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Transcript of Wilson and Haslam - Is the Future More or Less Human
Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour
39:20021–8308
© 2009 The Authors
Journal compilation © The Executive Management Committee/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2009. Published by Blackwell
Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKJTSBJournal for the Theory of Social Behaviour0021-83081468-5914© 2009 The Author Journal compilation © The Executive Management Committee/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2009XXXOriginal Article
PosthumanismSamuel Wilson and Nick Haslam
Is the Future more or less Human? Differing
Views of Humanness in the Posthumanism Debate
SAMUEL WILSON AND NICK HASLAM
As Sandel (2007) recently observed, advances in the biosciences move faster than
our conceptual and moral understanding of their consequences. These advances
may ultimately change human nature and our understanding of what it means to
be human (Fernández-Armesto, 2004; Robert & Baylis, 2003). This is strikingly
reflected in the debate in the bioethics literature between advocates and opponents
of the non-therapeutic modification or enhancement of human nature. Issues in
this debate include how we should think about human nature and human identity,
whether we should attempt to use technology to make ourselves “more than
human,” and whether this attempt carries a threat of dehumanization.
Whereas advocates posit that biotechnological enhancement will not degrade the
humanity of altered beings and may even make them
more
than human, opponents
argue that it will degrade their humanity and make them
less
than human
(Arnhart, 2003). Whether they envisage a superhumanized or dehumanized
future, advocates and opponents generally agree that the application of modifica-
tion technologies to humans will change human nature and that modified human
beings may be more appropriately classified as “post-human” (Bostrom, 2005;
Fukuyama, 2002).
The debate about human nature modification and posthumanism is a complex
and evolving one whose threads are coloured by secular and religious moral and
political philosophy, developments in science and technology, and folk psychology.
Although this has produced a rich tapestry of ideas and arguments, there is
disagreement about the meaning of some fundamental concepts; among the
most basic being the ways in which the concepts of humanness and humankind
are understood. The precise meaning of humanness advanced by advocates and
opponents of modification is rarely or vaguely articulated and the relationship
between humanness beliefs and the ascription of human, posthuman, superhuman
or dehumanized status is often unclear.
In this essay, we consider neither the concept of humankind nor the challenge
posed to it by developments in primatology, paleoanthropology, biology, the animal
rights movement and artificial intelligence research (see Fernández-Armesto, 2004,
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Samuel Wilson and Nick Haslam
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for a review), but rather upon what folk psychology suggests about the meaning
of humanness and its attribution or denial. Unlike conceptions of humanness and
the human-nonhuman boundary in the sciences, which change in response to
changes in scientific understanding, folk psychological beliefs about humanness,
buttressed and stabilised by the culture in which they are embedded, change more
slowly and may offer a coherent conceptual framework within which to organise
thinking about humanness and the humanizing or dehumanizing potential of
modification technologies. Consider, for example, references in this debate to the
“human essence” (Fukuyama, 2002) or an “essential human nature” (Somerville,
2006). Whereas the age-old philosophical idea that species are natural kinds, with
essential, universal traits has generally lost currency in scientific understandings
of human and nonhuman animals, considerable evidence attests to the perseverance
of essentialist thinking in folk psychology (Haslam, Bain, Douge, Lee, & Bastian,
2005; Haslam, Bastian, & Bissett, 2004). The use of such terminology in this
debate suggests that folk psychological beliefs are being recruited in the service of
advocates’ and opponents’ arguments, attesting to the utility of a folk psychological
approach to the enhancement debate.
Folk psychology refers to a system of shared meaning that organises laypeople’s
understanding of, experience in, and transactions with the social world. All
cultures, as argued by Bruner (1990), possess a folk psychology, which describes
the elements of our own and others’ minds—beliefs, desires and intentions—as
well as providing a set of more or less normative descriptions about what makes
people “tick.” As the enhancement debate begins to move out of academe and
into the public domain, folk psychological beliefs about humanness will almost
certainly inform laypeople’s understanding of the meaning and consequences of
modification and whether human status is properly ascribed to, or withheld from,
the modified. Thus, in addition to offering a framework to analyse the arguments
of advocates and opponents, a folk psychological approach also provides a possible
foretaste of laypeople’s thinking about the conceptual and ethical consequences
of human nature modification.
In this paper, we draw on recent social psychological research into folk con-
ceptions of humanness and dehumanization (Haslam et al., 2005; Leyens et al.,
2000, 2001) to propose two basic ways in which humanness is understood. We
begin with a brief overview of the posthumanism debate. Next, we survey the
views of prominent advocates and opponents about the meaning of humanness
and the consequences of its modification. Following this, we outline two empirically-
grounded folk psychological senses of humanness and the consequences of
ascribing or denying these two senses to persons. We then demonstrate how
advocates and opponents of modification recruit the different senses of
humanness, and how this may, in part, underlie their disagreements about
whether modification will be dehumanizing. Although our description of the
arguments offered by advocates and opponents simplifies and skirts the nuances
of the arguments within and between the two camps, we hope that our sketch
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of the broad knowledge structures recruited by each camp demonstrates the
value of such a simplifying approach.
