree of existential harm on human beings. We also give some
pointers as to the desirable direction for morally enhanced post-personhood.
Introduction
A sizeable body
of literature has been devoted recently to arguments for and against cognitive
and/or moral enhancement of human beings. Harris, Savulescu,
Persson, Douglas, Crockett, Wilson, DeGrazia, Agar, Sparrow, Rakić,
Wasserman, Wiseman and others have written various articles and books on the
topic, but a truly comprehensive recent review of the literature is still
lacking.
Bioconservatives have
argued against bioenhancement, as they believe that
it is aimed at intervening in what has been ordained by God or given to us by
nature. Bioliberals, on the other hand, insist that nature
is morally indifferent, from which it follows that we have a right to intervene
in what nature has created. In fact, we do that already when we fight certain
natural phenomena that inflict harm on people: e.g., medications are
administered to patients who suffer from diseases (which are frequently
naturally occurring phenomena), dams are built to contain floodings,
defenses against lightning are set up. Some bioliberals insist on our moral duty to enhance everything that can be enhanced. On the other hand,
there are those who are against certain forms of enhancement but are by no
means bioconservatives. For instance, they are
against moral bioenhancement, at least in its
currently possible form, but are not necessarily against cognitive bioenhancement (e.g., John Harris and Nicholas Agar).
It is precisely
the theme of moral bioenhancement that figures
prominently in bioethics literature in recent years. Persson
and Savulescu assert that humanity is at risk of
(self-) annihilation, or another form of what they call Òultimate harm,Ó if it
does not embark on the path of moral bioenhancement.1 John Harris,
on the other hand, maintains that this type of enhancement can be accomplished
only to the detriment of our freedom. He insists on cognitive enhancement being
sufficient for moral enhancement (Harris 2011). Rakić
(2014) argues against both Harris and the collaborative efforts of Persson and Savulescu. Against
Harris, he maintains that
we might become cognitively enhanced, e.g., we might start to understand that
racial prejudices are morally wrong, without acquiring the motivation to act
upon this understanding. At the same time, Rakić
argues against Persson and SavulescuÕs
position that moral enhancement ought to be made compulsory (Persson and Savulescu 2008, 174).2 This issue of the voluntariness of moral bioenhancement is essential for the central theme of this
paper: how to employ it in order to confront existential risks.
Existential risk prevention as a
moral imperative
Existential risks
are those in which an adverse outcome means the extinction of Earth-originating
intelligent life or the permanent and drastic destruction of its potential for
desirable future development (Bostrom 2002).
Recent work in existential risk analysis has clearly suggested that any form of
consequentialist ethics imposes a strong obligation to prevent global
existential threats (e.g., Parfit 1984; Matheny 2007;
Baum 2010; Bostrom 2013).
Examples of
existential risks include large natural hazards, such as supervolcanic
explosions, large anthropogenic risks, such as misusing biotechnology to create
new pathogens against which the human immune system has no defense,
and risks following from a complex interplay between anthropogenic and natural
processes, such as global warming. All these share the fundamental feature that
they can, on timescales short by astronomical, geological, or evolutionary
standards, annihilate all the values created by humanity so far, as well as all
the values which could ever be created by
humanity or its descendants. This fundamental property automatically makes the
concept of existential risk of central importance to moral philosophy in
general, and to bioethics in particular. The same property puts existential
risks into a separate category from other large catastrophic risks such as
tsunamis or ice-ages, which do not (in their
well-defined ranges of severity) threaten the very existence of future
generations of human or posthuman beings. A separation
in our ethical thinking about
existential vs. global catastrophic risks should occur even if the physical causative mechanism of some
existential risks is, in fact, the extreme part of the distribution of similar
global catastrophic risks. An astronomer might consider a 20-kilometer asteroid
impact, which would certainly destroy humanity, as essentially similar to a
2-kilometer impact, which would, according to the present-day models, devastate
a continent and change the global climate, though in a completely inhabitable
way; but the consequences for moral philosophy – and, perhaps, for the
moral status of a large part, if not all of the visible universe!3 – are as different as the concept of
death is different from that of the common cold. While it is, in extreme cases,
possible to die from the common cold, this certainly would not justify stating
that the common cold is lethal, or that the moral obligation of a physician to
try everything to prevent death of a patient extends to trying everything to
prevent the patient contracting a common cold.
