Can Human enhancement technologies morally enhance humans? An African Perspective

Bio-moral enhancement has been presented as a possibility by several transhumanists and ethics experts, by leveraging the innovations within science and technology to improve or develop human moral sensibilities (Saavulescu 2019) Mark Walker’s propositions of the genetic virtue project (GVP) raise a lot of awareness for bio-moral enhancements, as well as criticisms. (Walker 2009)

Despite the potentials presented, the converse remains that not all cultures, traditions, and perspectives to personhood and what it means to be human see the human being as essentially bio-techno-scientific, especially when it comes to questions of morality and ethical behavioral tendencies. This paper posits that many of the virtues and characters lauded and esteemed within the African cultural system as the epitome of personhood are mostly social constructs, developed and integrated into the social systems through the different structures and pedagogical frameworks put in place, not just by biological or genetic inheritance. As such, bio-moral enhancement through science and technology has little to no benefit to offer the African episteme or society.

Within the African culture, personhood and being human is conceptualized from the ontological and normative or moral perspectives. The ontological notion of personhood pertains to the facts of being human, in both material/biological and immaterial senses aggregating “certain ontological facts that constitute a person qua human nature that [has] nothing to do with any social or cultural factor” just yet, it is the prima context for defining what it means to be human and a recognition of the state of being-ness within the African culture. This ontological notion of beingness stands in contrast to the bio-techno-scientific notion of being human which sponsors bio-moral enhancement. (Molefe 2019)

But that is not all that there is to being human within the African culture. There is also the  Normative or moral perspectives to personhood deals with the ethical and communal values that define the individual in light of the communal. In this case being human is a substrate of ethical imperatives and morality that guides the collective whole. Personhood and being a person thus attributed to level of moral expectations and normative identity that is meaningful only within a social construct. As noted by Molefe, “in the West, emphasis is placed on individual properties and less emphasis is placed on social relationships. In Africa, more emphasis is placed on social relationships and less on individual properties.” (Molefe 2019) Yorùbá social system is based on collective conscious – “communal values; collective good and shared ends,” it conceives of the person as “wholly constituted by social relationships.” (Fayemi 2017) That is not to say that Africans deny the existence of the individual self or person, however, the social construct of personhood also holds an equally important footing and is an important component of the development of morality and virtue.

Perhaps, it is in this context of the proposition for moral bio-enhancement development that human enhancement can be brought into dialogue with African traditions, in relation to virtue, morality, and ethical developments, although the African tradition does not share in the excitements of bio-moral enhancements as a viable possibility for developing moral sensibilities and integrating ethical behaviors into human society.