In this session human biotechnological enhancement proposals are treated from three different perspectives: (1) their relationship to the existing dialogue between climate change and religious eschatologies, (2) the theological anthropology that continues to shape public opinion on the limits of enhancement, and (3) the moral implications of situating enhancement within a market framework. Together, these papers engage transhumanisms and human enhancement as they intersect with contemporary challenges in ecology, economics and theological anthropology.
New contexts appear for religious eschatological reflections. This presentation focuses on the transhumanist vision of Ray Kurzweil and compares it with the ecological eschatology of Bruno Latour. Kurzweil argues for a horizontal understanding of the future without divine interference, for a continuous negotiation between spatial and temporal aspects of the future, and for a continuation of the present into the future but mostly with an emphasis on non-materiality, i.e., mind-uploading. Latour shares the horizontal framework but focuses entirely on the spatial aspect since times already up for the planet’s ecological system, and he emphasizes continuity for the material world since the entanglement of the biosphere makes salvation without the ecosystem unintelligible. The comparison highlights some of the particular themes in transhumanism eschatology and informs new conversations on religious eschatological reflection in general.
In this paper I argue that theological understandings of human nature are a major component of people’s views of human enhancement technologies. After examining studies regarding public perception of human enhancement technologies and studies exploring public perceptions of evolution, I contend the primary difference in views from these studies is how invasive enhancement technologies are. The resistance to enhancements that could change human nature I believe is connected to a theological anthropology that is too anthropocentric, and an extension of the position that humans were created by God in their present form at least 10,000 years ago. In order to address emerging technology, theology needs to do more constructive work regarding human nature and how humanity could evolve into one or more species other than Homo sapiens, both through natural and technologically assisted means.
Purchasing advantage and merit is a frequent topic for both secular and theological ethicists. Similar attention has been given to questions on the commodification of certain goods and the moral nature of blocked exchanges. Less common, however, is sustained consideration of the moral nature of the market itself as it affects and effects the moral perception of the purchase.
Presenting biotechnological enhancements within a market framework allows the user, and the larger society, to ignore, deny, or circumvent the moral status of (1) the goods purchased and (2) the permissability of the action of purchase itself. Framing the enhancements as "options" and "choices" that are offered freely in the market square obscures the moral questions involved and diminishes the ability to recognize and address these questions. Differentiating between enhancement as "purchase" and enhancement as "action" provides a lens through which to examine the moral and ethical issues at stake.