Woe, Superman?

Volume 22 Number 1, Michaelmas 2009

(Image: Flatliner)

Artificially engendered humans have long been a science fiction staple - from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Huxley's Brave New Worldand, most recently, Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island - their heroes dehumanised figures depicted amid bleak, biotechnologically devastated landscapes.

But in the year of Darwin's bicentenary, science fact presses hard on the heels of science fiction. Three decades since Louise Brown, the first 'test tube baby', woke to the world, breakthroughs are now trumpeted almost every month. Chinese scientists recently announced that they had cloned the first animals from skin cells. Earlier, British scientists revealed they had manufactured artificial sperm using stem cells from a fiveday- old male embryo.

Human enhancement provokes violent controversy: the American writer Francis Fukuyama branded 'transhumanism' (the radical enhancement of humanity by technological means) 'the world's most dangerous idea'. But genetic technologies are only one, if perhaps the most controversial, sector on the enhancement front.

Mood and cognitive enhancers such as Ritalin and Modafinil are now widely used. In sport, sophisticated performance enhancers consistently stay one jump ahead of the detecting authorities. At what is called 'the mind machine interface' there are already treatments based on needles inserted into the brains of sufferers from Parkinson's disease. In future we may well see genetically engineered, digital or nano-level implants. Beyond these lies the vista of life extension.

'There is a significant chance that my own children will live beyond the age of 120', says Julian Savulescu, Director of Oxford's Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. 'Thereafter we could be looking at two- or three-fold increases in human life spans.'

I first heard Savulescu lecture to a group of businessmen  brewers: purveyors, no less, of that ancient mood enhancer, alcohol  and was impressed by his ability to cut through the fog of assumption to the hard utilitarian specifics. But could it really be that simple?

At the Uehiro Centre Savulescu heads a group of some thirty research associates, plus graduate students and international visitors. A medic before he turned philosopher and recently hailed in a poll as 'Australia's top emerging thinker', Savulescu openly stakes out his position on human enhancement: 'I'm an enthusiast. To be human is to strive to be better. We have a duty to use our knowledge to achieve worthwhile goals.

'Think of the comparative benefits. Estimates have been of as much as a 20 per cent reduction in poverty and welfare dependency as a result of relatively minor rises in average IQ across the population.' He emphasises that increases at the lowest IQ levels  below 70 points  could bring the biggest benefits.

Perhaps most controversially, Savulescu favours what he calls 'procreative beneficence'. At present, screening is limited by the number of eggs women normally produce and allows scientists to screen only for certain specific diseases. If scientists could scan a far larger number of embryos, using artificially manufactured sperm and eggs, this would allow couples to choose their 'perfect child'.

'I would only be opposed to changes here on safety or very clear and significant public interest grounds', he says. 'And this is not merely about reproduction. Many of these techniques provide knowledge and generate other valuable technologies. Embryonic stem cell research is one example. That arose, in part, because of the ability to artificially create human embryos. The prize involves possibly saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Since the arguments against stem cell research, for instance, are so weak I see no reason to stop it.'

Nick Bostrom, an associate of the centre and member of Oxford's James Martin 21st Century School, co-founded the World Transhumanist Association (now known as Humanity Plus or H+) in 1998, sees human enhancement as potentially valuable in the face of the formidable global risks we face: 'If we were smarter we would be better able to anticipate, analyse and devise counter  measures to existential risks', while conceding that 'radical forms of human enhancement can also increase some risks or create new ones. It is a non-trivial challenge to figure out how this plays out.'

'Enhancers that extend the healthy human lifespan would be well worth developing', he adds. 'Anti-aging research, in particular, deserves a much higher priority, since age-related disease is the most common cause of death globally.' Ultimately, he predicts 'our risk of dying in any given year might be like that of someone in their late teens or early twenties. Life expectancy would then be around 1,000 years.'

Objections to human enhancement come from four main directions. The first is that genetic enhancements infringe the rights of those not yet born. Bostrom concedes that the issue of reproductive enhancement is complicated. 'There the person is not deciding for themselves, so from a moral or philosophical point of view more questions arise. That said, my view is that increases in cognitive capacity and functioning, if they can be safely brought about, are a good thing and we should try to achieve them. The choice should lie with the parents.'

But won't we nevertheless be creating a 'genetic divide' in society, a hostile faultline between the enhanced and the unenhanced? 'The best way to avoid such a divide is to make enhancements generally available', says Savulescu. 'Like education, they should be freely provided by the state. There is a parallel with plastic surgery. If the benefits are trivial, leave it to the market; if the benefits are central to a good life, provide a basic level.'

A third objection could be called the 'wisdom of nature' argument: nature is infinitely complex, and we depart from her at our peril. 'Certainly, humans are very complex, finely tuned organisms, and there are often very good reasons why we are the way we are,' says Savulescu. 'But that is not to say every single component is optimal. Some aspects simply had a better chance to reproduce or have just survived.'

Darwin himself, Savulescu points out, was under no illusion about the imperfections of nature and the blind mindlessness of its own selection processes. In a letter of 1856 to his friend Hooker he included the comment: 'What a book a Devil's Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature.' 'We should be careful', concludes Savulescu. 'We should gather sufficient evidence and act according to a justifiable set of values. But I believe that we can understand human nature and that we should intervene.'

