When the “Twilight of Justice”

WHEN THE “TWILIGHT OF JUSTICE” MEETS THE “DAWN OF NANOTECHNOLOGY”: A CRITIQUE OF TRANSHUMANISM AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE IN THE LIGHT OF GEORGE GRANT’S MORAL PHILOSOPHY

Janna Metcalfe Rosales

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Department and Centre for the Study of Religion

University of Toronto

When the “Twilight of Justice” Meets the “Dawn of Nanotechnology”: A Critique of Transhumanism and the Technological Imperative in the Light of George Grant’s Moral Philosophy

Janna Metcalfe Rosales

Doctor of Philosophy

Department and Centre for the Study of Religion

University of Toronto

2009

ABSTRACT

This dissertation examines how contemporary Western ethical perspectives frame

moral judgements about technologies intended to expand or enhance human abilities. Of

particular interest are technological advances that involve nanotechnology, a realm of

technoscience that seeks the precise control of matter through deliberately designing

structures, devices, and processes with novel and useful properties at the molecular scale.

In this thesis I analyze trends in the emerging dialogue about the social and ethical

implications of nanotechnology. There is growing awareness that technological “progress”

should not outpace critical reflection over the means and ends of those advances, but I argue

that there is a tension between the role of ethics and the practice of technoscience. By ethics

I mean ongoing public discussion that contemplates what it means to live a “good life” and

that maintains limits to human actions. By contrast, the practice of technoscience appears to

be guided by the “technological imperative” which holds that we can only know what is good

by first figuring out what is possible.

Despite concerted interdisciplinary efforts to address the broad range of ethical issues posed by nanotechnology’s proposed goals, the prevailing tone of the current discussion tends to reveal what I call a “technoprogressive” bias, or the belief that technological development is a primary way to improve the human estate and that it leads inevitably to cumulative progress. However, because technoprogressive commentary on nanotechnology focuses on concerns that are framed mainly in terms of risk assessment, cost-benefit analyses, and utilitarian principles, technoprogressive ethics overlooks crucial ethical questions of a different nature, questions that deal with the limits of human action, the nature of justice, and the meaning of being human.

To analyze the implications of technoprogressive ethics, I employ the moral philosophy of Canadian thinker George Grant because he articulates an underrepresented yet valuable critique of Western society’s relationship with technology. Grant speaks for a type of transcendental moral realism that challenges the primacy of the technological imperative, insisting that justice ultimately must be grounded upon non-negotiable limits, and that there are objective norms to which human freedom and human self-assertion have to answer.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A doctoral dissertation is as much a journey as it is a tangible (and often weighty!)

tome. There are many people to meet along the way: those who counsel, nudge, guide,

mentor, challenge, support, and cheer, whether for a moment or for the long haul. To each

one, I am grateful. I wish to express particular thanks to the following:

To my supervisor Larry Schmidt, whose guidance of this dissertation was steadfast but gentle, thorough but patient, always good-natured, and always judicious, allowing me the time and space to gather together those big thoughts. Big thoughts seldom entail easy answers, and in the midst of the necessary and protracted grappling that is involved in forming a comprehensive understanding of ethics, I remain grateful for Larry’s quiet conviction that tackling complex issues is always worthwhile.

To the members of my supervisory committee, Michael Vertin and Doug Perovic.

Despite being scheduled to retire from the university a few years ago, Michael honoured his remaining commitments and continued on as a conscientious and thoughtful advisor to my project. His guidance was diligent and always encouraging, and I appreciated the extra care he took to ensure clarity of thought, both on his part and mine. Doug proved a willing and enthusiastic supporter who, in spite of a demanding workload as Chair of the Materials

Science and Engineering department, displayed an admirable sense of adventure in taking up the challenge of a truly interdisciplinary project. His open-mindedness reassures me that interdisciplinary collaboration, though challenging, is both possible and rewarding.

To Ursula Franklin, for a wisdom cultivated and a conviction honed over the course of an extraordinary life, for her warm and generous spirit, and for always making the time to inquire, to counsel, and to connect.

To Michael Valpy, friend and fellow traveller in intellect and in spirit.

To David Hawkin, who set me delving into Grant’s thought in the first place during my undergraduate years; to Michael Shute, my Master’s supervisor who helped develop my interest in technology and ethics; and to the other faculty in the Department of Religious

Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland, who encouraged the kind of intellectual flourishing that allowed me to continue this academic journey.

To the staff and administration (past and present) at the Centre for the Study of

Religion, University of Toronto, particularly Marilyn Colaco, Irene Kao, Barb Mainguy,

Carol Canzano, and Fereshteh Hashemi, for their diligent work and ability to keep things running smoothly with good humour and friendly faces.

To Darin Barney at McGill University for his collegiality and his thoughtful work on technology and citizenship.

To Stephen Scharper at the University of Toronto for his mindfulness, humour, and grace in teaching.

To the following for their assistance in all things Grant-related: Sheila Grant, Vincent

Massey Tovell, William Christian, Edward Andrew, Art Davis, Henry Roper, and David

Cayley.

To the following, for the various seeds of thought they’ve sown: Gregory Baum,

Michael Bourgeois, Philip Byer, Avi Caplan, Patrick Crean, Jennifer Dyer, Margaret

Hancock, Katherine Hayles, Thomas Homer Dixon, Andrew House, Bob Hudspith, Yaacov

Iland, Mark Kingwell, Pamela Klassen, Travis Kroeker, Christopher Lind, Alain Lusignan,

Peter MacLeod, André Maintenay, Michael Mehta, Paul Miller, Andrew Muncaster, Michael

Neff, Dennis O’Hara, Craig Perfect, Ted Sargent, Ingrid Stefanovic, Gregory Stock, Charles

Taylor, Bill Vanderburg, Richard Walker, Lois Wilson, Langdon Winner, Gregor Wolbring, and Nora Young.

To John Fraser, Master of Massey College, to Elizabeth MacCallum, and to the

Massey College community: I am deeply grateful for the rich community life I have been blessed to share and the lifelong friends I have made.

To my extended family, near and far, for their kind thoughts and cheerleading.

To my friends, for their solidarity, sense of humour, and encouragement.

And finally, to my immediate family: Mom, Dad, and brother Michael. My epic voyage has stayed on course because you have been with me every step of the way. You’ve provided shoulders to lean on, a roof over my head, a contented space to write, hot meals, tech support, editorial advice, and comic relief, but most importantly, unwavering confidence, unconditional love, and unflagging support. I am truly blessed, and for all that, I thank you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ...... II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... IV TABLE OF CONTENTS...... VII PART ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THINKING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY ...... 1 CHAPTER 1 PROJECT SUMMARY ...... 2 How to think about technology and ethics ...... 14 Continental and Anglo-American thoughts on technology ...... 18 Relevance to the study of religion...... 22 Interdisciplinary relevance ...... 23 A word on sources...... 26 A word on method ...... 27 PART TWO: TRIANGULATING THE FOUNDATIONS: AN EXPOSITION OF GEORGE GRANT, TRANSHUMANISM, AND NANOTECHNOLOGY ...... 32 CHAPTER 2 INTRODUCTION TO GEORGE GRANT’S THOUGHT ON TECHNOLOGY...... 33 The modern emergence of technoscience...... 34 What is the particular relevance of philosophy to technology and ethics?...... 38 “The good” versus “values” ...... 43 Technology and the myth of progress ...... 52 The ambiguity of modernity ...... 56 On North America...... 63 CHAPTER 3 TRANSHUMANISM AND TRANSHUMANIST ETHICS...... 66 What is transhumanism?...... 66 A history of transhumanism ...... 70 Transhumanist ethics ...... 77 Biopolitics and democratic transhumanism...... 83 On human nature ...... 87 On human dignity...... 92 Human, humane or human-racist? ...... 94 On human freedom...... 97 Moral obligations ...... 104 CHAPTER 4 NANOTECHNOLOGY AND “NANOETHICS” ...... 106 A new technoscience ...... 106 A brief history of nano ...... 110 The Smalley-Drexler debate...... 117 Government contributions: The National Nanotechnology Initiative and beyond...... 121 How to think about nanotechnology: indirect, direct and conceptual contributions...... 125 What are nanotechnology’s current achievements? ...... 127 What does nanotechnology seek to accomplish? ...... 129 Nanotechnology and nature...... 132 The rhetoric of nanotechnology and transhumanism...... 136 Nanoethics ...... 138 Does nanotechnology require a new ethical approach?...... 144 Relinquishment, bans, and regulation...... 146 CHAPTER 5 GEORGE GRANT ON NORTH AMERICAN LIBERALISM AND JUSTICE ...... 154 What is the problem with liberalism? ...... 158 The twilight of justice...... 167 On tyranny ...... 169 What’s love got to do with it? ...... 175 Intimations of deprival...... 178

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PART THREE: WHAT IS GOOD TO MAKE OR UNMAKE? EVALUATING THE EFFECT OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE ON ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING...... 181 CHAPTER 6 THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE’S IMPLICATIONS FOR MOLECULAR MANUFACTURING...... 182 Ethical decision-making and molecular manufacturing ...... 183 Scenario planning ...... 188 Inside the technological imperative: the Foresight guidelines ...... 195 Beyond the technological imperative: George Grant’s critique ...... 203 “Values” and politics ...... 205 The other faces of tyranny...... 210 CHAPTER 7 THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE’S IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN ENHANCEMENT...... 218 Nanotechnology and human enhancement...... 220 The machine metaphor and human nature...... 224 Therapy and enhancement ...... 226 On eugenics...... 228 Loving one’s own: “accepting love” and “transforming love”...... 235 On limits...... 241 Does the “triumph of the will” lead to nihilism?...... 244 The tyranny of “choice” ...... 250 CHAPTER 8 THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE’S IMPLICATIONS FOR CIVIC ENGAGEMENT WITH NANOTECHNOLOGY...... 259 On “stakeholders” and citizens ...... 262 Technological convergence: Technoscience as a guiding vision for society ...... 269 What about “moral convergence”?...... 273 The tyranny of “values”?...... 276 What can we gather from Grant? ...... 279 CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSIONS ...... 285 WORKS CITED...... 303

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PART ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THINKING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY

“It requires…vigorous acts of intellect and will if the individual is to stand apart and judge what truth there is in his own vision and in the visions of his society.”

George Grant Philosophy in the Mass Age (1959)

CHAPTER 1

PROJECT SUMMARY

This inquiry examines how modern Western society frames ethical issues associated with “revolutionary” or “emerging” technologies that promise to improve the human condition. What is the current state of ethical analyses offered in commentaries of how

“revolutionary” technology is poised to change the world and the nature of human being?

What types of biases do commentators reveal in their evaluations? Are there any perspectives missing from commentary on ethics and emerging technology?

My thesis posits that there is a bias among many Western, and specifically North

American, commentators when they formulate questions about and make judgements on the ethical issues raised by “human enhancement” technology. That bias is towards implicitly assuming, and sometimes overtly assenting, that technological development is key to improving the human condition. In other words, the ways in which modern liberal society deliberates over what is good to make and to strive for in terms of human progress is informed by a particular assumption that can be called the “technological imperative.” I refer to the reasoning that says the only way to determine what is good to do is to first determine what is possible for science and technology, or more aptly “technoscience,” to create. This means that it is necessary to find out through experimentation whether something can technically be done before any judgement can be made about whether it ought to be done, at least within experimental confines. This thesis does not oppose experimental science outright; rather it focuses on the challenges posed to ethical deliberation when experimental technoscience is guided by the technological imperative. As Ulrich Beck (1992; see also

2 3

Cayley 2007b) observes, society itself has become the laboratory for modern technoscience because technoscience often creates phenomena that it is not able to predict or control; for example, the effect of nuclear weapons on human beings could not really be known until they were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Indeed, Robert Oppenheimer is often cited as the one who expresses the technological imperative most eloquently: “If something is technically sweet, then you must go ahead with it” (quoted in Grant, 1965/2005b, p. 258). Refusing to go ahead is tantamount to opposing progress. The consequence of the technological imperative on ethical judgement is this: rather than providing a standard that defines what should and should never be done, ethical deliberation risks becoming an instrument to rationalize what technoscience makes possible (Ramsey, 1970, p. 122-3).

The technological imperative is most apparent in the ethical stances of the technoprogressive outlook known as transhumanism. Transhumanism is a movement that claims that we as a society have a moral obligation to develop technology intended to improve the human condition. This thesis will investigate and evaluate the nature and implications of that obligation. However, if transhumanism is the most obvious example of the way in which the technological imperative and advocacy for technological progress can be transformed into a moral imperative, my thesis further argues that the technological imperative extends beyond self-identified technoprogressive perspectives and pervades much of North American liberalism’s deliberations over the means and ends to improve the human condition through technology. To this end, I will examine both transhumanist and

“mainstream” commentary on the promises and perils of the emerging technoscientific field known as nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology promises thorough and inexpensive control over the very structure and composition of matter. For its proponents this means nothing less than a revolution in how we manufacture goods, cure disease, compute with increased power and complexity, and alleviate suffering. For its critics, nanotechnology harbours significant peril, including currently unknown toxic effects of nanoscale particles, the acceleration of a global arms race based on “smart” military technology, and the possible gradual dehumanization of human relationships resulting from a society that has become complacent about eugenic practices.

I will conduct my critical analysis of transhumanist commentary on the ethics of nanotechnology using an interpretive lens provided by the moral philosophy of Canadian thinker George Grant. According to Grant, as he outlines in Technology and Justice (1986), the technological imperative disconnects means from ends and renders our sense of limits largely irrelevant, making it difficult to think comprehensively about the practice of ethics and justice, which by their nature require some sort of acceptance of boundaries and standards. A thinker with intellectual roots in Christianity and classical Greek philosophy,

Grant contends that it is essential to ask questions about “the good” if we are to make adequate judgements about technology.

Grant (1986) means “good” in the sense of fitting within the order inherent in a beneficent universe (p. 42). Questions of objective and absolute “good” have faded from modern discussions of ethics in favour of weighing subjective and competing “values” within society, but according to Grant’s interpretation, speaking of “values” treads too closely into the unacceptable territory of moral relativism, a framework of ethical decision-making in which there are no standards by which to judge people’s actions as objectively right or wrong. As long as they express themselves in terms of “values,” then modern, and generally

5 utilitarian, ethical systems prove themselves inadequate--and perhaps even fundamentally flawed--to assess the pressing and profound issues spurred by 21st Century technological

change. Technological development may be good at what it does, in terms of meeting

standards like efficiency, productivity, or cost-effectiveness, but Grant believes that we must

ultimately judge whether or not the potential that the technological drive opens up is actually

good. In light of this, Grant insists that absolute standards and a hierarchy of normative

goods are still relevant to ethical inquiry. His belief in an absolute good accords with what

Rist (2002) broadly terms as “transcendental moral realism” (p. 1).

I use groundwork laid generally by the principles of transcendental moral realism and by Grant in particular because I believe that human beings have an innate ability to discern and orient themselves to general external standards (classically known as “the good”) that possess a reality that is prior to any particular moral choice that human beings have to make.

A moral life is thus one lived in accordance with those given standards, standards that apply to every human being, regardless of whether one embraces, flatly denies, or is unaware of that reality. That claim is implicit to Grant’s moral philosophy, but for a more explicit explanation of the normative processes by which human beings know themselves, make decisions, and ultimately come to moral judgements, I refer the reader to the work of philosopher Bernard Lonergan (1999) whose “transcendental method” finds traction because it is verifiable in human experience. This dissertation will therefore argue for the validity of a broadly-conceived transcendental moral realism in the context of making moral judgements about technological ways and means to improve the human condition.

The early years of the 21st Century can be defined in the West by an accelerating pace of technological change. The advances achieved by nanotechnology draw attention to the

6 great technological strides taken and proposed to be taken in the new millennium.

Nanotechnology involves scientific research and technology development at the scale of 1-

100 nm (a nanometre is one billionth of a metre; by way of comparison, a sheet of paper is

100,000 nm thick, and DNA is 2 nm wide). At the nanoscale, matter displays unique phenomena which nanotechnology research and development seeks to understand, harness, and exploit.

On a scientific and technical level, nanotechnology research has applications in medicine, engineering, computing, chemistry, biotechnology, and materials science. Its specific innovations range from treating cancer via targeted drug delivery systems, to creating smaller and faster computer processors, to producing cheaper or more efficient sources of energy, to designing materials that are lighter, more durable, and responsive to environmental conditions. While many nanotechnological applications are still in their infancy, coverage of nanotechnology in the popular press expresses much enthusiasm for, speculation about, and even visionary promises of the ways in which nanotechnology can better the human condition (e.g., Bostrom, 2003a; Drexler, 1990, 1991; Hughes, 2004; Kahn,

2006; McCarthy, 2001; Scientific American, 2001; Scientific American Reports, 2007).

Terms such as “revolutionary,” “transformative,” and “strategic” are used to describe the intent behind nanotechnology development (Einsiedel & Goldenberg, 2004, p. 28; Moriarty,

2005, p. 115; Mnyusiwalla, Daar, & Singer, 2003, p. R9; Roco & Bainbridge, 2002, p. ix).

This is because on a more philosophical level, research in nanotechnology fundamentally affects how we understand our power to shape the world by transforming how we understand and control matter.

When we have the power to intervene, manipulate, and control matter deliberately at increasingly finer scales, the possibilities to experiment, to modify, and to “improve” become virtually infinite, limited only by the laws of physics and the capacity of the human imagination. The expansion of our knowledge base is usually considered “progress” because the application of that knowledge harbours potential to ensure material abundance, protect the environment, and enable more people to live longer, healthier lives. In other words, research in nanotechnology holds forth the promise to deliver on the things that Western liberal society takes for granted are “good.” Advances in nanotechnology also promise to have a profound and pervasive effect on how we understand our relationship with nature, with matter, and with other human beings. What are we to make of the potential bounty on the one hand and the plethora of challenges ahead on the other hand, given technical advances in genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, sophisticated computing, biomedicine, and now, nanotechnology?

One way to understand those advances is through the perspective of transhumanism.

Transhumanism is a movement or ideology that advocates the development of, and widespread, equitable access to, new technologies which promise to enhance and expand human capabilities such as cognition, memory, and sensory capacities. More significantly, transhumanism seeks primarily through technological means to transcend human

“limitations” such as suffering, disease, aging, and even death. Of specific interest to me is how transhumanism makes ethical judgements about emerging developments in nanotechnology. While some technology commentators and ethicists express concern, wariness, and even alarm at some of nanotechnology’s putative goals, transhumanists in particular are largely confident that we will address competently the social and ethical issues

8 that arise from the kind of far-reaching, paradigm-shifting changes that nanotechnology supposedly will precipitate. Although they insist that nanotechnology, in combination with other technoscientific advances in biotechnology, genetics, and artificial intelligence, could drastically change how we are born, how we live, and how we die, many transhumanists firmly believe that the mainly utilitarian ethical frameworks currently upheld within Western, democratic, contractual liberalism provide sufficient foundations to navigate the uncertain path ahead (Bostrom, 2003a,b; Hughes, 2004). It strikes me as somewhat contradictory or ironically short-sighted for transhumanists to claim on the one hand that the human condition as we know it is destined for profound change and yet on the other hand to largely overlook the possibility that our ethical frameworks might need to be rethought as well. In light of that oversight, I believe a deeper scrutiny of the ways in which Western society thinks about

“revolutionary” technology is in order.

Indeed, already there is an emerging academic and public discourse on the social and ethical implications of nanotechnology. Part II of this dissertation will outline what constitutes an “ethical” assessment of nanotechnology from a transhumanist standpoint and what constitutes “ethical” assessment of nanotechnology according to nanotechnology researchers. Although the broader North American public has not taken widespread or overt interest in embracing clearly-articulated transhumanist goals, there are a growing number of resources available to the public and there are distinct transhumanist organizations attempting to influence emerging dialogue and public policy decisions on the social and ethical implications of nanotechnology. It may come as no surprise that transhumanist contributions to ethical discourse in nanotechnology often resound with the rhetoric of technological progressivism which declares that technological advance is key to human

9 progress. Those sceptical of brash rhetoric may be able to dismiss transhumanism as a quirky but insignificant techno-utopian fringe movement. However, even though transhumanist stances on technological progress are sometimes disparaged as extreme, overly ambitious, utopian, or unrealistic, this thesis will demonstrate that the rhetoric of

“technoprogressivism” is found both in transhumanist literature and “mainstream” commentary. Moreover, that rhetoric is backed by research agendas and emerging results that do point towards transhumanist goals. I seek to show that many transhumanist arguments root themselves in progress-oriented presuppositions familiar to, accepted by, and taken for granted in contemporary North American technological society. In fact, there is much crossover between how nanotechnology is perceived by self-professed transhumanists and by prominent researchers and commentators who do not hold that overt philosophical commitment.

Given the diverse frameworks people use to make private and public moral choices and ethical decisions in North America, North American liberalism may seem to provide an open, tolerant, and, most importantly, neutral arena in which to discuss the social and ethical issues of nanotechnology. However, Canadian political philosopher George Grant claims that North American liberalism, with its secular, utilitarian, and contractual orientation, possesses biases regarding what is good, biases which do not adequately allow it to assess critically the profound societal changes promised by new technological developments such as nanotechnology. Grant argues that North American liberalism is biased in favour of the technological imperative, which means that liberalism tends to justify the technoscientific project rather than offer any robust critique of the paradigm. According to Grant, what liberalism--including the progressivist leanings of transhumanism and the visionary rhetoric

10 of nanotechnology--fails to understand is that a paradigm of “progress” that is expressed primarily in technological terms denies the possibility of accounting for an eternal, unchanging conception of “the good” towards which we can orient our thoughts and actions.

For my own part, and from a Grantian perspective, this is what is missing from contemporary, often technoprogressivist, discussions of the ethical implications of nanotechnology.

The good is essential to perspectives that align with transcendental moral realism.

More specifically, the good is indispensable for Grant because he draws upon a thought tradition grounded in Christian and Greek philosophy which asserts that the world comes forth from goodness itself, a source that is external to us, unchanging, and eternal. This contrasts with the prevailing modern technoscientific worldview which is ostensibly silent on the question of the universe’s goodness and asserts that its knowledge of the world is value- neutral. At the very least, modern technoscience claims, we cannot know what is good until we know what is possible. It is common in North American society to assume that modern ethical thought should frame ethical questions by first separating objective facts from subjective values and then weighing tradeoffs in benefits and harms via a calculus that mainly involves risk assessments and cost-benefit analyses. Grant approaches the question from a different angle because he believes this kind of calculation provides inadequate language to evaluate issues that ultimately deal with an unchanging standard of justice and the human good.

Part of identifying that inadequacy is to challenge some of the fundamental assumptions of modern North American society. For instance, Grant objects to the way that society frames matters of moral judgement in terms of subjective and competing yet

11 comparable “values” and the way that modern science claims by contrast to be objective and neutral. I will examine each in more detail in chapter 2; here it is most important to note that

Grant makes an essential distinction between “values” and “the good.” Grant insists that the modern concept of “values” originates from a much different understanding of the world than ethical perspectives that had been traditionally phrased in the language of the good.

Although Grant never referred to himself as an ethicist or a moral philosopher and did not employ systematic definitions for concepts such as “ethics” or “morality,” or even

“values” and “the good,” he did believe that there are some sources beyond the human will by which to judge the worth or goodness of human actions, particularly in the context of making decisions about technology. For example, he spoke frequently of the good in terms of “justice” which he argues has a reality beyond human beings’ own wills, desires, and preferences. It particularly has a wider and deeper connotation than modern interpretations of contractual justice. Grant’s point is to distinguish between language that recognizes a moral order beyond that created by human beings, and language that implies that human beings are solely responsible for imbuing meaning, purpose, and order in the world. The

“good” refers to the former view, while “values” pertains to the latter, and thus the two are not interchangeable because they presuppose entirely different views of the universe. Main contributors to the nanotechnology dialogue, transhumanist and otherwise, emphasize ethical frameworks grounded in this-worldly values of self-determination, of freedom, of choice, and of the utilitarian pursuit of “happiness” for the greatest number. By contrast, Grant believes that speaking about ethical commitments in terms of “values” that are grounded solely in the human will obscures the necessary recognition of beneficence, order, and purpose in the universe.

As I have noted, clarifying and distinguishing between values and the good is crucial because the language in which one expresses matters of morality and ethics determines how one answers fundamental questions of meaning and purpose, good and evil, right and wrong.

Contemporary moral discourse about emerging technology currently favours a dialogue that compares and weighs “values” and lacks an orientation towards questions of the “good.”

This is likely because Western ethical thought evolved along with modern scientific and technological methods of inquiry to eschew reliance on transcendent causes and purposes to explain the world. The problem with “values” is that the term is frequently used without society having a clear understanding of the philosophical--and potentially nihilistic-- implications of the term. Inattention to the difference between “the good” and “values” confuses ethical reasoning and renders it vague, and ultimately empties decision-making of its moral weight. Because the idea of “values” can cover a variety of reasons why people believe what they do, from arbitrary personal taste to deep religious commitment, the idea of objective, shared standards for action is thrown sharply into question. In the absence of any other guiding principle, it seems in North American society that ethical deliberation tends to rationalize the way that the technological imperative separates means from ends and therefore increasingly makes any comprehensive discussion of ethics and limits effectively meaningless (Schmidt, 2008, p. 10).

While transhumanism represents the extreme version of the technological will to predict, to manipulate, and to control, I contend that the difference between transhumanism’s preoccupation with technological development and that of mainstream liberalism is only a matter of degree. The technological imperative pervades the ethical worldviews of both transhumanism and modern liberalism. Against both of these worldviews I will contrast

Grant’s understanding of justice and the human good that purports to transcend the technological fixation of both transhumanism and mainstream Western society. What, if any, is the place of a moral philosophy which believes that ultimately we are not masters of our world and that “justice” is not something that we measure and define, but rather something by which we are measured and defined (Cayley, 1986; Grant, 1986), especially given that the predominant spirit of our age is one which embraces innovation through mastery and manipulation of human and non-human nature? From the standpoint of transcendental moral realism, I believe that Grant reminds us of some foundational questions for moral judgement.

Although Grant died before nanotechnology coalesced into the burgeoning research field it is today, his perspective offers a rich and relevant critique of society’s technologically-oriented definition of progress, and a provocative counterpoint to the transhumanist view. His thought challenges contemporary assumptions about what is

“good,” made most obviously by transhumanist thinkers, and which underlie some of the proposed aims of nanotechnology. As it is in ancient Greek and Christian traditions of thought, for Grant, truth, beauty, and goodness are objective qualities in the world; because of this and in light of humanity’s extensive creative capacities, his fundamental question to technological society (1975/1998, p. 414) is how do we know what is good “to make or unmake?”

While the fruits of its labours are largely unripe, the concept of nanotechnology represents powerful methods of making and unmaking our surroundings. I propose Grant’s perspective as an alternative way to think about technology and ethics because I am not convinced that the moral frameworks of North American liberalism are fully equipped to deliberate over what is ultimately good and what should never be done. The question of

14 limits is a particularly contentious aspect of the discussion: while Grant believes there are intrinsic limitations to being human, transhumanists are committed to overcoming those limitations through whatever methods technological advance makes possible. In light of

Grant’s potent criticism of North American liberalism for its tendency towards technological progressivism and its emphasis on freedom as the defining essence of humanity, I will argue that this society’s abandonment of a comprehensive understanding of “the good” does not free society from the unnecessary constraints of absolute morality but rather impoverishes the study of the social and ethical issues of nanotechnology. A recurring theme among technology critics is the need for perspectives that can rise above the demands of a technological society, for perspectives that do not end up simply justifying the assumptions of the status quo. I believe that transcendental moral realism, particularly the version Grant argues for, offers just that opportunity. Grant was concerned that the ethics of utilitarianism and pragmatism are not sufficiently robust to critique the society in which they were cultivated, and his appeal to classical philosophy is his attempt to think through technology outside the contemporary context.1

How to think about technology and ethics

The study of technology and ethics has only relatively recently earned a place as a

distinct academic discipline. Political scientist Langdon Winner speculates this is so because

the notion of progress has been so influential on Western social thought since the Industrial

Age, and the fruits of progress have been so tangible, so ubiquitous, and so obvious that they

1 Other contemporary thinkers similarly have attempted to think beyond the technological imperative, such as Albert Borgmann (1992), Jacques Ellul (1964; 1965/1973; 1973/1975, 1988/1990), William A. Stahl (1999) and Willem Vanderburg (2000).

15 do not invite significant critical assessment. Contrary to what one might expect, our thorough commitment to the technological enterprise is no guarantee of our thorough consideration of the nature of that commitment (Winner, 1986, p. 3). Despite the existence of ample compilations of histories of science and technology, and even despite the existence of voluminous contributions to the philosophy of technology, little of lasting import among those writings helps us to think through the profound effect technology has on our lives.

While modern technoscience strives to realize dreams and visions about what can be done to

“engineer a better tomorrow,” society remains unclear about what ought to be done, which leaves us, according to Winner, in a state of “technological somnambulism” (p. 5) where we innovate first and ask questions later.

In the context of my thesis, it seems that technological society generally and transhumanism specifically are entrenched in a long history of assumptions about the meaning of technological progress which makes it difficult for these conceptual frameworks to be aware of, much less take a critical look at, not only how technology makes life “better” but how it changes our conception of what “better” is. Despite notable technological disasters such as Three Mile Island or industrialization’s cumulative effects on global warming, technological development has delivered quite well on promises of “progress” and consequently there has been little impetus to seriously reconsider global, and specifically

North American, society’s reliance on technology to ameliorate human suffering and to encourage human betterment. For example, although environmental crises raise our awareness that some technologies have detrimental effects, our search for solutions commonly remains technologically-oriented; i.e., for every technological problem, we believe there is a technological solution. Given the accelerating pace and widespread effects

16 of those undertakings deemed “technological development,” transhumanist commentators, nanotechnology researchers, and critics of technology speculate that the future promises radical changes for human experience, including how we will be born, how we will meet the demands of survival, how we will age, and how we will die. Now more than ever, we must attend to how our ideas about “progress,” “betterment,” and “the good” affect how we ask questions and make decisions about technology.

