Transhumanism and Eugenics: The future of Medicine
The future of biomedical sciences
As we see these sciences are currently under a revolution process and for example, we even rethink the concept of medicine, which in its traditional aspect was based on recovering lost health, but the new trend is aimed at improving capabilities that it does not have becausebe damaged. According to Diéguez, we would be talking about an "improvement medicine". Here I would like to highlight a curious aspect, one of the pillars of traditional medicine was the principle of non -maleficence, however it is currently being obsolete in favor of the principle of charity. According to this, the medicine of the future will not have as a primary objective the restoration of health, but the potentiation the human being at the physical, intellectual and even mood level. According to Diéguez, this will increase the number of possible clients in medicine, or what is the same will be done business.
According to Peter Singer, "in recent times, we have attended the collapse of traditional ethics, with an increasing approval by the society of practices previously considered little ethical, such as abortion or euthanasia in certain situations".
As I say before now, it is more committed to the principle of charity, especially in the clear pro-better authors, for example Savulescu speaks of "procreative beneficence". The vision of the human improvement of the Australian philosopher is clearly well -being. Savulescu insists on this concept by saying: "Health is instrumentally valuable, to the extent that our own purposes allow us". However, welfare health should not be confused, a clear example would be smokers, who sacrifice part of their health to obtain a pleasure or well -being.
Another very interesting idea is that it is considered health, and as this can change in the future, as it has certainly changed throughout history. Personally I consider the concept taken as health to properly analyze the debate on human improvement. And not only health, it is very likely that in the future the concepts we have of "disease", "normality" or "well -being" change, or at least adapt to the new realities.
Transhumanist vs. bioconservatives
They constitute the two great currents of thought within the field of human improvement. Although as we will see there are many differences between authors even within the same current of thought.
Generalizing, the bioconservatives, would constitute the anti improvement group, where we can highlight authors such as Habermas, totally critical of liberal eugenics that would promote human improvement or as Hans Jonas to which we will dedicate a section later. Bioconservative arguments are very varied, from the criticism of playing to be God, to that of the loss of human nature. This group opposes all kinds of improvement that they consider artificial since it would imply the loss of human essence. With the exception perhaps of the genus gene therapy of somatic lines of which some authors are supporters.
In the transhumanist part, or pro improvement, we have much more variety of thoughts. We highlight from the philosophical point of view to Savulescu, which is criticized with the biocservative group, and that is more supporter of a moderate improvement with Nicholas Agar. Both are critical towards a radical improvement, defending that it should not be unconditional and that scientific knowledge must go hand in hand with moral wisdom. Savulescu promotes a human enhancement delimited by certain requirements, this group is not considered transhumanists as such since these are those that are committed to the aforementioned radical improvement.
Julian Huxley is considered the first to coined the postumamanist term in his publication Religion Without Revelation, but certainly the term the much older and for example appears in Dante’s divine comedy, where "transhumanar" would be the ultimate goal of man,Obviously in this work the concept has a religious origin, but it is also true that other authors have subsequently nourished.
Currently transhumanism, identified with the H+symbol, is a popular and well -consolidated movement, in which great economic interests are deposited and their investigations are nourished by private financing. This movement can certainly use researchers from many disciplines, from computing, nanotechnology or bioengineering, but all look common, and it is none other than always futuristic ideas. As an example of this we could put Google engineering director Raymond Kurzweil, whose technological ideas, always as a science fiction could seem vanguard.
It should also be noted that transhumanist thinking does not have a unified theory of values, that is, it can easily attend eclecticism, it could also fit into policies of very diverse signs policies.
As a transhumanist reference author we will consider Nick Bostrom4, founder of the World Transhumanist Association (WTA) and that thus defines transhumanism: “Cultural, intellectual and scientific movement that affirms the moral duty to improve the physical and cognitive abilities of the human species of the human speciesin order to eliminate unwanted and unnecessary aspects of the human condition such as suffering, disease or aging ”. Probably Nick Bostrom is the greatest theoretical within the transhumanist current.