This is in
agreement with our intuitions that the value of future generations, which are
directly vulnerable to the
present-day existential risks, could far exceed the values created by humanity
thus far (Bostrom 2003; Ćirković
2004). Therefore, the loss of such future values could far outweigh any loss of
value in human history thus far – and such an outcome would thus
constitute the greatest evil ever faced by humankind. On the basis of such
reasoning, many contemporary researchers have reached the conclusion that
prevention and mitigation of existential risks are the biggest imperatives our
species has ever faced (e.g., Matheny 2007; Bostrom
2013).
While some
existential risks seem to be preventable with present-day or near-future
technology (impacts of large asteroids on Earth provide a prototypical example;
see e.g., Ahrens
and Harris 1992), in other cases mitigation is a more remote
prospect. The latter particularly applies to anthropogenic existential risks which, unfortunately, also have the largest
probability, such as anthropogenic global warming or intentionally caused
pandemics and other forms of bioterrorism. The huge body of literature devoted
to climate change mitigation testifies how difficult it is, and a large part of
the difficulty stems from the problem of the lack of coordination of relevant actors.4 The same
applies to the threat of misuse of biotechnology and bioterrorism (Atlas 2002;
Jansen et al. 2014), which is emphasized by the necessity of rather extreme
surveillance if preventive action is
to be possible. Similar considerations apply, mutatis mutandis, to other existential risks. All these examples
point in the same general direction: mitigation of existential risks requires a
conjunction of two key ingredients: strong global surveillance and strong
global coordination. Both ingredients are associated with a reduction, rather
than increase, of the freedom of individual actors on the scene, both personal
and political.
In line with
that, it might be argued that existential risk prevention should not take place
at the cost of our loss of freedom. If moral bioenhancement
were imposed on us by the state, our freedom would be jeopardized. As freedom
is an essential component of our humanness, its demise, either in full or to
some extent, would already inflict a
certain degree of existential harm on human individuals. In that sense, threats
to our freedom are also existential risks. Consequently, human individuals
should not fall prey to the Òsurvival at any cost biasÓ (see Rakić 2014).
Moreover, we also
donÕt have to accept the survival of our species as the most important moral desideratum.
Biological morality, i.e. a morality based on the survival of the species as
the highest moral goal to be achieved, is not necessarily superior to other
approaches to moral desiderata (e.g., those promoted in deontological ethics).
On the whole, we should be careful not to indiscriminately sacrifice the
essential ingredients of our humanness in order to increase the likelihood of
our survival, both as individuals and as
a species. If the cost of species survival is the
loss of its humanness, such survival would become an oxymoron.
Mitigation enforcement and the road
to totalitarianism
There are many
disturbing scenarios in which existential risks are produced by actions of
individuals or small groups (terrorist organizations, apocalyptic cults).
Particularly worrying is the possibility of the intentional or accidental
creation of new pathogens in Òbasement labsÓ lacking any biosafety measures
(e.g., Jansen et al. 2014). Mitigation of such threats seems impossible without
a drastic expansion of surveillance and curtailing of privacy, since illegal
biotech labs could easily be hidden and moved – in contrast to, for
instance, most nuclear weapons installations (and we can easily perceive from
the news how difficult it is to implement non-proliferation treaties even in
that case). An optimistic view is that this might result in a form of
Òtransparent societyÓ (Brin 1998), while most
pessimistic views focus on the capacity of such technologies to create a
strictly regimented totalitarian society.
Even existential
risks with much longer timescales, like runaway global warming, might require
an extremely high level of social coordination, enforcement capability and
unity of goals, inaccessible in the context of conventionally understood
liberal and democratic societies. This becomes more and more relevant as time
passes and the measures required for mitigation become more and more extreme.
In particular, if it turns out that geoengineering is
the only efficient way to stop runaway global warming,
it is hard to see how the present, relaxed system of international deliberation
and decision-making could be employed for such an undertaking. Thus, even those
ÒslowerÓ – but very much real – threats might lead rather
straightforwardly to a totalitarian or crypto-totalitarian world.
Future
totalitarianism is a stable configuration, possibly much more stable than
historical totalitarian regimes due to ongoing improvements
in technology and understanding of social and psychological mechanisms.