So too we must be aware of how we define technology in the first place. The

“instrumentalist” view of technology defines it as a collection of tools that are inherently neutral in terms of their moral standing (Martin and Schinzinger, 2005, pp.279-280; Schmidt,

2008, p. 3). In this situation, “ethics” refers to whether the tool is used well or badly depending on the context of the situation and the intention of the user; it is assumed that there is nothing intrinsically good or bad about the technology itself. This position is known as an instrumentalist view of technology because it sees machines and devices as means to an end.

According to this view, determining the “proper” or ethical use of machines and devices entails a debate about what ends we want to use technology for, and what our values are that guide our use of technology. As such, it is a matter to be deliberated by guardians of values, be they policy makers, the government, the legal system, cultural and spiritual communities, and public interest groups.

This instrumentalist, “conventional” definition of technology may strike many as unremarkable, taken for granted because of the everyday familiarity most people have with technology. What this definition misses, however, are the varied but pervasive ways in which technology structures human activity. Understood more broadly as a flow of matter and energy, technology becomes an all-encompassing system, no longer various instruments

17 which aid human activity but rather a force in itself that changes how people engage in activity and what meaning they derive from it. Technology critics such as Jacques Ellul

(1964) and Willem Vanderburg (2000) have remarked on the ways that a technological system—whether factories, bureaucracies, universities, or the mass media—will often operate with certain priorities such as efficiency, profitability, or productivity at its core.

Given those underlying “values,” the technological system therefore cannot be considered value-neutral. Furthermore, each new technology becomes part of the system and the system in turn reshapes society’s workings. There is an interplay between how we shape technology to fit our needs and how technology’s inherent demands also shape us (Franklin 1999;

Vanderburg, 2000).

Some commentators, such as Martin Heidegger (1977) and George Grant (1986), provide an even more profound analysis of technology, contending that there is a qualitative difference between the technological essence of today and of the past. For them, the nature and drive of current technological developments possess fundamentally different transformative powers, in terms of scale, increasing speed of change, effects on future generations of humanity, the tendency towards irreversibility, and the resolutely forward- looking fixation on surpassing previous achievements. From this perspective, technology becomes an ontology, a way of being that orients the way in which we derive purpose and meaning from human existence. Nothing escapes the technological gaze because everything, from food production to disease prevention to baby-making, can be subject to improvement.

Technology and ethics become intimately intertwined because technology opens up possible realms of being that press us to deliberate about what we think it is to live morally and well.

In light of this relatively new way to relate to technology, those thinkers such as Grant who

18 interpret technology as ontology often argue that because technology is such a pervasive way of life, this society is unable to step outside the paradigm provided by the technological imperative in order to deliberate comprehensively about the moral and ethical dilemmas posed by the transformative power of technology.

Continental and Anglo-American thoughts on technology

When it comes to thinking about technology, there is a broad spectrum of specific theories rooted in social scientific methodologies and philosophical schools of thought. For

the purposes of this thesis, however, I will highlight two general philosophical styles which I

believe accurately illustrate modern trends of thought with regards to critiques of technology,

particularly in the emerging discussion of nanotechnology: that which follows what Mitcham

and Nissenbaum (1998) call the “Continental” philosophical tradition and that which follows

an “Anglo-American” philosophical tradition (p. 280). The Continental tradition generally

understands technology as a worldview or an ontology, meaning that technology can be

analyzed holistically as a distinct phenomenon that has fundamentally transformed humanity

and calls for a new approach to ethics. Some representatives of this style of critique are Hans

Jonas, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Ellul, and in Canada, George Grant. The Anglo-American

tradition tends more to treat technology as sets of tools or objects divided amongst disciplines

such as computing, medicine, engineering and bioscience. It uses concepts and approaches

of traditional ethical theory such as utilitarianism and identifies themes such as

responsibility, autonomy, risk, and equity as common ground when speaking of technology,

but insists that each type of technology poses a unique set of concerns. Transhumanism falls

19 into this school of thought. Although “Anglo-American” is a contemporary label, the perspective grows from an intellectual tradition influenced by English-speaking thinkers such as Francis Bacon, John Stuart Mill, Charles Darwin, and John Rawls.

A brief survey of Continental critiques of technology will highlight salient features of that tradition. Hans Jonas is credited with making the most sustained argument for treating technology as a special subject for ethics (Mitcham and Nissenbaum, 1998, p. 281). Modern times have witnessed a change in the role that technology plays in society. While politics and religion have played a role front and centre in imbuing meaning to human civilizations, technology was previously treated as a neutral activity without a higher moral purpose. As human self-understanding changes, now we see technology emerge as a distinct phenomenon, one that dominates, mediates, and often gives meaning to human experience.

According to Jonas (1984), “modern technology has introduced actions of such novel scale, objects, and consequences that the framework of former ethics can no longer contain them”

(p. 6). Similarly, in recognizing the pervasive influence of technology, Martin Heidegger argues that technology or technoscience now becomes a form of truth and of revelation. He states that “[t]echnology is a mode of revealing,” but it does not reveal in an impartial or passive way; technology has a certain aggressive character in that it challenges the world to give its instrumental reasons for being, whether land to be farmed, seeds to be grown, oil to be extracted, molecules to be rearranged, or human beings to be effectively organized (pp.

14-15). Technology allows nature not only to be understood on complex levels, but also, and more importantly, to be used. Jacques Ellul (1964) affirms the pervasive nature of technology when he asserts that technology or technique “is the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of

20 human activity” (p. xxv). Ellul claims that this society has placed an overarching emphasis on rationality and efficiency as goals towards which to strive as ends in themselves.

Technology has become a sociological phenomenon with these characteristics as its primary cornerstones, and this makes the technology of today qualitatively different from technologies of the past.

The Anglo-American contribution to a discussion of technology and ethics does not consist so much of notable philosophers with distinct holistic theories on the nature of technology as much as it consists of analyses that discuss particular technologies, such as in biomedical ethics, information technology, professional engineering ethics, or environmental science. What these fields do have in common is a discourse that frames ethical questions in terms of equity and justice, risk assessment, responsibility for technology, and the impact of technology on liberty and autonomy (Mitcham and Nissenbaum, 1998, p. 282). Technology is understood to be value-neutral and its use negotiated within the values of the society that adopts it. In Western society, these discussions tend to be framed against the backdrop of secular, liberal, democratic public policy debates which assumes a certain common understanding of fundamental values indicative of this kind of political structure, such as freedom for self-determination and access to equal opportunities. It tends to assume that society is composed of informed, autonomous individuals who consent to a social contract that values a balance between the greatest good for the greatest number and respect for individual rights and freedoms. The content of the ethical dilemmas that liberalism encounters may be new, so this stance claims, but liberal democratic society already possesses adequate tools in terms of open debate, activism, and policy-making to navigate the waters.

Certainly this is not an exhaustive survey of ways to approach technological ethics.

Within each broad designation, there is a great variety of thought, and not all of it is in consonance. However, it is useful to keep in mind the Continental and the Anglo-American philosophical styles in order to situate current transhumanist discussions of technology on this ethical landscape. Generally speaking, when the Continental tradition evaluates technology as a whole, it tends to conclude that a conventional understanding of technology as tool cannot adequately address the moral issues raised by current and projected technology. By contrast, the Anglo-American approach insists on the neutrality of technology and tends to adapt existing ethical frameworks grounded in utilitarian, deontological, or consequentialist foundations.

In terms of the inquiry at hand, George Grant takes a page from the Continental tradition when he states that technology is the ontology of the age: modern technological society is the inescapable context in which we understand ourselves and find meaning, defined by ways of knowing and doing that are unlike ages past. The rise of technology to the forefront of our existence further eclipses traditional interpretations of justice grounded in classical Greek and Judaeo-Christian philosophies. Grant believes this eclipse to be detrimental to humanity’s quest to discern its proper place in an ordered, meaningful universe. By contrast, the ethical reflections of transhumanism reside within the Anglo-

American tradition and portray a future of infinite possibility and potential to be realized through humanity’s self-directed evolution. As with any revolutionary undertaking, peril and pitfall may await, but so do the promises of greatly enhanced abilities, longer and healthier lives, and the freedom to plumb the depths of one’s potential without limits imposed by absolute morality. Justice lies in maximizing individual and collective well-being,

22 minimizing risk of global existential catastrophe, and ensuring equitable access to enhancement technology.

Relevance to the study of religion

Because this inquiry is being conducted from within a department of religion, I will say a word about its relevance to the field. This investigation is relevant to the study of religion because discussions on the ethics and social impacts of new technologies call for reflection on “values,” “justice,” ideas of “the good,” and ultimately on the meaning and purpose of human life.2 Although transhumanists do not consider their perspective to be

religious and although they assert that they make no claims about the purpose and meaning

of life as religions generally do, I believe that transhumanism’s underlying assumptions do

imply an ideological commitment.3 Transhumanist precepts both make implicit claims and

take explicit stances on certain values and ideas of the human good, and this inevitably is a

position on ultimate value. Such ideologies as transhumanism and its progenitor, Western

secular contractual liberalism, have links to the faith we place in progress and to this

society’s pervasive, underlying commitment to the redemptive power of technology. Some

scholars argue that Western technological society’s emphasis on progress--and

2 In 1975 when George Grant was chair of the Department of Religion at Hamilton’s McMaster University, he insisted that departments of religion should dedicate themselves to raising questions of ultimate meaning and divine being, and not to be “just another department churning out stuff and preparing people who will churn out more stuff…” (quoted in Graham, 1996, p. 295). 3 Far from eschewing the significance of religion to human beings, transhumanism asserts that humanist interpretations of religion are compatible with its outlook. See World Transhumanist Association, http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/communities/religious/ (accessed January 4, 2006). Indeed, there are a growing number of articles, conferences, and research initiatives on the relationship between transhumanism and religion, as attested to by such developments as the Religion and Transhumanism special issue (August 2005) of the Journal of Evolution and Technology 14(2), a new conference session on transhumanism and religion at the American Academy of Religion’s 2008 Annual Meeting, and a four year project called “Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science, Technology” that began in 2006 at Arizona State University, sponsored by the Templeton Foundation.

23 transhumanism’s subsequent preoccupation with pushing the limits of progress--has roots both in the Enlightenment pursuit of truth through scientific reasoning and in Judaeo-

Christian themes of redemption, salvation, and linear history, as opposed to the cyclic nature of history as found in other belief systems (Ellul, 1973/1975; Grant 1959/1995; Grant, 1986;

Stahl, 1999). This thesis owes a debt to such scholarship for highlighting those explicitly religious themes and picks up on that thread of thought insofar as it argues that technology influences ethical frameworks and affects systems of ultimate meaning.

The study of George Grant’s moral philosophy also offers insight to the study of religion because of Grant’s standing as a political philosopher with a commitment to

Christianity. Grant’s lifelong meditations on progress, on “values,” and on the relationship between technology and justice always led him back to questions of faith, of love, and of the good, questions of perennial interest to the study of religion. Even so, Grant did not confine himself to traditional disciplinary boundaries; his questions were not the sole domain of either politics or religion or philosophy, which is something one must keep in mind as one considers the breadth and interdisciplinary relevance of his thought.

Interdisciplinary relevance

Beyond the project’s relevance to the study of religion, there is an explicit demand in

nanotechnology circles for more participation from the humanities and social sciences in

dialogues on the social and ethical implications of nanotechnology (Baird, 2007; Fogelberg

and Glimell, 2003; Roco & Bainbridge, 2001; Sargent, 2005; Schummer, 2004; Schummer,

2005). Despite copious private and public investment in nanotechnology research and

24 development on national and global scales, relatively little is spent on research to examine its potential societal implications, whether that means determining the safety of nanoparticles on human beings and the environment, or addressing the implications of widespread human enhancement through cybernetic implants, pharmaceuticals, genetic therapies, and brain- machine interfaces (Mnyusiwalla, Daar and Singer, 2003). Thus, if research in nanotechnology is still in its infancy, evaluation of the moral and ethical questions associated with such research is embryonic. Fortunately, those within nanotechnology research circles increasingly recognize that discussion of moral, social, legal, and ethical issues should not lag behind technological development, as some believe it has done in regards to biotechnology and nuclear technology (Einsiedel and Goldenberg, 2004; Mehta, 2004).

Lessons learned from biotechnology make it clear that just because novel products or processes can be engineered (such as genetically modified foods) does not mean they can, will, or should be integrated easily or uncritically into society. This society must expend the effort to continually examine the broader implications of adopting new technologies. More importantly, we as citizens must seriously consider how society’s technological ambitions shape and change its collective approach to deciding what is right and good to do.

The contribution of this line of research thus will be twofold. First, it will demonstrate the general relevance of a contemporary Canadian thinker to the theory and practice of modern ethics while applying his critique within the specific and novel contexts of nanotechnology and transhumanism. Grant’s critique of modernity’s preoccupation with technological progress is incisive. I believe his assessment of this society’s anaemic moral discourse to be accurate. But critics often are not heeded in the society which they critique.

As a result, in recent years Grant’s reflections on technology have not attracted the sustained

25 attention they deserve. As a philosopher and critic of the modern age, Grant committed himself to describe accurately the nature of modernity, to illuminate and clarify the assumptions and “truths” commonly unquestioned by the public, and to encourage people to think critically about technology. It is essential to continue such critical reflection on the means and ends of technology as we continue to adopt new ways of knowing and making.

This project therefore is also a response to the aforementioned demand for interdisciplinary dialogue in the field of nanotechnology. Appropriate questions need to be raised in the scientific and public domains concerning the ultimate aims of and underlying assumptions about technological society’s pursuit of progress. Transhumanist outlooks can be found in areas of engineering, computing, biotechnology, law, communication, and policy-making, to name a few. Because such disciplines will be essential to advancing research in nanotechnology, the transhumanist views which pepper specialist thinking in those disciplines deserve to be recognized as relevant to the debate, rather than dismissed simply as techno-utopian. So far, transhumanist thinkers, while few in number, have striven to contribute significantly and early on with regards to how social and ethical questions about nanotechnology are framed. Meanwhile, the scientific and technical communities are beginning to recognize the fruitful contributions of the more contemplative disciplines, such as philosophy and religious studies, in discerning questions of justice and the good raised by scientific and technical advancements. In the early stages of this interdisciplinary dialogue I seek to raise critically reflective questions about the relationship between the language of value, the notion of progress, and the meaning of justice as it relates to the human good in a technologically-oriented society.

A word on sources

The types of philosophical and ethical questions raised in this dissertation call for a

method of inquiry grounded in the critical analysis of various primary sources. Although I

believe that, to date, sustained attention to his stance on technology leaves something to be

desired, general scholarship on Grant has been modest but consistent over the past few

decades. Grant himself leaves an academic and philosophical legacy that spans almost forty

years and includes volumes of essays, public addresses, radio broadcasts, and television

interviews.4 In this sense he was truly a public intellectual who strove not only to make

philosophy accessible to the layperson but more importantly to empower the public to think

through for itself questions of ultimate meaning and purpose. This dissertation draws on the

primary sources of Grant’s own scholarship as well as secondary material written about his

thought both before and after his death.

Although it is only over the past two decades that transhumanism emerged as a more

organized body of thought, there is ample primary source material to draw on, including a

significant amount of online material. Some of the material is non-academic in nature, such

as the World Transhumanist Association website and the Transhumanist FAQ (Frequently

Asked Questions), but because these explain the fundamental tenets of “official” transhumanist thought, it is appropriate that they be included. Other sources include the

scholarly publications of self-professed transhumanist thinkers, policy papers and reports

from official transhumanist organizations, and publications from commentators who do not explicitly identify as transhumanists but whose work either critiques transhumanist thought

4 There are ongoing efforts to compile his published and unpublished works into a multivolume series known as the Collected Works of George Grant. The fourth and final volume has been published as of early 2009.

27 or highlights transhumanist themes. Of the latter I also include official reports endorsed by the United States’ National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and Department of

Commerce.

While “nanotechnology” can prove a slippery handle applied to disparate and multidisciplinary research endeavours, there is reason to identify common and coherent aspects of the field as I will discuss in more detail in chapter 4. Even though many major journals of nanotechnology are technical in nature, there is a growing body of research and commentary on the ethical, legal, and social issues related to nanotechnology. Some of the literature surveys the field to see what has already emerged as a significant issue, and other sources speculate about what concerns will be of import as nanotechnology develops. I also include in my primary source material some publications from the popular press and from online sources in order to assess how issues in nanotechnology are portrayed to the layperson.

Because there is growing emphasis on the public becoming informed about and engaged with issues in nanotechnology, people often turn to popular sources first, such as magazines, trade journals, blogs, popular science books, and watchdog organizations, to find out about the latest technological development. The rhetoric used in these publications and broadcasts to frame social and ethical issues significantly impacts how people tend to think about technology, and so I find it appropriate to include them in my survey.

A word on method

The critical analysis of these sources involves a dialectical method that I find useful

for several reasons. Firstly, drawing on the thought of Canadian philosopher Bernard

Lonergan (1999), the aim of a dialectical method is to examine various and disparate contributions to a topic in an effort to bring to light irreducible differences between views, to highlight complementarity between ideas, and to illuminate where positions can be synthesized (p. 129). For example, on the one hand this thesis analyzes and evaluates how moral, ethical, or value-laden questions are framed by transhumanist scholars in the emerging interdisciplinary field of nanotechnology; on the other hand it asks what might be missing from such transhumanist discussions according to George Grant’s moral philosophy.

Secondly, dialectical method meets head-on the fact that there arise in the natural and human sciences issues of moral and ethical import that cannot be solved by the scientific method alone, which seems to me to be the case in assessing our changing relationship with technology in the modern world (Lonergan, p. 249).

Thirdly, rather than offering an adversarial debate for one side to win and the other to lose (an approach favoured by certain notable transhumanists such as James Hughes and

Nick Bostrom), a dialectical approach is more of a conversation, a rational discourse that seeks enlightenment. With roots extending back to ancient Greece, the dialectical conversation is a sustained and disciplined step-by-step process of understanding and making connections that constantly seeks out distinctions, disagreements, ambiguities, and agreements between the participants’ understandings of terms and ideas. Plato reminds us that friction between ideas begets the spark of understanding (Graham, 1996, p. 296).

Fourthly--and perhaps most importantly, in an academic context that emphasizes the objective intellectualization of ideas-- for George Grant the dialectical method is erotic, in the sense that eros means to love. To explore something through the dialectical method means to know and to love together; what can be known about beauty or justice, for example,

29 is only known because it is loved (quoted in Graham, 1996, p. 294). This was not a foreign concept to philosophical inquiry in ages past, but it has fallen to the wayside in modern

Western intellectual culture (Cayley, 2008; Zajonc, 2006). The kind of empirical, objective, and often materialist inquiry that suffuses our technological society significantly impacts what we think to be the proper ends of human life; empirically we have witnessed the material progress promised and delivered by technological development, and we have come to believe that technology is a reliable way to improve the human condition (Wright, 2004, p.

4). However, do we assume that moral progress inevitably accompanies material progress?

What does “bettering” humanity really mean and how else could we go about doing it? Are there things we should never do in the pursuit of human betterment? What might it mean to know and to make if our inquiry were consciously enlightened primarily by love rather than objective calculation? Does such a thing even make sense any more? This thesis seeks to shed light on such questions.

The dialectical approach will highlight the standards and criteria used by prominent transhumanists, nanotechnology scholars, and George Grant to evaluate these questions.

Ours is an age in which postmodern ethics claims no search for absolute truth. In one sense, this stance accommodates a plurality of views and values, but ethical discussion by its nature seeks some sort of common ground on which to meet. With regard to evaluating nanotechnology’s role in human self-directed evolution, transhumanism claims that it leaves questions of ultimate good and purpose to the private sphere, choosing instead to endorse public ethical discussion framed in terms of risk assessment while emphasizing the need to protect liberal democratic values of autonomy and choice, and utilitarian values of seeking the greatest happiness and well-being for the greatest number. By contrast, classical ethics

30 asserts that there must be public dialogue on the good. It embodies the belief that there are moral absolutes and that there need to be limits on human action so that we can find accord with an ordered, meaningful, and ultimately beneficent universe. Grant’s lifelong search was for ways to honour classical philosophy’s assertions about absolutes while not denying modern respect for human autonomy; that search asks, “[w]hat kind of doctrine of the absolute will do proper justice to all the factors of freedom, law and progress?” (1959/1995, p. 91).

Questions about technology are not just matters of academic interest. They are ways to investigate the complex core of what it is to be a human being. According to Grant scholar Nita Graham (1996), Grant brought the great questions of existence to be re- examined in the light of our modern technological context: What is justice? What is beauty?

What is the good? What is love? How do we know what all these are? Are there things that can be done that should not be done? Of what import is it that today our answers to existential questions appear to be a matter of individual, freely chosen values rather than an obligation to a claim made on us by an order beyond us (p. 296; pp. 299-300)? Similarly, political philosopher Michael Sandel (2004) reminds us that age-old philosophical and theological questions about the moral status of nature and the purpose of human life have been largely lost from view, and yet they are more relevant now than ever because we are demonstrating the power to change a lot of what has been given in nature and in ourselves (p.

51). In the face of relentless, and some say inevitable, technological development that is heralded as progress in some quarters but which raises deep concern in others, it is essential to examine a dialectic that lays out what is lost and what is gained. In the present context, the dialectical approach tries to know technology for what it is: to know on the one hand

31 what has been lost politically and ethically and to understand on the other what has been found through its pervasiveness in our lives (Grant, 1984/1998, p. 443).

This thesis will approach that dialectic in the following way: Part II (chapters 2-5) will triangulate the ethical foundations of transhumanism, nanotechnology, and George Grant in order to highlight the salient points of each perspective. Part III (chapters 6-8) will assess the implications that the technological imperative has upon ethical decision-making in the particular contexts of molecular manufacturing, human enhancement, and civic engagement with nanotechnology. The final chapter (chapter 9) offers my concluding thoughts on why technoprogressive perspectives fall short in ethical deliberation and why transcendental moral realism of the variety proffered by Grant deserves greater consideration in the dialogue on technology and ethics.

PART TWO: TRIANGULATING THE FOUNDATIONS: AN EXPOSITION OF

GEORGE GRANT, TRANSHUMANISM, AND NANOTECHNOLOGY

CHAPTER 2

INTRODUCTION TO GEORGE GRANT’S THOUGHT ON TECHNOLOGY

George Grant (1918-1988) is considered one of the most important English Canadian thinkers of the 20th century, sharing company with Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, and

Harold Innis.5 He has been known variously as a political philosopher, a public intellectual, and a social critic, and while he is best known for his influential and passionate defence of

Canadian identity propounded in his 1965 work Lament for a Nation, there is another facet to his political and moral philosophy which deserves greater public attention.

Running through almost the entire corpus of Grant’s work is a continuous strand of thought, an awareness of the complex and pervasive role of technology in modern Western society. Grant claims that there is a widespread, almost dogmatic belief in the Western world that technology, as it exists in a liberal democratic society that respects equality, diversity, and individual rights and freedoms, helps human beings to do more, and to do better. In essence, technology allows human progress. But according to Grant, modern technology and ideas about human progress exist in a tightly coupled relationship which--without our realizing it--reshapes the human spirit, transforms our politics and our ethical commitments, and challenges our deliberations about justice. In his view, technology has become the ontology of the age and its calculative logic is evident in our institutions, our laws, our

5 Grant’s intellectual heritage includes thinkers such as Plato, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, Simone Weil, and Jacques Ellul. Grant wrote extensively on some of these thinkers, such as Plato, Nietzsche, and Strauss; some he attempted to write on, such as Heidegger and Weil, and some, such as Voegelin, he seemed to have thought deeply on but did not write about. Grant’s influences were diverse and his thought on technology, politics, and the human good compelled him to draw on his eclectic intellectual heritage in order to be relevant to his own time. The desire to be relevant also took precedence over the need to be systematic or conformist to scholarly ideals, which presents challenges to the academic scrutiny of this thought but also contributes to his work’s accessibility outside the academy.

33 34 entertainment, our behaviours, and our self-understanding (Emberley, 1994/2005, p. lxxxi).

For Grant then, the compelling question that oriented his life’s work was this: What does it really mean to live in a technological society?

This chapter will introduce the distinctive qualities of Grant’s thought that will orient subsequent discussion of transhumanist and technoprogressivist ethical approaches to nanotechnology. Grant’s thought challenges much status quo thinking about technology and ethics and so I will outline his views about how philosophy relates to ethical deliberation about technology, his perspective on the enduring and particular relevance of classical philosophy in a technoscientific world, his emphasis on the distinction between talking about

“values” and talking about “the good,” his thoughts on the ambiguous relationship between technology and progress, and his focus on how North American society embodies a distinct tendency towards technological progressivism.

The modern emergence of technoscience

While we may take for granted now that knowledge of the world is best and most

reliably gained scientifically or “objectively,” i.e., through calculation, experimentation, and

logical reasoning, Grant points out that human beings did not always define themselves

primarily in terms of those capacities, nor did they believe that was the only legitimate way

to gain knowledge of the world and of themselves. For example, in ancient times,

particularly ancient Greece, striving for knowledge of “the good” was the highest human

aspiration. Ancient sciences, as Aristotle elucidates, were oriented towards discerning the

good, towards understanding things in themselves, to clarifying the ends to which things

35 were properly fitted, and to classifying the proper order of things in the universe (Blanchard,

2005). However, “modern” science, as it has evolved over the past four hundred years influenced by thinkers such as Bacon (best noted for relating knowledge with power) and

Descartes (who theorized about the separation between mind and body), seems to have developed in direct and explicit opposition to the classical paradigm exemplified by

Aristotelian science. In the Western tradition of thought, scientific inquiry fuses with technological mastery to create what can more accurately be called the technoscientific enterprise.6 As a result, and in light of forces of secularization, Western civilization has

placed more emphasis on exploring human innovation and less emphasis on publicly

plumbing the world’s transcendent meaning. Consequently, science and technology do not

speak of what things are fitted for, and our ways of making and doing occur outside

deliberation on the human good. It is now a foreign concept to modern science to explain things in terms of any “rightful purpose”; and indeed,, modern science ostensibly is silent about purposes because it claims not to be able to say anything about what things are fitted for. Despite modern science’s silence about purpose and meaning, the question remains:

how do we gain knowledge of what is due to ourselves and other beings? What other

legitimate ways are there to gain knowledge in the modern world?

Those questions bring our attention to the absence of something that was present for

other human beings in other times and places: a receptivity to revelation and to

contemplation, a giving away, though not passively, of oneself in marvel and wonderment

and awe at the world, rather than primarily approaching the world with the intent of control

6 Belgian bioethicist Gilbert Hottois coined the term “technoscience” in his 1978 article “Ethique et technoscience” (see Hottois 1978/1996), while French philosophers Jean-François Lyotard and Bruno Latour are credited with spreading the term in French and North American social theory. According to Hottois (2005), technoscience by its nature is associated with “the ethical question, What are we to make of human beings? posed from an evolutionist perspective open to technical intervention” (p. 1915).

36 and conquest as technoscientific perspectives tend to do. This is one of several dialectics that

I will explore in this thesis: the balance between Platonic and Christian receptivity to external order and purpose on the one hand, and on the other hand, the modern proclivity to express meaning and purpose in terms of asserting the human will. As we unfold this dialectic, a

Grantian perspective challenges the modern assumption that the technoscientific approach is the only way to gain objective knowledge about the world. For example, both classical

Greek and Christian thought assert that “justice” refers to a human orientation to an objective, absolute good beyond human beings’ own wills; however, today “justice” commonly refers to one’s rights and duties within the “social contract.” The problem with modern technoscience providing the main means to gain knowledge is that if the only objective knowledge available to us excludes questioning about ultimate meaning and purpose, then we are left only with subjective answers to the question of what is due other beings (Forbes, 2007, p. 212). Grant argues that the more the scientific interpretation of objectivity dominates every aspect of human life, the more it denies the very possibility that legitimate knowledge can be gained through other means, such as natural law, revelation, contemplation, or intuition.

Neither is it simply a case of society striving to adopt greater scientific objectivity to describe and explain the world. Science and technology are also creative forces in the world.

While ancient Greek and pre-Enlightenment Western science included receptivity to how things are, modern technoscience, seeing the world as raw material, is more interested in how things could be. Although Grant himself did not use the term “technoscience,” his description of the way that modern scientific and technological outlooks have fused into a realm of knowing and making that is dedicated to the “conquest of human and non-human

37 nature” (p. 9) can similarly be dubbed technoscience in light of the term’s emergence over the past thirty years. Yet when we consider technoscience as providing a suite of tools and techniques which ideally we use in ways consistent with our “core values,” we obscure with familiar language something that is profoundly different from ages past (Grant, 1986, p. 13).7

It is, Grant avers, a distinctive character of Western, and particularly North American,

technoscience to foster the beliefs that nature is indifferent to our purposes and does not

possess its own intrinsic good, and that our challenge therefore is to conquer it and make it

good for us (1969/1995, p. 24).8 Grant insists there is a startling novelty in how the once distinct activities of knowing and making have united to form a “technological imperative” which insists that we can only know once we make or do. Thus, modern technoscientific practice reveals the underlying conviction that it is always ethically acceptable to find out if something technically can be done, and that if so, then it should be done, at least experimentally. That conviction speaks to the way that technology has changed our very being by becoming our very being. This is especially evident the more that our technological advances make us question whether humanity has a fixed and inherent nature.

It is an exciting prospect for those who believe there is no fixed essence to humanity and that we are constant works in progress with vast untapped potential waiting for the right combination of technological developments and social circumstances to emerge. For those who believe there is an underlying purpose in the universe and a fixed if not sacred aspect of the human condition, the prospects are troubling and present not a breakthrough but rather a crisis between what we are and what we are becoming (Grant, 1969/1995, p. 7).

7 Grant specifically cites ancient Greek, Chinese, and Indian sciences as examples of modes of inquiry not directed towards calculating how nature’s energies can best serve us. 8 See also Siebert (1990) for an analysis of Heidegger’s influence on Grant. Grant owed much to Heidegger’s thought particularly on the relationship between “Being” and technology.

What is the particular relevance of philosophy to technology and ethics?