Human nature and dignity
Throughout history the main feature that characterized the humanists was in anthropocentrism, but at the same time that humanist currents suffered a setback, this feature was increasingly blurred. The human being was no longer placed as the protagonist of the story.
For the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk5 Humanism has failed in its attempt to curb human barbarism, thus sees new methods to “domesticate” what he considers the Human Park, as indicated in his work norms for the Human Park, where he urgesTo society to rethink the essence of the human without the corset of humanists and without rejecting the new eugenic possibilities that new technologies could provide.
Many bioconservatives attack the pro-empower. Many of these authors also defend that the human nature cannot be separated from their religious or humanistic postulates, since then it would lose all its essence and we would not be talking about the same concept, we would not be human.
Thus, transhumanism advocates the free transformation of our own naturalize as a species, without depending on religion or humanism. From here, one of the main criticisms of biocopostors, "play to be God". At this point it is where the disputes are most accentuated because the progress defends that the human being throughout its history always gone against nature to have a better standard of living, such as for example when we vaccinate forAvoid diseases that the divine providence can send us. With these arguments, perhaps a bit childish try to discredit criticism about playing God.
I would like to cite the celebrated phrase of protágoras "man as a measure of all things", high as a universal model from the Renaissance. Contributing to the human being of his own identity, with an individual dignity.
This reasoning would be lost from the transhumanist postulates, the answer is clearly affirmative, and here we would already enter the posthumanism of the next section with authors such as Rosi Braidotti6 that proposes to replace that idea for “man is a complex subject characterized by incarnation,Sexuality, affectivity, empathy and desire ". Departing any spiritual aspect of the equation.
Posthumanism
This movement, intimately linked to transhumanism, tries to represent a paradigm about the future of the human being. While in transhumanism shows an improvement condition of the human species without losing if condition, posthumanism goes further, speaking of a higher evolutionary stage, and on a diffuse border with science fiction, at least in our times.
The posthuman would have lost the human appearance, in a hybridization between the human being and the machine, originating the cyborg, in a total symbiosis. I would enjoy a better physical condition and intelligence, such as transhometers, but it wouldn’t stay there. Would banish any human natural condition and have unimaginable abilities, including total emotional control and an absence of psychological suffering. Francis Martorell7 describes the evolutionary processes of the posthuman: “First the human will mutate a transhuman, even bionic specimen at the mercy of nature, as the techniques advance, it will mutCarbon-based life, open to successive self-constructs. Here is the hero of the transhuman function, the cyborg ".
Posthumanism is a movement that is becoming more and more in the academic world and in some movements such as environmentalists and animalists, it is first characterized by the abandonment of anthropocentrism and second to provide the human being with a technical condition superior to its natural condition. This last part is the I want to highlight at this point based on the work meditation of the technique, which Ortega y Gasset8 presented in 1933 at Santander University of Summer.
According to Ortega, the human being wants to be oblivious to nature, being labile beings nature is hostile, we have no claws, neither a thick skin nor protection against weather, this makes us not identify with nature but that ifLet’s be forced to meet a series of natural organic needs. To face this disadvantage situation, the human being uses technique, for the last purpose of changing natural laws. So for Ortega, the technique is the reform that the human being exerts on nature to meet their needs. But the human being will go further, he will not settle for satisfying his basic needs, he will not help him survive, but what he will want is to live in the best possible way this finally, I superfluous, it is what will constitute our well -being. From here, Ortega takes out the second definition of technique: “The technique is the production of the superfluous, today and in the paleolithic era. Human needs are objectively superfluous, they only become needs for who needs well -being, essentially living well. Here is because the animal is athletic, is content to live and with what is objectively necessary to exist ”. Ortega adds even more to the definition of technique indicating that the human being wants to obtain all that with the minimum possible effort, trying to use less time and energy. And just from this idea Acuña Ortega a very interesting term, that of invented life, which explains that we will use our life if we no longer have to satisfy any need.