The range of perspectives relevant to an analysis of the meaning and consequences
of humanness modification is vast. The main objective of this essay is to reanalyse
aspects of the bioethics debate in folk psychological terms and demonstrate
how the use of different folk concepts of humanness predicts whether humanness
modification will be judged as dehumanizing or superhumanizing. As such, we
necessarily screen off a number of important issues. First, we restrict our analysis
to arguments for and against non-therapeutic modifications of human nature
that seek to
enhance
rather than
repair
it. Second, we do not consider the distinction
between temporary and permanent enhancements (e.g., the use of Ritalin by
individuals without ADHD to temporarily improve concentration versus the
use of biotechnology to permanently achieve the same end). Third, we do not
consider the distinction between modifying extant humans and the unborn, or the
distinction between modifications that are and are not heritable. Fourth, we do
not examine the power of different modification technologies to change human
nature or the assumptions that advocates and opponents make about its power to
do so (cf. Arnhart, 2003). Finally, because we aim to clarify the views of humanness
that are implicit in the various arguments offered, we do not critique the arguments,
but present a framework that renders those views explicit. The absence of critique
does not imply uncritical endorsement of claims, but a deliberate neutrality.
HUMANS AND POSTHUMANS
Advances in the biosciences promise or threaten humankind with a posthuman
future (Bostrom, 2005; Fernández-Armesto, 2004; Fukuyama, 2002; Seiler,
2007). The relevant technologies are many and summarised by two acronyms:
NBIC (nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive
science) and GRAIN (genetic manipulation, robotics, artificial intelligence, and
nanotechnology) (e.g., Hughes, 2004). In addition to the convergence of NBIC/
GRAIN technologies, Hughes (2004) has argued that there may also be a
convergence of at least seven biotechnologies this century (Hughes, 2004). Taken
together, these biotechnologies may precipitate the creation of post-humans
whose capacities so radically exceed those of present-day humans as to be no
longer unambiguously human (Bostrom, 2003; Hughes, 2004). In addition to the
post-humans that NBIC/GRAIN may yield, such technologies may also lead to
the creation of new living organisms, machines with human or superhuman
intelligence, and humans with machine parts and genetically enhanced bodies
(Kurzweil, 1999; Seiler, 2007).
There is profound disagreement between advocates and opponents as to whether
the application of such technologies to humankind will be humanizing, super-
humanizing, or dehumanizing. Prominent advocates of enhancement include Nick
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Bostrom (2003, 2005, 2008), Julian Savulescu (2003, 2005), James Hughes (2004),
Gregory Stock (2002), Nick Agar (2004), Rodney Brooks (2002), Hans Moravec
(2000), Ray Kurzweil (1999) and Lee Silver (1998). Prominent opponents of
enhancement include Leon Kass (2002, 2003), Francis Fukuyama (2002), Jeremy
Rifkin (1984), Bill McKibben (2003), Jürgen Habermas (2003), Michael Sandel
(2007), and Margaret Somerville (2006).
Although the issues with which pro- and anti-enhancement writers are
concerned are vast, human dignity, the “mastery” of our nature and the proper
use of reason are especially prominent. Although various established (e.g., humanism)
and emerging (e.g., posthumanism; see Murphy, 1997) moral and political philo-
sophical ideas inform, and constrain, arguments for and against enhancement,
the debate is marred by imprecise, excessively narrow and vague definitions of
humanness and human nature. Moreover, the relationship between humanness
and the ascription of human, superhuman or dehumanized status is often unclear.
Finally, in addition to such conceptual imprecision and ambiguous relationships
between humanness and human, superhuman, and dehumanized status, the
question of how much modification of humanness has to occur for human status
to be ascribed or withheld is almost entirely unexamined. Indeed, as argued by
Fernández-Armesto (2004) the question of how much of our nature has to change
before our descendants cease to be human is one we are not ready to answer.
Despite these many issues, the writings of advocates and opponents have proliferated,
in turn illuminating and confusing our conceptual and moral understanding of
human nature and the consequences of its modification.
ADVOCATES OF MODIFICATION
Views of Human Nature
Advocates of modification emphasise the malleability of human nature and the
influence that the social and technological context exerts upon its expression.
This idea is especially apparent in the writings of those who refer to themselves as
transhumanists, extropians or singularitarians (see, e.g., Bostrom, 2003; Hughes,
2004). The writings of transhumanists such as Bostrom (2003, 2005, 2008) are
especially salient in this debate and figure prominently in this review. Advocates
of modification argue that human nature is dynamic, partially man-made
(Bostrom, 2005), and potentially subject to conscious or rational evolution
(Savulescu, 2005).
Explicit characterisations of humanness by advocates of modification are rare,
but the bioethicist Julian Savulescu (2003, 2005) has nominated rationality, the
capacity to make normative judgements, and the capacity to act on the basis of
reasons as defining human qualities. This view is consistent with the long-standing
emphasis of Western philosophers upon human distinctiveness (Midgley, 1979/
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2002). Similarly, Brooks (2002) argues that syntax and technology separate people
from animals; in effect, reason and its application.