But by embracing human enhancement aren't we ultimately signing our own suicide note as a species? Savulescu deplores what he calls 'species-ism': 'I do not believe there is any structural difference between humanism and racism or sexism. It is a club privilege, which gives greater weight to the interests of the club members and is endorsed by the club members - Humans may become extinct just as Neanderthal man gradually became extinct. It is characteristic of evolution for species to come and go, to be replaced by others. There is something special about Homo sapiens. But that specialness will continue in posthumans or another life form, unless we are annihilated against our will.'

In place of humanism he would substitute 'personism'. 'There are candidate properties  rationality and the abilities to cooperate and to empathise  that if these other beings possess, then we should treat them no differently than other human beings, say, from other cultures or continents. And they should treat us with the same respect.'

If Savulescu and Bostrom are radicals in this debate, a more moderate, gradualist position is taken by Roger Crisp, Fellow in Philosophy at St Anne's and also an associate of the Uehiro Centre. 'The debate tends to be very polarised', he says. 'I think you need to specify exactly what is under discussion. I'm in favour of some enhancements if they are freely available to all as opposed to only a few and if the side-effects aren't too serious.

'Others espouse more extreme scenarios involving, for instance, creating a new species. I would not really endorse that position and would ask two questions. If we spent money on this would we be doing something morally wrong (like using torture, for instance)? I incline to think not. Secondly, though, there is the question: is this the most effective way to achieve the desired goals? Probably not, in my view. I think we could be giving up too easily on the resources that we have already got. An example of this kind of thinking that passes over less ambitious alternatives is the idea that we might come to terms with environmental change by adapting our bodies so we can live easier in very hot climates. That strikes me as crazy.

'Human beings, if faced with a problem, tend to like exciting solutions. They ignore the probabilities of their working out in unexpected ways, and the dangers. The view of people on the "radical wing" is that this could happen, so we've got to get it right. But isn't it more likely to happen if we develop the technology? It is also important to assess the probabilities of success in relation to the size of the investment that you are making. If you have a few million pounds, would it be better to spend it on cognitive enhancement or, say, Sightsavers International, who achieve remarkable results treating eye problems in developing countries for very little outlay per person.'

A doctoral student supervised by Crisp, Alexandre Erler, author of a prize-winning essay entitled 'Authenticity, Self-creation and Self-respect', also believes that human enhancement raises 'legitimate worries'. He is particularly concerned that memory enhancement and especially memory editing could infringe individual authenticity. His papers explore a series of human predicaments: a sexually abused daughter or a concentration camp victim wanting to forget the past, a born-again violent criminal who refuses therapy and locks himself away. 'There are appropriate responses to life events such as mourning', Erler says. 'Enhancers might help us to escape the pain but also disconnect us from the reasons why we have to feel in a certain way. The hard way might be the best way.'

Susan Greenfield, Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford, has just published a book, ID: the Quest for Meaning in the 21st Century, on the challenges technology poses to human identity. Pharmacological enhancements alarm Professor Greenfield more than neurological interventions which, being more elaborate procedures, are more considered. She stresses the role of whole brain interaction: 'A better brain is not simply one armed with a better memory. You shouldn't just be trying to be a better computer. There is a danger that enhancement will become a competitive endeavour. But it is not a linear arms race. We should be encouraging people to become better individuals all round.'

Even so, Greenfield describes a startling range of neurological possibilities: devices enabling paraplegics to activate prosthetic limbs by thought alone, and marrying brain cells with silicon chips (apparently neurones can be very successfully cultured on silicon, like bacteria in Petri dishes). Further in the future, she envisages reverse cochlear implants that can not only turn sound into brain waves but also the reverse. Fitted with tiny radios, these open up the amazing possibility of directly transmitting thought from brain to brain  a prospect Greenfield says she finds 'scary and exciting in equal measure'. Greenfield outlines four possible scenarios for human identity: our present selves ('Someone'); a hedonist depersonalised version ('No one'); a socially oriented self ('Anyone'); and 'Eureka', an autonomous creative individual. 'For the first time in human history, the technology is there to enable us to have not just the technological toolkit but also the space and the time to shape a world that creates an environment in which all four personas can be developed into an integrated portfolio', she says. To achieve this, she proposes joint action by government, media, schools and the electronic products industry to encourage individual creativity, group working and a stronger orientation towards society.

At Oxford, as elsewhere, the debate goes on  but do not look for simple solutions. 'Philosophy does not provide answers', says Crisp, 'What it can do is take you down to the intuitive bedrock and say: here is the issue; here are the things you could think about it; now it's up to you to decide.' 'Issues of practical ethics are best handled by people who are not simply specialists in that field', he adds. 'In Oxford we have people who know about larger questions such as the philosophy of mind, etc. And that's important, because what questions of practical ethics do is bring you quite quickly up against the old standard philosophical questions like what is our nature and what's the world like.'

'While the terms of this emerging political disagreement are still being negotiated,' writes Savulescu in Human Enhancement, which he has just co-edited with Bostrom, 'there might be a window of opportunity open for academic bioethicists to influence the shape and direction of this debate before it settles into a fixedly linear ideological tug-of-war... the job of practical ethics is to increase the confidence in certain propositions where there is unjustified lack of confidence. The other job of practical ethics is to introduce uncertainty where we have unjustified certainty. And I think we have unjustified certainty that we'll continue to exist as a species in the next hundred years... Our fate is, to a greater degree than ever before in human history, in our own hands.'