Ubiquitous miniaturized surveillance is already a commonplace – and has
already eroded parts of the traditional concept of privacy. Future surveillance
equipment (possibly based upon molecular nanotechnology) will be able to go
much further in that direction and entirely obviate the notion of a Òprivate
spaceÓ that is off-limits to government or even other powerful social actors
(corporations, churches, etc.).
Another important
development that might serve as a prop of future totalitarian regimes is the
expansion of genetic screening for various functions and positions in society.
This practice might easily be abused in order to suppress any discontent and
critical thought.
Even more
speculative possibilities – although discussed in contemporary bioethics
– are also asymmetric in the sense that they are much more likely to
support illiberal rather than liberal tendencies. As argued for instance by Caplan (2008), radical life extension is more likely to
help future totalitarian regimes (for instance, to alleviate leadership
succession crises or to keep populations more conservative and docile) than it
is to help any form of liberal opposition to the regime.
Novel forms of
neurosurgery, possibly using nanotechnology, will enable more efficient
brainwashing and mind-control of opponents and potential opponents. Even in
completely different environments of the future, there will be strong
incentives for illiberal and, in the worst scenario, totalitarian regulation
(see, e.g., Cockell 2008).
Voluntary moral enhancement as the
best antidote to totalitarianism
In the context of
the discussion thus far, we submit that moral enhancement, both traditional
(education) and moral bioenhancement, is the most
promising way of Ònavigating between Scylla and Charybdis,Ó that is, avoiding
both the threat of human extinction (or a milder form of Òultimate harmÓ) and
ÒsafeÓ global totalitarianism (or a milder form of authoritarian rule).5
Clearly, not just
any form of enhancement can help us
face our problems as a species. We need to make distinctions, and it is exactly
our ability to do this that (in our view) gives additional value to our approach:
we are in a position to proactively suggest specific
goals of moral bioenhancement. While we cannot infer
at present when such specific goals will become fully realizable, we at least
wish to argue that they are desirable,
so that further research can concentrate on specific technologies, and that any
future development can be goal-oriented. In a sense, it is a duty of
present-day bioethicists to discuss and formulate an essential toolkit for future moral bioenhancement;
the contents in the toolkit will be a function of the arguments about the
purposes and goals of undertaking the program of enhancement in the first
place.
Concretely, in
the present context of existential risk management, we suggest that acceptable
moral enhancement should contain the following two elements:
1. Long-term perspective in assessment and decision-making.
2.
Respect for the autonomy and liberty of societal
actors.
Both seem rather
obvious desiderata. Without a long-term perspective – which is sorely
lacking in the public discourse nowadays – the management of processes that
could take decades or centuries, or even more, to manifest their
effects will be impossible.6
Respect for
liberty and autonomy is an obvious barrier to totalitarian tendencies. If
historical experience is to be of any help, this ingredient seems to be
necessary independently of any other cognitive or social requirement.
In that sense, it
is critical to understand the perils of a program of compulsory moral bioenhancement. Such a
program might in the worst case lead to political
repression and totalitarianism. As already noted, Persson
and Savulescu do not advocate compulsory moral bioenhancement in their recent writings, but nor do they
take a stance against it. Consequently, their position contains the danger of
indirectly supporting illiberal tendencies. It can do so in the following way:
1.
Savulescu and PerssonÕs
conception of the Ògod machineÓ appears to contain an illiberal component. The
Ògod machineÓ is a device that obliterates our wish to perform an immoral act
as soon as we think of it (Savulescu and Persson 2012). It deserves emphasis that the god mentioned
in its name is not God from Judeo-Christian and Islamic religious traditions.
In these, God leaves our freedom intact. We are free both to do good and to sin. Our Òfreedom to fallÓ is thus preserved. Savulescu and PerssonÕs Ògod
machine,Ó conversely, is a device that intervenes as soon as we develop a
morally unacceptable thought and wish to behave in line with it. Its aim is
nothing less than enhancing the role of God from the mentioned religious
traditions. Disabling us to act as we wish by policing our thoughts, such a
device is rather a Òpolice machineÓ than a Ògod machine.Ó
2.