Despite the dearth of explicit characterizations of humanness, the attributes
nominated for enhancement provide a good source of evidence from which
advocates’ conception of humanness may be inferred. Specifically, to the extent that
the attributes nominated for enhancement improve what is fundamentally human
(see, e.g., Savulescu, 2005), such attributes may be held to figure prominently in
advocates’ conception of humanness. Such enhancements include the extension of
intellectual capabilities, such as improved memory, and psychological capabilities,
particularly those involving increased control over mental states, moods, emotions
and impulses (Bostrom, 2003, 2005; Hughes, 2004; Savulescu, 2005). Arguments
regarding the dignity of posthumans in the bioethics literature also provide evidence
for advocates’ conceptions of humanness. Advocates argue that posthumans will
possess as much, if not more, dignity—defined as a kind of excellence, including
moral excellence, worth or honour—as unmodified humans (Bostrom, 2005, 2008).
As suggested above, self-control features prominently in advocates’ arguments.
For example, Bostrom (2008) nominates enhanced executive function, self-control
and self-regulation as desirable qualities of the post-human, which serve also to
enhance the moral worth of the enhanced. In sum, the types of qualities that
epitomise humanness for advocates include intelligence, rationality, self-control
and moral excellence. Typically, however, enhanced intelligence appears at the top
of most advocates’ lists of improvements to human nature (Agar, 2004), pointing
to a focus on the qualities that make human beings psychologically unique and
distinct from other species.
Consequences of Human Nature Modification for Advocates
Advocates of modification argue that the biotechnological modification of human
nature represents, if anything, an enhancement of our fundamental humanness
and offer two closely related arguments in support of this proposition; first, that
enhancement will improve our humanity, and second, that enhancement will not
degrade our humanity.
According to the first argument, if the enhancement of human nature leads to
the creation of beings that are not unambiguously human by current standards,
then these beings are likely to represent an improvement on present humans and
may even be “more than human” as indexed by their superior capabilities, such
as the uniquely human capacity for rational judgement and decision making
(Savulescu, 2005). Moreover, advocates argue that the use of reason in the very
act of
deciding
to enhance specific human attributes increases an enhanced being’s
endowment of fundamental humanness—a quantitative change—as well as
increasing the depth of the endowment—a qualitative change. To clarify, Bostrom
(2008), for example, has asserted that
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a capacity or an attribute that has become ours because of our own choice, our own thinking,
and our own experiences, is in some sense more authentically ours than a capacity or attribute
given to us prenatally (p. 182).
In making this argument, Bostrom (2008) echoes long-standing humanist
arguments that humans exhibit their authentic humanity upon emancipation
from nature, particularly animal nature (see, e.g., Murphy, 1997, for an incisive
analysis of the humanism-posthumanism relationship). Enjoining the claims
that humanness is partially man-made (Bostrom, 2005); that enhancement
increases our endowment of fundamental human qualities (Bostrom, 2003,
2005, 2008; Savulescu, 2003, 2005); and that our humanness is epitomised
by our intelligence, rationality, and self-control, produces an argument for a
superhuman future.
The second argument in favour of enhancement is that it will not dehumanize
the enhanced. One strand of this argument rests on the assumption that that most
people who choose modification are unlikely to choose degradation over enhance-
ment (Bostrom, 2005). A second strand concerns the improbability that attempts
at modification will fail to produce enhancement. To illustrate, Savulescu
(2003)—with specific reference to human-animal transgenesis—has asserted that
whereas in some cases the creation of transgenic human beings will reduce the
“essential features of humanity,” our humanity will be promoted in most cases. A
third strand draws on the proposition that human nature is partially man-made,
such that its expression is partly contingent on the social and technological
context. In particular, advocates argue that despite the “extended phenotypes” of
present-day humans being radically different from those of our ancient forebears,
this distance from our original state has not divested contemporary humans of
human identity (Agar, 2004) or dehumanized us in the sense of making us
generally unworthy or base (Bostrom, 2005).
OPPONENTS OF MODIFICATION
Views of Human Nature
Among opponents, there is greater variation in beliefs about the “nature” of
human nature, and fewer attempts at explicitly characterizing what is fundamen-
tally important about human nature. Further, as noted by Bostrom (2005),
whereas opposition seems to variously derive from religious or crypto-religious
sentiments for some opponents (e.g., Kass), for others it stems from secular
grounds (e.g., Fukuyama, Habermas, Somerville).
To begin with the “nature” of human nature, Fukuyama (2002) has taken a strong
nature (vs. nurture) view and defined human nature as “the sum of the behaviour
and characteristics that are typical of the human species, arising from genetic
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rather than environmental factors” (p. 130). On the other hand, Somerville (2006)
has taken a more measured view and characterised human nature as partly
stemming from our biology and partly involving a combination of biology and
culture. Whereas the position advocated by Fukuyama (2002) suggests that human
nature is largely immutable, Somerville’s (2006) position suggests that human
nature is malleable, but not infinitely so.
