Recently Published Book Spotlight: Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism

Recently Published Book Spotlight: Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism

This edition of the Recently Published Book Spotlight is about Susan B. Levin’s Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism (Oxford, 2021). Levin is Roe/Straut Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Smith College. In addition to numerous articles in both bioethics and ancient Greek philosophy, she previously published two books in the latter area.

What prompted you to write this book?

The debate over the biotechnological “enhancement” of human beings has occupied me for many years. Within that debate, which is prominent in bioethics and, increasingly, in broader discourse, the term “enhancements” covers everything from the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport and of psychostimulants to augment cognitive performance, absent a diagnosis of ADHD, to technologies that, should they come to exist, might enable the categorical heightening of favored capacities, above all, cognitive ability and lifespan.

From the start, my focus has been “radical” bioenhancement, or transhumanism. In a nutshell, its advocates press us to feature research projects whose fruits would allow us to heighten select capacities so far beyond any human ceiling that the beings thus endowed could not simply be called “better humans”: the term used to designate them—whether “posthuman,” “godlike,” or “divine”—should instead signal their existence on a higher plane of being. Transhumanists insist that the categorical upgrades they envision, none of which are in the offing, will eventuate if only we invest directly and robustly in their development. So paltry and dingy is human existence that genuinely flourishing lives are out of the question absent humanity’s self-transcendence.

Opposing transhumanism based on possible outcomes of the availability of radical-enhancement technologies, such as increased social inequality, is important but has limited range: if consequences identified as undesirable could be alleviated or forestalled via regulation and subsidies, then moral objections to transhumanism would be defused by our continued monitoring and addressing of those features. The paramount moral question, right now, should not be how we respond if and when immensely high-tech interventions come to exist but instead whether we may—let alone must—commit massive resources to the targeted pursuit of radical bioenhancement at all. A critical emphasis on results gives an unearned argumentative edge to transhumanists.

As Plato observed (Republic 551a), we always instantiate what we value and neglect what we do not. Major choices in a given present set the course for future decisions about what is valued, not to mention what is available for valuing. When it comes to transhumanism, this is true in spades: deciding whether or not to embrace proponents’ agenda will reflect a fundamental choice, eventually irreversible at the species level, if we do sign on, about what—or the fantasy of what—we hold most dear.

Direct opposition focused on particular, salient topics, such as cognition or morality, contributes to a broad critique of transhumanism. Ultimately, though, what’s needed is an encompassing, internally unified response, to which multipronged philosophical and scientific arguments are central. The more I worked on the book, the more vital it felt to do what I could to develop that critique.

In one important respect, the book I wrote differed from what I had originally envisioned. Transhumanists deny all intrinsic merit to human values, priorities, and aims—indeed, to humanity itself. They tend to do this, however, without making the requisite philosophical arguments, which could then be subjected to the light of day. Beyond that, transhumanists imply and even contend that, going forward, persistence in traditional philosophical activity would detract from our unreserved dedication to the technologically driven template and strategizing that are the life’s blood of their project. (When paired with transhumanists’ ontogenetic analogies, illustrated by Nick Bostrom’s “Why I Want to Be a Posthuman When I Grow Up,” this orientation calls to mind the character of Callicles in Plato’s Gorgias: although, he concedes, philosophical inquiry may be harmless in childhood, mature functioning necessitates that one swap out meta-level inquiry for a solid focus on the fruits of instrumental rationality.) The upshot: I knew from the start that I’d have plenty to do in the way of philosophical reflection on transhumanists’ vision of “posthumanity.”

But, as I proceeded with work on the book, the more I was struck by the cursory and unconvincing nature of transhumanists’ scientific claims. I saw that I’d need to delve further than anticipated into cognitive psychology, biology, and neuroscience, as part and parcel of making my argument against our embrace of transhumanists’ agenda as strong and encompassing as I could. As it turns out, their scientific contentions in relation to bioenhancement are often rooted in highly contentious and even outdated positions within the relevant fields. Since transhumanists tout their allegiance to cutting-edge science in their deliverances on what biotechnologies should be developed and employed by individuals and prospective parents, this result was positively stunning.

