SATURDAY June 28, 2003
9am-10am
Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 62
High St., New Haven CT
"Why Not Re-Invent Humans? Is This the Best We Can Do?"
[LISTEN HERE]
Gregory Pence Professor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy
& School of Medicine University of Alabama at Birmingham
To assume that humanity is evolution's apex is
arrogant and nonfactual. At best, we are the mid-point between amoeba
and the Beings-Who-Follow. We humans can surely transform ourselves into
something better. As we are now, even the lives and bodies of average
humans contain far too much bodily breakdown, bodily pain, and physical
dysfunction, not to mention mental illness and, with aging, loss of
memory and intelligence.
And for unlucky humans, life has too much genetic
disease and early death. Yes, we can do better, and if we came together
as anonymous rational souls under a Rawlsian veil of ignorance in a
transgenerational conference between now and a thousand years from now,
we would choose to endow future children with less pain, more life, and
better qualities.
Indeed, the question, "Should we transform
ourselves?" is moot, as we have been transforming ourselves since
we first fixed decayed teeth and created eyeglasses, and today we are
unconsciously changing at a much faster rate than in the past. The
interesting questions now concern how consciously we change, how
publicly, and toward which of many distant ideals.
But these issues are abstract and concern the
meta-argument. What about real practical changes? I list a quick
continuum of ways in which I think humans will really transform
themselves in this century, focusing on two which I think are most
likely and that will have the most profound social consequences: the
artificial womb and the end of cellular death. I argue that the first
will mitigate social inequality, the second will exacerbate it.
Gregory E. Pence teaches philosophy and medical
ethics in the Philosophy Department of the University of Alabama.
Professor Pence's writings include Re-Creating Medicine: Ethical Issues
at the Frontiers of Medicine (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), Classic
Cases in Medical Ethics: Accounts of the Cases that Shaped Medical
Ethics (McGraw-Hill, 3rd edition 2000), Who's Afraid of Human Cloning?
(Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), Designer Food: Mutant Harvest or
Breadbasket of the World? (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). Dr. Pence's
newest book is Brave New Bioethics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).
