Transhumanism and Health
Transhumanism is committed to expanding the functional capacity of human beings by altering our innate biological characteristics, but in health sciences, health can be measured only by reference to those characteristics - our species-typical anatomy and functional integrity; these constitute the objective standard of human health. From the Public Health perspective, transhumanism is inherently unhealthy, associated with a permanent disruption to our innate, organic integrity. I will examine this conceptual anomaly and show that it undermines not only the transhumanist ideology but also the rationale for certain, widely accepted medical interventions.
The medical standard of human health is based on our predominant, innate biological characteristics, our species-typical natural state, which is in turn associated with a range of innate biological functions. When any innate biological function cannot be reliably fulfilled towards a species-typical outcome, this constitutes a deficiency of health (Boorse C., Health as a Theoretical Concept. Philosophy of Science, 1977). There is indeed no other objective point of reference for the concept of health. The Public Health model specifically, requires an objective, universal standard, in order to ground any population-wide medical interventions and safety standards, for example vaccines, pandemic preparedness, or even food safety regulations. Nevertheless, not all public health interventions are strictly compatible with the objective standard of health. Vaccine mandates, for example, are motivated by the prospective benefit of vaccines to human health, but vaccines also aim to alter the innate state of our immune system, which is a healthy, species-typical biological characteristic. Vaccine mandates therefore negate the normative standard they rely on to justify their public health benefit; a self-defeating judgement. Another important example is the inclusion of contraception in the category of reproductive health; it is unclear why the medically induced, temporary infertility, with possible side effects, should count as health. Based on the medical standard of health, contraception is something evidently unhealthy; its negative impact on health is tolerated and endorsed for other reasons.
One possible objection to this argument is that the idea of improvement in public health, associated with vaccines, for example, or with some transhumanist augmentations of the body, does in fact respect the standard of health based on the species-typical, innate biological characteristics, but makes an additional conceptual step of extrapolating this healthy human functionality towards some ideal state. The characteristics developed via evolution offer us the conceptual basis for further optimisation towards additional or expanded functions. I contend that the notions of optimisation or improvement still require an objective standard of value, otherwise they become arbitrary judgments about what constitutes better health. In any case, it is not at all clear that by changing an organism that is already healthy we could make it healthier. There seems to be a conceptual sleight of hand here, replacing health as the state of functional integrity of a living organism with ‘health’ as the pure functionality of a tool. In light of this objection I suggest that transhumanism is characterised by permanent sickness, tolerated only for the sake of gaining access to new tools.
According to Jean-François Mattei, even mainstream “medicine no longer leads to reparation but to augmentation.” Every foreign object or physiological augmentation of our innate characteristics is essentially at odds with the functional coherence of a living organism. The key justificatory challenge for this kind of augmentation, according to McNamee & Edwards, is “to show that all of what are described as transhumanist enhancements are imbued with positive normative force and are not merely technological extensions of libertarianism, whose conception of the good is merely an extension of individual choice and consumption” (Transhumanism, medical technology and slippery slopes. Journal of Medical Ethics, 2006). In the absence of an objective, naturalistic standard of health, which is implicitly rejected by transhumanism, this kind of justification becomes logically impossible. The hypothetical agency of the tool is thus, pathologically, given normative priority over the functional integrity (or health) of its conscious user.
This consideration dovetails with what I call the evolutionary argument against transhumanism. Conceptual and value-errors have, throughout human history, demonstrated a destructive potential vastly exceeding that of any naturally occurring phenomenon, let alone any biological feature optimised via evolution. Our innate biological characteristics are consistent with the conditions of our evolutionary success, so it seems frivolous to stray from the established path of evolutionary fitness for the sake of technological utopia.
A longer version of this article was published here: https://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2021/03/30/is-transhumanism-a-health-problem/