It
is also a matter of debate who should be in charge of developing and
controlling this device. Even if a democratically elected government were
mandated with the task, its arbitration would have to be both repressive and
politically legitimate: repressive because it would forcefully intervene
whenever we decided to act in a way that it considered morally unacceptable,
politically legitimate because it would be developed and monitored on the basis
of decisions being made in the realm of politics. The very fact that these
decisions would prescribe what we are allowed to will, implies that the Ògod
machineÓ has illiberal underpinnings – even if those who control it might
be democratically elected. Moreover, as it intervenes by changing what we think
to do, it can be argued that theÒgod machineÓ is
detrimental to our very freedom of thought.
3.
In
Unfit for the Future, Persson and Savulescu adopt a
critical attitude toward liberalism in order to justify a role for the state in
mandating moral bioenhancement aimed at helping
humanity avoid ultimate harm (Persson and Savulescu 2012, 42–46). Abandoning liberalism and
accepting a form of authoritarianism, even an enlightened one, is however a
step back in humanityÕs historical development. Authoritarian and totalitarian
states employ political repression to eliminate those who disagree with their
ideologies. Using political repression is, in short, what such states do.
It is undoubtedly
possible to argue in favor of political repression
and totalitarianism, especially if the repressive authority is a morally
enlightened one. But at least let it be noted, as a matter of fact, that
compulsory moral bioenhancement is not a liberal concept. In the worst
case, it can be repressive. Political repression
and totalitarian, or another form of authoritarian, rule is a stage in
humanityÕs historical development that appears to have been left behind in most
of the developed world. More than anything else, historical totalitarianism has
left bloody stains of extreme evil on the history of humanity, and it should be
noted and emphasized, time and again, that builders of totalitarian systems
have never come close to fulfilling their rhetorical promises of Òfreedom from
oppression,Ó Òliving space,Ó Òheaven on earth,Ó and others conveyed in
phantasmal slogans.7 With the passage of time, reality under
totalitarian rule deviates more and more from
the proclaimed goals, rather than converging toward them.
Creating morally enhanced
post-persons
Insofar as we
have progressed in formulating and adhering to more and more expansive and
inclusive human rights, we are bound to condemn totalitarian theory and
practice as regressive and immoral. But even if we should assign higher value
to life strictly regulated in the totalitarian sense than to no life at all, it
is exactly the repugnant nature of this choice that should prompt us to
investigate any possible alternative to the dilemma. As argued above, we are
actually facing a trilemma, not a dilemma, and
therefore ought to concentrate on the third alternative, which is neither
extinction nor totalitarianism.
We propose the
creation of morally enhanced post-persons as this third alternative. The
following conceptual clarifications related to the notion of morally enhanced
post-persons are relevant for our argument:
1.
Post-persons
differ from Òmere personsÓ in that they have a higher moral status.
2.
ÒMere
personsÓ are currently existing humans (with the
proviso that some currently existing humans do not satisfy the criteria for
personhood).
3.
Moral
status enhancement is the improvement of a beingÕs moral entitlement to
benefits and protection against harms.
4.
Moral
enhancement is the improvement of the moral value of an agentÕs actions or
character. It is moral disposition enhancement.
5.
In
our understanding, higher moral status implies not only cognitive superiority,
but superior moral dispositions as well, i.e. a higher moral value of an
agentÕs actions or character.
The most
important component in our understanding of post-persons is that their higher
moral status vis-ˆ-vis mere persons
entails not only cognitive supremacy, but also their superior moral outlooks and inclination to act in line with them.
The gap between what we do and what we believe we ought to do might well be the greatest predicament of human moral
existence (see Rakić 2014, 248). Humans have the
disposition to be capable of autonomous practical reasoning, and moral
reasoning in particular. But if someone is in certain cases unwilling to act in
accordance with what she knows is right, she is in such cases incapable of
moral action. WouldnÕt a being that is always behaving in line with what she
believes to be moral be someone with a higher moral status than the one we
have? WouldnÕt that be a post-person? We argue that it would, because the
difference between beings who are capable of moral reasoning only and those who
practice their moral beliefs is a qualitative difference amounting to a
differentiation in moral status (for an elaborated version of the above
sketched argument, see Rakić 2015, 60–61).