Grant calls himself a “political philosopher…within Christianity” (1974/1998, p. xvii-

xviii) which may have made him an oddity in the avowedly secular halls of academic

political philosophy. Indeed, some have been reluctant for various reasons to call Grant a

proper philosopher.9 Two points are of interest here. The first regards Grant’s firm belief

that both thought and revelation have something to contribute to our understanding of justice

(Graham, 1996, p. 292; Grant, 1974/1998, p. xvii-xviii). To try to filter out the influence of

either Platonism or Christianity from Grant’s thought would be a meaningless exercise, and

moreover, would do him an injustice (Graham, p. 297). Platonism shapes Grant’s thought in

terms of his belief in an order and purpose beyond what human beings actively assert

according to their own passions, desires, and preferences, while a Christian framework serves

Grant in two notable ways. Christianity fosters a sense of egalitarianism in regards to the

relative worth of human beings and it keeps him deeply and directly engaged in matters of the world. Rather than being a theist whose faith pulls him away from the world, Grant chooses the path of public intellectual, drawn to the complexities, contradictions, and difficulties of life. This is his way of marrying thought with action, of responding to the world around him and attempting to keep the practice of philosophy relevant.10

9 For an account of some of the conflict Grant encountered among certain Canadian philosophers, see William Christian’s George Grant: A Biography (1993, pp. 152-156). 10 Robin Lathangue (1998) argues that it is necessary for Grant to declare himself a political philosopher within Christianity in order to address the exclusionist tendencies of some political philosophies and to reinforce why his thought should be relevant in the public arena (see, for example, Schmidt, 1996 for an account of how some scholars link Grant’s thought to Gnosticism). Lathangue notes that as a Christian Grant recognizes a mission to spread the “good news” in whatever form he understands it coming to him, in this case largely through political philosophy. His efforts to communicate his political philosophy are tied to his support of a Christian ethic regarding communication and proclamation. The first principle of Christian morality is charity and in order to

The second reason why some in philosophy may regard him askance is that he did not write in typically philosophic form, writing neither systematic treatises nor specialist monographs but rather writing essays, participating in public radio broadcasts, and delivering addresses to a variety of non-academic organizations (Lathangue, 1998, p. ix). This speaks to Grant’s foundational belief that philosophy is relevant to many dimensions of everyday human life and that critical thought should be made accessible to the general public rather than being reserved as the exclusive domain of academics (p. x).

Regardless of whether others believed him to be a “proper” philosopher, it is important to understand Grant’s own approach to the matter, for it informs the way that he lived his life in light of what he believed. Much of Grant’s philosophy is the result of being attentive to experience, a capacity within the grasp of most, yet easily enough neglected in the bustle of simply living. Grant is best understood not through his adherence to any doctrine nor through stand-alone writings divorced from the fabric of life, but rather in the context of his experiences and his own reflections on those experiences, such as the dynamics of his family life, his pacifism, his concern for making life and philosophy relevant to each other, and his conversion at the age of 23 to the view that “we are not our own”

(Davis, 2003, p. 274). Thus while philosophers observe, describe, and ultimately judge the way things are, for Grant philosophy is also deeply personal.

Grant, affirming Plato, believes that philosophy begins with the questions “How should I live? What is life for? Why do I exist in the world?” (1954/1998, p. 34) As a

Platonist and a Christian, Grant still finds relevance contemplating an eternal, ordered universe that is inherently good; he believes that there are ways that human beings ought to

be charitable, a Christian morality must be attentive to how it communicates itself. As such, Grant believed that everyone is capable of grasping essential truths and he affirmed the fundamental right people have to be engaged with questions about their destiny in this world and the next (p. xvii; Grant, 1959/1995, p. 101).

40 live, that we are fitted for certain purposes and ends, and that those purposes and ends are ordered by a sense of the good which transcends space and time. Philosophy helps to cultivate the virtues necessary to think and to live well together; moreover it is one way to engage with the profound mystery of existence, the mystery which arises from the fundamental human experiences of wonder and anguish (p. 35; see also Grant 1967/1998, p.

98).

However, over the past four hundred years, technoscience has emerged as the dominant way to probe that mystery, to celebrate the wonder, and minimize the anguish of existence. While Grant is not opposed to scientific endeavour, he objects to how its own solutions to mystery and anguish consequently obscure and weaken what he sees to be an eternal truth of what human beings are fitted for, that being moral and political life (Davis,

2003, p. 281). In other words, the modern tendency to look for technological fixes to the challenges of human existence means that profound moral and political conflicts risk being reduced to matters of bureaucratic administration and oversimplified as technical or engineering challenges. Modernity is oblivious to, or at least silent about, an idea of the eternal, except the idea of eternal change emerging from random existence. At the same time, modern science and technology more and more lay out not only an account of what is, but what could be, given the opportunities provided by human ingenuity and innovation.

Although some scientists will insist that they are not out to make ambitious claims about the nature of human existence, others--among them leading scientists and Nobel prize winners such as James Watson--use their scientific expertise and credibility to articulate a vision of the future of human evolution that is guided by scientific and technological advance (Stock,

2003, pp. 12 and 109). Modern ways to increase knowledge are almost inseparable from the

41 desire to modify and to improve, but Grant (1986) insists that while technoscience may attempt to unravel and lay bare the mystery of existence, its methods of inquiry still cannot tell us how to live well (p. 60).

For Grant part of living well together is being open to see the inherent goodness in things. Openness to that which is “other” to oneself is a virtue which Grant believes counterbalances our tendency to dominate or master other things and people to suit our needs and desires. Grant is concerned that the prevailing influence of the technological imperative upon the assumptions and ideals of modern North American political philosophy and technoscience does not allow this openness to the good and has sent society, ironically despite our best intentions, on a trajectory towards dehumanization and moral atrophy, i.e., towards being less than we could be rather than more.

To better understand what is meant by openness to the good, Grant claims that scholars and the public in general should look more carefully and seriously at classical political philosophy as a useful and relevant counterpoint to modern utilitarian and contractual ethics (1969, p. 92-93). Rather than shelving classical philosophers such as Plato as quaint antiquities which modern thought supercedes, Grant insists that classical attempts to fathom human existence in terms of the transcendent are just as relevant as modern attempts (1954/1998, p. 37). Classical philosophy’s grounding assumptions may differ from those prevalent in modern times, but it is because Plato’s transcendental moral realism is not grounded in the human will that it may help us think more comprehensively, i.e., beyond the technological imperative, about moral justice in the modern technological world.

This is where it is useful to spell out elements of the dialectic between classical and modern thought that orients this thesis. For example, classical philosophy generally holds

42 that it is through thinking and wisdom that one achieves happiness. Modern utilitarianism, by contrast, strives for conditions where the greatest number will have the greatest chance to pursue whatever the individual determines happiness to be. Classical thinkers also believe that much in one’s life depends on chance, while moderns strive for the guarantee of a better life by doing everything possible to overcome chance, which is evident in everything from today’s hyperparenting to preventive medicine. The development of modern science in particular has been a project to overcome chance because moderns believe being subject to the vicissitudes of life limits the possibility to attain excellence. Excellence is best attained by control of one’s surroundings, whether one is an Olympic athlete aiming to break a world record, or a farmer seeking reliable methods of food production. Classical thinkers by contrast believe that one attains excellence by discerning “the good” and seeking to live within its dictates. By that account, every human being has the potential to love “the good” and to seek it out, but there is no question that it also may be a difficult and challenging pursuit. Grant’s mission is to practice a type of Socratic midwifery for ideas so that individuals become aware of their assumptions, question their worth, and evaluate the moral and political consequences of holding those views, so that they may learn how to live in a changing world (Davis, 2003, p. 277). In this way his thought serves more to facilitate than to prescribe.

Unfortunately there are stumbling blocks for the constructive practice of philosophy in the modern technological world. Philosophy literally is the “love of wisdom” but philosophy, love, and wisdom do not necessarily hold the same meanings or status they once did. Wisdom traditionally meant attentiveness to the whole and dealt with knowing how to live well. According to Grant, today wisdom is not understood as something one loves and it

43 is losing ground as a personal ideal, replaced by success and wealth and conformity

(1954/1998, p. 34). Philosophic knowledge used to concern the whole of human existence but is today replaced by the study of “useful” subjects in science and technology which yield comfort and power.11 Grant laments that “[i]t is a sad fact but it must be admitted that we are

a continent which has almost entirely given up the idea of philosophy” (pp. 38-39). He is

aware of the uphill battle to communicate his perspective on moral philosophy, given the

primary orientation of the times. He recognizes that moral philosophy tends to be dismissed

by many as subjective opinion or, like religion, as a matter of private decision-making.

Moral philosophy thus gets squeezed out of the public sphere, but this doesn’t mean it is not

relevant.

In order to understand Grant’s position on technology and justice in relation to

transhumanism and nanotechnology, I will spend the rest of this chapter elucidating several

significant facets of his philosophical positions. These include his thoughts on the distinction

between “the good” and “values,” the significance of the myth of progress, the ambiguous

nature of technology, and the distinctive character of North American society in the modern

world.

“The good” versus “values”

As noted in chapter 1, Grant did not believe that talking about “values” is the same as

talking about “the good.” This is an important point because Grant reminds us that words

11 Meanwhile, even though religious knowledge also purports to concern the whole of human existence, Grant notes that those who understand that their religion tells them directly what is important about living do not necessarily delve into philosophic questions; philosophy demands more than simple certainty that characterizes some forms of religious faith. See Grant, 1954/1998, pp. 34-35.

44 shape the way we think, and that words are not neutral instruments. By taking the time to clarify the origins of value language and the assumptions that underlie it, Grant seeks at the very least to make his readers aware so they have a choice about accepting the assumptions of modernity (Power, 1978, p. 96). Uncovering those assumptions will prove an important factor when we consider how one might think beyond the technological imperative to engage in moral judgement in the context of nanotechnology and transhumanism in Part III of this thesis.

One of the assumptions we make in modernity is the fact-value distinction: we understand that there is a realm of objective fact to be discovered about the world, and about which we can make objective judgements, and that there is also a realm of values which people create, about which our judgements are subjective or relative. In short, values are what people in their freedom derive from facts (Grant, 1964/1998, p. 392). Further, questions of morality, at least when it is debated in the public arena, concern one’s chosen values, not any unchanging, external standard. The fact-value distinction is an essential foundation particularly for the technosciences because it is assumed that technoscience can concern itself with discovering, and now creating, objective facts without needing to make value judgements about the worth of its discoveries and creations. Values can then be considered the realm of the social sciences, humanities, political judgement, and governance.12 From the fact-value distinction, then, arises the modern approach that tends to

doubt whether there are objective standards for morality and instead prefers the subjectively

defined language of “values.”

Despite the varied and nuanced definitions given in academic discourse, “ethics,”

“morality,” and “values” tend to have commensurate connotations in common parlance

12 Grant in fact calls the fact-value distinction “the most sacred doctrine of our public religion” (1969, p. 120).

45 insofar as we use them interchangeably to refer to making judgements about good and bad, right and wrong. What modern readers may be surprised to discover, however, is that the concept of making decisions according to one’s values originates relatively recently with the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.13 Nietzsche considered “values” to be what human beings actively assert or “will,” even arbitrarily, in the face of moral chaos. That is, one can only

speak of having “values” if one believes that we exist in a purposeless universe and that

human experience only acquires meaning through values which we create or will into being

(Grant, 1969, p. 128; Power, 1978, pp. 90-91). Although this is an unremarkable point to

make if one holds strictly to materialist explanations of existence in terms of the random

collocation of matter, Grant asserts that speaking of “values” is unacceptable if one believes

in the inherent goodness of the universe. The use of the term “values” just adds to modern

moral confusion because Western society has roots in a worldview that believed in a moral order and yet has now adopted a term that reflects the belief that there is no moral order.

Grant (1969) reminds us that Nietzsche considered democracy and socialism as the

“last debasements” of Christianity as it became secularized and that the notion of “values” is

part of that crumbling framework (p. 38). And yet the concept of values has become so

deeply entrenched in liberal democratic society that we are largely oblivious to its origins in

the contempt that Nietzsche had for the secular offshoots of Christianity. Thus we find it

acceptable to claim that the good or bad use of technology depends on the values that we

choose. Whereas ethical and moral thought in classical philosophy pertained to a

transcendent standard known as “the good,” today it pertains to humanly defined values, and

the layperson likely does not give much thought to the distinction. Grant (1969/1995) points

13 Langdon Winner provides a similar critique of values language but traces the word’s changing connotation to political economists Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx who preceded Nietzsche in the 18th and 19th Centuries. See Winner, 1986, pp. 156-157.

46 out that “[i]t is forgotten that before Nietzsche and his immediate predecessors, men did not think about their actions in that language. They did not think they made the world valuable, but that they participated in its goodness” (p. 58). Thus, “the good” and “values” are not equivalent terms, and thus classical moral thought is not oriented in the same direction as secular modern moral thought. This society has struggled to ground itself beyond theological or moral absolutes, and so the concept of “values” (derived but separate from facts) has come to replace concepts of objectively discovered or revealed “human good.” Grant insists that to understand values as separate from facts is implicitly to deny that there is goodness in the world apart from what we imbue to it, even if those who speak of “values” hold some sort of transcendental commitment. That discrepancy contributes to the confusion and vagueness that plagues current ethical deliberation about technology (Power, 1978, pp. 90 and 95).

As we will see in later chapters, to speak of human-centred values may be an entirely acceptable move in the context of transhumanism which, like its humanist antecedents, largely divorced itself from appeals to the transcendent to explain the meaning and purpose of human life. However, adopting the language of values is particularly problematic for those with religious commitments. Grant’s special caution to religious believers about using values language is this: if one affirms a God whose very existence places limits on human willing and autonomy, the prevailing language through which they seek to affirm those limits today actually originates from a worldview which asserts that there are no absolute values and no values apart from human willing. Thus, when religious believers adopt the language of values made influential by Nietzsche, they unknowingly undermine their attempts to express the inherent goodness of the world created by God (Power, 1978, p. 90).

Certainly one justification for values language is that it accommodates a pluralistic society, and indeed governance in liberal society requires that some personal, cultural, and religious commitments remain in the private domain in order to foster tolerance and diversity

(Grant, 1969, p. 119). However there are at least two problems that arise when public deliberation about what technology makes possible is conducted entirely in terms of weighing competing sets of values against each other. First, framing moral discourse in terms of “values” has ultimately erased important distinctions between the reasons why people believe what they do: by using a catch-all term such as “values” to describe the variety of reasons why people commit themselves to certain types of action, it is less clear that we are actually talking about commensurate things. Surely not all tastes, desires, preferences, ideologies, or moral obligations are created equally, and yet who is to tell what’s what when they are collectively termed “values” in public discourse? Furthermore, if we speak of “values” that guide our decisions about what is proper or right or good, then moral judgement, rather than possessing substance as objective truth, is reduced to subjective choice, meaning that it is impossible reasonably to discuss issues of good and bad if all one has are subjective standards of measurement and no normative way to weigh the claims of diverse viewpoints.

Clarifying the distinction between “the good” and values” has an important implication for thinking about technology. For Grant, talk of “values,” especially talk that deems freedom as one of the highest values, is a “popular liberal platitude” that hides the truth of the situation from us (1959/1995, pp. 117-118). In his words, “the moral discourse of ‘values’ and ‘freedom’ is not independent of the will to technology, but a language fashioned in the same forge together with the will to technology” (1969, p. 32). Thus,

48 because the language of “values” is tied closely to acts of the will, speaking of “values” tends to rationalize the project of technological progress rather than providing a standard with which to critique the worth of progress. The division between church and state in North

America, for example, was thought to create a neutral arena in the public domain in which to make collective decisions for the good of society once competing personal, religious, and cultural commitments were reserved for the private sphere. However, what has happened instead, according to Grant, is that technological “values” prevail in the public domain. For example, “excellence” has been a common buzzword to celebrate the innovations and aims of the technological society. Where once the idea of excellence referred to objective or external standards (i.e. what is given in the nature of things) that oriented the highest purposes for human existence, today it refers to “ideologies which we create to justify our man-made purposes…namely that the pursuit of technological efficiency is the chief purpose for which the community exists” (1969, pp. 128-129). French thinker Jacques Ellul (1964) similarly flagged Western society’s misguided preoccupation with “efficiency” as the public standard of modern excellence, and both Ellul and Grant see this as a poor substitute for public consensus about the highest aims of human life.

The way that efficiency is identified with excellence demonstrates how the very language of values allows us to change our commitments to justify our actions. If values are created and willed, they can be changed, and we are no longer beholden to external standards. This is why Grant believes the concept of “values” is inadequate to evaluate the fullness and complexity of the situations we face. While the term supposedly accommodates pluralism across cultures and eras, Grant asserts that right action is not a matter of convenience and that an approach to contemporary ethics that grounds itself in values

49 language is ultimately “impotent to lead to what was once considered (perhaps and perhaps not naively) the crucial judgement about ‘values’--whether they are good or evil” (1969, p.

126).

Since Grant’s interpretation of “evil” (for which he draws heavily on the thought of

Augustine and Plato) refers not to the opposite of good, but rather to the absence of good, it would be helpful to examine more closely what Grant means by “good.” As mentioned previously, Grant’s definition of goodness hearkens back to Christian and ancient Greek traditions of thought upon which Western civilization was founded. Those traditions equate

“the good” with “justice”; they assert that justice makes a claim on us and that it is through discerning the nature of that claim that we find what we are rightfully fitted for. Justice expresses itself both outwardly, through one’s relationships, and inwardly, through the good ordering of one’s inner life. Practicing justice opens human beings to eternity because justice conforms to an eternal order. The ancient concept of justice thus had two interdependent facets because the inward openness to eternity depended on one’s outward just practice, and just practice depended on being attentive to the eternal order. The classical sense of justice explains “why justice is to render each human being their due, and why what was due to all human beings was ‘beyond all bargains and without an alternative’ ” (Grant, 1986, p. 31).

Grant’s interpretation of goodness and justice depends on an understanding of natural law, which holds that moral norms are absolute, not relative. Natural law theories are those which assert that there are moral and ethical principles higher than self-interest and social custom, that are objectively true, accessible to reason, and universally obligatory (Himma,

2005). Human reason is meant to discern those norms and the human will is meant to attune itself to proper purposes according to those norms (Grant, 1959/1995, pp. 27 and 29). The

50 idea that justice belongs to a natural order is one that has taken a variety of forms over millennia of human history but for Grant that expression of justice is best elucidated by Plato in The Republic, and for Christians it is found throughout the Gospels (Grant, 1974/1998, p.

87). The Platonic language of “the good” focuses on the assertion that “the ultimate cause of

being is beneficence” (Grant, 1986, p. 42). This is not to ignore suffering, disease, war, or

other evils; believing that the universe is ultimately beneficent means that evil needs to be recognized as the absence of the good. In Christian terms, this affirmation of beneficence is called faith: Grant translates an insight that he attributes to Simone Weil, that “faith is the experience that the intelligence is enlightened by love” (p. 38), and love is “the apprehension of otherness as beautiful” (p. 44). Here Grant draws also on the thought of Simone Weil

(1981/1991) to establish the good as something absolute and external to human beings. It may appear to some readers that the foundation of his (and Weil’s) conviction is an a priori assertion that the good simply does exist; but given that both Grant and Weil accept that there are other legitimate ways of knowing beyond the methods of scientific empiricism and positivism, such as revelation, intuition and insight, what can be said about Grant’s stance on the good is that it is both an intellectual position and a deeply lived experience, confirmed to him through his own insight or “conversion” experience which convinced him that “we are not our own.”

To acknowledge that we are not entirely our own is to articulate a sense of owing something to an order beyond oneself; this is an essential part of Grant’s moral framework.

But Grant (1975/1998) further acknowledges that interpreting morality in terms of a debt owed no longer resonates in the modern world, as authoritative as it supposedly was in accounts of classical philosophy (p. 415). Today we define ourselves primarily in terms of

51 freedom and autonomy. Asserting one’s will to freely create meaning and value takes precedence over owing; any sense of owing present in ethical questions that ask “what should we do?” is conditional upon what we choose first to create. This is another statement of the technological imperative. Because the will takes precedence, we no longer understand human agency to be one force among a number of natural agents, each with its intrinsic contribution to goodness. The human will alone is what actualizes moral good in a morally indifferent world (Grant, 1969/1995, p. 24). Thus a new meaning of “goodness” emerges in modern technological society: “[t]he modern conception of goodness is of our free creating of richness and greatness of life…The presently popular phrase in the modern account is

‘quality of life’ ” (Grant, 1986, p. 30). As much as we may take for granted “quality of life” as a measurement of goodness, the expression reinforces the belief that goodness is something that we imbue upon the world, not something that is revealed or discovered.

There are implications for this perspective; because our modern interpretation of goodness does not answer to any claim greater than ourselves, only a sense of contractual justice remains. By contrast, while modern liberalism asserts that the human essence is freedom,

Grant claims that each individual has personal experience (particularly in the context of love) which affirms that we are not entirely our own. According to Grant, the emphasis that people place on the concept of individual freedom has been disconnected from their actual lived experience within a context bigger than themselves; this disconnection has enabled relative values to eclipse moral absolutes. That disconnection becomes even more evident as we deliberate over “enhancing” and possibly remaking the human species.

What do we owe our fellow human beings in the pursuit of better lives, and where do we establish limits to our efforts to better ourselves and society? That query guides this investigation.

Technology and the myth of progress

Just as philosophy can be considered “steadfast attention to the whole” (Grant,

1974/1998, p. 87), and just as “the good” intimates an order beyond ourselves, so too do

myths contribute to a sense of belonging to an order bigger than oneself. I speak of “myths”

to refer to overarching narratives, or accounts of existence which help us make sense of the

totality of being, rather than using the word to refer to falsehoods or misconceptions. Far

from being simple stories that can be easily dispensed with, myths are systems of meaning

through which most of us make judgements about what is worth doing. They are not literal

truths in themselves, nor may they be wholly conscious or entirely rational, but they are the

means by which we are led to truth and purpose (Grant, 1964/1998, p. 338). Today, by

contrast, North American secular society describes itself primarily in terms of autonomy,

rationality, self-expression, and individual rights and freedoms rather than myth. In

modernity

[w]e conceive ourselves to be the source of ourselves, the source of our own

order. But it is the very mark of any myth to speak of those things which

transcend the individual, to speak of an order of which the individual is a part,

but which does not originate in his freedom. The heart of any myth is to tell

us of that which our freedom does not create but by which it is judged. (p.

389)

In other words, myths tell us that we are not our own. Modern accounts of freedom tell us that we are our own. Again we are drawn in both directions.

Grant observes that the more we believe in freedom as our essence, the less important myths seem to be. In fact, the last great myth to hold the masses in the modern world has been the myth of progress which embodies the belief that human reason and ingenuity applied through technoscience yields discoveries and creations that can be used to cumulatively improve the human condition. It is by definition the last of the myths, says

Grant, because it gave birth to the assertion that absolute freedom is the essence of humanity, thus once and for all excluding the relevance of any other myth (1964/1998, p. 389). Where in times and civilizations past, right action was determined by a host of external factors, whether through natural law or accountability to a deity, Western society has struggled to ground itself in other foundations. For many today in Western society, the human essence is freedom or autonomy. Rather than participating in an overarching value and order already given, as previous societies have done, we see the world as ours to discover, to control, and to transform (1959/1995, p. 37).

In modern society, technology is the means by which we freely express our wills and transhumanism, as we will see in the next chapter, saliently embodies a commitment to transform human nature through technology. The language used by transhumanists to describe the choice and freedom we have in directing our future is not so different from common contemporary liberal, secular, and democratic conceptions of “values.”14 But as we

14 Indeed, transhumanists spend considerable effort to justify and frame their aspirations with terms that are common to Western liberal democracies, such as “liberty,” “equality,” and “self-determination.” In that vein,

54 have seen, for Grant this is inadequate language to evaluate issues that ultimately deal with unchanging justice and the human good. As a Platonist and a Christian, Grant’s understanding of freedom and values is distinctly different from the views which currently permeate transhumanist thought and arguably which also shape the direction of nanotechnology research. In the face of the freedom of choice championed by transhumanist advocates, and indeed by Western society in general, Grant asks us to consider “how do we know what is worth doing with our freedom?” (1969, p. 138) Although the myth of progress purports to be concerned with the betterment of the human condition, the fact that modernity defines the human condition in terms of absolute freedom should make us pause to consider what “better” thus really means. If the universe truly is morally indifferent and if we truly have unlimited freedom to make the world as we wish it, then we are also left without a system of meaning (p. 138). This by definition is nihilism and is anathema to the belief that the universe is beneficent. This also tolls a death knell for ethics, which is by definition the search for standards of good and bad, right and wrong.

What we are left with is the technological imperative, which affirms the primacy of the freely acting human will in the absence of an external standard for the good. But although a directive, the technological imperative does little to impart meaning or purpose to our existence. More troubling, it is in fact a determining force, and this tends to strip away or render irrelevant those areas that traditionally did impart meaning, whether myth, religion, philosophy, prayer, art, direct contact with nature, or unmediated relations with others.15

bioethicist James Hughes advocates for a “democratic transhumanism,” a society in which technologies are guaranteed to be safe and where the individual has the right to control his or her body. Hughes sees the government’s role as ensuring that new technologies are regulated for safety and that their benefits are available to all, not just to the wealthy or the elite. See Hughes, 2004. 15 For examples of other scholars and ethicists who have lamented that loss and sought wisdom in other ways of knowing, see Borgmann, 1992; Ellul, 1975; Postman, 1992; and Somerville, 2006.

Grant sees the great irony of our age being the belief that through technology we gain greater freedom, when by his account, our fate has never been more greatly determined by not thinking outside our technoscientific mindsets.

There is another facet of Grant’s interpretation of progress and modernity that is important as we consider ethics in technological society. Our society believes that people are essentially historical beings. To understand something to be historical means that it is necessary and significant to account for its genesis, its development, and as much of its future as possible (Grant, 1969/1995, p. 11). We assume that to know something is to know its history. We may take it for granted that this a common trait of humanity but it is actually a modern account of knowledge; ancient accounts did not place so much significance on the linear sequence of past, present, and future and Grant sees merit in remembering that other times and civilizations did not define themselves according to a sense of linear history (p.

10). This is a significant point to make because we assume that the modern world contains the totality of what there is to understand, and it is easy to assume a path of cumulative progress. For Grant, this is part of the problem because he believes the modern world does not have a monopoly on truth or knowledge, and we forget that at our peril (Cayley, 1986, pp. 12-13).

Far from being an esoteric observation, thinking about time as the linear unfolding of history has relevance to everyday living. It means that we are oriented to the future and to understanding the complexities of the present and the patterns of the past so that we can calculate what we need to do to bring about the future we desire (Grant, 1969/1995, p. 16).

Thinking of time as linear history enables us to understand that human accomplishments

56 unfold over time and constitute progress. As a result, says Grant, the more we are focused on what we want the future to hold, the more focused we become on making things happen.16

The ambiguity of modernity

Grant believes modernity to be characterized by the desire to overcome chance and necessity. As citizens of a technological society we believe that control of chance and

necessity enables us to improve the human condition. We seek to meet predictably the

demands of necessity (i.e. survival needs) and to minimize the vagaries of chance that limit

the achievement of human excellence and that contribute to human suffering. This may be

the chance arising from one’s environment or the chance that comes from one’s unchosen genetic heritage. For example, the emerging field of epigenetics seeks to discover the extent to which we are determined by our genes and to figure out ways to circumvent the assumption that genes are fate. Research in epigenetic therapy explores how pharmaceuticals can be used either to inhibit or express certain genes. Such research prompts us to consider taking our biological destinies into our own hands so that we and our offspring are less subject to the random genetic lottery (Savulescu, 2001; Somerville, 2006; Stock, 2003). That we could even entertain such a possibility speaks to the prevailing modern view that control or mitigation of necessity and chance comes from having more knowledge of the world, and that useful knowledge is derived from using reason guided by the methods of modern technoscientific inquiry. Technology, in essence, is “systematic interference with chance”

(Grant, 1969, p. 138) that has delivered quite well on many of its promises such that we have

16 As a political philosopher Grant points out that, despite their differences, all modern political ideologies, from Marxist communism to American liberalism to national socialism, have operated on the assumption of time as history and called their followers to be masters of their future. (See 1969/1995, p. 17)

57 come to believe that scientific and technological development is the most reliable way to alleviate suffering, improve the human estate, and measure progress. Even if chance cannot be overcome completely we believe it wise to anticipate and prepare for the future by influencing the direction as much as we can.

Transhumanism’s technological aspirations explicitly demonstrate what Grant calls the “implicit hope” of modern science and technology, the hope that increased knowledge about the world and more control over nature would lead to bettering the human condition

(1984/1998, pp. 436-437). But this for Grant is also a statement about justice because it relates the possible with the good. Here arises the ambiguity of modernity, the ambiguity between technology and justice. Certainly there is an ambiguity of technology being used well or badly, but Grant’s concern goes beyond that. The very act of relating to the world primarily through a technological mindset, and particularly through the technological imperative, changes our perception of justice. It not only changes our perception but means

“a very dimming of our ability to think justice lucidly” (p. 437). How is this so?

Unfortunately and ironically, although liberalism promotes the belief that technological progress aspires to ensure freedom and equality, this society’s commitment to progress has built technocratic institutions that actually, though perhaps unintentionally, erode the freedom and equality that they were meant to guarantee for all in the first place

(Grant, 1967/1998, p. 100). In that observation, Grant presciently describes subsequent critics’ concerns over the transhumanist vision to remake the human species and how it is informed by the desire to ensure “better” lives for all. On the one hand transhumanists claim that technoscience is value-neutral because it is simply the means to attain the “quality of life” we already assume to be good. On the other hand, technoscience’s growing capacity to

58 present hitherto unconsidered choices and possibilities concerning how to be born, how to maintain health, how to age, and how to die actually changes the criteria of what is good. In other words, with a much more vast capacity for making, technoscience ultimately precipitates a crisis regarding what should be made because it creates a climate where there is no clear knowledge of what is good to make and unmake.