Continuing with Ortega, he explains how the human being is focused on his environment, this makes him feel close to nature, but the difficulties he shows makes him feel strange to her, it is a natural and foreign being at the same time,This makes it feel incomplete that it is always a project subject to the circumstances in which every human being must be done to himself. Here Ortega raises the relationship between technique and desires, the technique would give the human being the ability to be the same, to self-create and satisfy his wishes. Ortega ends his essay with this phrase "the technique whose mission is to solve the problems to man suddenly became a new and gigantic problem", referring to the possibility of modifying our human condition or rather the possibility of fleeing from it.
Biopolitics and business in human improvement
In this section we will base ourselves on a work of Focault9, the birth of biopolitics, to precisely establish and delve into this concept. There is an extensive bibliography regarding this term, and more in the current times, but I believe that the work of this philosopher is the one that can best describe it in relation to transhumanism. Biopolitics would constitute a relationship between politics and life, there are two aspects, one more technocratic, that is, the application of life sciences in the political framework;And another more humanist who performs a critical work of scientific knowledge and reductionism of science in human nature.
The first aspect believes that biological science can serve to diagnose and intervene in the social disorders of humanity, with disciplines such as sociobiology and behaviorism as allies to understand the political government of our times.
The second includes a more spiritual background indicating that scientific knowledge never covers human nature in all its complexity.
For Focault, the biopolytic approach is different, it stands out as we will see below its marked government orientation, that is, it links the concept to a clear exercise of power. Knowing and power are in Foucault’s speech. This focuses on certain sciences to which technologies of power are applied, an example of them would be psychiatry, evolutionary biology, genetic or public health. Foucault introduces another concept here, that of sex technologies, where eugenics stands out, through which we could see ourselves dedicated to suffering a "state racism". It also indicates that negative eugenics would be more present in the wealthy classes, which would "improve" their offspring and establish what Focault calls a class body, where the hierarchies of being able to change and the biopoder would appear. This would also be integrated into the governmental field. And from this point to be inserted in an economic framework there is very short distance.
Well, according to Focault, the economic framework would be a kind of technological neoliberalism born from capitalist ideas. It is argued that the human being should never pay to have a body or a natural genetic constitution, but it should do it for having it improved?. Obviously a new form of business will arise here, but with which rules?, under what ethics?. Foucault, many years ago poses this problem, which could soon transfer the scope of science fiction to become a reality.
Towards the biomejora market
It is clear that biopolitics will be inclined towards biomejora. And society accepts it, of course that the human being wantsHere enters the role of biotechnologies, to eradicate at any cost any vestige that was considered pathological, but also to go further and improve skills that are not damaged at source. Currently biological responsibility falls to citizens, as individual and free people, but according to some social democrats such as Ander Sandberg, in the future the State could assume the task of redesigning the future of the Human Constitution for example through positive eugenics,in a way similar to the one that the State acts in public education. This option, of course, seems unlikely, since it would undoubted.
Under this certainly commercial framework, authors such as Bostrom or Savulescu defend that citizens can access a biomercado, under the designs of supply and demand, which allows them to improve themselves or have the best possible offspring. The future genetic supermarket, will allow parents to customize their offspring, choose babies to the letter, eliminate factory defects, that is, bring to the world higher children in all aspects, thus having new genetic aristocracies, very much in relation to the term “bodyFocault ”class”. But the big question is, that will happen with those who are outside this marketing, that do not get anything in the cast. You could talk here about genetic poverty, which Ironically would always be inherited generation after generation.
Biopolitics, Bioeconomy, Biomemorah, Biomercy …All these related concepts and without a regulation that would probably derive in discrimination, racism and ultimately a depersonalization of the human being, a dehumanization.
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