Despite this conceptual variation, there is greater agreement among opponents
of modification that humans are imbued with a “given” or “sacred” essence or
soul—understood in either a religious or secular sense (Fukuyama, 2002;
Kass, 2002; Sandel, 2007; Somerville, 2006). This view represents a sharp
rejection of the advocates’ view that human nature is dynamic, improvable and
in large measure an artefact of societal and technological context. Moreover,
there is a repudiation of advocates’ endorsement of non-spiritual, reductive and
technologizing conceptions of nature and human nature. Sounding a strong
note of caution about taking a reductive approach to understanding humanness
and humankind, Kass (1984), a conservative philosopher whose arguments tend
to be informed by a religious perspective on what it means to be human, has
asserted that
We are witnessing the erosion, perhaps the final erosion, of the idea of man as something
splendid or divine, and a replacement with a view that sees man, no less than nature, simply as
raw material for manipulation and homogenization (p. 37).
With respect to the constitution of human nature, opponents argue that although
human nature may be linked to a number of species-typical attributes, it is reduc-
ible to none of them. Somerville (2006), for example, has written:
it is [the]
totality
[of the biological and cultural factors] that makes up the natural in human
nature (p. 99, emphasis added).
Similarly, but expressing an explicitly essentialist perspective upon attributes
regarded as both general within and unique to humans, Fukuyama (2002) has
asserted that the human essence:
cannot be reduced to the possession of moral choice, or reason, or language, or sentience, or
emotions, or consciousness or any other quality that has been put forward . . .
It is all these factors
coming together in a human whole that make up [the human essence]
(p. 171, emphasis added).
Although some of these qualities resemble those nominated by advocates as
reflecting human nature, it is the holistic, indivisible, and irreducible treatment
of these qualities that distinguishes the opponent’s conception of humanness
from the advocates’.
Kass (2002) also avoids explicitly defining the constitution of human nature.
However, his description of the consequences of modification upon the nature of
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altered beings arguably permits the inference of what he regards as fundamentally
human qualities:
Homogenization, mediocrity, pacification, drug-induced contentment, debasement of taste, souls without loves and
longings
—these are the inevitable results of making the essence of human nature the last project
of technical mastery (p. 48, emphasis added).
Such a characterisation is also echoed by the President’s Council on Bioethics
(2003), which Kass was appointed to in 2001, who report that
[a post-human future] could rather resemble the humanly diminished world portrayed in
Aldous Huxley’s novel
Brave New World
, whose technologically enhanced inhabitants live
cheerfully, without disappointment or regret, “enjoying” flat, empty lives devoid of love and
longing, filled with only trivial pursuits and shallow attachments (p. 7).
Elsewhere, and with respect to the use of gratification technologies by these
“creatures of human shape but stunted humanity” (Kass, 1985, p. 34), Kass (1985)
envisages the demise of thought and art, the need for deep personal relationships
and public spiritedness—the capacity to imagine the other.
From these characterizations, which describe the void in our humanness when
specific human qualities are absent or negated, we might infer that such qualities
as individuality (vs. homogeneity), agentic striving (vs. passivity), emotional
responsiveness (vs. drug-induced contentment), strong relational bonds (vs.
shallow attachments), deep and rounded experience (vs. superficial, flat experience),
thought, art and creativity (vs. unimaginativeness) and passion and desire (vs. souls
without loves and longings) are critical elements of Kass’ conception of humanness,
in particular, and perhaps of opponents more generally.
A final way in which the opponent’s conception of humanness is distinguished
concerns those “human ways of knowing” regarded as fundamentally human. In
contrast to the emphasis placed by advocates upon rationality, Somerville (2006)
rejects the idea “that the ability to reason comprises the totality of human intelligence”
(p. 169). Non-rational, experiential ways of knowing (e.g., imagination, intuition)
are equally, if not more, important, viz: “our primary decision-making mechanism
is often a ‘gut reaction,’ not based on reason, but . . . [where] . . . reason is an
essential secondary verification mechanism” (Somerville, 2006, p. 31).
Such sensory—or experientially—contingent ways of knowing are subsumed
more generally by the concept of embodiment. Drawing on the writings of the
theologian William May, Somerville (2006) suggests that embodiment is reflected
in three things our body does for us; “it presents the world to us; it acts as our
presence to the entire universe—in that if our body breaks, our personhood is
threatened or disintegrates; and it is what relates to others” (p. 158). Embodiment
is therefore of central importance, in marked contrast to the advocates’ proposition
that “[it] is not our human shape or the details of our current biology that define
what is valuable about us” (Bostrom, 2003, p. 4).
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Consequences of Human Nature Modification for Opponents
Opponents of modification argue that biotechnological modification will degrade
or invalidate the humanity—the essence—of altered beings and diminish humankind’s
intrinsic worth and dignity. The proposition that the modification of human
nature will be intrinsically dehumanizing stems, at least in part, from the view that
human nature is either “given” (Kass, 2003), or “gifted” and “sacred” (Somerville,
2006). To illustrate, Kass (2003) has asserted that because humans possess a given,
species-specific nature, which is different in kind to the natures of other species, then
any attempt “to turn man into more than a man” (p. 20) would be intrinsically
dehumanizing.
