Transhumanism and human enhancement are interchangeable terms people in the academic community and commentators use. Presently, and in the future, they both have the potential to bring considerable benefits to humanity.
Nevertheless, ethical concerns and risk prevail.
Transhumanism and Human Enhancement
Transhumanism is a philosophical movement. This faction searches for ways to improve human capabilities and abilities using technology and science. It extends beyond the limits imposed by nature.
Human enhancement refers to the use of technology to enhance the capabilities of the human body. For example, technology could be used to improve eyesight or hearing using of technology by implanting devices in our bodies.
Both advances have huge potential benefits for humanity. For example, human enhancement can lead to significant breakthroughs in medicine. That is, technological implants used to improve cognitive ability, vision and hearing.
Human Enhancement Breakthroughs
Potentially dangerous conditions — like heart disease and cancer — can be detected earlier benefiting from innovations in healthcare technology. Survivability rates will increase from the use of these advancements in healthcare.
Durable and stronger technological versions of our organs…synthetic organs, could replace or defective organs. Breakthroughs like these will allow us to live longer, healthier lives.
Additionally, our human skeleton could be strengthened with technology. As such, human enhancement has the potential to help humans to fight diseases and the ageing process, effectively — dramatically improving our lives and increasing our lifespan. Death could potentially be ended with human enhancement.
Concerning our cognitive ability, human enhancement has the potential to lead to even greater breakthroughs in science and technology. In essence, technology that makes us smarter increases our ability to think and to innovate. As a result, we could see improvements in practically every area of life.
Transhumanism
In the future, we might have the ability to transform the human body completely using transhumanism. Our body forms might become completely unrecognizable from how we appear now. Additionally, it could become possible to transfer human consciousness into a machine.
Such a transformation could increase the likelihood of humanity surviving and flourishing into the far future.
Transhumanism, a blanket term given to the school of thought that refuses to accept traditional human limitations such as biological frailties, disease and death. Transhumans are typically interested in a variety of futurist topics, including space migration, mind uploading and cryonic suspension.
Transhumans are also extremely interested in more immediate subjects such as bio‐ and nano‐technology, computers and neurology.
Strong transhumanism advocates engage themselves in a project, with the purpose to overcome the human nature limitations. Technology can be used to immensely enhance a person’s intelligence; to make them look like they want to look; to increase their lifespan — conceivably to immortality.
They also look to vastly reduce their potential to harm. This can be done by the utilization of a variety of technology uses, including nanotechnology, genetic engineering, computation, and cybernetics. This all depends on whether technology will continue to progress fully.
A New Species
Advocates of transhumanism contend that the operation of these various types of technology can produce people who are intelligent and immortal. Moreover, they will not be members of the species Homo sapiens. Their species type will be quite unclear.
Cyborgs will be part human and part machine – if not wholly machines. Furthermore, they’ll, more than likely, lack any common human genetics. This possibility covers a multitude of labels. The more acute label being “cyberpunks.”
A much less radical venture for transhumanism is the task to use technology to enhance human characteristics. Lifespan, beauty, and resistance to disease are less extreme ventures.
There’s no necessary aspiration to shed human nature or human genetic constitution. The individual merely wants to augment it with technology where possible and where desired. In essence, embrace human enhancement.
The Movement Towards Transhumanism
Presently, North America leads the transhumanism movement. The United Kingdom has some enthusiast, as well. Nick Boström is among its most intellectually sophisticated proponents of this movement.
It’s simply a matter of “free choice” for the most outspoken supporters of transhumanism. Competent choosers should have the freedom to desire and acquire technological advancements if they so desire. If certain technological developments are possible, they shouldn’t be prevented from acquiring the technologically driven enhancements.
A less enthusiastic group sees the transhumanism project as not so much bound to the expansion of independence. They view this movement as one that has the potential to improve the quality of life for humans. For this group, the relationship between transhumanism and the general good is what makes transhumanism worthy of support.
According to Dr. Mike McNamee, Professor of Applied Ethics at Swansea University,
“For the other group, the worth of transhumanism is in its connection with their own conception of what is good for them, with the extension of their personal life choices.”
Consequently, one group of people in favor of transhumanism sees it as a way of improving their own life. An improvement by their own standards is what counts. For example, they may choose to purchase an intervention, which will make them more intelligent or even extend their life by 200 years. Even if, it were not self‐evident that everyone would regard this as an improvement.
Ethical Concerns and Risks
For most people, they may be comfortable with the idea of some form of human enhancement. However, there’s a point where enhancements are so extensive that it’s reasonable to ask if the person is still a human being.
What is more, if a person’s consciousness is transferred to a machine, one could ask if they’re even a person anymore.
These obviously huge philosophical questions have religious and moral repercussions. For example, a person might believe that radically transforming their body would violate their religion. There’s also the ethics of ending death.
There are also the concerns that human enhancement could further increase inequality. For example, if the wealthiest members of society are first to gain access to these technologies, they could use it to increase their wealth and potentially prevent other people from accessing the benefits.
Furthermore, it’s not just wealth inequality, which could be intensify. Human enhancement could also lead to increases in health inequality. If only an elite few have access to technologies which can improve and prolong life, many people would argue that this is deeply unfair.
The Domination of Nature
These programs seem to be geared toward the domination of nature. However, to be more precise, the desire to dominate doesn’t just spring from a lust of power, or from sheer human desire to extend power. From the beginning, it’s connected with the aim of liberating humanity from disease, hunger, and toil and enriching life with learning, art and athletics.
Who, and why would anyone want to deny the powers of viral diseases that can be genetically treated? Would we want to draw the line at the transplantation of non‐human capacities?
On the other hand, should we consider the scope of technological enhancements that one transhumanist, Natasha Vita More, suggests:
“A transhuman is an evolutionary stage from being exclusively biological to becoming post‐biological. Post‐biological means a continuous shedding of our biology and merging with machines. The body, as we transform ourselves over time, will take on different types of appearances and designs and materials.”
The attitude and perception of some people towards body modification are understandable. They should be free to maintain these observations and free to express them.
However, considering transhumanism or human enhancement, noone should have the right to dictate to others what they should do to their bodies, or how they should live their lives.
