IN THE contemporary debate over the ethics of biotechnology, we hear continually that 鈥渉uman dignity鈥� is under threat from science. The Council of Europe has passed a human cloning protocol, for example, which states: 鈥淭he instrumentalisation of human beings through the deliberate creation of genetically identical human beings is contrary to human dignity and thus constitutes a misuse of medicine and biology.鈥� Human dignity is one of those concepts that politicians like to throw around, but which few can either define or explain.
The concern of politicians to defend human dignity is understandable, since the demand for equal recognition of the dignity of all members of the human species is the dominant political passion of our time. Even a hint that one could exclude any group of people from the charmed circle of those deserving recognition of their human dignity on the basis of race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or virtually any other characteristic is guaranteed to bring obloquy on the head of any politician who proposes it.
What the demand for equality of recognition implies is that when we strip all of a person鈥檚 contingent and accidental characteristics away, there remains some essential human quality that is worthy of a certain minimal level of respect鈥攃all it Factor X. Skin colour, looks, social class and wealth, gender, cultural background, even one鈥檚 natural talents, are all accidents of birth relegated to the class of non-essential characteristics. In politics we are required to respect people equally on the basis of their possession of Factor X. You can cook, eat, torture, enslave, or render the carcass of any creature lacking Factor X, but if you do the same thing to a human being, you are guilty of a 鈥渃rime against humanity鈥�.
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If one begins from a religious point of view, the task of defining this Factor X is relatively straightforward. For Christians, all human beings were created in the image of God, and individually share some divine attributes, such as the capacity for moral choice that distinguishes humans from other animals.
But what if one doesn鈥檛 begin from religious premises? Are there secular grounds for a belief in the existence of a Factor X that is defensible in view of what modern natural science teaches us about our species? Here there is a big problem, because the very notion that there exists such a thing as a human 鈥渆ssence鈥� has been under relentless attack by modern science. One of the most fundamental assertions of Darwinism is that species do not have essences, but change in response to individuals鈥� interactions with their environment. Chimp and human genomes overlap by more than 97 per cent. Primatologists like Frans de Waal of Emory University, Atlanta, have been busy uncovering numerous continuities between chimp and human behaviour with respect to communications, the capability for cultural adaptation and even politics. The bright line that formerly fenced off humans from the rest of the animal world and allowed us to believe in our own higher dignity has been steadily eroded.
I believe that it is possible to defend the existence of a Factor X鈥攁 human essence鈥攐n secular grounds that are compatible with what we know of modern science. Factor X has to do with the evolved complexity of the human whole that can only superficially be understood by reductionist scientific methods. The most important component of that whole is the gamut of emotions that every human being is capable of subjectively experiencing. We do not understand the provenance or proper functioning of that gamut, or of the subjective consciousness within which it is embedded. Biotechnology poses a fundamental threat to human dignity because of its ability to manipulate our natures in ways that will ultimately simplify that complexity and reduce us to something that is less than human. But let me explain.
It has been understood in the natural sciences for some time now that the behaviour of complex wholes cannot be understood as the aggregated behaviour of their parts. The inability of a reductionist materialist science to explain observable phenomena is most glaringly evident in the question of human consciousness, that is, the realm of subjective mental states. In the words of the philosopher John Searle, 鈥淭he most striking feature is how much of mainstream philosophy of mind of the past 50 years seems obviously false,鈥� beginning with the almost routine denial among researchers in this field that subjective mental states actually exist.
Many researchers believe that the brain is a highly complex type of organic computer that can be identified by its external characteristics. The well-known Turing test for artificial intelligence asserts that if a machine can conduct a written 鈥渃onversation鈥� in such a way that it could pass for a human being, it can be said to be thinking. It is not clear why anyone should regard this as an adequate test of human mentality, for the machine will obviously not have any subjective awareness of what it is doing, or feelings about its activities. The fact of the matter is that we do not have the faintest inkling of how consciousness and the full range of our subjectively experienced mental states are produced by the brain.
Nor do we understand how they came to be over evolutionary time. As science writer Robert Wright points out, the bizarre outcome of our evolution is that what is most important to us as human beings has no apparent purpose in the material scheme of things by which we became human. For it is the distinctive human gamut of emotions that produces human purposes, goals, objectives, wants, needs, desires, fears, aversions and the like, and hence is the source of human values. What the human whole is and how it came to be remains, in Searle鈥檚 words, 鈥渕ysterious鈥�. None of the branches of modern natural science that have tried to address this question have done more than scratch the surface, despite the belief of many scientists that they have demystified the entire process.