Related to the proposition that humans are imbued with an indivisible essence
that undergirds identity and dignity is the notion that it is improper to act upon this
essence even if we could, an idea that is rendered particularly clear by Somerville
(2006):
The dangers of rejecting a concept of the natural—for example, of human nature—include this:
if there is no essential human nature, then no technologizing of that nature is dehumanizing
(p. 97).
Opponents’ arguments against modification, therefore, rest upon the proposition
that the technological mastery of human nature is dehumanizing. This idea also
finds expression in Kass’ (1985) arguments about use of biotechnology to produce
“optimum” babies:
the price to be paid for the optimum baby is the transfer of procreation from the home to the
laboratory and its coincident transformation into manufacture . . . The complete depersonalization
of procreation . . . shall itself be dehumanizing (p. 33).
Similarly, Habermas (2003) has characterised the biotechnological modification
of human nature as “obliterating the boundary between persons and things”
(p. 13).
Another reason why opponents argue that modification will be dehumanizing
is related to their concern about its consequences for modified humans’ capacity
for autonomous action. This concern is especially apparent in the writings of
Habermas (2003), Kass (2003) and the President’s Council on Bioethics (2003).
On this view, modification will degrade altered beings’ innate autonomy and
agency, such that the causes of their behaviour will be properly understood in
purely mechanical terms without recourse to such intentional mental states as
beliefs and desires that pervade our folk psychology.
Let us summarise the differing conceptions of humanness and the con-
sequences of its modification held by advocates and opponents (see Table 1). First,
whereas advocates regard human nature as dynamic, improvable, and contingent,
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opponents regard it as “given” and argue that there is an immutable “human
essence.” Second, whereas advocates take a generally reductive view of human
nature as specific capabilities, opponents take a more “holistic” perspective and
regard human nature as indivisible. Third, whereas advocates tend to focus on
the centrality of rationality, self-control, and the capacity for moral excellence,
opponents tend to focus on individuality, agency, and emotionality. Fourth,
whereas advocates argue that the modification of their nominated aspects
of humanness will not denude the human identity of enhanced beings,
opponents argue that modification will divest them of their humanness.
Finally, whereas advocates argue that, if anything, modified beings will be more
than human, opponents argue that such beings will be dehumanized. The
rival positions therefore appear to work with highly distinct conceptions of
humanness.
A NEW MODEL OF HUMANNESS AND DEHUMANIZATION
In this section we draw upon a recent line of social psychological research into
conceptions of humanness and dehumanization (Haslam, 2006; Haslam et al.,
2005; Loughnan & Haslam, 2007) to set out the ways in which humanness is
Table 1. A summary of the assumptions of the advocates and opponents of modification
Advocates of modification Opponents of modification
There is no human essence (human nature is dynamic, still evolving)
There is a human essence (human nature is given, fixed)
A focus on non-essentialised qualities (e.g., intelligence, self-control)
A focus on essentialised qualities (e.g., emotion, warmth, agency)
An emphasis on the “beyond nature” parts of ourselves: Human Uniqueness
An emphasis on the “in nature” parts of ourselves: Human Nature
The qualities of human nature as modular parts that can be separably maximised
A focus on indivisibility and preserving the “wholeness” of human nature
Repudiation of the “natural” as a guide to what is normatively good or right
Protection of the “natural” as a guide to what is normatively good or right
Privileging rational ways of knowing (intelligence, thought: “agentic” mind)
Privileging nonrational ways of knowing (emotions, desires: “experience” mind )
Enhancement does not affect qualities fundamental to self-identity
Enhancement does affect qualities fundamental to self-identity
Modification represents a gain of humanness (HU)
Modification represents a loss of humanness (HN)
Modification will produce superhumanised beings
Modification will produce dehumanized beings
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understood in folk psychology and the consequences of denying it to people. In
so doing, we argue for an empirically-based strategy for defining and using such
concepts as human nature and dehumanization. Specifically, we argue that
people conceptualise humanness in two distinct ways: as an essentialised, species-
typical
human nature
and as a non-essentialised
human uniqueness
that distinguishes
humans from other species. We argue that the attribution or denial of these
conceptually and empirically distinct senses of humanness has markedly different
implications for person perception. We do not claim that this distinction exhausts
all important conceptions of humanness in folk psychology or, of course, in the
history of ideas. For instance, Bakhtin’s (1993) analysis of carnival and the
grotesque reveals a historically enduring view of humanness that emphasizes its
carnal, instinctual and animalistic aspects, and does not align closely with our
two senses.
Human Nature (HN) is a species-typical sense of humanness, involving the
fundamental attributes that all humans share. Some of these attributes may be
shared with other animals, grounded, for example, in our common mammalian
evolution. In folk psychology, people understand this sense of humanness to
involve emotionality, warmth, cognitive openness (e.g., imaginativeness), and
agency. HN traits tend to be regarded as biologically-based, unchanging,
deep-seated (Haslam et al., 2004), universal across cultures, and innate rather
than acquired through experience (Haslam et al., 2005). Haslam et al. (2005)
argue that laypeople regard this sense of humanness as the human essence:
defining, fixed, inhering and natural.