In the February
2013 issue of the Journal of Medical
Ethics, Nicholas Agar published a paper on the possibility/imaginability and moral justifiability of the creation of
post-persons. AgarÕs position was one that advocated an inductive argument against the justifiability of their
creation. Agar believes, specifically, that the creation of post-persons is too
risky, as they might sacrifice or in other ways harm mere persons. It is
morally permissible to sacrifice objects with no moral status in the interest
of sentient nonpersons (e.g., to use carrots for feeding rabbits). It is also
morally permitted to sacrifice/harm sentient non-persons for the benefit of
human persons (e.g., experiments on rhesus monkeys in order to find better
treatments for diseases affecting humans). These permissions provide inductive
support for a moral justification for sacrificing mere persons for the sake of
post-persons. Hence, we should avoid creating post-persons (Agar 2013).8
Arguing against
Agar, we will present another inductive argument and, on top of that, offer a
deductive argument favoring the creation of post-persons. Both
arguments presuppose that the higher moral status of post-persons implies not
only their enhanced cognitive abilities, but also their enhanced morality. For enhanced
morality we do not require only a superior understanding of moral issues (which
is a cognitive quality), but also our motivation to behave in line with this understanding.
Inductive
argument favoring the eventuation of morally bioenhanced post-persons
If a higher moral status of post-persons implies an
enhanced morality, morally bioenhanced post-persons
will not be inclined to annihilate or severely harm mere persons, because they
will presumably consider it their moral duty not to cause detriment to the
beings who enabled them to come into existence. If
mere persons have moral inhibitions against annihilating species of moral
status lower than their own, it is even less likely that morally enhanced
post-persons will annihilate mere persons.
Deductive
argument favoring the eventuation of morally bioenhanced post-persons
Even if morally bioenhanced
post-persons believed that it was morally justified to obliterate mere persons,
such a standpoint would by necessity be morally superior to the wish of mere
persons (i.e. morally unenhanced persons) to continue to exist. This deduction
can be derived from the following two premises:
1.
Morally
enhanced persons make better moral judgments than mere persons.
2.
One
of the attributes of post-persons, as we defined them, is that they are morally
enhanced.
From these two true statements we can deduce a third
that is also true:
3.
Post-persons
make better moral judgments than mere persons.
The third statement in this syllogism further implies
that we have a moral duty to accept what post-persons consider to be morally
preferable. Consequently, as it is our moral duty to help establish a more
moral world than the currently existing one, the creation of morally bioenhanced post-persons is not only morally justified, but
our moral duty as well.9
All in all,
morally bioenhanced post-persons are morally
desirable: they might have the potential to confront the danger of extinction
of humanity or a milder form of existential harm, they are unlikely to
seriously jeopardize mere persons, and even if they did, they would be morally
justified in doing so. Hence, we have a moral duty to embark on the path of
either creating morally bioenhanced post-persons de novo or morally upgrading mere
persons to the status of morally bioenhanced
post-personhood. In either case, and in stark contrast to some bioconservatives who tend to misrepresent the entire
project of human enhancement as threatening to humanity, a corollary of our
argument is that the real threats to the existence and well-being of our
species – existential risks – constitute a major motivation in favor of undertaking
human bioenhancement, moral bioenhancement
included.
Conclusions
The trilemma
The
essential trilemma is encompassed in a simplified
form in Figure 1. Possible future evolutionary trajectories seem to tend into
three broad regions (or ÒattractorsÓ in a loose sense). Extinction is,
unfortunately, the prospect that will remain with us for a long time to come,
since it is highly unlikely that the double trend toward both more dangerous,
and destructive, weapons of mass destruction and larger, more destructive,
perturbations inflicted by human civilization on our planetary environment will
reverse soon.
One way we can
try to avoid extinction is via totalitarian rule that will punish any attempt
of humanity to inflict existential harm upon itself. Another way is to embark
on the path of moral bioenhancement. This type of
enhancement can be compulsory or voluntary. We have shown why compulsory moral bioenhancement is potentially repressive in nature. Hence,
it belongs to the grey area between totalitarian rule
and morally enhanced post-personhood.
A solution
Totalitarianism
in its traditional form has been surpassed in the developed world.
