April 15: “Human” Enhancement

There should exist some type of universal legislation to limit the direction and depth of exploration in certain venues of technology. This legislation should consider ethics, impact on society (national and abroad), and feedback from the general public. In this way, questions about human enhancements can be assessed using all the above mentioned factors. The concept of human enhancement has been taking very seriously by certain groups of people to such a degree that a cultural/intellectual movement has formed called transhumanism. While enhancement can have a number of positive aspects such as ridding society of terrible inheritable diseases, transhumanism reaches an irresponsible and exceedingly biased extreme that neglects a huge percentage the of human population.

In previous blogs, the concept of further exacerbating the already large divide between the rich and the poor has been mentioned and applied to other forms of developing technology. Transhumanism would directly continue to give more power and more advantage to those with financial ability versus those that could truly benefit from such enhancement. Bill McKibben is of the opinion that if this movement was successful, it would create a very significant genetic divide (Transhumanism, 2012).

The fact that there exists such a controversy over the morality of transhumanism dictates that it would not be an ideal direction for mankind. Even the Vatican made a statement saying that "changing the genetic identity of man as a human person through the production of an infrahuman being is radically immoral" (Transhumanism, 2012). Consider that throughout history, religion has been a huge reoccurring factor in the start of wars such as the Crusades. Should the aspirations of transhumanism see fruition, one could only imagine the uproar from multiple religious movements throughout the world.

Genetic enhancement could also introduce further complexity in terms of governance. If individuals exist that possess either super natural abilities or biologically altered DNA, there would have to be a revamped set of assessments, laws, and grading criteria's to test these 'posthumans'. Otherwise if all human begins were compared on the same scale, there would always be a curve in favor of those with genetic alterations.

An excellent point made by Stuart Newman is that "cloning and germline genetic engineering and animals are error prone and inherently disruptive of embryonic development" (Transhumanism, 2012). Therefore, there would be unacceptable risks in the development of these embryos and a huge margin of opportunity for disastrous outcomes such as mutated embryos. The lack of an ethical route to genetic manipulation is also a significant concern in terms of achieving the goal of creating 'posthumans'.

The concepts introduced by transhumanism provokes many ethical, religious, legal, and practical boundaries so much so that one must come to the conclusion that it is not a fit movement that will benefit the majority of society. Legislation ought to be introduced to prevent significant developments in this type of research and provide a barrier for the human race against other harmful types of technology.

"Transhumanism". Wikipedia. June 2012. Web. 15 April 2014.