In contrast with HN, Human Uniqueness (HU) is a comparative sense of
humanness involving those qualities that distinguish humans from nonhuman
animals (Haslam, 2006). According to folk psychology, HU involves refinement,
civility, morality, higher cognition, maturity and self-control (Haslam, 2006;
Haslam et al., 2005). HU traits are regarded as socially learned, late to develop,
culturally-specific, and unrelated to emotionality (Haslam et al., 2005). These
conceptual judgements parallel those found in research on the perceived attributes
of emotions (Demoulin et al., 2004), which showed that people discriminate between
“uniquely human” and “non-uniquely human” emotions and see the former as
cognitively complex and internally-caused rather than responsive to the environment.
HU attributes tend not to be essentialised (Haslam et al., 2005), as they are
viewed as acquired, enculturated and malleable rather than innate, natural and
fixed. In sum, HN and HU are senses of humanness that are conceptually distinct,
empirically unrelated, and that roughly correspond to Romantic and Enlightenment
views of humanness, respectively (Kashima & Foddy, 2002). The former emphasizes
our continuity with nature, revealed by emotion and desire, as is well captured
by a quote from Carlyle: “Heart! Warmth! Blood! Humanity! Life!” (Berlin, 1991).
The latter foregrounds reason, civility, and the transcendence of nature.
Haslam (2006) incorporated HN and HU into a new model of dehumanization,
in which the denial of the each sense yields distinct forms of dehumanization.
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When HN is denied, people are implicitly viewed as automata, machines or
inanimate objects, and when HU is denied they are likened to animals. A growing
body of research supports the psychological reality of these two human/nonhuman
contrasts, and the mechanistic and animalistic forms of dehumanization that they
imply (Loughnan & Haslam, 2007).
Animalistic dehumanization involves the denial of HU qualities (see Figure 1).
When people are dehumanized in this way, they are characterised as bestial:
amoral, uncultured, instinctive, and lacking reason and the capacity for self-
control. Mechanistic dehumanization, in contrast, involves the denial of HN
attributes. Dehumanized in this way, people are therefore seen as passive, inert,
cold, and cognitively and behaviourally rigid; attributes more characteristic of
robots than persons (Haslam, 2006).
Figure 1. Proposed links between conceptions of humanness and corresponding forms ofdehumanization.
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Evidence for this pair of linked oppositions comes from a recent study (Haslam
et al., 2008) in which Australian, Chinese and Italian participants rated humans
in comparison with animals and robots on a variety of mental states. As expected,
humans were distinguished from animals on the basis of higher cognition and
refined emotions, consistent with the themes defining HU, and they were
distinguished from robots primarily on the basis of emotionality and desire, core
components of HN. Similar findings have been obtained by Gray, Gray and
Wegner (2007), who found that humans were perceived to differ from robots and
animals on two distinct dimensions, the former reflecting self-control, morality,
and cognition (HU), and the latter reflecting desire, emotion, individuality, and
sentience (HN).
RE-EXPRESSING THE DEBATE IN FOLK PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS
Advocates: Modifying Human Uniqueness
The centrality of rationality and self-control, and, to a lesser extent, moral excellence
to the advocates’ conception of humanness, in conjunction with their rejection
of an essentialist view of humanness, strongly suggests that they understand
humanness primarily as
human uniqueness
. As outlined earlier, HU involves such
qualities as higher cognition, self-control, and civility (Haslam, 2006), qualities
that closely parallel those nominated by advocates in their characterisation of
humanness. In essence, advocates of modification see it as an enhancement of HU
qualities that moves humans away from their animality.
The idea that advocates focus on the HU sense of humanness receives additional
backing from psychological research into the relationship between the humanness
of traits and their centrality to identity. Unlike HN traits, which laypeople regard
as fundamental to personal identity (Haslam et al., 2004), HU traits are judged
as largely peripheral to identity. Support for the relatively marginal role played by
uniquely human traits in self-identity is also provided by a recent study by Riis,
Simmons and Goodwin (2008), which demonstrated that participants were least
reluctant to endorse imagined enhancement of intelligence-related traits—such as
rote learning ability, episodic memory, and concentration—because such traits were
regarded as largely peripheral to self-identity. Such findings are broadly consistent
with the arguments of advocates that the enhancement of intelligence-related traits
will not divest altered beings of self and human identity, adding indirect support to
the proposition that advocates of modification privilege the HU sense of humanness.
Our claim that HU is the default sense of humanness for advocates of modifica-
tion may also be derived from their characterization of enhanced posthumans.
Consider, for example, Bostrom’s (2005) argument that enhanced humans may
demonstrate higher degrees of moral and intellectual excellence than unaltered humans.
These qualities arguably follow quite straightforwardly from the enhancement of
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the qualities of moral sensibility and rationality that are grouped together in the HU
conception of humanness. Moreover, such desiderata as increased control over
mental states, moods, desires, and emotions (Bostrom, 2005) are central to HU.
