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The hermeneutic challenge of genetic engineering: Habermas and the transhumanists

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact that developments in transhumanist technologies may have upon human cultures (and thus upon the lifeworld), and to do so by exploring a potential debate between Habermas and the transhumanists. Transhumanists, such as Nick Bostrom, typically see the potential in genetic and other technologies for positively expanding and transcending human nature. In contrast, Habermas is a representative of those who are fearful of this technology, suggesting that it will compound the deleterious effects of the colonisation of the lifeworld, further constraining human autonomy and undermining the meaningfulness of the lifeworld by expanding the technological control and manipulation of humanity. It will be argued that these opposed positions are grounded in fundamentally different understandings of the consequences of scientific and technological advance. On one level, the transhumanists remain confident that the lifeworld has within it the resources necessary to find meaning and purpose in a society deeply infused by genetic technology. Habermas disagrees. On another level, the difference is articulated by Horkheimer and Adorno in Dialectic of Enlightenment, primarily by challenging what may be understood as a Baconian faith in science as a project for the domination of nature (where nature is an infinitely malleable material, to be dominated and shaped, without adverse consequences, purely for the purposes of human survival). While the transhumanists broadly embrace this faith, Habermas returns to something akin to Horkheimer and Adorno’s pessimistic scepticism.

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Notes

  1. In a rather different context, The Oxford English Dictionary traces the English term ‘transhuman’ back to Henry F. Cary’s 1812 translation of Dante’s Paradise (from the Divine Comedy): Canto 1, line. 70 ‘trasumanar significar per verba Non si porio’.

  2. ‘Transhumanism’ is largely synonymous with ‘post-humanism’, albeit that this term is of a slightly later date, and stresses the challenge that these ways of thinking pose to humanism (and in particular, Cartesian concepts of the rational, autonomous individual) (see Badmingtom 2000). FM 2030 (F. M. Esfandiary) gives the term ‘transhumanism’ a subtle twist, by suggesting that it concerns not merely the transcendence of humanity, but also a transitional state of humanity (Bostrom 2005a, p. 11).

  3. Other transhumanists have highlighted the political dangers posed by new technology, not least in terms of the way in which it might exacerbate existing inequalities in power and the distribution of material resources (see Hughes 2004).

  4. Habermas’s thinking is heavily indebted to pragmatism (see Habermas 1972, pp. 91–139). For the pragmatist, the truth of a belief is tested in its practical application. This holds equally of the everyday beliefs of the lifeworld, and those of science. Instrumental reason therefore has a crucial role to play in the natural sciences, precisely in so far as it is understood pragmatically, through its grounding of the testing of scientific hypotheses.

  5. See Habermas 1976b (pp. 41–43) for his early (and passing) remarks on environmental crisis.

  6. Habermas’s appropriation of both the genetic psychology of Piaget and Kohlberg (Habermas 1979), and of Mead (Habermas 1992, pp. 149–204) may be seen to lie behind the reflections in ‘The Ethical Self-Understanding of the Species’.

  7. See also Pickstock (2000, pp. 161–162) for a parallel defence of the role of an understanding of God in grounding self-understanding and autonomy.

  8. The argument here should not be taken to suggest that there are no legitimate circumstances within which a body may be treated purely instrumentally, as something made. However, it does begin to highlight the need to justify certain procedures, such as cosmetic surgery, in terms of the impact that they have upon both the individual’s sense of self and the collective understanding of what it is to be human.

  9. For Habermas’s sustained criticisms of decisionism, see Habermas 1976a, p. 265.

  10. The very possibility of intrinsic advantages presupposes that there are generalisable capacities, that are open to genetic manipulation. It may be suggested that Habermas need not be opposed to genetic modifications that could enhance the individual’s capacity to enjoy the rights that he defends in his legal philosophy (see Rehg 1996, p. xxvii). In particular, it may be suggested that if one could genetically modify a person, so as to enhance their communicative abilities, this would be desirable.

  11. Ironically, given his earlier, but now largely abandoned work on the systemic distortion of communication (Habermas 1970).

  12. As Bostrom observes, ‘In the eyes of a hunter-gatherer, we might already appear “posthuman”’ (Bostrom 2005b, p. 213).

  13. The sculptor Pygmalion carves, from ivory, a beautiful woman. He falls in love with this statue, and the gods, taking pity on him, transform the ivory into a living woman, Galatea (Ovid 1955, Metamorphosis, Book X).

  14. Artists such as Orlan and STELARC may be seen to explore precisely the limits of finding meaning in transhuman technologies by modifying their own bodies.

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Edgar, A. The hermeneutic challenge of genetic engineering: Habermas and the transhumanists. Med Health Care and Philos 12, 157–167 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-009-9188-9

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