My Dissertation, Part 1: Transhumanism

All this month, my posts are going to be dedicated to summarizing my dissertation. As a part of completing the Ph.D. at Baylor, the last few years have been spent writing a dissertation entitled, “Transhumanism and Nature’s Guide: Exploring Enhancement Technologies through Natural Law and Ordinary Language.” Don’t be fooled by the ending of that title—this short book that consumed my every waking thought for months is nothing if not convoluted, and I wouldn’t want anyone to have to read it that wasn’t on the committee.

To that end, allow me to step through each chapter, explaining its subject and summarizing its main points—beginning with the introductory chapter on transhumanism. This term, which hasn’t quite reached mainstream familiarity yet, is concerned with the transformation of the human body through various technologies, particularly those known as bio-enhancements. These enhancement technologies, in turn, are traditionally defined in contrast with therapeutic technologies because, rather than mend a problem with the human body, they take humans beyond their natural capacities. So you might think of technologies currently in infant stages, like brain-computer interfaces (think Neuralink) or gene editing (think CRISPR), or technologies still far off, like strength-augmenting limb replacement or even uploading one’s mind to a computer.

Already, there are some qualifiers I need to include. First, there are a couple ways of talking about transhumanism. One I take to be intrinsically bad, Transhumanism with a capital T, and it’s more of the philosophical and cultural movement that assumes technology can solve most or all of our human ills and that it is necessary to pursue such radical advancements. The other is simply the descriptor for the proliferation of bio-enhancement technologies that will inevitably shape the future of our species—this phenomenon, I think, demands our attention.

The second qualifier is that it is well recognized that defining “enhancements,” especially in contrast with “therapies,” is an impossible game. (Can a technology like Adderall, which therapeutically restores normal levels of focus to a person with ADHD, also be an enhancement by providing people without ADHD extraordinary focus? Is disease part of the normal human experience or something that detracts from the normal? Is a car that lets us travel hundreds of miles in a day a radical enhancement?). Regardless of the ambiguity, however, there seems to be an intuitively helpful distinction between therapeutic technologies that don’t seem to change much about the human condition and these other enhancements that generate radical change. 

In any case, issues surrounding transhumanism and related bio-enhancement technologies are becoming increasingly pertinent. They bring with them not only questions of practical application but also existential questions about the nature of our humanity and even theological questions about God’s relationship to Homo sapiens and our current bodies.

It should not be surprising then that there has been a growing field of interest in transhumanism and bio-enhancements among theologians. Some of those who have taken up these questions have come at them with a sense of optimism, that such technological advances are in line with God’s plans. This is not to say that technology can be abused or misapplied, but rather, all technological progress, even radical advances, can help us reverse the effects of the Fall and supplement the work of God’s Kingdom on earth. Some even take up Philip Hefner’s famous phrase, describing humans and their technologies as “created co-creators.” It is part of our divine mandate to create things and improve the world around us.

However, the majority of theological voices are skeptical of transhumanism and its related technologies. While I suspect there is a latent Luddism in academic theology, the reasons that are generally expressed center on practical and principled concerns. On the practical side, many theologians are quick to remind us of the complexity of the forces we are tangling with. Artificial intelligence and genetic engineering are not trivial enterprises, and small mistakes in those realms can have devastating consequences. And even if they work, issues of justice arise—inevitably the rich will be the first to gain access to these advancements, but will the technology trickle down afterward or will it give rise to widening class difference and oppression?

On the principled side, some theologians insist, even ignoring all the practical concerns or assuming the technology works as intended, that such enhancement is intrinsically evil. It not only represents the worst of human hubris, but it rends asunder our relationship with our bodies and the natural world. It is a Promethean exercise and we ought to resist it.

Even as theologians lean in one direction or another, most are willing to admit that we should ethically evaluate technologies case by case. Is a pharmaceutical that makes me more patient actually doing what it suggests and when would it be appropriate to take such a pill? What are the advantages and disadvantages of brain implants that allow us to communicate with one another telepathically? What would it look like to live in a world where people upload their consciousness to the cloud? In answer to such questions, I explored in my dissertation (and will explore in subsequent posts) how we might think about such questions theologically. Specifically, I am interested in what we might learn from nature itself about our attempts to alter nature—does nature oppose our efforts toward radical change or, rather, has it also been permissive of such adaptation?