Opponents: Modifying Human Nature
The centrality to the opponents’ conception of humanness of such qualities
as individuality, agency, and emotionality, in conjunction with the endorsement
of the idea of an immutable human essence, points to a focus upon the sense of
humanness that we have described as
human nature
. HN involves qualities like
emotional responsiveness, warmth, individuality and agency (Haslam, 2006),
which are essentialised (Haslam et al., 2004), regarded as fundamental to personal
identity (Riis et al., 2008) and therefore protected. In their study of beliefs
about the enhancement of traits, Riis et al. (2008) found that the traits that people
were most resistant to modifying included kindness, empathy, self-confidence
and mood; qualities consistent with the HN facets of emotionality, warmth, and
agency. Riis et al. (2008) explained these results with the argument that such traits
were judged by participants as fundamental to their identity. The notion that HN
traits are regarded as sacrosanct and central elements of identity is consistent with
arguments of the opponents that the modification of human nature will divest
altered beings of self and human identity.
Our claim that opponents view humanness as HN receives further support
in the characterisation of dehumanization offered by Kass (2002), who sees it as
involving homogenisation, mediocrity, passivity, and the absence of emotions,
passions and desires. These elements correspond closely to the features of mech-
anistic dehumanization presented in Figure 1, implying that HN is the operating
conception of humanness in Kass’ work. Homogeneity and passivity accord with
the denial of individuality and agency, and impoverished emotions and desires
accord with the denial of emotionality and warmth. Similarly, as noted earlier,
Habermas (2003) has argued that the modification of human nature obliterates
“the boundary between persons and things” (p. 13), implying the objectification,
inanimacy and inertness that is associated with that form of dehumanization.
Thus, where advocates of modification see a gain in humanness (HU) in which
posthumans transcend human animality, opponents see a loss of the human
essence (HN) that reduces posthumans to automata.
PROSPECTS FOR DEHUMANIZED POSTHUMAN FUTURES
The burgeoning debate in the bioethics literature about the consequences and
ethics of the modification of humanness has illuminated the ethical and conceptual
challenges posed by actual and prospective developments in the biosciences.
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Moreover, the debate has drawn attention to a temporal aspect of dehumaniza-
tion that has received comparatively little attention in the psychological literature;
namely, the humanness of
future
human beings (but see Haslam & Bain, 2007 on
people’s attribution of lesser humanness to future selves). Unlike individuals and
groups that have been most saliently dehumanized in the mid (e.g., Jews during
World War II) and late twentieth century (e.g., Tutsis in Rwanda), laypeople
typically do not have a referent for thinking about dehumanized future beings.
One of the significant, if somewhat incidental, contributions of this debate,
therefore, has been to begin to address this gap in our conceptualisation of the
scope of dehumanization.
Although the debate has generated a voluminous literature in a short period of
time, interpretations of the basic concepts involved have also proliferated. This
conceptual variability partially obscures the nature and scope of the disagreement
between the opposing parties, the capacity of the debate to clarify the challenges
and opportunities raised by advances in biotechnology and, possibly, the discovery
of potential areas of agreement. What, then, can we say about whether modified
humans—posthumans—will be regarded as more human or less human than
regnant humans? As suggested throughout this essay, the answer depends, in part,
on the sense of humanness that is focused upon.
To begin with
human uniqueness
—an Enlightenment view of humanness as
rationality, intellect, and self-control—this sense implies that humanness is socially
learned, dynamic and improvable. If
human uniqueness
is the operative sense of
humanness, as it appears to be for advocates of modification, then it becomes
clearer why they implicitly see humanness as dynamic, partially constructed
rather than given, and as an ensemble of malleable capacities rather than an
indivisible whole. This also sheds light on why advocates do not see dehumanization
as a risk following the modification of specific qualities. Rather than a wholesale
loss of humanness, there will be a piece-wise gain in it.
Turning next to
human nature
—a more Romantic view of humanness emphasising
emotionality, warmth, and agency—this sense implies that humanness is biologically-
based, inherent, and immutable; a human essence. If
human nature
is the operative
sense of humanness, as it appears to be for opponents of modification, it is clear
why humanness is conceptualised holistically and why modification is seen as
threatening dehumanization. If the essence is modified, then the category that it
undergirds (humankind) will be radically altered.
Re-expressing the positions of advocates and opponents in terms of
human nature
and
human uniqueness
highlights the utility of an empirical approach to concep-
tions of humanness and its modification. First, it demonstrates how privileging
qualitatively different senses of humanness can yield conceptual confusion and a
tendency to speak past, rather than to, one another. The parallels between the
folk psychological model of humanness and the conceptions of humanness that
suffuse the writings of advocates and opponents strongly suggests that they recruit
disparate folk concepts of humanness, notwithstanding the different religious, ethical
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and philosophical bases of their arguments. Second, re-expressing the positions in
folk psychological terms suggests that the different senses of humanness recruited
by advocates and opponents are necessary but not sufficient for an analysis of the
consequences of enhancement for human nature and human identity. These
senses of humanness—in folk psychology—are complementary and jointly con-
stitutive of personhood (e.g., Gray et al., 2007). Focusing exclusively on one or the
other leads to markedly different evaluations of modification—optimism about an
uncomplicated gain in humanness or pessimism about a fundamental loss of it.