Grant particularly feared that the technological imperative would be turned on the human species, and we see now that this is the explicit objective of transhumanism, justified in terms of progress and evolution. Grant (1975/1998) argues that “when making is directed towards our own species, it becomes clear that one man’s making may be another man’s unmaking” (p. 415). As two sides of one coin, technoscience’s ability to tinker includes “the making of tyrannies, the making of monsters, the unmaking of species” (p. 409) as much as it has the ability to provide sustenance, to heal, and to protect. Transhumanism prompts us to reconsider the fundamental question of justice, of what is owed to other human beings and why.

Yet although self-directed evolution raises an age-old question of justice, the very notion of justice is reshaped by the technological imperative. Gone is a collective belief in an eternal, unchanging notion of the “good” that long served as the Judaeo-Christian foundation for Western civilization. Modern technoscience tells us that nature is random and purposeless, save for what purposes we choose ourselves. Thus we are free to make ourselves and the world as we would will them, using nature as raw material. But with questions of “the good” hidden from public deliberation, Grant argues that our society’s ability to engage in moral judgement is greatly weakened.

This disappearance of the language of the good, in favour of the language of “values,” is a loss to humanity. Grant realizes that most of his learned contemporaries would deny that anything essential has been lost from our meditations on justice in a technological society.

He anticipates that his critics will argue that technological progress has freed us from unjust conditions brought on by necessity and chance, and that being freed from the immediate tasks of survival has enabled us to think more broadly and deeply about justice in a way that was not possible in the past (1984/1998, p. 438). As we will see in chapter 3, democratic transhumanism argues for that very point. Moreover, by asserting ourselves as masters of nature through science and technology’s pursuit of knowledge that is objective and practical, and by denying any obligation to the supernatural, we can understand that justice is wholly in human hands. Thus talk of loss is incomprehensible from this position (p. 438).

This is not the case for Grant, and he embarks on a critique of liberal democratic society to demonstrate how justice has changed and why it is a loss. Chapter 5 will explore this critique in more depth, but some preliminary remarks may be made presently. It is necessary to emphasize again the relevance of Platonism and Christianity to Grant’s philosophical framework. Although modern technological society arose from the secularization of Western civilization, Grant believes that vestiges of its Platonic and

Christian foundations remain still today, regardless of whether or not some thinkers believe that those frameworks have been cast aside or rendered irrelevant.17 The overt language of

the good may be hidden from public view, and publicly fixed points of meaning may be

disappearing, but he is able to identify a few vestiges of belief in normative standards for the

collective good. For example, what is good in the English-speaking world is whatever

17 See also Alasdair MacIntyre’s insightful theory on fragmented modern ethics (1981).

60 affirms political liberty and equality. The political ideals of liberalism fit the bill. In Grant’s words:

If argument is to appear respectable and convincing publicly, it must be

spoken within the broad assumptions of modern liberalism…This response is

so part of the air we breathe that we often forget its existence… the language

of traditional religion can sustain itself in the public realm only insofar as it

responds to issues on the same side as the dominating liberalism. If it does, it

is allowed to express itself about social issues. But if there is a conflict

between the religious voices and the liberalism, then the religious voices are

condemned as reactionary and told to confine themselves to the proper place

of religion, which is the private realm...Or again, people who wish to justify

certain moral positions are forced to pay lip service to modern liberalism if

their arguments are to be convincing. The paying of lip service is always

evidence of the dominance of a particular way of thought. There was a time

when lip service had to be paid to Christianity. In our present world, lip

service must be paid to liberalism. (1974/1998, pp. 6-7)

Setting aside the debate over whether such acknowledgment of the dominating worldview is mere lip service or not, Grant’s point is that North American society understands the language of liberalism, of freedom and autonomy and equality, to hold moral weight and relevance. The language contains assumptions about what human beings are, what we are meant for, and what is good.

However, as much as modern liberalism might try to distance itself from its Judaeo-

Christian traditions, our civilization has not cleanly broken free from roots that appeal to external standards. How we have organized ourselves as a society owes much to a conception of justice in which “the good” was essential to understanding how the world works (1974/1998, p. 73). Therefore, although modernity’s technoscientific paradigm insists that the universe is morally neutral, it nevertheless inherits and builds upon old foundations that had their own conceptions about a beneficent, universal order. This leaves modernity to handle the resulting philosophical ambiguities, what Grant calls a “civilizational contradiction” (p. 73). In other words, “[t]he contradiction arose because human beings held onto certain aspects of justice which they had found in the ancient account of good, even after they no longer considered that that account of good helped them to understand the way things are” (p. 75).

Grant traces the origins of these ambiguities to several philosophical touchstones of

Western civilization. In the 13th Century there were natural law philosophers such as

Thomas Aquinas who followed the classical tradition (i.e. ancient Greek and Judaeo-

Christian philosophies) which claimed that there are universally-binding moral laws; in the

17th Century, thinkers such as Francis Bacon pioneered the scientific revolution that held that

nature could be understood and dominated by the use of human reason; and in the 18th

Century Immanuel Kant maintained that freedom is a unique and defining trait of human beings (Christian, 2005, p. 882).

While each of these assertions finds some degree of acceptability in modern thought and while all have shaped the development of what we now call modernity, Grant sees contradictions in trying to think them all together. Moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre

(1981) notes this contradiction as well when he observes that the moral and ethical language of secular, plural, Western society is disordered, consisting of fragments from a variety of older frameworks that now lack a proper context and are not necessarily conceptually compatible. Moreover, because society has consigned questions of ultimate good to the private sphere, the resulting ethical vacuum in the public sphere has been filled by technological “values” such as efficiency, productivity, innovation, and cost-effectiveness.

However, these priorities destroy the traditional notion of the state as an ethical community and dilute other essential ways to think about justice because they originate in commercial and industrial systems, systems which operate on different principles and have different objectives than those necessary for living well together and thinking comprehensively about the whole (Grant, 2005; Jacobs, 1992). This is profoundly troubling because we still have to make communal decisions with a moral character, and according to Grant and MacIntyre, nothing has adequately taken the place of this society’s lingering Judaeo-Christian character.

Modern ethical theories may appear to acceptably accommodate moral pluralism, but

MacIntyre argues that we have lost our ability to think and speak comprehensively in moral and ethical terms because we have no robust way to compare rival premises and weigh one moral claim over another (1981, p. 8). Although liberalism’s ethical framework requires actions to be measured against standards such as respect for individual autonomy and equality among persons, Grant argues that as long as these criteria are divorced from a transcendent reality, they are insufficient criteria by which to determine what is good.

As we will see in chapter 5, Grant tests whether modern liberalism (combined with scientific and technological advances that are used to understand and control human and non- human nature) achieves what it purports: a society of free and equal people participating as

63 autonomous individuals in a democratic capitalist system (1967/1998, p. 96). Observing technological liberalism’s consequences leads him to conclude that the claims of liberalism cannot be taken at face value because as society has sought to increase freedom and equality, the concept of moral justice has suffered in the process.

On North America

Some of Grant’s most cogent contributions on justice are rooted in a critique of a

specific interpretation of justice found in North American society. That notion of justice

originates in English-speaking liberal moral philosophy which Grant asserts has come to infuse the prevailing Western (though particularly American) ethos.18

Why liberalism? Why English-speakers? Why particularly North American justice?

It may seem an odd distinction to make, that the English language has anything to do with

how justice is conceived, or that liberalism intrinsically has anything to do with technology.

But the connections are clear to Grant simply by observation; he notes that the influential

English-speaking proponents of liberal society over the past few centuries, such as Hobbes,

Locke, Hume, Smith, and Rawls have often tied the realization of a truly liberal society to the

necessity of developing mastery of human and non-human nature through modern science

and technology (1974/1998, p. 3). This is the type of political liberalism that originated in

the United Kingdom, and later flourished in North America, and particularly the United

States, which bears significance because it ascended as one of the world’s superpowers.

18 Grant focused concretely on critiquing John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, a book which Grant, writing around 1974, took to be quite influential on the English-speaking world. Rawl’s thought became a reference point for Grant because Grant believed it embodied the modern spirit of liberalism.

The dominant spirit of English-speaking North America according to Grant is one of conquest over nature and of an abiding faith in science and technology to foster progress.

Ours is a continent forged in the pioneering spirit oriented towards taming the present and planning the future. In the Western mythology of progress, North America is unique because in the minds of its colonizers it had no history of its own before the age of progress (despite the presence of aboriginal societies in that “new world”) and thus they were free to build a society explicitly dedicated to the values promulgated by progress (1959/1995, p. 4). The myth of progress was strengthened by the growth of Calvinist Protestantism which had a stronger foothold in the New World than the Old and promoted a this-worldly, hard-working, disciplined, practical approach to the world. For Grant, the history of North America cannot be understood without that religious acknowledgment because this type of Protestantism allowed the New World to embrace a new way of thinking about technology in a particularly enthusiastic, uncritical way (Cayley, 1986, p. 9). One need only look to the activities that are considered most important in North American society to see where its priorities lay: engineers, businesspeople, and administrators are respected for their action-oriented roles, as opposed to artists, thinkers, lovers, and the prayerful who engage in activities not seen to change the world (Grant, 1959/1995, pp. 22-23). Above all, since its inception, North

America has been steeped in ideas of dominance: of science enabling human beings to dominate nature, and of institutions such as capitalism enabling dominance by the financially successful (p. 5). More generally, it is common to the Western outlook--although Grant says this may soon extend to all peoples--to perceive ourselves as subjects confronting otherness as an object, and often an object to be used as raw material in our endeavours to gain knowledge and control of our surroundings (Grant, 1986, p. 32). The assertion of dominance

65 and control might seem to be at odds with North American liberalism’s simultaneous emphasis on building a society of free and equal people; however, Grant claims that society functions effectively enough because liberalism actually “is the doctrine that best expresses the needs of technology” (1959/1995, p. 118).

The preceding exposition sketches several salient facets of Grant’s thoughts on technology, justice, and modernity, including the distinction between values and the good, how the myth of progress gives rise to the belief that freedom is the essence of humanity, how technoscience’s attempts to overcome chance and necessity give rise to the civilizational contradiction, and how North American liberalism demonstrates a society in the throes of such a contradiction as it struggles to determine what is good to do in the face of unlimited opportunities to innovate through technoscience. With this sketch we have described one side of the dialectic concerned in this thesis. We move in the next chapter to the second component in this triangulation of perspectives, that of transhumanism. The next chapter will define transhumanism as a movement oriented towards technological progressivism and it will survey the history of the movement as understood by transhumanist thinkers. It will explore what kinds of enhancements are endorsed by transhumanism, how those enhancements might be achieved, and why transhumanism advocates the technology-based route that it does. Finally it will examine some of the underlying assumptions of transhumanist ideals and the significance of the movement in today’s Western, democratic, liberal, and technological society.

CHAPTER 3

TRANSHUMANISM AND TRANSHUMANIST ETHICS

What is transhumanism?

Transhumanist thinkers define transhumanism as an intellectual, cultural, philosophical, and ethical movement which affirms the belief that it is both possible and desirable to improve the human condition through applied reason. In practice, they understand applied reason most importantly as it relates to science and technology.

Transhumanism advocates the development of and equitable access to technologies that have the potential to enhance the human condition (Bostrom, 2003a).19 Human enhancement includes the following possibilities: radically prolonging the human life span and health span

(through slowing or stopping the aging process), eradicating disease (both inheritable and contagious), augmenting human intellectual, cognitive, physical, and emotional capacities,

19 In the literature regarding human enhancement and self-directed evolution, one comes across the term “transhuman” and “posthuman.” For the purposes of this inquiry, the two will be understood to refer to the same thing because my definition of technology includes not just physical devices, processes, and systems that facilitate the transition between human and posthuman, but also a particular worldview that focuses on the instrumental value of nature and matter. The reader should be aware, however, that there are varied interpretations of the terms “posthuman” and “transhuman.” For example, according to Hook (2003), a posthuman by definition would no longer be human, having been altered so significantly as to no longer represent the human species (p. 2517). By contrast, Katherine Hayles (1999) asserts that posthumanism is more a state of mind than a matter of physical incarnation, “the construction of subjectivity” as opposed to “the presence of nonbiological components” (p. 4). The reader should further note that the term “transhumanist” has proven troubling to some commentators, even within the transhumanist community; scholar Dale Carrico (2004) remarks: “The ‘transhumanist’ term has about it a distinct whiff of kooky jargon, after all. Worse, the term has acquired a number of troubling and divisive historical legacies…It is weighted down with associations of hyper-individualism, market libertarianism and cliquish social marginality emerging from the irrational exuberance of the dot.com era” (“Fuel for a smear campaign,” para. 1). To distance the movement from those connotations, Carrico has suggested the phrase “progressive technology advocates” to refer to transhumanists. I acknowledge that there are various nuances to transhumanist ideologies and to that end I use both the term “transhumanist” in keeping with the ideas already broadly established and defined by representatives in the World Transhumanist Association, as well as “technoprogressivist” to refer to those who do not self-identify as transhumanists.

66 67 and eliminating unnecessary suffering (Bostrom, 2003b).20 Space colonization and advanced artificial intelligence also serve as recurring themes in transhumanist thought.

Transhumanists seek (or at least advocate for their right) to enhance themselves and their offspring through a variety of mainly technological pursuits such as genetic engineering, cryonics21, nanotechnology22, cybernetics, and brain-machine interfaces.23 For example, pre-implantation diagnosis may enable parents not only to screen for disease

(currently about 200 conditions can be screened for) but to choose desirable physical attributes or character traits for their children; nanotechnology or cybernetic implants could be used to extend the senses or to monitor health, thereby creating a cyborg24; and

20 Some insist that it is not simply life-span or health-span that is essential to the posthuman vision, but rather the expanded capacity of life-experience. Experience is thought to be expanded through neural implants, cybernetic devices, pharmaceuticals, virtual reality, etc. See for example Pepperell (2005). 21 Cryonics research investigates methods for preserving the body (or sometimes just the head and brain), usually through freezing--although vitrification is also providing positive potential--until a point in the future when technology is advanced enough both to undo the cryonic preservation and to reanimate the body and reverse the cause of death, whether attributed to disease, accident, or aging. The point of present cryonics research is to preserve the structure of life (i.e. the body and the brain) rather than the processes. Researchers theorize that the processes of life can be restarted from suspended animation as long as the structure is preserved; that is, as long as the information encoded in the structure of the body (especially the brain) is maintained. Nanotechnology is thought to play a key role in reviving cryonics patients. Cryonics research still largely has the reputation for being on the fringe; according to the Transhumanist FAQ “[b]ecoming a cryonicist…requires courage: the courage to confront the possibility of your own death, and the courage to resist the peer-pressure from the large portion of the population which currently espouses deathist values and advocates complacency in the face of a continual, massive loss of human life” (Bostrom, 2003a, section 2.5, para. 6). 22 Transhumanist interest in nanotechnology resides particularly with molecular nanotechnology, which, while still theoretical, is projected to have “the potential to manufacture abundant resources for everybody and to give us control over the biochemical processes in our bodies, enabling us to eliminate disease and unwanted aging” (Bostrom, 2003a, section 1.1, para. 4). 23 Among its assertions about the efficacy of technologies which work directly with the human brain, the Transhumanist FAQ states: “Technologies such as brain-computer interfaces and neuropharmacology would amplify human intelligence, increase emotional well-being, improve our capacity for steady commitment to life projects or a loved one, and even multiply the range and richness of possible emotions” (Bostrom, 2003a, section 1.1., para. 4). 24 The term “cyborg” originated in 1960 with researchers Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline when NASA commissioned them to study how human beings could adapt to space travel. Their astronautics work focused on “self-regulating human-machine systems” which they called “cybernetic organisms” or cyborgs. See Clynes & Kline (1960). Feminist scholar Donna Haraway (1991, 1994) brought the term into wider use with her influential essay “The Cyborg Manifesto” which encourages feminists to blur the boundaries of identity. Because technoscience has offered ways to blur “traditional” binary opposites between body and mind, nature and artifice, human and machine, Haraway sees cyborgization as a way to challenge the “logic of dominance” that has long structured oppressive hierarchies (Smits, 2005, p. 461). What is particularly interesting in the

68 sophisticated computing could make it eventually possible for one to upload one’s mind to a computer to attain a type of immortality (Post, 2005, p. 1458).

The movement’s guiding maxim is “better minds, better bodies, better lives” (World

Transhumanist Association, n.d.). Transhumanists believe that the present human condition need not, and more emphatically should not, be considered the endpoint of evolution

(Bostrom, 2003b). Indeed, in asking, “[c]an we trust evolutionary development to take our species in broadly desirable directions?” the transhumanist answer is a resounding no--we cannot and need not trust nature or chance just because the species has survived and developed thus far (Bostrom, 2004, “The Panglossian view,” para. 1). Transhumanists insist that progress is not inevitable in nature, which is why we ought to take matters into our own hands through the application of scientific discoveries and technological innovations.

While some transhumanist speculations relate to developments far in the future, there are many indications that current technological realities are already contributing to the transhumanist vision, given advancements in prosthetics, artificial intelligence, xenotransplantation (the process of transplanting animal organs into human beings), engineering of chimeras for genetic research,25 nanomedicine, immersion in virtual reality,

and performance-enhancing drugs to improve memory, concentration, and mood (Bostrom,

2005a). Transhumanists are also quite interested in developments in regenerative medicine, a

field which seeks to grow and harvest tissues and organs and which includes research in

context of this thesis is that Haraway recognizes that the concept of cyborgization constructs an ontology, similar to Grant’s contention that modern technoscience has become a Western ontology. The difference is that while Grant believes “technology as ontology” leads to tyrannies, Haraway insists that cyborg politics can be profoundly liberating and offers great potential to cultivate an ethic of care and responsibility rather than dominance. 25 A chimera is a specimen that contains genes from two different organisms, such as the “geep” offspring produced in 1984 from the embryos of a goat and a sheep. See Meinecke-Tillman & Meinecke (1984) and “It’s a geep: Crossbreeding goats and sheep” (1984). The human-animal varieties are currently animal species engineered with human enzymes and protein; they are commonly produced to help test new drugs and gene therapies.

69 therapeutic cloning, gene therapy, tissue engineering and stem cell research. Regenerative medicine currently promises to hold the key to counteracting degenerative diseases like

Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s but may also deliver breakthroughs with consequences for life- extension and improved health-span of already-healthy individuals (Thacker, 2003, p. 90).

Contributors to the transhumanist movement include researchers and scholars from diverse professional backgrounds, including: philosopher Nick Bostrom; sociologist and bioethicist James Hughes; the inventor, entrepreneur, and futurist Ray Kurzweil; nanotechnology theorist K. Eric Drexler; biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey; postmodern literary critic and theorist N. Katherine Hayles; biophysicist and entrepreneur

Gregory Stock; physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson; medical nanotechnology theorist Robert Freitas; Ralph Merkle, a research scientist in cryonics and computer science; and futurist and robotics researcher Hans Moravec. While not professed transhumanists themselves, science advocates such as Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and

Douglas Hofstadter have also been cited in transhumanist literature as facilitating public awareness of transhumanist ideas (Bostrom, 2003a, section 5.1, para.16).

Transhumanists tend to argue that there is no qualitative difference between what humanity has achieved thus far in using technology to improve upon nature (whether wearing glasses to enhance vision or using writing implements to extend our hands and minds) and the further heights it envisions in terms of cybernetic sensory implants or transgenic organs.

If we recall the Anglo-American philosophical approach, we can see that this view tends to understand technology as a collection of value-neutral tools that can be used well or badly, and that on the whole has led to cumulative improvement in the condition of humankind. By contrast, critics of this perspective, such as George Grant, Hans Jonas, Jacques Ellul, and

Langdon Winner, argue that technology shapes us as much as we shape it and that ours is a society so deeply steeped in technological ways of thinking that even our attempts to discern how best to live are coloured by the technological imperative. Transhumanist thinkers such as Gregory Stock who similarly believe that technology shapes us as much as we shape it argue that this is a necessary and desirable relationship that will propel humanity towards the next stage of its evolution.

I should note that currently those active in the movement do not necessarily consider themselves to be actual transhumans of altered biology and capacity. The main qualification to be a transhumanist is one’s willingness to espouse transhumanist ideals regardless of whether one ever attains any identifiable transhuman condition. Indeed, some more liberal interpretations of transhumanism would consider many in the Western world already transhuman by default, owing to our experiences of vaccine-altered immune systems, our consumption of genetically-modified food, our intake of mood-altering substances, and our experiences with artificial implants, replacement organs, skin grafts, blood transfusions, and hormone replacement therapies (Dewdney, 1998, p. 2). In light of these circumstances, it is easy to understand why some commentators insist that the transhumanist vision is inevitable

(Hughes, 2004; Stock, 2003).

A history of transhumanism

It would be insightful to relate at this point the history of how transhumanists have

understood themselves. A history of the movement will highlight how and why its recent

forms acquired a fringe element, and how the movement seeks to legitimize itself in

71 mainstream scholarship. This history will also highlight the sources from which transhumanism draws justification and it will illustrate the significance of transhumanism to wider Western technological society.

How do transhumanists understand their place in human history? In his essay “A

History of Transhumanist Thought” transhumanist philosopher and advocate Nick Bostrom

(2005a) asserts that there are numerous philosophical and cultural precursors to transhumanism and that the desire to acquire new capacities is as old as human civilization.

Bostrom casts his net widely to find evidence of transhumanist-like aspirations recurring across eras and cultures, which for him ranges from Sumerian myths (ca 1700 B.C.E.) about quests for immortality, to mediaeval Christian alchemy’s quest to control nature, to Francis

Bacon’s “knowledge is power” paradigm that spawned the Scientific Revolution, to

Enlightenment-era materialist philosophy which proposes that human beings are constituted of matter that in principle is manipulable like any other object. He also includes Immanuel

Kant’s emphasis on rationality, the utilitarian philosophy of John Stuart Mill, the evolutionary theory proposed by Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), the early speculations on controlling our genetics put forth in 1923 by biochemist J.B.S. Haldane, and Aldous

Huxley’s 1932 techno-dystopian novel Brave New World as highlights of a human history that has been continuously occupied by questioning what human nature is and what its limits might be. These examples serve to gird Bostrom’s claim that transhumanism is the next reasonable embodiment of the human quest to transcend itself.26

26 Around the early 20th Century, use of the actual term “transhuman” can be traced to Julian Huxley, brother of Aldous Huxley and a distinguished evolutionary biologist and first director-general of UNESCO as well as founder of the World Wildlife Fund. Julian Huxley is credited with first using the term in a 1927 publication called Religion Without Revelation where he addressed the possibility of the human species transcending itself (Bostrom, 2005a, section 2, para. 9).

At this point in the chronology of transhumanist thought, some histories note a precedent for transhumanist thinking in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly in Thus

Spake Zarathustra (published between 1883-1885) and in his concept of the Übermensch, or superman (Hook, 2003, p. 2518). Interestingly, however, the self-appointed spokespersons for the transhumanist movement do not align themselves very strongly with Nietzsche’s thought. Bostrom (2005a), for example, rejects the identification of transhumanism with

Nietzsche because he understands Nietzsche to have in mind not technological transformation but rather “a kind of soaring personal growth and cultural refinement in exceptional individuals” who had overcome what Nietzsche termed the “slave morality” promulgated by Christianity (section 1, para. 12). Bostrom does not go to great lengths to distance the movement from Nietzsche; both he and transhumanist thinker James Hughes prefer to state that the movement simply has more in common with the liberal utilitarian philosophy of J.S. Mill, citing a shared origin in Enlightenment rationality and a similar emphasis on individual liberties balanced with a concern for the welfare of humans and sentient beings. However, as I will address in chapter 5 and in part III, there is cogency in considering the relationship between Nietzschean thought and transhumanist ideals, especially when viewed in terms of the moral philosophy of George Grant.

Returning to Bostrom’s recounting of benchmark moments in transhumanist history, he recalls various eugenic movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among both

right-wing ideologues and left-wing social progressives who had concerns about the quality

of the human gene pool. The resulting state-sponsored eugenics programs instituted in

various countries under various regimes sought to weed out undesirable elements, be that on

the basis of physical or mental disability, ethnicity, or social and economic class. Most

73 notable is of course the Holocaust, which according to Bostrom scarred the human psyche in its totalitarian attempt to create a better world through centralized planning (i.e. totalitarian utopianism), although tyrannies, genocides, and “milder eugenics programs” continued in various places for a while afterwards.27 Although Bostrom and his transhumanist colleagues

take pains to distance transhumanism from the spectre of eugenics, the question is alive and

well with regards to critiques of human enhancement initiatives. Chapter 7 will explore in more depth the relevance of eugenics to technology and ethics.

A generation later, postwar Western society began to place more emphasis on science and technology as paths for improving the human condition. This leads Bostrom to take a look at the late 20th Century origins of the movement now known as transhumanism.28 There were pockets of interest in life extension, cryonics, space colonization, and futurism in the

1970s and 1980s but little in terms of a unified worldview; some of its proponents were colourful characters associated with various techno-utopian subcultures, and many activities were seen as eccentric or else conducted by isolated, innovative individuals. Futurist F.M.

Esfandiary29 is credited with helping the movement gain momentum in the 1980s under the

moniker of transhumanism, which he claimed was shorthand for “transitional human” and

implied an evolutionary link to the “posthuman” era via technology usage, cultural values

27 Zygmunt Bauman (2000) offers a contrasting view to Bostrom, warning that modernity has not necessarily learned a lasting lesson from eugenic practices. 28 Other commentators such as Christopher Dewdney are not so concerned with delineating a beginning to the transhumanist history but believe that the first neural implant will be an unequivocal sign or benchmark for the transhuman era. See Dewdney, 1998, p. 3. 29 Esfandiary is better known as FM-2030, a name change he chose to reflect the year he would turn ninety-nine and a time he expected to be pivotal in the expansion of human knowledge and in ushering in a techno-utopia. He died in 2000. See Alexander, 2003, p. 55.

74 and lifestyle (Hook, 2003, p. 2518; Bostrom, 2003a, section 5.1, para. 12; Bostrom, 2005a,

“The growth of grassroots,” para. 6).30

The 1990s saw a proliferation of groups associated with the transhumanist ideology, such as the Singularitarians and the Extropians. The Singularitarians are dedicated to bringing about the “Singularity” predicted by mathematician, computer scientist and science- fiction author Vernor Vinge.31 Bostrom cites Max More and Tom Morrow32 for catalyzing more cohesion in the transhumanist movement by founding the Extropy Institute in 1992 (a term coined to allude to the opposite of entropy). The Institute organized conferences and publications, compiled a mailing list and set up an online discussion forum. It took on a distinct libertarian bent, although More later distanced himself from that view. The group

30 In the 1960s Esfandiary had taught at the New School for Social Research in New York and founded a group of futurists known as the UpWingers. In 1989 he wrote Are You a Transhuman? which describes signs of the emergence of transhumanism (Esfandiary, 1989). Among these signs include the use of prosthetics and plastic surgery, the ubiquity of telecommunications, globalization, androgyny, reproductive technology, the absence of religious belief, and a rejection of traditional family values. However Bostrom notes that Esfandiary never satisfactorily explained how people who embrace these trends are closer to being posthuman (2005a, section 4, para. 6; 2003a, section 1.3, para. 3); thus while transhumanists credit Esfandiary with significant involvement in the transhumanist movement, he is not necessarily considered a towering figure on the transhumanist landscape. 31 Vinge’s prediction is about a point in the not-too-distant future where human beings will create machine intelligences that will finally surpass human intelligence and lead to extraordinary technological progress in an unprecedented brief time through a feedback loop of self-augmenting intelligence. Vinge’s theory is based on a concept by statistician and cryptographer I.J. Good, who, writing in 1965, speculated on the possibility of machine intelligence one day surpassing human intelligence. What follows would be an “intelligence explosion” based on an “ultraintelligent” machine designing even better machines, so that the ultraintelligent machine would be the “last invention that man need ever make” (quoted in Bostrom, 2005a, section 3, para. 6). Vinge first popularized Good’s notion in the 1980s and then put forth his refined version in 1993, opening with the claim that within thirty years, researchers will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after that, according to Vinge, “the human era will be ended” (1993, p. 89). Christopher Hook (2003) calls belief in the coming of the Singularity as “the most extreme of the transhumanist visions” (p. 2518). It is an intriguing but non-essential component of transhumanist thought, meaning that while it is an attractive concept for some, it is not necessary to subscribe to the belief in order to consider oneself a transhumanist. Some futurists believe there will be a distinct discontinuity in the societal operations, while others believe progress will continue to be gradual and cumulative and that there will be no sudden and dramatic change resulting from progress in artificial intelligence (Bostrom, 2005a, section 3, para. 8). 32 More, originally Max O’Connor, and Morrow, known as T.O. Morrow, adopted new names to suit their futurist visions. See Alexander, 2003, pp. 58-59.

75 went defunct in 2005 citing that it had accomplished its mandate, although some online resources remain active.33

I note particularly the Extropian movement because it demonstrates how the

emergence of the Internet was instrumental in connecting like-minded, future-looking,

technology-oriented individuals and in incubating modern forms of transhumanism

(Bostrom, 2005a, “The growth of grassroots,” para. 12). Thanks largely to the connectivity

of online communities and forums, transhumanism has been fostering a more mainstream,

accessible image. One of the most vocal and active transhumanist organizations to find an

online home base for its membership is the World Transhumanist Association, founded in

1998 by Nick Bostrom and David Pearce. The WTA was formed to provide a hub for

transhumanist organizations and resources across the spectrum of political views. It was also

formed to develop, in Bostrom’s words, “a more mature and academically respectable form

of transhumanism, freed from the ‘cultishness’ which, at least in the eyes of some critics, had

afflicted some of its earlier convocations” (2005a, “The growth of grassroots,” para. 13). As

of early 2009 the WTA had a membership just over 5400 members worldwide. The WTA

formulated a Transhumanist Declaration as a consensus document and has spelled out its

philosophical implications more clearly than previous incarnations (World Transhumanist

Association, 2002). Its activities focus on maintaining discussion forums, developing

documents and position papers, liaising with the media, organizing the annual TransVision

conference and publishing the first scholarly peer-reviewed journal for transhumanist studies,

the online Journal of Evolution and Technology, first published in 1999.