If what gives us dignity and a moral status higher than other living creatures is related to the fact that we are complex wholes rather than the sum of simple parts, then there can be no easy answer to the question 鈥淲hat is Factor X?鈥� It cannot be reduced to the possession of moral choice, or reason, or language, or sociability, or sentience, or emotions, or consciousness, or any other quality that has been put forth as a ground for human dignity. It is all of these qualities coming together in a human whole that make up Factor X.
The problem with modern biomedicine is that it constantly tempts us to reduce the natural complexity of the human whole in the name of much simpler utilitarian ends such as the relief of suffering or the prolongation of life. The aspect of our complex natures most under threat has to do with our emotional gamut. We will be tempted to think that we understand what 鈥済ood鈥� and 鈥渂ad鈥� emotions are, and can go one better on nature by suppressing the latter: by trying to make people less aggressive, more sociable, more compliant, less depressed.
Many biologists would say that we don鈥檛 need to worry about threats to human dignity, however defined, from biotechnology, since we are far from being able to manipulate complex higher-order human behaviours genetically, and may well never achieve the capability. They may be right. But our ability to manipulate human behaviour is not dependent on the development of gene technology. Virtually everything we can imagine being able to do through genetic engineering, we already seek to do through neuropharmacology.
Take the drug Ritalin, the trade name for methylphenidate, a stimulant closely related to methamphetamine that is today prescribed to millions of children around the world to cure a disease known as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. ADHD is actually not a disease at all, but merely the tail of a normal distribution of behaviours related to overactivity and lack of concentration. While there are certainly levels of hyperactivity so severe as to impair any normal functioning, Ritalin is today widely prescribed in cases where a child might just as easily be treated with greater adult attention, interesting work or new challenges. As such it serves as a technology of social control, easing the burden for parents and teachers while relieving those diagnosed with ADHD of responsibility for their own condition. Character, it was once believed, was something that had to be shaped through self-discipline, struggle and a willingness to confront discomfort and wrong inclination; now, we have a medical short cut to get the same result.
Much the same can be said for Prozac and other selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, which are widely used to treat depression. Serotonin is a key neurotransmitter because it affects feelings of pride and self-esteem: when a monkey achieves alpha male status within his troop, his brain serotonin levels are usually highly elevated. Prozac is today prescribed to treat severe depression, but it is also used, in pyschiatrist Peter Kramer鈥檚 famous phrase, for purposes of 鈥渃osmetic pharmacology鈥�, that is, the taking of a drug to make one feel 鈥渂etter than good鈥�. Again, self-esteem has traditionally been regarded not as an entitlement, but something that people had to earn through work and struggle. But along comes modern pharmacology to provide self-esteem in a bottle.
There is a disconcerting symmetry between Prozac and Ritalin. The former is prescribed heavily for depressed women lacking in self-esteem; Ritalin on the other hand is prescribed largely for young boys who do not want to sit still in class because nature never designed them to behave that way. Together, the two sexes are gently nudged toward that androgynous, median personality, self-satisfied and socially compliant, that is the current politically correct outcome in modern societies. The human emotional gamut is narrowed: we eliminate severe depression and hyperactivity, as well as a range of more nuanced feelings of discontent and discomfort that may be the source of creativity, wonder, innovation and struggle.
Why do human beings feel negative emotions such as anger, jealousy, fear, humiliation or embarrassment at all? Why do we feel lonely or depressed, why do we suffer emotionally, or have unrequited longings? If we could make all of these feelings targets for biomedicine in the future and eliminate them from our own emotional gamut, wouldn鈥檛 we want to do so?
The answer is that there are good evolutionary reasons why such emotions exist, and why experiencing them continues to be important to our survival as individuals and as a species. But they are also parts of a complex human whole: the 鈥済ood鈥� emotions we want to feel wouldn鈥檛 be what they are without the 鈥渂ad鈥� ones.
It is hard to make a brief in favour of pain and suffering, but the fact of the matter is that what we consider to be the highest and most admirable human qualities are often related to the way that we react to, confront, overcome and frequently succumb to pain, suffering and death, both in ourselves and in others. In the absence of these human evils there would be no sympathy, compassion, courage, heroism, solidarity or strength of character. A person who has not confronted suffering or death has no depth. Our ability to experience these emotions is what connects us potentially to all other human beings, both living and dead.
The current debate over the ethics of biotechnology has become sidetracked, especially in the US, into a debate over the moral status of embryos. Yet real threats to human dignity are waiting there in the wings. Neuropharmacology is today just a precursor to powerful technologies of the future, both pharmacological and genetic, that will allow us to alter the natural forms of human behaviour that have shaped us as a species, and eventually to deliberately redesign human nature itself. Given that we scarcely understand the provenance and functioning of consciousness, emotion and the complex human whole out of which they spring, it behoves us to proceed down this road very cautiously, if we should want to go down it at all.