What topics does the book address?

Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism argues that transhumanism is fundamentally flawed on philosophical and scientific grounds. I proceed by unmasking grave weaknesses in advocates’ views and assumptions involving the mind, brain, morality, ethical theory, liberal democracy, epistemology, and ontology. My arguments unite philosophical with scientific challenges to transhumanism based on findings in areas including cognitive psychology, moral psychology, evolutionary biology, genetics, and neuroscience.

The first three chapters critique transhumanists’ claims and assumptions about the mind and brain. Chapter 1 argues that they embrace an extreme version of rational essentialism. Transhumanists’ top priority, overall, is the maximal augmentation of rational capacity, with a moving pinnacle gauged by what science and technology make possible at a given time. In keeping with this occupation, they urge us to eliminate biologically our successors’ capacity for so-called negative emotion and mood. At the same time, they fail to show how their laser-sharp, maximizing focus on rationality could ultimately exempt any nonrational faculty from condemnation.

What’s more, their encomia of reason itself are constricting, for transhumanists conflate “reason” and “cognition,” defined in terms of the acquisition, processing, and deployment of information. Far from fitting tightly with an august tradition going back to the ancient Greeks, the faculty that biotechnology would augment excludes the creativity and insight that are required not only for vintage philosophical activity but also for scientific discovery. Admittedly, this may not concern transhumanists. For, in addition to shying away from, and even eschewing, traditional philosophical inquiry, they suggest that headway toward posthumanity will not require any fundamental scientific discoveries. As Bostrom’s fantasized posthuman assures humanity in “Letter from Utopia,” “Each problem has a solution. [Posthuman] existence breaks no law of nature. All the needed materials are laid out in front of you. Your people must become master builders.”

As for practical proof of concept for the radical bioenhancement of cognitive ability, transhumanists take it as an established fact that cognitive functioning is augmented, today, when people use psychostimulants off label to boost discrete performances in academic and occupational settings. In actuality, extensive research on these pharmacological agents reveals cognitive tradeoffs, baseline-dependent effects, and negative impacts on creativity. What’s more, improvements, such as they are, may stem from effects on “noncognitive” faculties, such as motivation.

Chapter 2 argues that transhumanists’ problematic handling of cognition and cognitive bioenhancement is no outlier, illustrating instead their flawed picture of the mind and brain as such. Regarding the mind, transhumanists are on the losing side of a decades-long dispute about the nature of emotion: on the merits, “appraisal theory” has superseded “basic-emotion” and “dual-process” views, whose proponents, like transhumanists, see the mind as a set of compartments whose functionality is explained by dedicated areas or systems in the brain. Since emotions “engage the entire person,” the relationship of emotion and cognition must be debated “in the context of an emotion theory.… When emotion and cognition are considered in such a context their relationship proves much more complex.” Klaus Scherer’s version of appraisal theory is especially promising, for it integrates well the insight that “cognition” is not a separately identifiable aspect of our mental operations; distinguishes clearly between wide and narrow senses of “cognition”; and accommodates the subtlety of human emotion.

Appraisal theory, and Scherer’s version in particular, is compatible with mounting evidence of the brain’s complexity. Claims of facultative and neurobiological discreteness, made by basic-emotion theorists, dual-process advocates, and transhumanists, are “neuroscientifically uninformed.” Not only is “every area of the brain … modulated by [one’s] emotional state, but every area … can be affected by classically ‘cognitive’ processes.” Taken together, recent neuroscientific discoveries, which mesh with appraisal theory, strongly support a “nuanced view in which emotion and cognitive control [namely, reason] are integrated, at times working in harmony.”

Transhumanists’ extreme rational essentialism is fruitfully contrasted with Aristotle’s version, which is philosophically superior to transhumanists’ construction. He is recognized as a harbinger of contemporary appraisal theory, and rightly so, as my analysis of important thematic links, to Scherer’s influential version in particular, makes clear. What’s more, Aristotle’s approach to the soul and soul-body relationship meshes far better than transhumanist positions with current neuroscientific findings.