Other organizations and affiliates include the Singularity Institute, BetterHumans, the

Center for Human Enhancement, the Future Technologies Advisory Group, the Immortality

33 See for example www.extropy.org.

Institute, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging

Technologies, and the Foresight Institute. Some of these organizations are informal online discussion groups, clubs, or loose associations, but others are attempts to formalize the views of specific transhumanist interest groups, to legitimize transhumanism as a credible, consistent philosophy, and to establish transhumanism as serious scholarship. For example, organizations such as the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology and the Foresight

Nanotech Institute have footholds as consultants and advisors to mainstream nanotechnology research.

It is noteworthy that the pool of significant and prolific transhumanist contributors is relatively small and that they tend to move in self-referential circles; the World

Transhumanist Association, for example, promotes books written by its board members and associates, publicizes conferences at which its board members speak, and refer readers to other websites and organizations founded by its members. This at least is testament to transhumanists’ entrepreneurial spirit and passion for the cause. There are about a dozen transhumanist scholars and advocates who appear consistently in transhumanist publications; for the purposes of this research I take the work of philosopher Nick Bostrom and sociologist

James Hughes to be significant contributions to the body of transhumanist thought. Many of the organizations mentioned above have members in common (such as Bostrom and

Hughes), who in turn have gained authoritative “expert” status for being founders of these new institutes and active in their advocacy. With transhumanism’s rising profile, they are often called upon in the mainstream media to comment on issues of human enhancement.

As alluded to earlier, some of the more prominent transhumanist contributors have notable credentials as physicists, computer scientists, bioengineers, and physicians, many

77 with affiliations with prominent universities such as Oxford, Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.

With these credentials and affiliations, along with the tendency to be forward-looking technological progressivists, they perceive themselves and are in turn regarded as being at the forefront of technological literacy. They strive to be seen as active, engaged citizens preparing the way for radical change. They are also quick to point out, as Bostrom has done in “A History of Transhumanist Thought,” the rational, democratic, liberal roots of the movement in North American and European society, to clarify things for those who might dismiss their goals as on the fringe.

While transhumanists advocate for the continual examination of economic, social, and institutional designs, cultural development, and psychological skills and techniques to further enhance the human condition, it is their explicit emphasis on the priority and indispensability of technology to improve humanity that makes the movement’s ideology a cogent illustration of the claim that technology has become the ontology of modern Western society, a claim put forth in turn by “thinkers of technology” such as Martin Heidegger,

Jacques Ellul, and George Grant.

Transhumanist ethics

Accounts of the intellectual history of transhumanism, as told by those both inside

and outside the movement, acknowledge that the perspective is making its move from the

fringe to the mainstream. While many on the outside dismissed the early contributions of the

movement as the unrealistic and inconsequential speculations of a techno-utopian curiosity,

those speculations were considered inside the movement as intellectual pioneering by

“techno-savvy visionaries” (Bostrom, 2003a, section 5.1, para. 18). The details about defying the aging process, eradicating inheritable disease, or creating unlimited material abundance may have initially struck the general public as improbable; however, the essential kernel of the transhumanist “insight” is that technology will help us overcome many human limitations. This is a hope that has resonated in the Western psyche since at least the

Enlightenment, if not the entire history of human civilization, if one subscribes to transhumanist interpretations of history. Because the Western commitment to progress has delivered quite well on its promises, the speculations of transhumanists no longer seem so far-fetched, and the movement--or at least the ideas upon which the movement is built--has now found some cachet in the mainstream. In fact, transhumanism has been called by

American political economist Francis Fukuyama one of “the world’s most dangerous ideas”

(Wright et al., 2004, pp. 42-43). No longer a mere techno-utopian frivolity on the fringes of society, transhumanism now captures mainstream attention and collects an ever-widening circle of supporters and critics alike, both of whom take its view of the world quite seriously.

The relevance of transhumanist ethics is evident in the breadth of issues that falls within its scope: transhumanist thinkers contribute to discussion on the bioethics involved in biologically modifying human beings (stem cell research, human genetic therapy, regenerative medicine), in reproduction (embryo screening), in end-of-life decisions; they also address issues in engineering ethics, environmental ethics, biotechnology, research funding priorities, information technology, and political philosophy. Because of transhumanism’s inherent technological commitment, contributors in these fields also claim a stake in the academic study of technology and ethics.

My position in this thesis is that the notion of “ethics” relates to determining normative standards for what constitutes the good life and how to live well together. I also assert that secular worldviews such as transhumanism implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, make claims about ultimate questions and what constitutes the good life. Certainly not all transhumanists would agree with this definition of ethics. For many, ethics does not speak so much to ideas of the good life or existential meaning as it does to the procedure of calculating between preferred courses of action. For transhumanists in particular, ethics in practice often relates to how best to proceed with and manage the risks of the project of self- directed evolution. However, underlying and preceding those questions of how best to proceed are beliefs about why we are here, where we as a species are going, and why it is good to go there. Thus, I contend that transhumanism in one way or another opens itself to a discussion of the good life. In light of the history of transhumanism as understood by transhumanist thinkers and outlined in the previous chapter, what do they believe will be accomplished through self-directed evolution? What is the good life according to transhumanist ethics?

Transhumanists assert that the good life is spent being free to pursue a happy life. A happy life in turn is one where a person has control of one’s affairs and choices. Control of one’s affairs and choices is greatly facilitated when we have the means to affirm and realize our inherent potential. In this society, transhumanists assert, it is technology which has been a significant means to realize our potential, whether through simply ensuring our survival

(through improved ways to gather food, to find shelter, and to procure the necessities of life), ameliorating physical, mental, or environmental deficiencies, enhancing our cognitive and emotional experiences, or giving us completely new ones. They believe that much of

80 inherent human potential still lies in realms hitherto unexplored. As we have seen, transhumanist history takes a bird’s eye view of religion, myths, philosophy, literature, the sciences, and more recently, science fiction, to identify the various ways in which the human species strives to be more. This interpretation of the whole of human history weaves together these threads of experience to demonstrate that across time, culture, and geography, the spark to be more and to do more has always lit the narratives of human civilization. However, the means to pursue the good life in contemporary transhumanist aspirations are primarily undertaken through enhancement technologies, leading transhumanist commentators to insist that this stage of evolution could be much more rapid and dramatic than ages past. If we recall chapter one’s introduction to Western interpretations of technology, there are two broad ways to consider the questions that transhumanism raises. Understood in the Anglo-

American philosophical tradition, the questions transhumanism raises relate to how best to integrate these technologies and changes equitably, justly, responsibly, and safely.

Understood from the vantage point of the Continental tradition, the technological worldview of transhumanism raises deeper questions about what it is to be human and whether we should be pursuing those ends in that way at all.

As co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association, philosopher Nick Bostrom has significantly facilitated the emergence of a comprehensive transhumanist history and philosophy. At the same time, sociologist and bioethicist James Hughes has contributed notable commentary on the ethical worldview of transhumanism. I will use Bostrom and

Hughes as main representatives for the secular, rational, liberal democratic form of transhumanism that is the subject of this inquiry.

Let us move now into a discussion specifically of democratic transhumanism. This is a form of transhumanism which shares many fundamental principles of mainstream Western, secular, liberal (and largely North American) democracy, including the commitment to uphold individual rights and freedoms (particularly the right to self-determination), the belief that we choose our values, and the confidence that technological progress will improve the human condition. We will examine what constitutes a transhumanist ethic in light of the techno-progressivist history the ideology recounts. What is particularly notable about democratic transhumanism is they way it specifically interprets the concepts of human nature, human dignity, and human freedom. Transhumanists reject the idea of a sacred, inviolable human nature; they believe that dignity should not be accorded on the basis of human biology alone; and they support a particular interpretation of human freedom which is rooted in individual self-determination. Those tenets are contentious ground for critics of transhumanism, which the rest of this chapter will also address.

I note at this point how the discussion has played out so far in transhumanist literature. Hughes chooses to consider his critics as opponents and refers to them generally as “bioconservatives,” or more derisively as “bio-Luddites” (Hughes, 2004, p. xiii). While acknowledging that transhumanists and bioconservatives share some of the same concerns about the future of humanity, Hughes generally considers it an adversarial relationship.

Among the recurring bioconservative critics with whom Hughes, Bostrom, and their transhumanist colleagues engage are Americans Leon Kass, Francis Fukuyama, and Bill

McKibben.34 Kass served as chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2002 to

2005 and cites among his intellectual influences thinkers such as Hans Jonas and Leo

34 Other thinkers who have attracted transhumanist criticism for appealing to the natural as a standard of good include C.S. Lewis (1978), Jurgen Habermas (2003), and Margaret Somerville (2006).

Strauss. Fukuyama also served on the President’s Council on Bioethics, from 2001-2005, and at one time was associated with neo-conservativism, although he has since vocally criticized and distanced himself from the movement. His most cited work refuted by transhumanism is Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution.

Bill McKibben is a writer and an environmentalist best known for his work Enough: Staying

Human in an Engineered Age. McKibben advocates valuing the limits of nature and relinquishing certain kinds of technological development if it threatens human integrity and environmental sustainability. Despite their differing philosophical and political stances, all are portrayed by transhumanists as bioconservatives opposed to transhumanist ideology and concerned about an irreversible slide down the slippery ethical slope.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list of critics, but for my purposes they offer some representative critique and introductory counterpoint as I unfold the debate. Although I will periodically cite relevant highlights of the debate that has precipitated between those named, the reader should note that there is more to consider in the discussion than simply those issues with which transhumanists choose to grapple. For instance, Hughes’s “bio-Luddite” terminology for his “opponents” negatively colours the discussion, as he and his colleagues often approach ethical issues as debates to be won or lost. Part III of this thesis will elaborate on the reasons why framing the discussion as an adversarial debate is not always a helpful approach through which to build a constructive dialectic. For the sake of convenience I will retain the “bioconservative” terminology when depicting the debate between Hughes (and his transhumanist colleagues) and the critics he identifies. However, I will move beyond that moniker in chapter seven’s discussion on George Grant (whom Hughes would no doubt also count among the bioconservatives) because I believe there are more facets to critiques of

83 technology than allowed by Hughes’ choice of either the term “bioconservative” or “bio-

Luddite.”

Biopolitics and democratic transhumanism

Biopolitics relates to this society’s growing awareness of the ways that differences in

biology, both human and non-human, inform the politics of living in complex communities.

As we seek more control over capabilities previously defined or limited by biology, there is

recognition of how biological shortcomings and strengths influence social relationships. For

example, illness or special needs may be seen as a social and economic burden on society while feats of speed, strength, and intelligence are cause for widespread admiration for exceptional abilities.

Transhumanists claim that biopolitics takes on increasing significance as technology develops and insinuates itself more intimately with human beings to produce transhuman and ultimately posthuman beings. As Hughes (2004) asserts, “[d]ay by day our fellow citizens will become rapidly more strange, and we will need new categories and a new understanding of democracy to make new sense of the world” (p. 77). If biology already affects how we socialize and organize, then changing human biology and experimenting with interspecies or cybernetic hybrids promises to impact the politics of our relationships; hence the emphasis on biopolitics. Questions arise as to what should and should not be allowed in terms of enhancement, how it should be regulated, and when these steps should occur. There are concerns about how much control an individual really has over his or her life and health, and questions of how an entity might pass from status as property (which applies to present

84 artificial intelligence and supercomputing) to life as a non-human person or citizen (which transhumanists envision will happen inevitably as artificial life becomes more sophisticated).

In light of this biopolitical view of the future, Hughes is an advocate for democratic transhumanism, a moderate form of transhumanism, in contrast to the more tenaciously libertarian versions such as the early Extropian movement.35 Contrary to the counter-cultural

reputation of the early libertarian transhumanist movement, democratic transhumanism takes

the stance that there is nothing wrong or deficient in using present liberal, utilitarian ethics to

analyze scenarios of a future rife with technological human enhancements. Democratic

transhumanism understands itself to enter ethical discussions on firm footing because it

already embraces the mainstream tenets of liberal democracy which uphold principles such

as informed consent, respect for individual rights and freedoms, the pursuit of self-

determination, and equitable access to goods and services. It is also meant to address safety

and equity concerns regarding access to technology while avoiding a reckless free market

ideology associated with other branches of transhumanism (Hughes, 2004, p. xvi).

In fact, transhumanist thinkers portray the movement as having a distinct ethical bent:

it insists that technological development is a moral imperative and that human enhancement

is not just a matter of progress, but also of human dignity, inasmuch as dignity is oriented

towards fulfilling one’s inherent potential (Bostrom, 2003a; Harris, 2007; Hughes, 2004).

Transhumanism also prides itself on a proactive ethical outlook, rather than the reactive

stance it claims its critics to have taken. A transhumanist ethic seeks actively to guide

technology research, development, and policy with responsibility, rationality, and foresight

(understood as maximizing the benefits while minimizing the risks) rather than react to

change and danger with fear and pessimism (Bostrom, 2003b).

35 Hughes has claimed elsewhere that he is a socialist libertarian; see Clark & Deij, 2004.

Hughes specifically affirms John Stuart Mill’s humanist interpretation of liberalism to justify transhumanism’s emphasis on the balance between the greatest good for the greatest number and support for the individual’s right to control one’s body, mind and life.

Personally, Hughes identifies himself as a utilitarian, a socialist and a feminist.

Hughes’ premise for democratic transhumanism is that people are happiest when they are able to exercise rational control over the social and natural forces which affect their lives

(2004, p. xviii). Hughes claims that people generally want more control over their bodies, to live longer, to be smarter, and to be happier. Happiness, as opposed to the pleasure principle promulgated by the philosophy of hedonism, is understood to come from control of one’s life; Hughes understands technology and democracy to be complementary types of control that can work in tandem to foster happiness. Control of one’s life necessitates the freedom to choose what one wants to be. Unchosen natural biology is thus understood as a constraint on people’s freedom to be what they want to be, whether those constraints are due to physical or mental limitations imposed by disease, by aging, by the physical human form, or temporally by our finite lifespans. So too pain and suffering are constraints on people’s happiness;

Hughes rejects the assertion rooted in various religious traditions that pain is essential to give life meaning. Instead, summing up his utilitarian perspective, he claims that “[i]t seems obvious that the ethical goal for society should be to make life as fantastic for as many people as possible, not to valorize pain and suffering” (p. 44). Thus a longer, healthier life with minimal physical and mental pain is the richest and most fulfilling existence.

Human enhancement technologies, whether sensory-mediating devices, lab-grown replacement organs, or genetic selection technologies, promises to challenge these unchosen constraints of biology and to give humanity a broader buffet of choices, or possibly to

86 overcome some limits altogether. With this goal in mind, Hughes contends the best social structure in which to realize this vision justly is in a social democratic society committed to liberty, equality, and solidarity, through safe and equitable access to the technologies. The ultimate goal is for this vision to be realized globally; according to Hughes (2004),

“[t]ranshumanists, like their democratic humanist forebears, want to create a global society in which all persons, on the basis of their capacity for thought and feeling, can participate as equal citizens, control their own affairs and achieve their fullest potential, regardless of the characteristics of their bodies” (pp. 81-82).

With technology and democracy working together to produce happier individuals,

Hughes envisions a positive feedback loop where happiness fosters social engagement, which fosters stronger democracies with even happier citizens. Countering the dystopia portrayed in Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, of happy but passive masses, Hughes (2004) justifies his assertion that happiness breeds social engagement (and vice versa) by citing quantitative studies of nations’ happiness quotients which attempt to correlate social democracies with happy populations (p. 50)36. He further cites Mill’s argument that if we are

given the opportunity to experiment and make our own decisions we will find a balance of

pleasures and pursuits for a varied, interesting, meaningful life that encourages civic

engagement (p. 51).

In order to analyze and critique the technoprogressivist liberalism which is the

foundation of democratic transhumanism, it is important to highlight some of its

distinguishing characteristics. A transhumanist ethic is predicated on respect for freedom,

36 See also the findings published by the World Values Survey (http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/), an ongoing global research project in the social sciences that studies, among other things, whether a nation’s overall happiness correlates to levels of development and liberty.

87 autonomy, and dignity intrinsic to personhood. It also denies that human nature has an unchanging essence with which one should not tamper.

On human nature

If one is a transhumanist one must first question whether there even is such a thing as

human nature. The debate over whether humans have a nature, and if so, what does it

constitute, is a perpetual bone of contention between transhumanists and their critics.

Generally speaking, “human nature” is understood to be a facet that resides in all

human beings beyond their sense of individuality and cultural context. It provides an order

that can be worked with or against. “Bioconservatives” believe that we should work with it,

as if it provided an outside set of guidelines. Transhumanists favour the view that there is

nothing of the human essence beyond what each person creates. More to the point, transhumanists such as Nick Bostrom and James Hughes assert that there is no fixed or sacred human nature that needs to be preserved. Katherine Hayles (1999), who prefers to use the term “posthuman,” emphasizes that we are essentially information patterns whose

corporeality can be subject to change. Others such as Gregory Stock (2003) claim that

technology is our nature and that we possess an inherent, undeniable drive to change

ourselves with it. Generally speaking, then, the only constant about humanity is change

itself.

Transhumanists insist that there is no essential distinction between human creations

and natural creations, and that nature cannot be the arbiter of what is right and wrong.

Nature to a transhumanist is value-neutral, which means that it simply doesn’t make sense for

88 someone to claim nature or any kind of natural law to take priority as moral authority, as bioconservatives do. According to transhumanist thought, it is misguided to make judgements where “good” favours the “natural”; there are plenty of natural things that are not good. To illustrate this claim that natural does not necessarily mean good or normatively right, Nick Bostrom (2005b) cites disease, aging, starvation, and unnecessary suffering as natural conditions (and “horrors of nature”) which should be rejected and overcome: “Rather than deferring to the natural order, transhumanists maintain that we can legitimately reform ourselves and our natures in accordance with humane values and personal aspirations” (p.

205). Nature ultimately provides boundaries as to what can and cannot physically and technically be done, but it is silent on what should be done. One of the reasons why transhumanists reject a fixed notion of humanness is that such a notion potentially excludes and discriminates against those who do not fit the traditional or “natural” notions of human being. The very fact that human beings can be and have been produced by “artificial” or

“non-traditional” methods is seen to put the “natural-connotes-right” assertion on shaky ground. Transhumanists seek to be as inclusive as possible of beings created in “non- traditional” ways and thus they consider themselves advocates for those born from reproductive technologies, those who may receive artificial and replacement parts over the course of a lifetime, and those who seek to change their natures through pharmaceuticals, surgery, cybernetic implants, and sensory-mediating devices. They also defend the possibility of future individuals produced through cloning techniques or genetic engineering, as well as sophisticated artificial intelligences.

While transhumanists generally acknowledge that modification in and of itself is not necessarily progress, even if it is well-intentioned, Nick Bostrom (2005b) asserts that most

“thoughtful people” nowadays nevertheless reject nature as a standard of measurement for the good (p. 205). That assertion is obviously a rhetorical device meant to build solidarity within transhumanist ranks, but it is worth examining more carefully. Beyond simply disagreeing with Bostrom that nature no longer can or should serve as a moral yardstick, I think his rhetoric glosses over more profound questions of what is at stake in these discussions and why critics take the stances that they do.

Although both transhumanists and bioconservatives have encouraged awe, appreciation, and humility (though the latter is more often embraced by bioconservatives) for our evolved natures, bioconservatives regard human nature and human dignity as designations that have some normative moral value (Post, 2005, p. 1461). In their view, the order to which we belong consists of more than what we wish to create. Recalling Grant’s view on justice and the good from the previous chapter, the bioconservative perspective is that our mission is to be attentive to how we fit within that context and not to be the sole dictators of how the world should be.

“Bioconservative” critics such as Leon Kass emphasize the “giftedness” of one’s nature, arguing that to modify that nature--especially human nature--would be to compromise the special gift of one’s own given nature. Citing Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, and C.S. Lewis’ essay, The Abolition of Man, as prescient meditations about attempts to remake the species, Kass affirms the work of defenders of the natural law tradition, which asserts that there are objective and universally-binding moral principles which transcend both self-interest and social custom. For those who believe in a natural law tradition, when we attempt to live outside those boundaries, we create more evils than we solve. When we seek to turn technical mastery upon the human being, it inevitably leads to dehumanization, to

90 debased souls that no longer know what it is to love, to long for, to struggle, or to hope

(Kass, 2002, p. 48).37 Similarly, Francis Fukuyama also refers to the work of C.S. Lewis and

Aldous Huxley to claim that nature, and human nature in particular, has a special role in

defining right and wrong, just and unjust, important and unimportant. Fukuyama argues that

there is an identifiable human essence or human nature that has provided stability, continuity,

and meaning over our existence as a species. He terms this indefinable but unquestionable

human essence “Factor X.” He claims that “human nature” and religion have defined our

most basic values and have served to shape and constrain the possible political and social

configurations available and desirable to us (2002, p. 7). To change that nature is to

undermine the very foundation of our being. Here we encounter what seems to be an

intractable difference between the bioconservative understanding of human nature and

transhumanism’s interpretation of it; in response to Kass, transhumanists simply reject the

idea of any natural basis for the good, and similarly Fukuyama’s reference to an ineffable

“Factor X” provokes derision from transhumanists because of its vagueness and lack of

scientific verifiability.

While transhumanists like Bostrom and Hughes assert there is no sacred essential

human nature, other transhumanists emphasize that technology is our essential nature and

thus to refuse to develop that inherent drive is thus to deny our essential nature. According to

Gregory Stock, director of the UCLA program on Medicine, Technology, and Society, self-

directed evolution is an illustration of working with human nature. In other words, engaging

with and adapting to technology is something that we have always done, and should continue

37 According to Bostrom (2005b), the inhabitants of the “Brave New World” are not truly posthuman and it is not a story of human enhancement gone awry; rather it is “a tragedy of technology and social engineering being used to deliberately cripple moral and intellectual capacities—the exact antithesis of the transhumanist proposal” (p. 206).

91 to do. For example, any contemporary discussion of human nature usually includes discussion about the extent to which we are determined by our genetics, and how much control we can and should have over it. According to Stock, “[a]ltering the genome is essentially the endpoint of the whole genomic revolution” (quoted in Knight, 2001, p. 12).

He assumes and accepts that mapping the genome is not merely for the sake of knowledge but rather to change the map once we know how it is laid out. Stock, like transhumanist critic Francis Fukuyama, speculates that human genetic engineering may very well loosen the bonds of “humanness” between our species, but goes on to argue that we cannot and should not resist exploring the possibilities opened to us, for “to turn away from germline selection and modification without even exploring them would be to deny our essential nature and perhaps even our destiny” (2003, p. 170). Stock thus understands technology to be an indigenous trait of the human species, something that has always been used to modify our environments to suit our needs and thus to augment the human species. When paired with the equally indigenous human traits of inquiry and exploration, it would seem impossible, if not irrational, to repress attempts at change. According to some transhumanists, changing nature “for the better” is seen as a “noble and glorious thing” for humans to do (Bostrom,

2003a, section 4.2, para. 1), even while thinkers such as C.S. Lewis are concerned that this very mindset is what leads to tyrannies.38 Transhumanists argue that it may take time for

each technological development to be accepted and adopted--and certainly mistakes and

misuse can occur along the way--but it is all part of the progression. For example,

proponents of transhumanism even cite the increasing social acceptability of what

transhumanists consider “perceptual prostheses,” i.e., people plugged into various mobile

38 Lewis’ concern was that, as in any tyranny, a small group becomes the arbiter of what is good for future generations with no regard to the Tao, the Way, the Good, or any other aspect of an order beyond human beings’ own wills. See Lewis (1978).

92 communications and multimedia devices such as cellphones, music players, and PDAs.

From a transhumanist standpoint, if the public accepts this situation as unremarkable and perhaps even unnoticeable, that already paves the way for a future of layered, electronic environments which mediate our perceptual reality (Dewdney, 1998, p. 126-127).

The argument that “this is something we have always done” and “people will adapt to change” is prevalent among transhumanist thinkers. According to transhumanists there is no deep moral difference in the ways to pursue personal improvement; once people see the benefits of safe and effective enhancement through technology, they will get used to it, just as society has gotten used to a host of other technologies. James Hughes (2004) criticises bioconservatives for being “propagandists of future shock,” i.e. for emphasizing the negative side of change and fretting that things will change too quickly for people to cope (p. 62).

Hughes is much more confident that people will be able to adapt, if given rational reasons and practical incentives. He cites society’s adaptation to welcome women’s rights, minority rights, and gay rights to insist that cyborg rights surely cannot be too far behind.

On human dignity

For those termed “bioconservatives” by transhumanists, such as Leon Kass and

Francis Fukuyama, human nature and human dignity are mutually reinforcing concepts and

each belong uniquely in the domain of the biologically-determined human being. Nick

Bostrom by contrast takes exception to assigning higher moral status simply on the basis of being human and he urges that “dignity” not be a merit conferred simply on the basis on biology. Bostrom asserts that Western society currently understands “dignity” in two senses:

93 as a moral status, particularly one’s inalienable right to be accorded a basic level of respect; and as a quality of being worthy, honourable, or excellent. He then claims that neither of those is tied to human biology; a posthuman being can possess dignity in both those senses

(2005b, p. 209).39

As such, democratic transhumanists prefer the concept of personhood, because it

upholds the notion of dignity without restricting it to the human domain. If we regard dignity

as an entitlement belonging uniquely to human beings, Bostrom claims, we risk denying

other beings the same right. Francis Fukuyama’s concern that dignity be accorded

specifically to human beings speaks to his explicit concern for members of the human species

whose personhood has been or could be questioned or denied, such as the unborn, the

mentally impaired, or the brain-dead.40 When Fukuyama asserts that all human beings are

persons, transhumanists understand this to imply that only human beings are persons.

Bostrom by contrast is concerned about excluding the possibility of non-human and posthuman persons, which is why he insists that “dignity” should not have a biological basis.

Bostrom does not believe that controversy over the status of the unborn, the mentally impaired or the brain dead--the “problematic border-line” cases--should be reason to restrict

the concepts of dignity and personhood solely to human beings. Those cases should be

considered separately from the issue of enhanced human beings or new kinds of artificial life

forms (Bostrom, 2005b, p. 210). In his estimation, the proportion of people granted full

39 Other transhumanist commentators, usually non-theist, do not find the concept of dignity relevant to the discussion, or else find the term misleading. They attribute the term to having theist origins and thus regard it as providing spurious or tenuous foundations at best if used as an a priori argument, as employed by thinkers such as Fukuyama and Habermas. See Smith (2005). 40 Fukuyama is particularly concerned with new forms of behaviour control, the disruption of demographic balances between young and old, and the worsening of gaps between haves and have-nots (Post, 2005, p. 1461).

94 moral status by Western society has continually increased, and granting moral status to posthuman beings does not imply a necessary shrinkage of moral status for others.

With respect to the second sense of dignity, that meaning general worthiness,

Bostrom argues that this applies to posthumans as well. He interprets dignity to consist in respect for what we are and what we have the potential to be, rather than attributing virtue (or in Bostrom’s words, “clinging”) to one’s pedigree or causal origin. People already live lives of varying degrees of moral worthiness, whether morally admirable or morally degraded, depending on the choices they have made. The use of enhancement technology is simply another layer of choice to use well or badly, he says, but regardless of one’s embrace or rejection of technology, one’s right to choose how to live should not be jeopardized. If the human species is part of a spectrum of evolution, we would certainly be understood as posthuman by our ancestors, just as what seems posthuman to us will be normal to our descendants. Throughout that development, Bostrom says, dignity means respecting each individual’s potential. Thus the debate over dignity is a debate over definition: for transhumanists dignity is preserved in one’s ability to exercise control of one’s evolution while the critics of transhumanism insist that dignity means respecting the boundaries of human nature and accepting it as a gift.

Human, humane or human-racist?

To attempt to preserve “humanness” as a fixed state makes an idol out of the concept, transhumanists argue; what matters is not to be human, but to be humane (Bostrom 2003a, section 4.3, para. 1). To this end, Hughes claims that the concept of “human rights” may

95 become a potential and unfortunate stumbling-block in the discussion of transhumanism and ethics. This would occur if human rights advocates appealed to the uniqueness solely of human nature and dignity and contend that those rights should be extended only if one is human (Hughes, 2004, p. 82). In Hughes’ view, this position based on a fixed and outdated definition of human being needs to be seriously reconsidered in order to meet the new challenges of personhood.

Hughes insists that digging into the notion of “human being” to find an unchanging essence reveals how futile a search it is, since human beings, understood in a continuum of evolution, have been and continue to be such varied creatures. We need to recognize and respect minds instead, in whatever form they may present themselves, rather than favouring a specific biological membership (Hughes, in Clark & Deij, 2004). Hughes (2004) goes so far as to suggest that critics of transhumanism, or “bio-Luddites” as he sometimes refers to them, advocate a “human-racism” which claims that citizenship and rights are due only to those with a human genome (p. 75). What “human-racists” on the left and the right of the political spectrum have missed, Hughes contends, is “the real insight of Western democracy:

Citizenship is for persons, not humans” (p. 79). In this view, a person doesn’t have to be a human being (and indeed, American law sets a precedent for recognizing the personhood of non-human entities when it designates corporations as persons), although for their part, bioconservative commentators are more concerned about assertions that a human being is not necessarily a person, which has been their argument in the abortion debate.

With his proposal of a “cyborg citizenship” based on a claim to personhood rather than humanness, Hughes attempts to expand the mandate of human rights to protect those beings of the future who will not be human but who nevertheless should count as persons.

What matters more in social relations than a concept of “humanness” is that of “personhood” as a sentient, rational, autonomous, informed member of a community who participates in the dynamics of the social contract. In chapter 5 we shall examine George Grant’s assertion that not all human relationships can or should be built on “the social contract”; for now we focus on Hughes’ claim that the social contract is a fundamental tenet for most Western bioethicists, as well as the Western liberal democratic tradition itself. Thus, he argues, it should not be a stretch of the imagination to be able to accommodate a wider selection of feeling, conscious individuals, such as created intelligences (animal, machine, or hybrid) and members of an altered human species. The concept of cyborg citizenship can better deal with

“the scary boundary-crossers, the cyborgs, the animal-human hybrids, the genetically- engineered kids, the clones, and the robots.” This broadening of the definition of person is politically invaluable in Hughes’ estimation because “we can add some more chairs at the table” (Hughes, 2004, p. 79). Liberal democracy can already claim to have added some chairs over the years, as attested to by the abolition of slavery, the feminist movement, and the campaign for gay rights. By this reasoning, transhumanists assert that the logical next step is to include persons with cyborg or non-human origins. So it is that transhumanists may claim that their ideology advocates the well-being of all sentience and rejects “racism, sexism, speciesism, belligerent nationalism and religious intolerance.” The tolerance fostered by transhumanist ideals is seen to encourage moral sentiments that will be broad enough to include the inevitability of interacting with sentient beings that could be significantly different than ourselves (Bostrom, 2003b).

