So the concept of Man has evolved. Does this have an effect on related concepts? The concepts of Nature and Artifact need to be explored here. The fact that we accept tampering with Mother Nature’s “products” today is not new but the application of such techniques to our own physical and cognitive capacities has increased exponentially. However, we could only say that our relation to nature has been altered slightly. What is important to ask is why this change suddenly becomes necessary and what our new relation with nature means to us in the future.
As for the concept of artifact, the shift seems to be more radical. The tie between Man and being man-made has been strengthened in the consciousness of members of society, perhaps paradoxically. Take the common notion of the “self-made man.” A “self-made man” referred to self-assurance, aspirations, intellectual stamina, and other characteristics that are part of the purely psychological composition of an individual, whereas now we are able to apply this notion to his physical composition as well. If one prefers lesser-alarming examples, one could examine the simple layman’s understanding of the use of steroids in sports: first they were used practically, then their use was considered to be cheating, and now they are deadly substances.
This shift has happened over a relatively short period of time whilst the effects of their use have remained stable. Will our judgment on what can and what cannot be considered an artifact also be affected this rapidly?
If human modification becomes common, what will this mean for the identity of man in the ecosystem? The fact that man would have the opportunity to change the very concept of himself in this manner, and that this would have a real effect on man’s surroundings proves that homo sapiens can control its “conceptual environment” and that the techniques discussed here would be a mere side effect of his existence, i.e., other techniques could be used to sustain the developments sought. This would mean that individuals really would have obtained an overwhelming level of power vis-a-vis their past and vis-a-vis their counterparts.
In the hypothetical situation just described, the weaker are bound to suffer more. Is this the type of homo sapiens we wish to become?
The identity of others would be heavily affected in such a world. The identity of the “improved” self would be equated with a very heady position - practically Godhood. But today, we do have the opportunity to apply this ill-formed logic to our lives ourselves.
So, should biodiversity include the redesign of man? As I said, the key to strengthening the argument against modifying Man requires practical ideas on how and why we should not indulge in such modifications. Many are modifying man by eugenics, implants, etc., though perhaps not to the point of becoming cyborgs. (For an exception which may not yet prove the rule, see the chapter by Daniela Cerqui and Kevin Warwick in this volume).
The way in which they, the artificial or modified beings, would seem different from the average human today is in the values they would, conceivably, be able to share and apply; because of the hypothetical differences we can imagine between the (traditional) human values of original men and non-organic modified persons, one might not wish to see the latter caring for one’s children or for the elderly. One may have difficulty trusting the moral judgments of a non-natural neighbor or artificial person.
The practical arguments supporting the view that bio-diversity should not include the redesign of Man would entail, among other things, avoiding simulation in all its forms. This claim about simulation could be presented as generic advice, with negotiations for special cases determined by some other set of criteria. The important aspect here is the urgency of the question as, in light of the suggestions made by Turkle cited above, simulations are changing our vision of ourselves and of our world today.
Those supporting the view that bio-diversity should include redesigning humans have to develop strategies to further their cause because Man would be an ‘artifactual object’ if remodeled in the ways discussed above. Those that wish to promote the vision of a widened biodiversity in which homo sapiens would be one of the species implicated will either have to directly modify the moral position of humans in the world or show the strategic advantages to becoming robotic individuals, transhuman, or posthuman, and this may help people re-examine their traditional values.
Looking at the transhumanist movement shows that the values put forth, whether one sees them to be acceptable or not, are done so within the framework that includes as conditions the following: Global Security, Technological Progress, Wide Access (see Bostrom (2005, 13)). Any sensible being shares these conditions and would like to have them protected, which means that in starting to change society in the way they see fit, the movement is not so off-tilt as some might say. The problem is the transhumanist movement sees nothing wrong with tampering with nature, using technology to extend lives and promoting libertarianism. Have we not been tampering with nature for a long time, i.e., controlling animal numbers, abortion, and exterminating unwanted entities? Although this does not alone justify greater human diversity, it shows that Man has always had the tendency to “diversify” in one way or another.
Accepting such a change would be a strategic move if it were used to unite people. Allowing only weaker members of society to better themselves would enable them to gain back their dignity. But would creating laws prohibiting naturally endowed persons access to such modifications be unfair? It is clear that if the biodiversity of man is to be accepted by the average citizen, any discourse on the matter will have to be situated at the level of this type of proposition.
When one considers the argumentation necessary to change things, it is tempting to say that the physical aspects of human life are quite malleable in comparison to its non-manifest “components”. Bostrom97 gives us an indication of the tools we would need to change the mindsets of those opposed to these practices. He suggests that the necessary ideals we will need are to be found outside of our bios. We must therefore act on our logos to better fathom the advent of change, to better “calculate” it. It is only if we focus on human reason that we will be able to accept our own redesign.
To relate this last comment to the machine-based approach, it can be said that the machine may have another type of corporal existence than Man does, but the logos is the same: Man’s. If and when the intelligent robotics approach obtains an independent capacity to reason, in the human sense, the categorization problem will have to be treated more thoroughly.
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“The realm of posthuman values does not entail that we should forego our current values. The posthuman values can be our current values, albeit ones that we have not yet clearly comprehended. Transhumanism does not require us to say that we should favor posthuman beings or human beings, but that the right of way of favoring human beings is by enabling us to realize our ideals better and that some of our ideals may well be located outside the space of modes of being that are accessible to us with our current biological constitution”. Cf. Bostrom (2005, 8).