The Nietzschean dream of an Übermensch may be realized by emerging technologies like genetic engineering, nanotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence. Some look forward to such developments as containing the prospect of a moral advance. Posthuman persons may be able to act more consistently moral than human persons.
The Nietzschean dream of an Übermensch may be realized by emerging technologies like genetic engineering, nanotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence. Some look forward to such developments as containing the prospect of a moral advance. Posthuman persons may be able to act more consistently moral than human persons.My work, Posthuman Personhood (May, 2013) takes up the ethical challenge posed by a posthuman condition. I argue that personhood is central to a moral order, whether it is a traditional moral order consisting of human persons or a new order consisting of artificial persons, or a mix of natural human persons and artificial ones. I believe that the traditional concept of personhood may be fruitfully applied to the ethical challenge we face in a posthuman age.
In order to understand the possibility of posthuman personhood we must recognize that the meaning of the term “human” is ambiguous. It can have a biological meaning or a moral meaning. We can disambiguate these terms by introducing a linguistic convention that is inspired by the philosophical work of Wilfrid Sellars. The term “humanB” will be used to refer to biological humanity and the term “humanM” will be used to refer to moral humanity, i.e., (persons). Thus, the phrase “More Human than Human” from the film Blade Runner can be understood to mean “More humanM than humanB”. The robots the Tyrell Corporation were making were supposed to be more personlike than biological human beings.
Consider the logical possibilities concerning the relationship between the concepts of biological humanity and moral humanity.
All humanM beings are humanM. This is equivalent to asserting that all persons are persons. It is a mere tautology that is not informative.
All humanM beings are humanB. This statement asserts that all persons are biologically human. If we knew that biological humanity were a necessary condition of moral humanity or personhood, then this statement would be true.
All humanB beings are humanM. This proposition asserts that all biologically human beings are persons. This is a traditional view that includes all members of the human species in the moral community.
All humanB beings are humanB. Again, this is a tautology that is uninformative.
All humanM beings are humanB. This statement asserts that all persons are biologically human. If we knew that biological humanity were a necessary condition of moral humanity or personhood, then this statement would be true.My argument is that the third proposition is true. All humanB beings are humanM. All members of the humanB species are members of the moral community because humanB beings are beings of a kind that are capable of agency. And so, biological humanity is a sufficient condition for moral humanity. But is biological humanity a necessary condition for moral humanity? Must all persons be biologically human? Or, is it possible that personhood may reside in a being that is not biologically human? This will depend upon our understanding of possibility.
The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant recognized two different kinds of possibility. There is a theoretical or conceptual possibility and there is a real possibility. The conceptual possibility of a nonhumanB person depends upon the coherence of the concept. The concept of a married bachelor is contradictory and so it is not a conceptual possibility. But is there a contradiction in the concept of a nonhumanB person? I argue it is conceptually possible that a person may not be biologically human.
The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant recognized two different kinds of possibility. There is a theoretical or conceptual possibility and there is a real possibility. The conceptual possibility of a nonhumanB person depends upon the coherence of the concept. The concept of a married bachelor is contradictory and so it is not a conceptual possibility. But is there a contradiction in the concept of a nonhumanB person? I argue it is conceptually possible that a person may not be biologically human.That leaves the issue of real possibility. A contemporary version of Kant’s idea of real possibility can be found in the work of Michael Friedman. Real possibility will depend upon the consistency of a concept in relation to the laws of nature as we understand them. Now, I argue that we do not know exactly how humanB consciousness arises from the neural network of the human brain. It may be that the kind of consciousness that allows humanB agency is unique to humanB beings. We may be able to reproduce it in computers or robots. But we may not. We do not know. And so, I argue we do not know if nonhumanB persons are a real possibility. Fukuyama may be right. If we alter humanB beings genetically, we may undermine humanB personhood. On the other hand, we may simply enhance the ability of humanB beings to reason and make sound moral decisions. We may also be able to produce nonhumanB persons in the form of computers or robots. However, in doing so, we may render a moral order impossible by creating an irrational field of action by introducing an unlimited series of choices, what Kierkegaard called “The Despair of Possibility.”
Following Kant, I divide ethics into a pure part and an impure part. The pure part is pragmacentric. It concerns any being of a kind that is capable of agency, whether it is humanB or non-humanB. The impure part of ethics is an empirical consideration of the moral community. It leads to a consideration of what some see as the Anthropocene Age.
It is peculiar that as the advent of the posthumanB age approaches there are some who have been compelled to designate the present geological age as the Anthropocene Age, the age of humanBkind. This is a designation for a geological epoch that is characterized by alterations in the earth’s ecosystems and climate by humanB activities. And so, we can think of it as an anthropoBcene age. In the anthropoBcene age, humanB beings must take responsibility for managing the planet. Since all humanB beings are persons, such an age is necessarily an AnthopoMcene Age. Were non-humanB persons to exist, we would have to expand our understanding of the AnthropoMcene Age to include both humanB and non-humanB persons. Then the task of managing the planet would be one we would share with non-humanB persons.
Finally, Posthuman Personhood argues that an ethic of self-limitation is a condition for maintaining personhood in a posthumanB age. Wilfrid Sellars’ notion of the manifest image of man in the world can be maintained by expanding the concept of humanityM to include all beings of a kind capable of being self-legislating. This is a concept of personhood that fits the posthumanB age.