On human freedom

Democratic transhumanists claim that their overwhelmingly secular, rational, and liberal leanings have satisfactorily refuted critics’ accusations that the movement is playing

God, tampering with an essential human nature, or displaying “punishable hubris.” At the root of this refutation is the conviction that modernity has firmly and logically established that human beings are (or should strive to be) masters of their own destiny. Thus the tenet most vocally cherished and defended by transhumanism is the freedom of self-determination, followed closely by the tenet that supports equal opportunity to exercise one’s freedom. If pursuing a happy life is the goal of transhumanism, it is essential that self-determination be the leading edge in that pursuit. This enables one also to have the opportunity to live a longer, healthier life, to enhance one’s intellectual capacities, to refine one’s emotional experiences, and to increase one’s subjective sense of well-being (Bostrom, 2003b).41 But as noted, self-actualization without technology is not enough; the human body and mind are limited in themselves. Because technology demonstrates new ways to push the boundaries of those limits, transhumanists believe radical technological modifications to the human being are required to take humanity to the next level.

Some would advocate for libertarian transhumanism, which finds freedom an attractive end in itself. According to Christopher Dewdney (1998), “[w]hen genetic

41 Advocates predict that we will lead fuller lives once we have gained extended capacities, and a key foundation of that is first attaining a longer lifespan. According to Bostrom (2003a): “It seems likely that the simple fact of living an indefinitely long, healthy, active life would take anyone to posthumanity if they went on accumulating memories, skills, and intelligence” (section 1.2, para. 2). Thus one gains a foot in the door if one supports steps to achieve a longer life. The assertion is based on the assumption that people will do more worthwhile things given more time. Bostrom elaborates on those desires: transhumanists “want to do, learn, and experience more; have more fun and spend more time with loved ones; continue to grow and mature beyond the paltry eight decades allotted to us by our evolutionary past; and in order to get to see for themselves what wonders the future might hold” (section 4.1, para. 4).

98 alterations become more affordable, there will be an unanticipated bonus: for the first time in our history, we will be freed from the accident of our births, freed from the tyranny of permanently fixed features. We will be freed from uniformity, and from the involuntary constraints of race” (p. 143). At the heart of this “tyranny” is the nemesis of libertarianism-- the unchosen circumstances of our lives which have impinged upon our freedom to choose.

Many transhumanist commentators, however, seek to temper libertarian rhetoric with democratic controls. Hughes’ version of transhumanist biopolitics combines social democratic economics with liberal cultural politics. Democratic transhumanism endorses a significant role for the government in regulating the safety of new technologies, and ensuring the benefits will accrue widely to the population. It is a “core transhumanist value” to encourage wide and equitable access to enhancement technology so that everyone has the opportunity to become posthuman, rather than leaving it the domain of a wealthy or techno- savvy elite. According to transhumanist reasoning, supporting equitable access is not only good press for the transhumanist project, but also expresses solidarity and respect for one’s fellow human beings, increases the scope of the posthuman realm to be discovered, alleviates human suffering on a wider scale and generally reduces inequality, which many understand as a laudable end in itself (Bostrom, 2005a, section 6, “21st century biopolitics,” para. 2).

However, equitable access does not mean uniform results. In recognition of the

diverse society in which we live, transhumanists assert that differing views of improvement

and perfection should be respected and that no one standard should be imposed. The

liberalist sentiment (which at times tends more towards the libertarian, despite Hughes’ claims to the contrary) is evident in Hughes’ assertion in a radio interview that it is not legitimate to tell people what to do based on one’s own anxieties and moral codes (Clark

&Deij, 2004). Democratic transhumanism prefers to leave choice in the hands of individuals rather than adopt a centrally-planned system. Decisions about enhancement ultimately become personal choices, within a democratic framework.

How will we know if diversity and equity are in balance? According to transhumanist thinkers, “the human condition has been improved if the conditions of individual humans have been improved. In practice, competent adults are usually the best judges of what is good for themselves” (Bostrom, 2003a, section 3.7, para. 2). To be the best judge, one must be aware of one’s choices, and thus one must be informed, whether by means of education, critical thinking, public discussion, scientific investigation, artistic explorations, or “cognitive enhancers.” All are legitimate means of becoming informed, according to transhumanists (p. 31). A strong democracy, argues Hughes (2004), will invest in its population’s intelligence not only through education, nutrition, and health care, but by seeing to it that all citizens are able to take advantage of whatever “brain boosters” are available (p. 41).

It is interesting to note that, for Hughes, augmenting one’s intelligence plays a role in securing autonomy. Claiming a liberalist philosophy rooted in the thought of John Stuart

Mill, Hughes asserts that the smarter a person is, the less willing he or she will be to bend to authority and the more one will want to make one’s own decisions (Clark & Deij, 2004).

This is why transhumanists find intelligence augmentation an integral part of human enhancement. They equate having a high intelligence with thinking for oneself, which then means having the autonomy to exercise control over one’s life.

This correlation may be true, but it seems to me that transhumanists take a narrow definition of intelligence and do not account adequately for the ways that qualities such as

100 self-reflection, sensitivity, compassion, and humility need to be nurtured so that one may discern whether the control one exerts over one’s life leads to a truly good life. The version of intelligence transhumanists give remains silent on the question of whether increased intelligence is a superior means to ascertaining the good life.

What transhumanists do argue is that intelligence plays a role in building democracy:

Hughes (2004) reasons that as intelligence increases, people will be able to assess their own needs, understand the political process better, and organize themselves more effectively (p.

41). Democratic transhumanists are confident that the cumulative actions of enhanced individuals will lead to collective progress on the basis of reasoning that smarter individuals will take more interest in contributing to responsible and wise decisions. Bostrom (2003b), for example, claims that collectively we will be more informed and smarter due to a larger pool of knowledge and more opportunities for information exchange. By ensuring that collective intelligence operates in a democratic framework, democratic transhumanists seek to find a balance between a principled respect for individual liberty and the ability to empower a majority to safeguard society if technological development moves too fast or in the wrong direction (Hughes, 2004, p. 60). This assumes, however, that enhanced humans will continue to value freedom and equality.

Despite transhumanists’ claim that human enhancement is best carried out under the auspices of a liberal democracy, critics of transhumanism express concern that enhancement technologies will lead to a worsening of inequalities between people. For example, Francis

Fukuyama (2002) believes that modifying human nature through powerful technologies could have deleterious consequences for liberal democracy and for politics itself (p. 7). He notes that transhumanists justify attempts to alter the human essence under the banner of

101 freedom: to maximize the freedom of parents to have the type of children they want, the freedom of scientists to pursue research, and the freedom of capitalism to generate wealth from technology development. However, Fukuyama sees a difference between this type of freedom and other political freedoms previously enjoyed. Up until now, he argues, the freedom available to people has been defined by the boundaries established by nature. While the ends allowed by that freedom were quite varied and not rigidly determined, they were nevertheless “not infinitely malleable” and existed within “a safe harbour” which includes constancy in a “species-typical gamut of emotional responses” and which allowed us to connect with other human beings (p. 218). The freedom to change our natures may be our destiny, Fukuyama concedes, but we should not assume that this freedom will lead to the same things. For example, we cannot blithely assume that the posthuman world will include better health care, longer lives and more intelligence yet all the while continue to reflect what we value today (in Fukuyama’s view this includes freedom, equality, prosperousness, caring, and compassion). We need to be open to the possibility that the posthuman future will be more hierarchical, more competitive, and full of social conflict and inequality. The notion of a “shared humanity” may have to be abandoned in the face of so much inter-species genetic engineering and artificial intelligences, and there could arise a “soft tyranny” where people are healthy and happy but complacent and shallow (p. 218).

For Fukuyama, whatever there is to gain, that scenario comes at too high a cost. His point is that we need to approach posthumanity with open eyes, and to not accept the future

“under a false banner of liberty” whether in the name of reproductive rights or the unfettered pursuit of science. Technological development must serve human ends; it is possible to have the freedom to innovate and still be a slave to mindsets which believe technological progress

102 is inevitable. True freedom for Fukuyama means the freedom of political communities “to protect the values they hold most dear” (2002, p. 218). Although we must keep in mind

Grant’s criticism of values language, suffice it to say that, in Fukuyama’s view, the posthuman future puts those values at risk.

The more extreme of transhumanist visions sees the creation of a distinct split in the species between the enhanced and unenhanced, a scenario that overwhelmingly takes the former to be superior and the latter to be consigned to some sort of genetic underclass. Some questions raised by critics of enhancement include: Will the posthuman pose an existential threat to the human? Would posthumans view humans as inferior? Is it a crime against humanity to condone human cloning and inheritable genetic modifications? Will species- altering experiments become potential weapons of mass destruction? Will bioterrorism and genocide be taken to new extremes?

Nick Bostrom believes these fears to be overblown. Fears of bioterrorism and genocide needlessly distract from the therapeutic uses of genetic technologies and biotechnologies, he claims, and moreover the rhetoric of bioterrorism is unhelpful to the discussion. Most reasonable people can support strict regulations of bioweapons while also supporting genetic technologies with beneficial medical uses, which according to him would also include “inheritable and ‘species-altering’ modifications” (2005b, p. 207). As for threats by posthumans or humans, Bostrom argues that there has always been the potential for oppression by one group over another, and that laws and institutions are created by societies to keep such things in check. Further, Bostrom contends that distinct and separate societies of enhanced and unenhanced beings (reminiscent of the movie Gattaca) would not be likely; instead, enhancements will probably contribute to a continuum of differently modified

103 individuals. Fears of inequality, discrimination, and stigmatization could be assuaged by encouraging a tolerant society accepting of diversity.

Hughes for his part agrees that bioconservative fears are overblown, and appeals to the tenets of democratic transhumanism which in his estimation have served society well in accommodating diversity and fostering tolerance. He argues that bioconservatives make the mistake of blaming enhancement technology for what is a political problem. In this respect,

Hughes and Fukuyama are in agreement that political communities need to rally around their values and that political action is a potent force for change. Both argue for freedom and equality, but they differ in their interpretation of what those concepts mean. According to

Hughes, technology is a tool to facilitate the fight for freedom and equality, while for

Fukuyama it threatens those very values. Hughes counters by insisting that there already are grave inequalities in society, and that it is disingenuous for bioconservatives to act as if society currently runs on an even keel of equality and that the development of enhancement technologies will suddenly upset that equilibrium. Hughes believes that it is useless to argue, as he believes his critics do, that no one should have access to enhancement technology unless everyone does. He argues that for a multitude of reasons there are people who are in need of enhancement and the solution is to continue working politically on equitable distribution of technology in a reasonable timeframe, but not to prevent those who can from accessing the technology when it is available (Hughes, in Clark & Deij, 2004).

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Moral obligations

Transhumanism is a clear embodiment of the technological imperative: transhumanist

thought focuses on improving the human being through technology and its ethical orientation

asks how best to pursue that end. More tellingly, though, transhumanist commentary has

overtly identified a moral obligation at work in the transhumanist project. Proponents have

argued that if one accepts the transhumanist tenets regarding human nature, dignity, and

freedom, then there exists a moral obligation to develop technology to solve age-old

problems of poverty, scarcity, disease, suffering, and even death (Bostrom, 2003a, section

3.2, para. 3; Harris, 2007; Kurzweil, 2003). For example, in the case of reproductive and

genetic selection technologies, some advocates argue that if procedures are safe and

accessible, it would be morally irresponsible not to use them to ensure one’s offspring

possess the best potential (Savulescu, 2001). Thus, as much as transhumanism builds itself

around the tenets of individual autonomy, freedom for self-determination, and equitable

access to enhancement opportunities, there is nevertheless an aspect that must concern itself

with the collective good of the society.

As I argued at the beginning of this chapter, the ethical consideration transhumanism

gives to how best to proceed with the project of self-directed evolution necessarily reveals an

underlying commentary on the good life. Part III of this thesis will evaluate in more depth

the nature of the moral obligations asserted by transhumanism and how they closely relate to the technological imperative. In order to examine those ethical commitments, the next chapter will establish the context that opens up the distinct possibility for transhumanism to meet those moral obligations; as we will see, nanotechnology not only means a technical

105 revolution but also bodes a more profound change in the way North American society frames both ethical and existential questions.

CHAPTER 4

NANOTECHNOLOGY AND “NANOETHICS”

A new technoscience

Nanoscience and nanotechnology are umbrella terms for the research, design, and

production of processes, structures, devices, and materials which exhibit novel properties and

functions because of their small size.42 The nanoscale resolves molecules and atoms into

view; to use an atomic yardstick, five silicon atoms or ten hydrogen atoms lined up equal the

length of one nanometre. If one can image, measure, model, or manipulate at the nanoscale,

it broadly constitutes nanoscience and nanotechnology. Much research in physics, chemistry,

biochemistry, molecular biology, materials science, and genetics already operates at the

nanoscale, but in the interest of not overextending the definition, “nanotechnology” must

meet three conditions: it must involve constituent parts with at least one dimension in the 1-

100 nm range; the processes or structures must be controllable, and the properties that

emerge must be novel (Hunt & Mehta, 2006). The label “nanotechnology” implicitly refers

to the ability to control and manipulate matter at the molecular scale. This includes manipulating what we might consider naturally-occurring materials and molecules with tools such as scanning tunnelling microscopes (STMs) and atomic force microscopes (AFMs), and creating entirely new materials with unique characteristics.

In some cases the effort to establish nano-research as a distinct discipline is simply a re-branding within science to attract more funding and prestige (Hunt & Mehta, 2006, p. 2),

42 See for example the definition provided by the United States Patent and Trademark Organization (USPTO), www.uspto.gov/go/classification/uspc977/defs977.htm (Accessed January 12, 2006).

106 107 but other commentators observe that nanoscience and nanotechnology so far have been denied a well-defined niche in academia by dint of their multi-disciplinary approaches and the “persistently outlandish nature of the set of ideas labelled ‘nano’” (Fogelberg & Glimell,

2003, p. 1). Being labelled an “emerging” field is thus a double-edged sword, on the one side ushering in the excitement of the unconventional, the innovative, and the novel, while on the other side attracting skepticism for grandiose claims, for being over-speculative, and for being so radically future-oriented. Currently the term “nanotechnology” applies to a wide variety of research activities, some quite traditional, as in the sub-micron physics of surfaces, and others tending towards the unconventional, such as “smart dust,” which refers to theoretical microelectromechanical systems composed of sensors or robotic devices capable of being scattered across an area to detect various environmental conditions such as temperature and light, for purposes that range from monitoring agricultural conditions to conducting military surveillance (e.g., Sailor and Link, 2005; Warneke, Last, Liebowitz, and

Pister, 2001).

Despite the still disputed definition of nanotechnology, there does seem to be a real change occurring in advanced technologies. I do see some characteristic features of nanoscale research that merit a new disciplinary label, even if there is not wholesale agreement about what constitutes nanotechnology. If nanotechnology is interdisciplinary by nature and heterogeneous in its applications, at the heart of nanotechnology lies the notion of design and control at one of the finest possible scales accessible to human intervention.

Nanotechnology capitalizes on the exploitation of novel and useful properties of matter when it is deliberately structured at the nanoscale.

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Nanoscale research is conducted from engineering and materials sciences departments, in biochemistry and biomedicine, in chemistry, physics, and computer science, by pharmaceutical companies, and in military research centres, to name but a few fields. In fact, it often involves the convergence of several of these areas. Commentators observe that

“[n]anostructures are at the confluence of the smallest of human-made devices and the largest molecules of living things” (Roco, quoted in Ratner & Ratner, 2003, p. 7). Because nanotechnology resides at these crossroads one may argue that its unique interdisciplinary contribution is not simply as another step in miniaturization but rather to open up a qualitatively new way to think about matter because of the way it enables the dimension of scale to merge disparate disciplines.

Nanoscience is considered by some to be an “emergent science” because its scientific truth claims have yet to be settled conclusively by scientific or public consensus, in contrast to the more established fields of physics, chemistry, and biology which, by virtue of long histories as distinct scientific disciplines, operate on a relatively more stable foundation of theory and principles (Hamilton, 2003). The boundary between science historically conducted at the nanoscale and “nanoscience” as a new field is open to interpretation. One may argue that scientific disciplines of one sort or another have identified and described features at the nanoscale for over a hundred years; however the direct observation of nanoscale features has only been possible for the past quarter century through the advent of tools such as the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) and the atomic force microscope

(AFM). It is even less time that scientists have been able to manipulate matter precisely at that scale. Nanoscience for some researchers seeks to unify the scientific disciplines by remembering that the essence of science is to study flows of matter and energy. Nanoscience

109 recognizes that specific disciplines such as chemistry, biology, and physics are viewpoints taken to study different aspects of the same underlying reality, matter and energy; thus rather than changing language when changing viewpoints, nanoscientists seek to discover the unity displayed at the nanoscale, where all matter looks and acts the same (Atkinson, 2003, p. 32).

Thus while it can be said that nanoscale research does have a history of being conducted in each of these “traditional” disciplines, “nanoscience” proper seeks to formalize its principles, which cross traditional disciplinary boundaries and converge on account of scale.

If the novel nature of “nanoscience” is not yet agreed upon, the novelty contained within the concept of “nanotechnology” generally garners more consensus, where nanotechnology refers to the emergent engineering discipline which uses nanoscience discoveries to create viable products (Wood, Jones, & Geldart, 2003). Nanotechnology is often spoken of in terms of “top-down” or “bottom-up” approaches. Top-down processes tend to start with bulk materials at the macroscale and to carve or whittle away matter until the nanoscale features remain. This is the approach of traditional lithography of silicon chips and in the production of crystalline drugs to make them more water soluble. Bottom-up approaches begin at the atomic or molecular level, manipulating matter with molecular precision and joining individual atoms and molecules to form larger objects and materials, the way that chemical processes form organic and inorganic compounds. Indeed, nature as a whole is understood to operate in this way, synthesizing proteins and carbohydrates from organic compounds to create cells which in turn create tissues which then produce more complex organisms.

For the purposes of this investigation the distinction between nanoscience and nanotechnology will not be considered significant because the nanotechnologist, as much as

110 the nanoscientist, must observe, study, and manipulate matter; and the contributions to the body of knowledge considered under the auspices of “nanoscience” are made just as much by nanotechnologists as by nanoscientists. Another distinction to note is that nanotechnology may be spoken of in the singular or the plural. In the singular it tends to refer to a unifying perspective that highlights the design and control of matter at the molecular scale. Its plural use tends to emphasize the diversity of applications. For my purposes, I will focus on the unifying paradigm based on deliberate control of matter at the finest scale. Analysis of this paradigm reveals a certain technoscientific worldview that supercedes the variety of individual technological applications. As we will see in Part III, it then becomes evident that the unifying technoscientific paradigm which encompasses design, control, predictability, and novelty influences commentators’ understanding of the associated social and ethical issues.

A brief history of nano

While some scientists assert that human beings have employed nanotechnology,

albeit unknowingly, for thousands of years (Ramsden, 2005, p. 9, notes steel and mediaeval

stained glass as examples), the beginning of the conceptual history of modern

nanotechnology is generally credited to an after-dinner speech delivered by physicist Richard

Feynman at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in 1959.43 Entitled

“There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” the talk anticipated much of what is now

43 The talk was originally published in the February 1960 issue of the Caltech Engineering and Science magazine and subsequently published in 1961 as a chapter in Miniaturization, edited by Horace D. Gilbert. While Feynman is historically credited with conceptualizing modern nanotechnology without calling it such, the actual term was coined by University of Tokyo professor Norio Taniguchi in 1974 to describe the extension of traditional precision silicon machining to submicron dimensions. See Hunt and Mehta (2006, pp. 1-2).

111 considered the purview of nanotechnology today. Feynman saw the realm of the very small to be vast uncharted territory for his physicist colleagues to explore. He is famously known and oft-quoted as saying: “The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom. It is not an attempt to violate any laws; it is something, in principle, that can be done; but in practice, it has not been done because we are too big” (1961, “Atoms in a small world”, para. 4). With this postulation at the crux of his address, Feynman mused on non-biochemical ways to miniaturize computers, to create

“mechanical surgeons” that could travel through the bloodstream or be permanently incorporated into the body to assist with organ function, and to develop a series of precise mechanical tools to build and operate another set of tools proportionately smaller, step by step, down to the atomic scale. The latter he imagined incorporated into tiny automated factories that would construct devices in a mechanical fashion analogous to full-sized operations.44 This was a precursor to present-day research into “top-down” and “bottom-up”

approaches to nanotechnology described in the previous section.

In some circles Feynman is considered the first “prophet” of nanotechnology and is

credited with remarkable foresight (Gross, 1999, pp. 202-205). However, his after-dinner

speech served more to amuse than to inspire and enlighten his fellow physicists. The speech

was published in 1960 but was largely forgotten in research circles until a graduate student at

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology rediscovered it and became inspired to develop the

ideas.

44 Feynman also accounted for the fact that all things do not scale down in proportion; certain physical forces predominate at particular scales, such as Van der Waals forces at the molecular scale, necessitating the accommodation of and design around those parameters. While he recognized those bounds, he did not see them as absolute obstacles to the types of engineering he proposed.

112

In the annals of nanotechnology history, Kim Eric Drexler is looked upon variously as the second “prophet” of nanotechnology, as the founder of modern nanotechnology, as a pioneering theorist, as a derided visionary, as a wishful rhetorician--or he is studiously ignored by some scientists and engineers who wish to completely dissociate themselves from the hype. Although educated as an engineer, Drexler approached nanotechnology theory from the perspective of molecular biology. Life itself was proof to him that machines could be designed and built atom-by-atom. Ribosomes, when understood as multi-purpose protein factories, for example, demonstrate nature’s building-block processes.

In 1981 Drexler published what is considered to be the first technical paper on nanotechnology, although the specific term was not used. The paper explored the basic principles required for engineering at the molecular scale. It relied heavily on establishing the mechanical nature of molecular biology so that Drexler could theorize the possibilities of recreating typical macroscopic building components (struts, motors, drive shafts, pumps, etc.) at the microscopic or molecular level (1981, p. 5276). Drexler argued that each macroscopic machine component already had a natural cellular analogue. This reasoning helped him lay the groundwork to establish proof-of-principle for engineering molecular machinery. He followed up in 1986 with Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of

Nanotechnology, a book aimed at explaining molecular engineering and manufacturing to the layperson. This was the first serious attempt to define nanotechnology as a distinct field of research. It was also a benchmark publication in its arguments about how nanotechnology could usher in an era of unprecedented material abundance, health, and longevity.

Engines of Creation focuses largely on theorizing the possibilities of molecular manufacturing, a type of bottom-up nanotechnology that would assemble atoms and

113 molecules at will to build macroscale structures, guided by design specifications and ubiquitous source material such as carbon. All technology, claims Drexler (1986/1990), is an attempt to manipulate matter and arrange atoms (p. 3). It is the basic arrangement of atoms that distinguishes coal from diamonds, sand from silicon, healthy cells from diseased ones; thus the key to understanding the world lies in understanding, and then deliberately manipulating, the arrangement of those atoms and molecules. Present technology tends to handle the make-up of matter rather ham-handedly, while Drexler’s nanotechnology vision promises more control over matter through more precise handling methods.

Drexler specifically focuses on the idea of “universal assemblers,” nano-sized machines that will be able to construct atom-by-atom anything that the laws of nature will allow. Since it would take a long time for an individual assembler to put together enough atoms to make something visible, Drexler suggests they be designed with a complementary capacity for self-replication, so that billions of assemblers might build matter from the bottom up more efficiently. Drexler aims at constructing a mechanical analogue to biological systems, inspired by the bottom-up cellular assembly common in nature. Because source material would be common and therefore inexpensive, he envisions these “universal assemblers” to be programmed to build anything, meaning that an abundance of material goods could be produced cheaply and with little to no waste.

Other proponents of molecular nanotechnology similarly pin profound hopes to its promises of clean and efficient commodity manufacturing, which would supposedly eradicate material scarcity and poverty. They also look to its promises of large-scale environmental cleanup, as nanotechnologies prove themselves able to convert the waste and

114 toxic materials from present-day “crude fabrication methods” into harmless byproducts, and perhaps even useful feedstock for manufacturing (Bostrom, 2003a, section 3.6, para. 5).

Drexler’s approach is speculative and extrapolative, based on theoretical computational modelling. Although some scientists fault Drexler’s theoretical approach for not measuring up for the experimentally-based methods understood to be the foundation of

“good science,” Drexler insists that while his theory may have to wait substantially for experimental verification, the reasoning behind it is sound.

In 1986 Drexler founded the Foresight Institute, now known as the Foresight

Nanotech Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to “advancing beneficial nanotechnology” and preparing society for what is understood as an inevitable technological revolution. Its purview includes outreach through education, policy papers and conferences, drafting guidelines and awarding research prizes.45 Although some nanotechnology

researchers are wary about associating their work with the visionary goals of the

organization, the Foresight Nanotech Institute is an example of increasing efforts to make

science and technology research more accessible and relevant to the public. Because the

organization has an overt agenda of technological advocacy, we will re-visit its assumptions

about the role of technology in society in chapter six’s discussion of ethics and molecular

manufacturing.

Drexler’s writing and advocacy, speculative though many in the academic and

research community consider them to be, have been influential in shaping the public’s

45 Drexler was also instrumental in the founding of the Zyvex Corporation, which originated with the express purpose of making the molecular assembler a reality. The private company was founded by James Von Ehr, who heard Drexler lecture in 1993 and became thoroughly acquainted with Drexler’s highly technical work, Nanosystems. According to the company’s website www.zyvex.com, Zyvex is committed to transforming the manufacture of physical goods in the 21st Century. It currently offers research and design tools, nanomaterials, and assembled micromachines.

115 perception (and misperceptions) of nanotechnology. “Grey goo,” for example, is an idea often associated with Drexler. The idea of grey goo illustrates the possible negative consequences of designing vast numbers of self-replicating assemblers. Grey goo need be neither grey nor gooey, says Drexler, but it is a threat he felt obliged to consider seriously when he first proposed his “engines of creation.” Meditating on the advent of self-replicating assemblers able to make anything out of common materials like carbon, Drexler addresses the possible risk involved in controlling such ubiquitous devices. One scenario is that masses of uncontrolled replicators run amok and swarm locust-like across the earth, laying waste to everything they touch. Even while scientists dismissed the plausibility of the original replicator idea--much less runaway replicators--the scenario caught the imagination of science fiction writers and piqued the curiosity (and worry) of the wider public. Many nanoresearchers express chagrin that such far-fetched ideas developed in tandem with their emerging field. While the risk of grey goo has been largely dismissed by scientists and downplayed by Drexler, its presence in the public consciousness exemplifies the great potential for misinformation surrounding technological speculation and the demand for extra vigilance to separate fact from fiction in an area which is still establishing its own core of fact and which does require some measure of speculation to generate innovation.

The grey goo scenario thus has been instrumental in illustrating the power of certain public reactions to technological developments. Having witnessed public backlash over reproductive technologies, genetic engineering, and nuclear science, the nanotechnology community is eager not to be subject to the same public wariness and alarm. But the danger, imagined or real, described in Drexler’s work initially seemed to threaten public acceptance of early nanotechnology research and made some researchers feel they were fighting an

116 uphill battle. Drexler himself, in the afterword to the 1990 edition of Engines of Creation, regrets the initial, unintended, negative publicity that emerged from his overwhelmingly optimistic and visionary mission to publicly advocate for nanotechnology (p. 241).

It is not just in originating the grey goo scenario that Drexler irks some in the nanotechnology field. His theory of molecular manufacturing may inspire some researchers, but Nobel laureate and chemist Richard Smalley provided a well-publicized rebuttal to

Drexler’s theory in 2001, charging it to be simply untenable. I will discuss the significance of that particular exchange in the next section but, admire him or deride him, there is no question that Drexler has had significant impact in raising the profile of nanotechnological possibilities in the mind of the public.

Advocacy for nanotechnology would be of little use were it not for the accompanying scientific and technological developments to stoke the fires of possibility. In the 1980s significant technological progress was made which is now considered part of nanotechnology history. In 1981, the scanning tunnelling microscope was invented, with the atomic force microscope following in 1986. Both instruments have been vital in imaging and manipulating objects at the nanoscale. In 1989, IBM researcher Don Eigler used a handmade scanning tunnelling microscope to push 35 xenon atoms on a nickel surface into a configuration spelling the letters “IBM.” This served as a benchmark illustration that atoms, rather than being abstract concepts, indeed could be manipulated and controlled with precision, although considerable effort and technology is required. It was further demonstrated ten years later that atoms could be pushed together by an atomic force microscope to form covalent bonds, thus vindicating Drexler’s theory of mechanical

117 molecular manufacturing and implying its feasibility. Even so, the state of research on practically applying the principles of molecular manufacturing remains embryonic.