Post-personhood, however, contains a totalitarian element if it is based on the
type of compulsory moral bioenhancement that has been
referred to in this article. Both traditional totalitarianism and this type of
compulsory moral bioenhancement deprive humans of
their freedom, which is a key component of their human existence. Hence, they
not only contain a totalitarian element, but also inflict a degree of
existential (possibly ultimate) harm on humans. In actual fact, the two left
circles of Figure 1, i.e. extinction of humanity and totalitarianism (including
the two grey areas) include the infliction of existential (possibly utimate) harm as an important similarity. They differ in
the degree of harm they inflict: the harm of totalitarianism is less dramatic
than the harm of humanityÕs extinction.
Figure 1. A schematic representation of three attractors in
the space of futures. The biopolitical
axis is described in detail by Hughes (2004). Part of the entire domain
of post-personhood on the right which does not overlap with
totalitarianism corresponds to morally enhanced post-personhood (its
complement, obviously, corresponds to morally non-enhanced post-persons, as labeled).
The obnoxious
nature of these choices, however, leaves us with one reasonable option only: to
try to continue our human existence in a morally bioenhanced
form, which implies that we have not been coerced into such an existence, but
have voluntarily opted for it. We argue, therefore, that voluntary moral bioenhancement is an essential strategy to follow in order
to achieve morally enhanced post-personhood. And morally bioenhanced
post-personhood is the best option we have in order to avoid extinction,
totalitarianism, or any other form of existential harm.
Acknowledgment
The authors wish
to acknowledge very useful comments of Russell Blackford which immensely
improved a previous version of the manuscript. The authors have
been partially supported through projects ON 176021 and III41004 of the Ministry of Education, Science and
Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia
Notes
1. Persson and Savulescu
define ultimate harm as an event or series of events that make worthwhile life
on this planet forever impossible (Persson and Savulescu 2014, 251); thus, it is equivalent to the adverse
outcome of some existential risks. The fine points of difference between the
two concepts are irrelevant for the purposes of the present study.
2. In the words of Persson
and Savulescu: ÒIf safe moral enhancements are ever
developed, there are strong reasons to believe that their use should be
obligatory, like education or fluoride in the water, since those who should
take them are least likely to be inclined to use them. That is, safe, effective
moral enhancement would be compulsoryÓ (Persson and Savulescu 2008, 174). It ought to be noted, however, that
in their more recent writings, Persson and Savulescu donÕt take a decisive position on the issue of
whether moral bioenhancement ought to be compulsory
(e.g., Persson and Savulescu
2012).
3. Compare
Kahane 2013.
4. Contrary to our untutored intuition, this
does apply even to ongoing processes like climate change and nuclear
proliferation, since they retain the capacity to do immense harm on temporal
horizons much longer than the timescales for bioenhancement
of any kind.
5. This does not mean that our stance is
that humanity has no reasons other than diminishing existential risks to embark
on the path of moral bioenhancement. It also does not
imply that moral bioenhancement guarantees that we will avoid threats to our existence. We assert
only that moral bioenhancement might significantly
lower the likelihood of such threats becoming reality.
6. Even pure
research on the long-term phenomena is usually severely hampered by the lack of
such vision in funding agencies and donors. Management and mitigation are bound
to face much more formidable obstacles of that kind.
7. NB: we donÕt argue that the mere fact
that a society has one or more illiberal laws implies that it is totalitarian.
Certain illiberal laws can be found in democratic states as well. Our argument
is that the notion of compulsory moral bioenhancement
contains the danger of regression into totalitarianism, especially if it is
accompanied by the concept of a Ògod machineÓ policing our thoughts. For
related arguments, see the ÒhellishÓ
scenarios in Bostrom (2013) or the argument that compulsory moral
bioenhancement can already inflict existential harm upon humans by divesting
them of what we used to call Òfree willÓ– even though
it is supposed to lower the likelihood of such harm (Rakić 2014). Another
important point is that we need to take a long-term
perspective: if a mechanism of repression persists, even if it is not used
in practice on short timescales, the probability that it will be used with
disastrous consequences just grows with time. While it is certainly possible to
conceive of conditions under which compulsory bioenhancement would not be drastically
different from compulsory schooling (e.g., Blackford 2014, 44–49), it is
an entirely different issue whether such special conditions are likely at any
particular point in the future.