The preeminent capacity that transhumanists would augment is cognitive/rational ability. Although one might expect, or at least hope for, greater attunement to psychic complexity when moral bioenhancement is considered, as I argue in Chapter 3, this is not the case. Here, my philosophical arguments challenge transhumanists’ views of moral improvement and freedom. Scientifically, I undercut their claim to have offered practical and theoretical proof of concept through an exploration of research involving the neurotransmitters oxytocin and serotonin, complex phenotypic traits, and evolutionary biology.

Since transhumanists’ views of the mind and brain pervade their argumentation, and the flagship capacity that they would heighten is “cognitive” ability, extensive critique of their views of the mind and brain is imperative. But a thorough assessment of transhumanism also requires that its guiding, often tacit, ethical commitments be made transparent so that they—and their sociopolitical implications—can be scrutinized. In Chapter 4, I argue that transhumanists’ avowed commitment to personal autonomy in decisions about bioenhancement is undercut by evidence in their accounts of a moral obligation to maximize capacities as far as technically feasible at a given time. More often than meets the eye, transhumanists’ ethical rationales are utilitarian. This matters, first, because utilitarians give intrinsic value to well-being alone and thus cannot lend it to autonomy. Second, among prominent ethical theories, utilitarian positions lead with particular fluidity to corresponding legal requirements.

Within liberal democracy, utilitarian obligations are most evident in measures undertaken for the sake of public health and welfare. Rationales for public-health measures, such as mandated immunization, are, fundamentally, utilitarian. Transhumanism fits within a current, expansive trend involving the scope of what is deemed to fall under “public health,” and hence to be legitimate terrain for legal stipulations. Transhumanists’ utilitarian rationales for bioenhancement, though important, are usually tacit, even when their arguments tie the bioenhancements they favor closely to familiar measures, such as immunization and fluoridization, that are undertaken for the sake of public health.

Transhumanists insist that since personal autonomy would steer decisions about how far, if at all, to use bioenhancements, what they propose is fully compatible with liberal democracy. Yet their writings incorporate two incompatible stances on autonomy. When arguing, against critics, that the bioenhancements they prize should be available options, transhumanists embrace wide-ranging, “procedural” autonomy. By this standard, none of the following choices by individuals—whether made on their own behalf or in their role as prospective parents—could be morally critiqued: going full steam ahead with bioenhancement; opting for modest measures; and eschewing bioenhancement altogether. But, when transhumanists argue that maximal bioenhancement is the sole rational course, autonomy is jettisoned. Since a “transhumanist” is an “advocate of radical bioenhancement,” transhumanists’ strategy when directly defending their own position is decisive. I argue that, if we sign onto transhumanism, we may, in so doing, jeopardize liberal democracy.

This conclusion leads directly to Chapter 5, where I underscore a number of thematic ties between transhumanism and prior eugenics. Transhumanists repeatedly and vigorously deny all substantive links to prior eugenics. The typical object of these denials, either directly or by implication, is Nazi eugenics. When one concentrates on earlier Anglo-American eugenics, which preceded the Nazi variety, transhumanists’ repudiation does not hold up. As transhumanists recognize, the bulwark of their defense against the existence of substantive connections is that earlier eugenics was state managed, while they are staunchly committed to personal freedom. Chapter 4’s challenge to this commitment on transhumanists’ part eliminates the bulwark.

Both transhumanism and prior eugenics are totalizing visions. Transhumanists’ judgment on humanity and vision of what would supplant it are all-encompassing. In addition, science and technology would propel the transformation. It stands to reason, therefore, that the shortcomings of transhumanists’ scientific claims in particular areas would themselves have an overarching source. And, indeed, they do. As I argue in Chapter 6, transhumanists’ conviction that radical bioenhancement is feasible rests ultimately on their embrace, hook, line, and sinker, of an “informational” epistemology and ontology. This position—a historical product of World War II and its aftermath—is, however, on the verge of being outdated. Notwithstanding now-abundant evidence that it is unsustainable, the grip of this informational view persists—due, in no small part, to the staying power of potent metaphors, such as “code,” “puzzle,” “program,” and “book of life,” whose figurative standing has long since fallen by the wayside.