The Smalley-Drexler debate

Nobel laureate Richard Smalley was an outspoken critic of Drexler’s proposal of molecular assemblers. He took issue with both the apocalyptic cast of the runaway self- replicating assembler scenario (and its subsequent threat to undermine public support of nanotechnology) and with the theoretical science on which Drexler’s vision rests. Smalley, who died in 2005, was engaged in nanoscience research of his own and was considered a towering figure in nanoresearch circles. Smalley’s scientific credentials include the co- discovery of the buckminsterfullerene, or “buckyball,” in 1985, a finding for which he shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry.46

In the September 2001 issue of Scientific American, Drexler and Smalley were

featured in contrasting articles, with Drexler spelling out his vision of molecular

manufacturing and Smalley rebutting the theory.47 Smalley has acknowledged the role

Engines of Creation had in stimulating his own interest in nanotechnology but he and Drexler are usually portrayed as antagonistic towards each other. Smalley is well-known for broaching the “fat fingers” and “sticky fingers” problems as inherent flaws in Drexler’s

46 Naturally occurring in soot, the buckminsterfullerene, or carbon-60, is a form of elemental carbon named for R. Buckminster Fuller, the architect associated with the geodesic dome. Dubbed “buckyballs,” they are structured as hexagonal and pentagonal faces roughly forming a spherical soccer ball shape. Buckyballs are part of a larger family of carbon varieties known as fullerenes, among which are also included the carbon nanotube. This can be envisioned as a single layer of graphite, known as graphene, rolled into a cylindrical tube. Nanotubes are much stronger than steel and conduct electricity better than copper, making them attractive prospects for nanotechnology development. Research on fullerenes of the nanotube and buckyball varieties are relatively well-established in nanotechnology circles. 47 See Drexler, 2001, pp. 74-75 and Smalley, 2001, pp 76-77.

118 reasoning. Where Drexler envisions a molecular assembler to operate analogously to a robotic arm in a factory, picking up a loaded tool, applying it to a workpiece under construction, replacing the empty tool and picking up the next loaded tool, Smalley counters that the “fingers” of a nanoscale manipulator arm, themselves made of atoms, will be too bulky to pick up other atoms, and too “sticky” (due to atomic interactions) to let go even if the atoms could be picked up. Both problems are fundamental, and neither can be avoided, contends Smalley. The Smalley-Drexler debate moved on to a public exchange of letters published in Chemical and Engineering News in December 2003. Here again the men squared off on whether molecular assemblers are physically possible, with Drexler opening the debate in an attempt to correct what he believed was Smalley’s misrepresentation of his work (Baum, 2003).48

The debate is significant because it establishes the theoretical physical limitations of nanotechnology and identifies what paradigms of matter and energy influence both Drexler and Smalley. Drexler believes he has laid down all the theoretical technical and engineering foundations in his publications, and asserts that those theories have withstood scientific scrutiny. Smalley contends that Drexler’s mechanical model is simply unfeasible and its chemical analogue severely limited. Furthermore, with Drexler’s depiction of the risks associated with molecular manufacturing and the subsequent impact that has had on public

48 Drexler particularly refers to the fat fingers and sticky fingers problems; he contends that the “fingers” themselves are simply not essential to his proposal of how to position reactive molecules. He further clarifies that he never suggested manipulating individual atoms but rather proposed mechanically positioning reactive molecules in order to guide chemical synthesis of complex structures. Smalley, he argues, has built a straw man by attacking the notion of manipulator fingers. Smalley’s reply is to draw Drexler into the worldview of chemistry, arguing that precise chemistry of the type Drexler seems to suggest cannot occur simply by pushing molecules together. In the end, the lines are drawn in terms of disciplines: Drexler speaks in mechanical engineering and computing terms, and Smalley counters with examples of physical limitations imposed by chemistry and biology. Smalley says he hoped to engage Drexler in a conversation about “real chemistry with real enzymes” but claims that Drexler has lost himself back in a pretend world that works simply on mechanistic but chemically-impossible principles (Baum, 2003).

119 perception of nanotechnology, Drexler and his supporters “have scared our children” with a

“bedtime story that is deeply troubling.”49 Smalley concludes the exchange of letters:

I don’t expect you to stop, but I hope others in the chemical community will

join with me in turning on the light, and showing our children that, while our

future in the real world will be challenging and there are real risks, there will

be no such monster as the self-replicating mechanical nanobot of your dreams.

(quoted in Baum, 2003, p. 42)

Thus it seems that Drexler has become irrevocably linked to runaway nanobots and grey goo,

despite his own efforts to downplay those facets of his theory and to qualify his statements

about the risks of replicators (where he is concerned more for the potential for abuse rather than runaway accidents). Drexler tends to be portrayed if not as a visionary or prophet, then at least as a zealous proponent, but he contends that he understands himself not as a single- minded promoter of nanotechnology but as a promoter for understanding nanotechnology and its consequences (1986/1990, p. 241).

However, from a philosophical point of view, the most interesting aspect of the

Drexler-Smalley debate is that both men are considered advocates for development of nanotechnology and that the debate has always been more about feasible methods of how to proceed, and not a debate about what can be achieved or whether it should be pursued, which both men have already answered in the affirmative. In short, the debate is about means, and not ends. Both in their own way are concerned about debunking misconceptions about

49 This is Smalley’s concluding anecdote regarding an essay contest organized for 700 middle and high school students in Houston to whom Smalley gave the talk “Be a Scientist, Save the World.” The essay contest theme was “Why I am a Nanogeek” and of the top 30 essays Smalley was given to judge, he noted that half of them assumed the possibilities of self-replicating nanobots, and most expressed concern about the danger of nanobots spreading around the world. For Smalley this was a telling example of public perception--and more worryingly, the misperceptions--about nanotechnology.

120 nanotechnology and in encouraging wider public discussion, and both consider nanotechnology to be pivotal in opening up many more avenues in the development of the human species. Drexler produced what amounts to a handbook on how to rebuild the world, while Smalley has been quoted as saying “[n]anotechnology is the builder’s final frontier”

(López, 2004, citing the 1999 National Science and Technology Council report,

Nanotechnology: Shaping the World Atom by Atom).

If anything, Drexler’s vision, as well as the importance Smalley attached to rebutting that vision, is particularly significant to the nanotechnology discussion for being what

Fogelberg and Glimmel call “an intriguing perspective shifter.” Nanotechnology as a concept “qualifies as a potentially breathtaking, ground breaking forerunner of a technological trajectory bound to come” and in that sense, already exists, despite the lack of tangible results (Fogelberg & Glimell, 2003, p. 5). In terms of shifting perspectives, one might cite as precedent the early days of the computer, which has in a few generations changed our relationship with information. Molecular nanotechnology, according to the

Foresight Nanotech Institute, is similarly poised to change our relationship with molecules and matter:

The computer enabled an ever expanding number of people to access billions

of dollars worth of information. Productive nanotechnology will enable an

ever expanding number of people to enjoy significant material wealth, based

on carbon feedstock, which currently is in overabundant supply. It will also

enable the technical infrastructure to address effectively many of our most

pressing transportation, environmental, medical and global warming issues.

(Jacobstein, 2006, “Productive nanosystems,” para. 3)

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It is wise for those who disagree with the mechanics of proposed molecular nanotechnology methods not to dismiss the concept out of hand, for they risk overlooking or ignoring the larger issues of technological change which transcend specific methods. As a perspective shifter, molecular nanotechnology has been instrumental in raising a host of questions around safety and risk, and it has contributed significantly to instigating discussion on the ethics, bans, and regulations around nanotechnology, regardless of whether the manufacturing method itself will come to pass as originally envisioned.

Government contributions: The National Nanotechnology Initiative and beyond

If Drexler and Smalley have represented one aspect of the technoscientific public debate on nanotechnology, some back-room government discussion also merits mention because it illustrates the technological society’s drive (especially in the United States) to create and direct the future. Mihail Roco is a notable American government official who emerged as a leader of the United States’ National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) which was launched in 2000 near the end of the Clinton administration. The NNI is interesting because Roco’s efforts to tailor a national strategy for nanotechnology research began ten years earlier in 1990 and it entailed thorough and systematic strategic planning before there was any real expectation of funding. Stephen Edwards chronicles this evolution in The

Nanotech Pioneers: Where Are They Taking Us? and concludes: “The NNI was initially a kind of prospectus; a red herring optimistically prepared in the belief that it could by its powers of persuasion obtain a constituency among government funding agencies” (2006, p.

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36). A rare budget surplus in 1999 gave Roco a window of opportunity to petition the U.S. government for $500 million in funding for the NNI and thereafter he became the Chair of the Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science and Engineering for the National Science and

Technology Council.

In 2001 Roco and William Bainbridge coordinated a collaborative project between the National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce to examine the convergence of technologies at the nanoscale. Converging Technologies for Improving

Human Performance was published in 2002 as a result of the consensus arrived at by project participants that nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science were on a path to converge, with potentially momentous implications for future industry and society. The so-called NBIC (“nano-bio-info-cogno”) convergence envisions a

“New Renaissance” to emerge in the coming decades, consisting of a unifying scientific and technological paradigm based on “material unity at the nanoscale” (quoted in Edwards, 2006, p. 38).50 The report places emphasis on the “Human Cognome” project which seeks to

understand and possibly redesign and enhance the functions of the human mind, including

the potential for brain-machine interfaces. The report also reflects the interests of the

Department of Defense: ubiquitous sensors, robotic weapons systems, “high-performance

warfighters,” improved surveillance, and data transmission. The unifying undercurrent of the

publication is a recognition that the social fabric needs to change to reflect the new structure

of convergence. The language of the report reflects its engineering approach:

50 The report is divided into six sections: the first addresses the motivations behind the project (the desire to have a unifying, competitive, national strategy for technology development); the second focuses on expanding human cognition and communication; the third deals with improving human health and physical capabilities; the fourth examines “enhancing group and societal outcomes”; the fifth addresses national security; and the sixth section looks at unifying science and education.

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Developments in systems approaches, mathematics, and computation in

conjunction with NBIC allow us for the first time to understand the natural

world, human society, and scientific research as closely coupled complex,

hierarchical systems. At this moment in the evolution of technical

achievement, improvement of human performance through integration of

technologies becomes possible. [original emphasis]

Examples of payoffs may include improving work efficiency and

learning, enhancing individual sensory and cognitive capabilities,

revolutionary changes in healthcare, improving both individual and group

creativity, highly effective communication techniques including brain-to-brain

interaction, perfecting human-machine interfaces including neuromorphic

engineering, sustainable and “intelligent” environments including neuro-

ergonomics, enhancing human capabilities for defense purposes, reaching

sustainable development using NBIC tools, and ameliorating the physical and

cognitive decline that is common to the aging mind. (Roco & Bainbridge,

2002, p. ix)

Thus the report is significant for being a broad and sustained effort to construct a national nanotechnology vision, framing that vision as central to achieving a variety of technological, scientific, economic, political and social goals. For the purposes of this investigation, I flag how it is also an endorsement by the United States’ government for transhumanist-friendly principles and objectives, and how it illustrates a national commitment to the belief in the transformational powers of technology. The editors and

124 contributors are drawn from what is considered to be the mainstream. What was once relegated to after-hours’ speculation now resonates with and finds legitimacy among those doing and funding the basic research. Edwards (2006) notes that “[i]f the NBIC report had been put out by Drexler’s Foresight Institute, it would probably have not been given much weight. But coming from two powerful agencies of the United States government, it had enormous impact” (p. 38).51 When the report was issued in 2002, Japan, Korea, and China

had begun work on their own national nanotechnology initiatives and by 2005 over 62

countries had launched some sort of effort.

Canada also strives to keep pace. The National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT)

was established in 2001 and is funded by the Canadian government through the National

Research Council of Canada, the Government of Alberta and the University of Alberta. As with similar national nanotechnology initiatives undertaken in other countries, the language used to promote the NINT echoes the call to be a major player on a world scene, to commercialize innovation, and to focus on “strategic research interests.”52 The NINT has

identified nine areas of research: ethical, environmental, economic, legal, and societal issues; molecular scale devices; materials and interfacial chemistry; electron microscopy; sensors and devices; supramolecular nanoscale assembly; life sciences; theory and modeling; and energy (NRC National Institute for Nanotechnology, 2006).

51 As it is, the Foresight Nanotech Institute now carries a fair amount of credibility for its sustained commentary on various aspects of nanotechnology, and particularly for disseminating its guidelines on the responsible development of nanotechnology. 52 “Strategic research interests” are identified as those of importance to the Government of Alberta, particularly the expansion of existing research relating to the energy industry and the stimulation of economic activity in Alberta. Other research objectives include: “development of new devices and materials for information and communications technologies, especially wireless communications…[and expansion of Alberta’s] life sciences and medical expertise through development of technology platforms for new medical therapeutic devices, sensors and diagnostic devices, and possibly new drugs and drug delivery systems.” See http://nint-innt.nrc- cnrc.gc.ca/research/index_e.html (Accessed March 20, 2007).

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How to think about nanotechnology: indirect, direct and conceptual contributions

Given the rise of rhetoric associated with the revolutionary potential of nanotechnology, scholars are now subjecting nanotechnology’s claims and assumptions to critical assessment. Journals dedicated to critically assessing nanotechnology have been on the rise in recent years and in the first issue of Nanotechnology Perceptions, published in

2005, Jeremy Ramsden offers a useful framework for thinking about the contributions of nanotechnology. He suggests approaching nanotechnology according to its indirect, direct, and conceptual aspects.

The indirect contribution of nanotechnology regards the modification and further development of existing technologies, which in turn opens up new areas of application. For example, the progressive miniaturization of existing technologies such as electronic and photonic circuits is facilitated by nanoresearch. From this perspective, nanotechnology enables other technology and enhances its performance. As Ramsden (2005) notes, when the quantitative change (in this case, miniaturization) is big enough, it becomes qualitative (p. 8).

The capacity to compute powerfully only becomes useful in a widespread manner when integrated circuitry could be reduced in size and cost. When nanotechnology contributes on these fronts, many more developments become possible.

The direct aspect of nanotechnology contributions relate to the novel and useful properties discovered, engineered, or harnessed by virtue of the specific nanoscale. These discoveries can also be used to enhance existing technologies or to create entirely new ones.

Novel forms of matter are especially useful if they are high-performance materials exhibiting desirable properties such as strength, durability, elasticity, or conductivity. While still largely in the theoretical stage, the engineering of nanometre-sized robots, or nanobots, is

126 also a contribution of direct nanotechnology. Such nanobots are envisioned to be useful for surgery, for surveillance, and for remote sensing.

Most pertinent to this thesis is the third way to understand nanotechnology: through its conceptual contributions. Conceptual nanotechnology offers a telling portrayal of the engineering mindset inherent but often unacknowledged or unrecognized in today’s Western technological society because it presents more of a coherent worldview than attempted in the description of indirect and direct nanotechnology. Conceptual nanotechnology is a lens through which to understand the material world and to legitimate humanity’s systematic intervention upon it because it considers matter at the smallest scale and attempts to break down materials and processes, including living systems, into their smallest constituent parts.

The intention is to use that knowledge as a template to synthesize artificial counterparts that either improve upon what is available in nature or that constitute entirely novel creations. By scrutinizing structures at the finest possible level of detail, conceptual nanotechnology is expected to lead to completely new ways to understand the world and to reveal the underlying mechanisms of hitherto unexplained phenomena (Ramsden, 2005, p. 9).

What distinguishes conceptual nanotechnology from general research at the nanoscale is its sense of purposiveness, its attempt at deliberate control, and its worldview that is acutely aware that matter can be manipulated. It is the possibility for systematic investigation of matter that lends novelty and coherence to conceptual nanotechnology. The rhetoric associated with conceptual nanotechnology indicates that technoscientific intervention at the nanoscale will be key to solving the world’s problems; here I cite the claim that “[p]ollution, physical disease, and material poverty all stem from poor control of the structure of matter” (Drexler & Peterson, 1991, p. 10). We must be aware that our

127 society’s predisposition towards technical solutions profoundly affects how we frame our problems in the first place, meaning that a nanotechnological worldview may be accompanied by functional blindspots. We will investigate this claim in more detail in Part

III.

With this in mind, I note that while Ramsden’s classification is useful for understanding how far the research community is willing to claim nanotechnology can go

(e.g., nanotechnology will develop existing electronic technology further; nanotechnology will produce novel materials and composites; nanotechnology will revolutionize manufacturing), one cannot consider his classifications mutually exclusive of one another.

Indirect, direct, and conceptual approaches to nanotechnology all embody the fundamental drive to harness the usefulness of matter and all of the approaches demonstrate technological society’s preoccupation with improving the human condition through technological development. Discoveries that highlight one aspect of Ramsden’s categories will inform developments in other areas. The rhetoric of nanotechnology’s revolutionary nature can be found across the board.

What are nanotechnology’s current achievements?

Broadly speaking, nanotechnology research has implications for making smaller,

faster computers that are potentially wearable and implantable, for developing more efficient

alternative energy sources, for precise cancer detection and treatment, for revolutionizing

surgical techniques, for water purification and toxic materials clean-up, for military

128 surveillance and combat, for controlled drug-release in the body, and for engineering “smart” materials that are able to change properties and respond to their environment.

Considered in terms of mainstream commercial and public availability, the fruits of current nanotechnology research have found a home with materials science (particularly as finishes for surfaces and textiles), electronics, photonics, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics.

For example:

Nanotechnology has played a significant role in circuit miniaturization

which has led to exponential increases in computational power and speed, which in

turn enables more widespread use of computing technologies.

Photonics and integrated optics deal with the transmission of

information as light; the refinement of these technologies through the development of

nanotechnology brings researchers closer to creating an optical computer, which uses

light rather than electricity to transmit and store data.

Nanoparticles are widely used in skin cosmetics for their ability not to

cake or look chalky, while retaining their functionality such as the ability to absorb

ultraviolet light. The cosmetics industry holds one of the greatest numbers of

nanotechnology patents in the United States, using nanoparticles in products such as

lotions, sunscreens, anti-wrinkle treatments, and hair conditioners (Pittman, 2005).

Wound dressings make use of the anti-bacterial properties of

nanoscale silver.

“Superhydrophobic” or “smart” materials are being developed to repel

dirt and water, such as stain-resistant fabrics and “self-cleaning” windows. A variety

of nanoscale materials are used in thin films to make surface coatings that are scratch-

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resistant, glare-resistant, ultraviolet- or infrared-resistant, anti-microbial, antifog, or

electrically conductive. Such coatings have found use on eyeglasses, mirrors,

cameras, and computer displays to protect or treat surfaces.

Nanotubes, particularly carbon nanotubes, offer increased strength,

flexibility, durability, and less weight than conventional materials, and are used

currently to make baseball bats, tennis racquets, and some car parts. Strong but

lightweight materials are especially useful for constructing land, sea, air, and space

vehicles that are fuel efficient but durable.

Water filtration experiments use carbon nanotube-based membranes to

desalinate water; nanoscale sensors are used to identify water contaminants;

nanoscale materials such as titanium dioxide are being investigated for their ability to

filter and purify water of bacteria such as E. coli and chemicals such as arsenic.

What does nanotechnology seek to accomplish?

Projections and timelines for what nanotechnology will make possible are wide and

varied. To give a sampling of the breadth of research, I will list several broad categories:

Environmental

With an energy crisis looming large, it is a priority in the minds of many researchers

to develop and perfect techniques for clean and efficient energy production, storage, and

transmission through improved solar power technology and efficient transmission of energy

130 through nanotube wiring. Other researchers are developing portable handheld devices to monitor air and water quality and to identify pollutants; this will aid in toxic materials cleanup, restoration of ecosystems, and the possible rebuilding of the ozone layer (Kahn,

2006, p. 106; Pilarski, Mehta, Caulfield, Kaler, & Backhouse, 2004, p. 40; Sweeney, Seal, &

Vaidyanathan, 2003, p. 237).

Medical

Research is being done on implantable sensors that can monitor physiological

indicators such as heartbeat, blood pressure, blood oxygenation, and the concentration of

various substances in blood and tissue (Frietas, 1999). Currently these indicators are

measured external to the body, either through sending samples for lab tests or by using

external monitors. Further miniaturization may result in “lab-on-a-chip” diagnostics.

Current drug-based therapies where chemicals must be absorbed by the entire body in order

to treat a localized problem could be replaced by targeted drug-delivery systems which

deliver pharmaceuticals precisely where they are required. Particular effort is focused on

cancer treatment where diseased cells can be tagged and targeted with drugs or lasers with

molecular precision. “Nanosurgery” can be considered a magnified offshoot of

microsurgery; although for the layperson it may evoke fiction scenarios such as The

Fantastic Voyage, some commentators envision quasi-autonomous nanobots released into the

bloodstream to travel to the site of interest to do repair work, meaning that surgery can be

made less invasive. Others envisage nanosurgical techniques to repair defective DNA as

well as to facilitate organ restoration or replacement through tissue grown in the lab

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(Ramsden, 2005, p. 12-13; Sweeney et al., 2003, p. 237). Wedding research on “smart” materials with medical applications, the Institute for Soldier Technologies at MIT is developing biomedical textiles which, when worn as combat clothing, can sense a soldier’s physiological condition and potentially work as a triage measure, cauterizing wounds and monitoring injury, and acting as splints for broken bones.53

Electronics and computing

A wide range of nanoscopic sensors, nanostructured optics, photonics, magnets, and

molecular circuit boards are being investigated to improve data storage (in terms of durability, longevity, and packing more information into a smaller space) and data processing. This may eventually lead to breakthroughs in quantum computing which, if perfected, will far exceed the capabilities of present silicon-based computing and electronic technology.

Military

Government military budgets worldwide, but particularly in the United States,

provide significant investment in nanotechnology research; the US Department of Defense

reportedly is the largest investor in the United States’ National Nanotechnology Initiative,

providing approximately 30% ($2 billion) of the NNI’s budget since the project’s inception

53 See for example MIT’s website for the Institute, “Enhancing Soldier Survivability” http://web.mit.edu/isn/research/team04/index.html, (accessed November 2, 2006); such projects demonstrate the collaborative nature of nanotechnology development and the blurring distinctions between industrial, military, and academic research.

132 in 2000 (Langley, Parkinson, & Webber, 2007). Although most nanotechnology commentary dispassionately lists military uses in terms of nanoelectronics for information acquisition, storage, processing and display, and nanosensors with chemical and biological warfare defence capabilities (with little commentary on proposed offensive technologies), some organizations such as Scientists for Global Responsibility are far more critical of the role of military research in technological development (Langley, Parkinson & Webber,

2007).

Other

Other applications of nanoscience research include “enhancing” consumer products

by making them lighter, more durable or “smarter”; making valuable products more readily

available in terms of ease of synthesis (such as food and precious materials such as

diamonds; see Sweeney et al., 2003, p. 237); and as mentioned previously, the replacement

of the industrial system with molecular manufacturing. One particularly pressing practical

question that remains to be answered regards the toxicity of nanoparticles, which are already found in widespread commercial applications, from sunscreen to paint.

Nanotechnology and nature

Over the past 400 years it has been common in Western society to think in terms of a

dichotomy between technology and nature: nature is the collective phenomena of the

physical world as opposed to humans or human creations (Schiemann, 2005). Technology is

133 considered artificial, a human construct distinct from nature and often used to control, tame, or harness natural forces. However, at the same time, the scientific community has expended much effort to describe nature and understand its processes in terms of mechanistic analogies.

Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (2004) highlights the fluidity with which mechanical language permeates biology (e.g., mitochondria as the powerhouse of the cell, bacterial flagella as motors, enzymes as production lines), and biological terms that have become more prevalent in engineering (e.g., evolution, generations, growth, reproduction, self-replication, mutation). There are now enough useful parallels between biology and mechanical systems for a common paradigm to emerge, one that is weighted in favour of an artificialist or mechanistic view of nature. That mechanistic metaphor prevails when matter is discussed at the nanoscale. Indeed, nanoresearchers such as Drexler often justify the feasibility of nanofabrication through the same mechanical metaphor frequently used to describe the discoveries within molecular biology. In the discussion about nanofabrication (exemplified in the Drexler-Smalley debate outlined earlier in this chapter), there may be dispute about the methods, whether a miniaturized industrial factory assembly line or a biologically-based model, but no one significantly questions or challenges the machine metaphor when describing the most detailed workings of nature. The convergence of the language of biology and engineering and now nanotechnology ultimately blurs the distinction between nature and artifice, the more that molecules and matter become technologically malleable (Schiemann,

2005).

Some nanotechnology researchers believe the distinction between natural and artificial is not crucial, especially when they take the lead from nature’s own “engineering”

134 designs and when they can produce materials and processes identical to natural objects.

Certainly in some areas of nanotechnology research the distinction would be irrelevant (such as engineering improvements in data storage media) but in bioengineering fields that significance of the distinction causes pause for thought. For example, work is being done to integrate biological components into nanotechnological systems, such as using DNA as an electronic component or organic tissues as coatings for artificial joints (i.e., “biocompatible” products) (Schiemann, 2005). Nanotechnology enables natural processes and materials to relate in new ways with technology; if artificially-structured organic materials such as lab- grown organs could no longer be distinguished from naturally-occurring ones, would the

“artificial” or “natural” origin of a thing matter (Schiemann, 2004, p. 210)?

What significance does the distinction hold for human evolution? If we as human beings no longer set our creations apart from nature, and if we freely apply our creations for the purposes of self-alteration, then can we view technological progress as just another step in an evolutionary process? Certainly some nanotechnology visionaries see it this way. For inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, evolution applies to human-machine interfaces as much as it does to biological systems. Computational technology is the result of life evolving beyond itself by creating technology that can supposedly overcome the limitations of the human brain. Kurzweil (1999) assumes that just as an axe extends the abilities of the hand, so too artificial intelligence extends the human brain; more generally, human technology is a natural and inevitable continuation of biological evolution.

As I argue in this thesis, however, perspectives such as Kurzweil’s are guided by the technological imperative which subordinates what should be done to what can be done.

What is important to keep in mind for Part III of this thesis is how the convergence of various

135 technoscientific disciplines and the blurring of nature and artifice are not merely different ways to passively describe or observe material reality but rather represent the attempt to actively control and shape that reality, reminding us that modern technoscience is as much a creative force as it is a knowledge-seeking enterprise.

Because the language that links technology with nature already leans heavily towards mechanical metaphors, can we still critically evaluate the nanotechnology project? That matter is far from settled. At the very least, equating nature with technology through mechanistic language further contributes to the instrumentalization of nature which carries its own set of conceptual biases that make it difficult to think deeply about what is good to make and unmake. Those who wish to keep some kind of distinction between artifice and nature often appeal to the inherent integrity and order of nature and wilderness as something other to us which must be respected in its own right. When George Grant reflects on belonging to an order bigger than ourselves whose limits we must respect, he puts forth a conceptual argument rooted in Platonic and Christian philosophy, but I take this also as a concrete argument based on the measurable effects of nature’s ability to self-regulate. As nanotechnology commentator Geoffrey Hunt (2006) notes, “since the nuclear age opened, nature has shown that the more we try to control it the more it boomerangs back at us. It is time to work on nature’s own terms” (p. 188). That insight tends to be lost amidst nanotechnology rhetoric that evokes parallels between cutting-edge nanotechnology and the pioneering spirit that tamed the wild West and especially shaped the American nation. The nanoscale becomes the latest frontier to conquer: as nature was tamed through the evolution of technology, so too will the atomic wilderness of the smallest scales of matter be wrangled and harnessed through pioneering research (Bensaude-Vincent, 2004). This illustrates

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Grant’s point that it is especially difficult to think beyond the technological imperative in

North American society. The language that blurs nature and artifice and emphasizes the pioneering spirit of technoscience has implications for framing ethical questions about

“transformative” technology.

The rhetoric of nanotechnology and transhumanism

Some scientists and technology commentators certainly dismiss as hype

transhumanist hopes that a nanotechnology revolution will bring unprecedented prosperity, longer lives, and non-polluting industry (Stix, 2001, p.32). Critics are uncomfortable with rhetoric that propounds salvific aspirations for technology when reality instead demonstrates that our technological control of matter in the manufacturing process is still relatively poor, as shown by the devastating scale of waste and pollution around the world (Fogelberg &

Glimell, 2003, p. 3). Nano-advocates argue this is all the more reason to press onward to create nanotechnology alternatives while critics warn against putting too many hopes in a technological fix.

However, if some scientists try to distance their nanotechnology research from visionary rhetoric, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent (2004) notes that philosophers find the study of it useful and relevant in order to refine some of the philosophical foundations which frame nanotechnology projects. I will add here that nanotechnology rhetoric about the transformative potential of technology resonates with the transhumanist vision for humanity.

While many nanoresearchers are unattached to or unaware of the transhumanist project, the language that both employ to describe the role of technology in our lives is useful for

137 highlighting the social roots of and cultural assumptions made by the technoscientific establishment. These in turn determine how we frame ethical questions. For example, just as the machine metaphor is common in nanotechnology and transhumanist circles, so too the metaphor of the “master builder” is pervasive in nanotechnology discourse.

The master builder seeks and employs knowledge about how the universe works in order to gain control over the environment and to craft circumstances that are amenable to certain goals. It is common for commentators in technoscience to use metaphors depicting nanostructures as the building blocks of matter while nanoscientists and nanotechnologists are portrayed as the master builders. It is unsurprising that mechanistic thinking dominates nanotechnology, given the history of modern scientific inquiry and the technological preoccupation of seeing nature as what Heidegger called “standing reserve” (1977, p. 17).

Public figures no less than Nobel laureates express enthusiasm that nature has become humankind’s ultimate toy box and that the atomic and molecular building blocks offer apparently limitless possibilities to build and create (López, 2004, citing physicist and 1998

Nobel laureate Horst Störmer in the 1999 National Science and Technology Council report,

Nanotechnology: Shaping the World Atom by Atom). For example, when transhumanists and some nanotechnology commentators turn their eyes to the stars, space is no longer just the final frontier for exploration, it is an unlimited storehouse of matter and energy to be tapped and harnessed, once we have perfected nanotechnology-based space exploration technologies. In the eyes of those whose instrumental reasoning is finely tuned to the usefulness of matter, space contains so many precious resources--amounting to millions of times more than that consumed by the human species over its entire lifetime--that are currently being wasted as they drift away or decay through natural processes. For some,

138 space is the greatest untapped standing reserve there is; for others such as James Watson, co- discoverer of DNA, genetics is the final frontier, and the most significant ethical challenge we will encounter is not being courageous enough to use that knowledge to help others

(Stock, 2000, p. 12). However, the “master builder” rhetoric that permeates the language of nanotechnology and transhumanism depends on the instrumentalization of matter and nature, which is problematic in ethical discourse. It is far from clear that seeing things primarily in terms of their instrumental value for human beings should be the normative way of relating to the world. The dialectic involving ethics is always a tension between views that focus on the instrumental value of other things and beings, and views that recognize the intrinsic value of other things and beings. The latter is not a perspective that has garnered much attention so far in either the mainstream or transhumanist discussions of the social and ethical issues of nanotechnology.