8. AgarÕs article sparked various reactions,
both supportive and critical. The standpoints of the authors who commented on
AgarÕs position in the JME issue in
question can be classified as follows: post-persons are imaginable, but
undesirable (Sparrow 2013); the eventuation of post-persons is unlikely, but
not undesirable (Hauskeller 2013); post-persons are
both imaginable and desirable (Persson 2013 and
Douglas 2013).
9. For a more extensive argument, see Rakić
(2015).
References
Agar
N. 2013. Why is it possible to enhance moral status and why
doing so is wrong? Journal of Medical Ethics 39:
67–74.
Ahrens, T.J., and A.W. Harris. 1992. Deflection and fragmentation of
near-Earth asteroids. Nature 360: 429–33.
Atlas, R.M. 2002. Bioterrorism: From threat to reality.
Annual Review of Microbiology 56: 167–85.
Baum, S.D. 2010. Is humanity doomed?
Insights from astrobiology. Sustainability 2: 591–603.
Blackford, R. 2014. Humanity enhanced: Genetic choice and the
challenge for liberal democracies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bostrom, N. 2002.
Existential risks: Analyzing human extinction scenarios
and related hazards. Journal of Evolution and Technology 9(1).
Available at http://www.jetpress.org/volume9/risks.pdf (accessed September 6, 2016).
Bostrom, N. 2003.
Astronomical waste: The opportunity cost of delayed technological development. Utilitas 5: 308–314.
Bostrom, N. 2013. Existential risk prevention as global priority. Global Policy 4: 15–31.
Bostrom, N., and M.M. Ćirković, ed. 2008. Global catastrophic risks.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brin, D.
1998. The transparent society: Will
technology force us to choose between privacy and freedom? New York: Perseus
Books.
Caplan, B. 2008. The totalitarian threat. In Global catastrophic risks, ed. N. Bostrom and M.M. Ćirković,
498–513. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ćirković, M.M.
2004. Forecast for the next eon: Applied cosmology and the long-term
fate of intelligent beings. Foundations of Physics 34: 239–61.
Cockell, C.S.
2008. An essay on extraterrestrial liberty.
Journal of the British
Interplanetary Society 61: 255–75.
Douglas,
T. 2013. The harms of status enhancement could be compensated
or outweighed: A response to Agar. Journal of Medical Ethics 39: 75–76.
Harris, J. 2011. Moral enhancement
and freedom. Bioethics 25: 102–111 .
Hauskeller, M. 2013. The moral status of post-persons. Journal of Medical Ethics 39: 76–77.
Hughes, J. 2004. Citizen cyborg: Why democratic societies must
respond to the redesigned human of the future. New York: Basic Books.
Jansen, H.J., F.J. Breeveld,
C. Stijnis, and M.P. Grobusch.
2014. Biological warfare, bioterrorism, and biocrime.
Clinical Microbiology and Infection 20: 488–96.
Kahane, G. 2013. Our cosmic insignificance. Nous 48: 742–72.
Matheny, J.G.
2007. Reducing the risk of human extinction. Risk Analysis 27: 1335–1344.
Parfit, D. 1984. Reasons and persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Persson, I.
2012. Is Agar biased against Òpost-personsÓ?
Journal of Medical Ethics 39:
77–78.
Persson, I.,
and J. Savulescu. 2008. The perils of cognitive enhancement
and the urgent imperative to enhance the moral character of humanity. Journal of Applied
Philosophy 25: 162–77.
Persson, I.,
and J. Savulescu. 2012. Unfit for the future: The need for moral enhancement. Oxford:
Oxford Univerity Press.
Persson, I.,
and J. Savulescu. 2014. Should moral bioenhancement be compulsory? Reply to Vojin
Rakic. Journal of Medical Ethics 40: 251–52.
Rakić, V. 2014. Voluntary moral enhancement and the survival-at-any-cost bias.
Journal of Medical
Ethics 40: 246–50.
Rakić, V. 2015. We
must create beings with moral standing superior to our own. Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics
24: 58–65.
Savulescu, J.,
and Persson, I. 2012. Moral enhancement,
freedom, and the god machine. The Monist 95:
399–421.
Sparrow,
R. 2013. The perils of post-persons. Journal of Medical Ethics
39: 80–81.