Transhumanists’ notion that headway toward posthumanity will not require any fundamental scientific discoveries likely stems from their taking for granted the context-independent veracity of an informational lens on being and knowing. We would do a supreme disservice to humanity if we bought into transhumanists’ gargantuan fantasy of leveraging this dated view to engineer posthumanity. What we require, instead, is “the stake-in-the-heart move” regarding the informational view itself.

Ontologically and epistemologically, the stumbling block for transhumanists is not limited to the unsustainability of their informational perspective. Drawing on contemporary challenges to metaphysical realism, together with Kant’s argument for the necessary parameters of all human thought and experience in the Critique of Pure Reason, I maintain that no alternative could bear the transmutative weight that transhumanists require of their operative lens.

Though the book’s emphasis is critical, I didn’t want its argument to be only that. Since transhumanism is a totalizing vision, contesting it most powerfully requires not only its critique on a fundamental plane, but also an adumbration of a more fruitful encompassing lens. Hence, my question in the book’s final chapter is, “What values and priorities most warrant our allegiance going forward?” Here, I return to my Greek-philosophical roots, endorsing virtue ethics while arguing that it must and can be adapted to America today. I suggest that, more than perhaps meets the eye, people today already care about virtue. Though Aristotle’s own version of virtue ethics is unsuitable for liberal democracy, the work of Martin Luther King Jr. illustrates how virtues, adjusted in content and scope for our context, together with supporting non-virtues (e.g., tenacity), may be a galvanizing umbrella under which to frame and pursue central improvements to human existence across the board: individual, interpersonal, and sociopolitical. The “holism” of virtue ethics diverges greatly from transhumanists’ totalizing vision, in ways that keep the spotlight on the only place it can be: flourishing by and for human beings.

In the end, transhumanists’ notion of humanity’s self-transformation into divinity via science and technology turns out to be pure, albeit seductive, fantasy. What’s more, on every level, it fails to do humanity justice.

What insights in the book are you most struck by?

One discovery I’m fond of is that, in the trio comprising transhumanism, contemporary science, and Aristotle, transhumanism is the outlier. As I argue in Chapter 2, not only is Aristotle’s version of rational essentialism philosophically superior to transhumanists’ extreme construction, but, on the whole, his picture of the mind meshes far better than transhumanists’ with current work in cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

Another is a threefold finding, related to transhumanists’ tethering of reason and knowing to information: that they persistently conflate reason and cognition, informationally construed; how far that conflation infiltrates their argumentation involving the mind, brain, and conviction of our deep biological manipulability; and their wholesale embrace of an “informational” epistemology that is by no means cutting edge.

An additional discovery that made a strong impression on me is the powerful clash I found between transhumanists’ insistence that the implementation of what they propose would be fully in keeping with liberal democracy and their recourse to utilitarian rationales. I was struck by the fact that, overall, transhumanists either deny or ignore their own utilitarian commitments; a fortiori, they neglect their sociopolitical implications.

Further, I was surprised by the fact that so many, across the spectrum of positions on bioenhancement—transhumanists, non-transhumanists who are generally sympathetic to bioenhancement, and critics of bioenhancement outright—are sanguine about the endurance of liberal democracy even if a bioenhancement agenda were avidly pursued. There are exceptions to the generally underappreciated risks to liberal democracy, especially the work of Robert Sparrow.

What do you hope the book’s impact will be?

My dream would be for transhumanism to be decisively unmasked as the fantastical, indeed, irrational agenda it is. Since this is quite unlikely, my answer is that I dearly want my book to influence the ongoing debate over transhumanism by making clear just how philosophically and scientifically problematic is the vision on which advocates would have humanity stake all, itself included.

Susan B. Levin

Susan B. Levin is Roe/Straut Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Smith College. In addition to numerous articles in both bioethics and ancient Greek philosophy, she previously published two books in the latter area. Levin’s Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism was published by Oxford in 2021.