The lack of explicit characterizations of humanness in terms of specific
attributes or traits in favour of more general speculations about the “nature” of
human nature is particularly problematic. In a sense, this is understandable
because, as observed by Fernández-Armesto (2004):
There is still no agreement about what “human nature” is . . . Human nature, if it is
proper to speak of such a thing, is not fixed: it has changed in the past and could change
again. Its continuity with the natures of other animals is part of its fluidity (p. 169).
Despite the lack of non-trivial agreement about the meaning of human nature,
some conception of humanness is of central importance, however problematic or
impoverished it is. The application of an empirically-grounded folk psychological
model of humanness to the enhancement debate suggests that employing abstract
and ill-defined concepts of human nature produces conceptual confusion. In
lieu of an analysis of modification that employs more elaborate, scientifically-
grounded understandings of humanness, an analysis that uses specific and multiple
folk psychological conceptions of humanness may provide a more nuanced basis
from which arguments about modification can proceed.
The consequences of modification, within this framework, need not involve a
mutually exclusive choice between a quantitative gain in humanness or a funda-
mental, qualitative loss of it. To illustrate, the modification of intelligence-related
capabilities like rote learning ability or concentration may quite reasonably
engender little ethical concern because such capabilities are regarded in folk
psychology as malleable, learned and incidental to self-identity. Quantitative
enhancement of such capabilities is unlikely to endanger our fundamental sense
of what it is to be human. On the other hand, the modification of species-typical,
emotion-related traits like kindness and empathy may reasonably engender
considerable ethical concern because such traits are regarded as inborn,
immutable and fundamental to self-identity. The interaction between these
senses of humanness would, however, also need to be considered. Specifically,
modifying particular capacities or traits may have adverse implications for other
capacities or traits, as gains in one dimension of humanness may be accompanied
by losses in another.
The proposition that advocates and opponents attach different meanings to the
terms “humanness” and “human nature” should not be taken to imply, however,
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that the difference between advocates and opponents is merely semantic, such
that disagreement would be diffused if only the meaning of terms was consensual.
Clearly, the debate turns on more than definitions of humanness. Rather, re-
expressing the arguments of advocates and opponents in folk psychological terms
illuminates their markedly different presuppositions about humanness. The
analysis set out in this paper indicates how divergent basic assumptions about
humanness inform how theorists think about its modification. Indeed, an important
contribution that this folk model of humanness and dehumanization makes to
bioethical analyses of modification is its conceptual precision.
If the implicit structure of the two camps’ views of humanness that we propose
is sound, it would be interesting to learn how the arguments of advocates and
opponents would change if they were to consider the sense of humanness that
they normally neglect. For example, would the optimistic views of advocates
about modification and their confidence in its ethicality be affected if they were
to consider the possibility that humanness is holistic rather than modular and
that emotion is central to it alongside abstract cognition? Similarly, would the
pessimistic views of opponents be tempered if they were to consider the possibility
that humanness is in some respects malleable and modular, and that cognitive
enhancement might not fatally endanger other fundamentally human attributes?
It was noted earlier that as the enhancement debate begins to move out of
academe and into the public domain, folk psychological beliefs about humanness
will inform laypeople’s understanding of the meaning and consequences of
modification. A final contribution of this analysis, therefore, is what it suggests
about how laypeople will make sense of these issues. One possible application of
this framework might be the creation of a folk psychology-grounded taxonomy of
humanness and humanness modification. Such a taxonomy could delineate the
constitution and correlates of the two senses of humanness and set out the effects
of attributing or withholding HN and HU upon an individual’s humanness or
personhood. In so doing, such a taxonomy would provide a valuable base upon
which to understand and predict lay thinking about enhancement.
Finally, despite the utility of applying a folk psychological framework to the
enhancement debate, we caution against any confusion of folk psychological
conceptions of humanness with scientific conceptions. In an analogue of the
naturalistic fallacy, what
is
, folk psychologically, should in no sense be regarded an
endorsement of what
ought
to be. Finally, despite the stabilisation and reinforcement
of folk psychology by the social, political and economic forces of the culture in
which it exists, there is nothing immutable about folk psychology in general, or of
conceptions of humanness and dehumanization in particular. As Bruner (1990)
noted, folk psychology is often indistinguishable from cultural history, which
implies that the folk psychological model sketched in this paper may not be
germane to all cultures, but rather specific to Western ones. This implies that the
two folk concepts of humanness proposed in this paper may be subject to change
as cultural ideas about what it means to be human themselves change.
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CONCLUDING COMMENTS
In this paper, we have argued for the utility of taking an empirically-based strategy
to understand the divergent conceptions of humanness and dehumanization of
advocates and opponents of modification. Doing so helps us to clarify why these
parties have reached such discrepant conclusions about the consequences of
modification in the possible post-human future. Not only do their distinct concep-
tions of humanness lead to very different conclusions about whether or not
modification will dehumanize post-humans, but they are also associated with
distinct interpretations of dehumanization itself. The systematic study of folk
psychological concepts offers a useful method to clarify the conceptual and ethical
challenges posed by advances in the biosciences to our understanding of what it
means to be human.
Samuel Wilson
Nick Haslam
Department of Psychology
University of Melbourne
Parkville VIC 3010
Australia.
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