These papers analyze the external creation of our human capacities - including both our minds and even our wombs. These papers offer three critical perspectives for analyzing these emerging technologies: 1) the fundamental alienation that might accompany new reproductive technologies, 2) the potential distortion of the Image of God caused by botched human enhancements, and 3) the importance of metaphysical precision for resolving ethical debates. Together, these papers seek to clarify challenges within the debates around transhumanism and human enhancement over theological anthropology, ethics, and virtue.
In Nick Bostrom’s formulation of the “orthogonality thesis” in Superintelligence, he restricts the scope of “intelligence” to “something like skill at prediction, planning, and means-end reasoning in general.” I argue that Bostrom’s claims about “intelligence” are much better understood as claims about deinotēs, or “cleverness,” a trait which Aristotle identified as a capacity “to be able to do the actions that tend to promote whatever goal is assumed and to attain them.” Using the theistic ethical framework outlined by Robert Merrihew Adams in Finite and Infinite Goods, I argue that cleverness is an “impure excellence” (i.e. an excellence bound up with a deficiency) which cannot be properly attributed to God. Therefore, efforts to enhance human cleverness (whether by digital or biological means) result in human beings becoming “caricatures” of God, distorting the imago Dei by exaggerating certain features of God at the expense of others.
Ectogenesis—the process whereby humans are artificially gestated outside of the womb—may be around the corner. In recent years, researchers have made inroads toward such a breakthrough. In this paper, I explore the implications of ectogenesis for contemporary debates in bioethics. I also identify a serious danger ectogenesis poses: it may allow us to overlook the integral work that makes possible the birthing and raising of human beings. Being gestated artificially, in isolation from other humans, may reinforce the widespread illusion of humans’ fundamental separation from one another, traced in numerous state-of-nature theories of politics and justice. This is not an insuperable danger, however. We already stand in great need of a greater appreciation for humans’ interdependence. The possibility of ectogenesis, which may be just over the horizon, gives us an even stronger mandate for underscoring the interdependent nature of human beings. Religious traditions are uniquely positioned to do precisely that.
Within the dialogue between religion and transhumanism, transhumanists tend to focus on the objections that are raised against a given technology in order to overcome objections to technological development. However, this means that transhumanists can minimize the importance of philosophical and theological questions that are raised by their advocacy. For example, new advances in artificial intelligence such as large language models show signs of reasoning, but are they truly intelligent? Transhumanists tend to minimize these questions because they may undermine future technological development. Given the tendency of LLMs to hallucinate, philosopher Shannon Vallor suggests that it is better to understand our current rendition of AI as a mirror, rather than as a mind, as is the default within AI research. The dialogue between religion and transhumanism depends on the ability of critics to confront and resolve the fundamental questions that naturally arise from technological development.