Nanoethics

As we have seen, at the nanoscale, matter displays unique phenomena which

nanotechnology research and development seeks to understand, harness, and exploit.

Nanotechnology research attracts a variety of interest from medicine to computing, from

alternative energy to military intelligence. However, speculations about the range of

technical applications for nanotechnology do not tell the full story of nanotechnology’s

relevance. There are social and cultural dimensions which must also be accounted for as

nanotechnology emerges not only as a distinct research area but also as a perspective shifter,

conceptually speaking.

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We have seen that the promises of nanotechnology are to deliver on things which this society takes for granted are “good,” be they longer, healthier lives, sustainable industries, or material abundance. At its core, nanotechnology research is driven by application. In this way, nanotechnology demonstrates the defining characteristic of the modern technoscientific enterprise, which is that the pursuit of knowledge and the creation of novelty go hand-in- hand. In other words, modern science and technology create novel phenomena as much as they describe and explain existing ones. But, keeping in mind this critique of technoscience, how do we know what is good to make or unmake? Might the implicit drive to precisely control matter at every possible opportunity actually skew how we define and pursue knowledge of the world? When we define and value knowledge primarily in terms of its usefulness in changing the world we are inherently assuming that we are justified to intervene in certain ways with the world. How do we know if intervention is justified? Thus to identify a problem for technology to solve is as much a moral problem as a technological one; the technological perspective may ask “what is the problem” but the moral question must ask “what is the problem and why is it a problem?”

Certainly some commentators might argue that it is not nanotechnology’s job to determine what is good; conventional wisdom dictates that technical experts focus mainly on the what, while ethical experts tackle the why. However, as engineer-turned-sociologist

Willem Vanderburg (2000) contends, addressing the technical aspects of a situation may not be getting to the root cause; we cannot remove technology from its social context, and thus technical experts may not necessarily be justified in believing that the ethical implications of their designs are not their problem. As I pointed out in chapter 1, there are several ways to think about technology: as value-neutral tools that we can use well or badly, as a system that

140 changes us just as much as we change it, or as an ontology from which we derive fundamental meaning and purpose. This thesis is an experiment in viewing nanotechnology as an ontology, and as an ontology it carries inherent assumptions about what is good to pursue.

In order to uncover those assumptions, let us re-examine what nanotechnology seeks to accomplish. Nanotechnology commentators often break down their analyses into short- and long-term projections. Short-term projections usually involve the development of smaller, faster computers, the creation of “smart” materials, and the refinement of alternative energy technologies, while long-term projections speculate about space exploration, the development of sophisticated artificial intelligence, the ability to mass-produce material goods cheaply and cleanly from the molecular level up, and the re-engineering of the human species. Present technical breakthroughs have been modest when compared to ambitious long-term visions of the nanotechnology revolution. We are a long way from seeing those visions come to fruition, but there are many stakeholders with a keen eye on the future.

Industry is concerned about reducing the lag time between research and commercialization, and nanotechnology commentators likewise urge that there be less lag time between technical applications and ethical discussion. One reason for this is that the forces of commerce and competition may otherwise eclipse important ethical questions and prevent them from being adequately examined (Hunt & Mehta, 2006, p. 4). So far technoscientific research and the agenda of the marketplace emphasize the benefits of nanotechnology applications and insist on the acceleration of innovation, development, and commercialization. That emphasis may be the impetus for most nanotechnology research but we must remember that questions raised about how best to proceed are not necessarily the same as raising questions about

141 human welfare in the midst of technoscientific research, since the former already affirms the technological imperative (i.e., it is good to proceed) while the latter leaves that question open

(Hunt & Mehta, 2006, p. 4). As we will explore in Part III, George Grant reminds us that the two need to be distinguished and that human welfare and justice should take priority in any decision regarding technological development.

Although human welfare is never far from centre stage when it comes to justifying nanotechnology research, what exactly constitutes improving the human condition is still debatable. The current state of research takes varied lines of approach because the sheer breadth of anticipated nanotechnology development means that the ethical issues also span a wide spectrum. There is concern for the potential toxicity of nanoparticles to the environment and to human bodies; there are concerns for the regulation of military nanotechnology; there are legal questions about who monitors, controls, and owns nanoscale devices that might be invisible to the human eye, as well as privacy and security concerns raised from the prospect of next-to-invisible surveillance devices; and there are discussions about the regulation of private industry and government to prevent misuse and abuse of specific technologies, with particular emphasis on nanofabrication systems. There is also discussion of how to provide equitable distribution of the fruits of nano-advances, both within countries and between countries. Present concerns about the existing digital divide amongst members within a society and between “developed” and “developing” nations remind us that something similar may occur in the context of nanotechnology. This may exacerbate the digital divide as computing and electronic devices become ubiquitous but perhaps not accessible to all, or it may take the form of a genomic divide following advances in genetic engineering and “nanobiomedicine.” If one holds to the more extreme promises of

142 nanotechnology, i.e., the provision of material abundance, then equitable distribution is particularly important to address in terms of making a significant difference in the lives of citizens of developing countries (Berne, 2005, p. 1261; Mnyusiwalla, Daar, & Singer, 2003,

R11).

Some researchers compare the anticipated social and ethical issues of nanotechnology with those encountered previously in “revolutionary” technologies such as biotechnology and nuclear technology, in the hope that there are lessons to be learned (Einsiedel & Goldenberg,

2004; Mehta, 2004). Because of nanotechnology’s potential for widespread application there is more encouragement of public engagement “upstream,” i.e., before the technological applications have been perfected (Kearnes, Macnaghten & Wilsdon, 2006; Mnyusiwalla,

Daar, & Singer, 2003; Wilsdon & Willis, 2005). Efforts at cultivating accountability include calls for a cradle-to-grave policy of product stewardship on the part of industry and proposals for self-regulation on the part of researchers and developers.

The field of “nanoethics” is certainly growing, but supporters are concerned that it is neither growing swiftly nor sufficiently. Lip service may be paid to the need for research on social and ethical issues, but some believe there is little progress to show for it. Some nanotechnology literature suggests that 3-5% of national nanotechnology budgets be dedicated to research on the concomitant ethical and social issues--as it was for the human genome project when James Watson recommended the same for that undertaking--but specific percentage commitments have not been settled in many national nanotechnology budgets (Mnyusiwalla, Daar, & Singer, 2003, p. R11).54 Canada, Australia, and the

54 Highlights from the proposed 2009 budget for the United States’ National Nanotechnology Initiative accounts for “Environment, Health and Safety” as well as “Education and Social Dimensions” of nanotechnology, in addition to the more technical of the program components . Of the numbers available from that document, the combined funding for those two aforementioned areas was approximately 6.1% of the actual 2007 budget, 6.5%

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European Union have issued motherhood statements on nanotechnology which recognize the importance of ethical discussion, but few comprehensive strategies have emerged. Where numbers have been committed, such as the $16-26 million allocated in 2001 by the United

States’ National Nanotechnology Initiative to study the social implications of nanotechnology, less than half of that was spent. According to Mnyusiwalla, Daar and

Singer, what has been produced leaves much to be desired, paralleling the similar “lack of meritorious proposals” that greeted the early days of the human genome project (p. R11).

Furthermore, the mandate of the National Nanotechnology Initiative clearly favours development over deliberation: according to a Joint Economic Committee study issued by the

United States Congress, the mission of the NNI “is not to see whether we should go forward with research and development. It is to go forth boldly, while trying to discover and deal with possible risks” (Saxton, 2007, p. 12). Nanotechnology is a salient example of the way that technology is both a political issue and a competitive venture as countries jockey for technological superiority and fear being left behind economically, technologically, and militarily. This also raises the question of what the NNI and similar institutions are willing to fund in terms of research on the social and ethical issues; indeed, if one believes that ethical discussion should have latitude to question whether certain nanotechnology research should proceed at all, one may find oneself out of step with the organization which could supposedly fund such investigation. In brief, although everyone agrees that “ethics” is important, there is great variety in how ethics is actually approached. Given the implicit drive for progress evident in the NNI’s mandate which may bias it towards achieving certain priorities and ignoring certain questions, this thesis instead seeks to examine and evaluate

for the estimated 2008 budget, and 7.7% of the planned $1.5 billion budget for 2009. See http://www.nano.gov/NNI_FY09_budget_summary.pdf (accessed September 30, 2008)

144 some of these current efforts from a perspective which does ask whether we should even go forward and why.

Does nanotechnology require a new ethical approach?

One of the preoccupations of the discussion is whether nanotechnology presents the same types of social and ethical concerns as other technology or whether it requires a new

way of thinking. Certainly the scope of challenges depends on how one defines

nanotechnology and what one believes nanotechnology will be able to do. For some

researchers, nanotechnology does not present qualitatively new challenges because they

understand their work to be an extension or continuation of traditional methods of scientific inquiry and technical development. Roger Whatmore’s discussion (2005) of nanotechnology challenges implies that we already have the language and the tools to manage the issues through risk management and cost-benefit analyses. For example, when it comes to more immediate questions of particulate matter and toxicity, Whatmore notes that the developed world has supposedly dealt successfully with natural hazards such as asbestos and smoke, which he sees as analogous to some of the environmental concerns that nanotechnology

poses (p. 74). From this perspective, toxicity studies should take priority on research

agendas, but there is no reason to be unduly concerned for the risks involved.

For others, however, nanotechnology does present new challenges. For example, in

the context of environmental concerns, it is the novel properties exhibited at the nanoscale

which make materials appealing on the one hand but potentially harmful on the other. As

Kristin Kulinowski (2004) points out: “Nanoparticles’ ability to penetrate into living cells

145 could be exploited to produce a new drug, or it could result in toxicity. Nanomaterials could be used to produce cheap, energy-efficient filters that improve drinking water quality, or they could become environmental contaminants” (p. 10) Currently our understanding of how nanomaterials may affect human health and the environment is minimal. Given precedents set by other forms of particulate matter such as asbestos and by novel chemicals such as DDT and CFCs--all of which were materials originally sought for their beneficial qualities and approved for human contact, but which ultimately proved to bear more harm than good-- some commentators see this as reason to apply the precautionary principle (Clift, 2006, p.

146).55 We may have encountered particulate hazards that raised the same concerns, but the

specific effects of nanoparticles are still unknown.

In terms of new challenges, however, there is more to consider than simply those

presented by novel nanomaterials and our current ignorance of their environmental effects.

One of the new challenges is what nanotechnology itself represents. Because researchers and

governments alike acknowledge nanotechnology as a strategic technology and a perspective

shifter, the very nature of nanotechnology and nanoresearch predisposes it towards the

control and manipulation of matter. Nanotechnology theorists seek a unified understanding

of the flow of matter and energy ultimately through the convergence of several fields of

technology (i.e., “nano-bio-info-cogno”). Should this be accomplished, the concern is

whether that will become (or has already become) the predominant way to understand our

relationship with the world.

Because nano-oriented inquiry and experimentation seek to capitalize on usefulness

of properties and materials at the nanoscale, nano-research is focused on application, not

55 Other environmental concerns stem not from the nanomaterials themselves but rather the processes by which they are produced, which may in some cases be environmentally burdensome in terms of waste generated or energy consumed (Kulinowski, 2004, p. 19).

146 simply on expanding knowledge for knowledge’s sake. This may not be qualitatively different from the pursuits of science since the Enlightenment, but we are reminded that on a larger time scale, the pursuit of a conscious thorough-going control of matter in its smallest dimensions is a relatively new project of the human race. Nanotechnology can be seen as a new knowledge paradigm that says matter “matters” when one is able to manipulate it.

Critics of the technological society such as George Grant, Jacques Ellul, and even Ursula

Franklin believe that it is important to remember that this was not always our primary orientation. In current discussions of ethics and technology, they assert that we must first be aware of this reality so that we are not complacent about our relationship with technology.

Relinquishment, bans, and regulation

Indeed, typical discussion of the ethics of nanotechnology research addresses how

preferable, viable, or impossible it would be to ban nanotechnology development outright, or

to relinquish some developments, or to enforce certain regulations. I will outline the nature

of some of these discussions because they yield much insight into how this society thinks about what is good to make and unmake.

One of the early calls for caution--and in some cases, outright moratoria--came from watchdog organizations such as the Action Group on Erosion, Technology, and

Concentration (ETC).56 This activist group has called for moratoria on the commercial

production of new nanomaterials until adequate research has been conducted to prove they

are safe to human health and to the environment (ETC Group, 2003, p. 72), but its emphasis

56 ETC has existed in this form since 2001, but was formerly known as the Rural Advancement Foundation International which was established in the early 1980s. It was originally organized to examine the impact of new technologies (particularly agricultural and biotechnological) on the rural poor worldwide.

147 on bans is seen to polarize the debate against nanotech advocates. With technical nanotechnology research proceeding without specific or consistent regulations or guidelines, the ETC group accurately identified an ethical vacuum but set what the ethicists

Mnyusiwalla, Daar, and Singer (2003) consider to be an antagonistic tone to the emerging ethical discussion. ETC is very wary about the balance between risk and reward and is concerned that civil society will be left out of the vital decision-making processes.

Mnyusiwalla et al. express similar concern for the need to study seriously the social and ethical implications of nanotechnology, but find themselves at loggerheads with ETC because they believe that calls for moratoria on nanotechnology research and development by wary civil society organizations may derail nanotechnology all together (p. R9). They recommend that the ethics discussion needs to keep up with the pace of scientific research.

Mnyusiwalla et al.’s appraisal of ETC is telling for three reasons. First, it acknowledges the growing interest that public activist groups have in engaging with the social and ethical implications of science and technology. It also implies that activists generally and the ETC in particular are being reactionary and that their criticism may not be sufficiently deep or objective, despite the fact that ETC’s position has been applauded by other commentators (Feder, 2003; Lewis, 2003). Finally Mnyusiwalla et al. assume that the only way to address the social and ethical issues is to speed up the study of ethics rather than slow down the science or find a balance between the two, since slowing down research or stopping it altogether will do more harm than good.

While this may ultimately be the reality of the situation--and ample reasons have been provided in the literature why science cannot and will not slow down (e.g., Drexler &

Peterson, 1991; Kurzweil, 2003)--it does not prevent concerned commentators from

148 broaching the subject. Bill Joy made a notable public call to relinquish certain aspects of nanotechnology research, around the same time as the Smalley-Drexler debate transpired about viable methods of nanofabrication. Joy is best known as co-founder of Sun

Microsystems in the early 1980s, and for serving as the corporation’s chief scientist until

2003. In April 2000 he wrote that month’s cover story in Wired magazine called “Why the

Future Doesn’t Need Us.” This has since entered the annals of popular nanotechnology history as a benchmark commentary by a member of the computer science community about the risks and dangers of 21st century technologies, specifically robotics, genetic engineering

and nanotechnology, which have the power to re-make, or possibly extinguish, humanity.

Its importance is due mainly to Joy’s status as an overwhelmingly successful member

of one of the very fields about which he warned. Clarion calls have certainly been issued

previously by well-established critics of technology, but Joy’s article is notable because it

appeared in a widely-read and generally technophilic publication and because it boldly called

for researchers to relinquish developing certain genetic, nanotechnological, and robotic

(collectively dubbed GNR) technologies.

Recalling conversations with Kurzweil and other visionaries of his field, Joy (2000)

warned, “[w]e are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes”

(p. 256). Joy criticizes the scientific establishment for being so captivated by the thrill of

discovery and the thirst for knowledge that it neglected to consider seriously the far-reaching

consequences of innovation and the threat to human existence. Reiterating the position of technology critic Hans Jonas in The Imperative of Responsibility (1984), Joy asserts that technologies must not gamble with the future or essence of humanity and that there are perhaps some technologies which are simply too dangerous to develop. If we continue to

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“progress” as we are doing with robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology, Joy foresees an escalating arms race between the development of negative technologies and the development of defences against negative technologies. Thus he calls for a limitation on

“developing technologies that are too dangerous” and a limitation on the pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge. The precedent, Joy claims, recalls previous American policies advocating the unilateral abandonment of the development of biological weapons of mass destruction. Joy encountered much criticism for his caution and insistence on banning certain avenues of inquiry, but he has since claimed that his position has been misinterpreted, that the emphasis should be placed on limiting developing technologies deemed too dangerous, rather than prohibiting them outright (Kurzweil, 2005, p. 395).

Both the popular press and scholarly literature often depict inventor, futurist, and nanotechnology proponent Ray Kurzweil as a counterpoint to Joy. Kurzweil’s response is that advanced technology is so much a part of society and each step is “benign in itself”

(2003, p. xlii) that relinquishment would be impossible to coordinate without abandoning all technology because nanotech has become integrated with such a variety of technologies already. Because nanotechnology research is generally decentralized (despite the rhetoric that seeks disciplinary unity), Kurzweil claims that to give everything up would require a totalitarianism that is inconsistent with the values of liberal democratic society. Furthermore, relinquishment would drive nanotechnology development underground, thus limiting the benefits and compounding the dangers.

Despite concerns raised by contributors such as Bill Joy and ETC, broad-based relinquishment of certain types of nanotechnology does not seem to be an option for most of those involved in the discussion. Most commentators believe that attempts to stop

150 development will fail, and that such attempts will result in slowing or blocking responsible groups while other research is driven unregulated underground. In his paper, “Forward to the

Future: Nanotechnology and Regulatory Policy,” produced for the Pacific Research Institute in 2002, Glenn Harlan Reynolds analyzes three approaches to regulating nanotechnology: prohibition, limitation to military applications, and modest regulation that emphasizes civilian research. Reynolds (p. 8) outlines the following reasons why outright bans will not be successful:

1. Bans would have to be on basic research and development, and a

groundwork for research has already been laid that would be hard to disassemble,

since activities that would constitute nanotechnology research are wide and varied

and not necessarily easy to untangle from other types of research;

2. As we have seen, the term “nanotechnology” applies to a wide range

of pursuits so that a ban would either have gaps or be unreasonable in its breadth;

3. Banning certain kinds of nanotechnology such as assemblers still

leaves the field open for developments from other fields which might lead to the same

goals;

4. The bureaucracy required for prohibition would be cumbersome and

slow, thus delaying technical progress and doing nothing to stop research that is not

above-board;

5. Tools required for nanotechnology research are not particularly

specialized the way nuclear weapons research might be, and so are not easily

trackable; for example, while nuclear weapons require large fuel-enrichment

facilities, and while chemical and biological weapons require certain identifiable

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feedstocks, organisms or nutrients, the goals of nanotechnology are to have common

or ubiquitous feedstocks and small, unassuming production facilities.

Moreover, slowing or blocking development would also hinder benefits to the economy, to medicine, and to the environment (Freitas, 2006, p. 18). In short, it would increase the risks rather than decrease them. Given this set of parameters, bans are unreasonable if not impossible because technological development is inevitable. This reasoning has led many commentators to conclude that the only viable and safe approach to handling the dangers of emerging technologies is to actively support defensive systems by

“responsible groups” to give them a head start while “slowing or hindering development and deployment by less responsible groups (‘nations of concern’)” (p. 18). However, a constantly changing political landscape does not always make it clear who the “good guys” are, or why they are “good,” and so this recommendation may come across more like a political platitude than genuine wisdom.

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After discussing the drawbacks of prohibiting and limiting military activity,57

Reynolds (2002) argues for a regime of modest regulation by government and encourages self-regulatory initiatives on the part of civilian researchers. Reynolds cites precedents from biotechnology, such as the Asilomar conference which drafted guidelines on recombinant

DNA research and urged a moratorium on experiments in potentially dangerous areas until the subject had been studied more. Follow-up conferences established more detailed regulations that could be followed in a spirit of voluntary compliance and modified if safety concerns were shown to be overestimated (p. 13). Reynolds’ stance is that “a combination of self-regulation and government coordination can answer legitimate safety concerns while allowing research to flourish” (p. 12). The real threat, according to nanotechnology commentators, is not accident, but deliberate misuse (Drexler & Peterson, 1991, p. 245).

Reynolds insists that regulation should therefore concern itself more with preventing abuse than preventing accidents. He sees this involving several approaches, including limited access to materials and only by licensed professionals (as in the case of toxins and explosives); controls on exports (to limit spread to “hostile or irresponsible nation-states”;

57 Reynolds (2002) notes that there are problems with how to classify the knowledge produced from research as well. Keeping research confined to military organizations means a different level of security is required than if research were conducted at the civilian level or even publicly open-source. The military uses of nanotechnology would be significant, ranging from “pervasive, hard-to-detect sensors feeding distributed artificial intelligence networks, to brain modifications that support enhanced cognition by troops (reportedly already the subject of military research), to artificial ‘disease’ agents that could hide undetected in the bodies of enemy populations or leaders until triggered by external stimuli. Indeed, sophisticated nanodevices could even manipulate neurotransmitter levels within the brains of targeted individuals or populations, producing the ultimate in psychological warfare” (p. 9-10). He suggests that the United States’ government could pursue this route in order to get a head start; certainly the military has the resources and infrastructure to ensure strict control and certainly it could benefit from what Reynolds calls “cleaner and safer” technologies. However, the lengths to maintain control and the consequences of losing control may be high prices to pay. Precedents for governmental control on scientific and technical knowledge include the Atomic Energy Act in the U.S. as well as Cold War security measures. Nevertheless, many scientists and government members have qualms about following this route. Some prefer to go the “open source” route and encourage civilian participation, which allows more kinks to be worked out in the open and allows more opportunities for regulatory oversight on safety issues. In addition, military oversight of nanotechnology research makes it more likely that the public will not benefit as widely were research to be declassified.

153 emphasis on professional self-regulation, codes of ethics, and voluntary compliance, as opposed to harsh regulations; and more secure systems that are engineered to be inherently safe through particular programming codes (Reynolds, p. 14).

Reynolds renders a thoughtful and thorough analysis of where nanoethics could go given the current technical projections of researchers. However, as useful and grounded as his contribution is, it remains within a conventional interpretation of technology that does not address the nuances of technology as ontology. This is why I now propose to bring Grant’s critique of the technological imperative into the discussion. Grant’s thought presents more of a challenge to those searching for quick and straightforward guidelines for technological development, but for an investigation concerned with how technoscience affects what we believe is good to make and unmake, Grant brings up some crucial considerations that are currently absent from most mainstream discussion of nanotechnology. We turn now to examine those considerations in more detail.

CHAPTER 5

GEORGE GRANT ON NORTH AMERICAN LIBERALISM AND JUSTICE

Having described the ethical frameworks of transhumanism and having introduced the bounds of current discussions of “nanoethics,” I return to a more in-depth examination of

George Grant’s thoughts about ethical decision-making in technological society in order to view transhumanism and nanotechnology through his interpretive lens. I believe there is value in using Grant’s thought to illuminate the ethical challenges currently under consideration because he attempts to articulate a view of technology and justice that is quite clearly absent from the majority of current dialogues on the transformative capacities of nanotechnology and transhumanism. As we have seen, scholars, researchers, and concerned laypeople already engaged in ethical discussions about nanotechnology have issued repeated calls for more voices and perspectives to broaden and deepen the dialogue. The presumed ubiquity of nanotechnology not only as a suite of physical devices and particles but also as a perspective shifter means that ethical discussions cannot be limited simply to technical calculations involved in risk analysis.

As engineer and sociologist Willem Vanderburg (2000) insists, all technology exists in a social context, and those who offer insights into the social conditions in which technology operates must be given an adequate say. Technical specialists may work towards certain desired outputs, often based on optimizing efficiency, productivity, profitability, cost- benefit ratios, or minimizing risk. Vanderburg analyzes the disconnect between countless decisions made by technical specialists in their own spheres of design and production according to their desired outputs, and the cumulative consequences this has for things like

154 155 worker health, environmental sustainability, and authentic social relationships.

Nanotechnology is a case in point because, while it is interdisciplinary by nature, it produces technical specialists who bring forth innovations in an effort to make things “better” from a technical perspective yet these specialists are not necessarily in a position to be accountable for the larger social and ethical implications of what they design and produce. What is required fundamentally is a better understanding of the mutual relationships between science, technology, and society.

Grant’s insights as a political philosopher respond to the call for more perspectives and help to counteract increasing specialization. But what more can Grant’s thought add to the conversation? Ironically, what he adds is an appreciation for a sense of loss. Grant articulates what has been lost in ethical and moral deliberation as technology supposedly moves humanity forward. Technological progress does not necessarily mean moral progress, and while futurists and transhumanist visionaries anticipate significant gains in the quality of human life resulting from the nanotechnology revolution, it is important that we consider what humanity might be losing in the process. What has been lost, for example, is the

“classical” understanding of justice, one that hinges on concepts such as love, beauty, and the good, rather than the social contract. Because modern Western society takes for granted that justice is contractual, it is difficult to entertain thoughts of the way that the classical understanding of justice might still be relevant to contemporary ethics. Even so, Grant argues that classical philosophy’s interpretation is a more comprehensive and demanding sense of justice because that perspective subordinates what can be done to what should be done.

Grant offers a specific account of justice and a subsequent critique of liberalism which overall I find provocative, persuasive, and wise, but nevertheless unconventional for

156 modern ethics and incredibly challenging to the status quo embodied by democratic North

American liberalism. His insistence on the need to recognize the ultimate beneficence of the universe and on the need for “justice” to consist of absolute standards contrasts starkly with scientific materialism and modern or post-modern North American moral relativism.

I agree with Grant that moral deliberation can neither be divorced from technoscientific inquiry nor be summed up as “to each his own”; rather, the crux of the relationship between technology and justice should be to determine, as Grant says, “what is good to make and unmake?” We know that Grant believes that goodness is an objective feature of the world and that it grounds the fundamental truth from which the world proceeds.

He affirms that pursuing knowledge of the good is our highest end, even though he realizes that asserting this may render him irrelevant, if not virtually unintelligible in a society where the methods and discoveries of technoscience have led to much more uncertainty about whether existence has absolute purpose and meaning. Indeed, modern technological society tends to obscure the possibility of understanding, much less clearly committing to, assertions like Grant’s, because technoscience defines knowledge according to what can be ascertained when things are held away from the observer as objects for inspection. Little of what is considered legitimate knowledge today is attributed to acknowledging love for a thing’s inherent beauty or goodness, particularly using the methods of scientific and technological scrutiny. Has the technoscientific approach yielded comprehensive knowledge of the world?

Not according to Grant. What technoscience cannot account for is that beauty and love are essential components of knowledge, despite the modern rift between love and intelligence embodied in the idea that “love is blind while intelligence is calculating rather than loving”

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(Forbes, 2007, p. 213). According to classical thought, beauty and love are not supposed to be barriers to knowledge, and it is this assertion I wish to explore in this chapter.

As we contemplate what is good to make and unmake, particularly in terms of transhumanist advocacy to remake the species and nanotechnological aspirations to remake matter, Grant’s perspective forces us to consider two essential factors: our relationship with matter and our relationships with each other. On the former, we must ask whether matter is ours to manipulate as we wish, or are we obliged to recognize a larger natural order? On the latter, we must deliberate over whether everything should be thought of in terms of a social contract or are there absolute responsibilities we have towards others? Here, Grant’s thought calls attention to the weakest and most vulnerable members of society, who are often overlooked in accounts of what it is to be human, when, as humanitarian Jean Vanier (1998) insists, it is our relationships with the weak and vulnerable that often show most poignantly what it is to be human.

In order to understand Grant’s approach to the relationship between technology and ethics, I will highlight two themes in his work: his critique of modern liberalism, and the difference between classical and modern interpretations of “justice.” While this society purports to value the general concept of “justice” as something worthwhile to strive towards, to uphold, and to defend, Grant contends that the term is progressively emptied of meaning the more we primarily define ourselves by our use of technology. Rest assured that liberal justice functions, but Grant believes its foundations are being eroded by the technological imperative. The irony is thus that liberalism has bound itself to the very cause of its erosion by investing hope for progress in the technological imperative. That investment not only

158 renders liberalism less robust, but liberal society also unwittingly sets itself on a path to civilizational decay.

As mentioned in chapter 2, Grant believes that English-speaking North American liberalism in particular cultivates a view of the world that is primarily technological. He argues that this has undesirable consequences for justice (for Grant, a term roughly equivalent to “ethics”). This chapter will outline several key concerns: how Grant interprets modern liberalism, what ambiguities, shortcomings, and consequences arise from liberalism’s close connection with technology, and what constitutes justice from Grant’s own perspective. Because the broad ethical frameworks of transhumanists and nanotechnology commentators have much in common with North American liberalism, Grant’s critique of liberalism is relevant to a discussion of how transhumanists and nanotechnology commentators understand the relationship between technology, ethics, and justice.

What is the problem with liberalism?

In broad strokes, Grant (1974/1998) recognizes two main types of English-speaking

political liberalism: that which is “purely utilitarian” and that which “subordinate[s]

utilitarianism within a firm contractarian frame” (p. 14). We have seen in chapter 3 that

transhumanists such as James Hughes espouse a utilitarian ethical outlook. Although Grant

focuses his critique on what he calls contractual liberalism, it is evident from the above

statement that a critique of utilitarian principles is implicit. I argue that although Hughes

calls his framework utilitarian, based as it is on the philosophy of J.S. Mill, his interpretation

shows enough of the qualities of contractualism that the differences between the terms is, for

159 my purposes, negligible. Thus I take Grant’s critique of contractual liberalism to be applicable to the tenets of transhumanism.

Grant’s specific target for critique is English-speaking North American liberalism, which he believes to have a distinct relationship with technology. Grant argues that the prevalent form of North American liberalism originates in social contract theory that evolved out of contributions from Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Rawls, the latter a contemporary of Grant. Contractualism theorizes that “society” is a contract between competing individuals in order to preserve each’s self-interest, rather than society being something for which people have a natural affinity, as theorized in classical political philosophy. The social contract seeks the greatest good for the greatest number, as long as the greatest number is comprised of autonomous individuals who have implicitly agreed to the social contract. In this context, “justice,” which is a social construct like “society,” comes from upholding the social contract, rather than being an inherent human orientation towards moral absolutes. Grant takes John Rawls’ treatise on contractualism, A Theory of

Justice (1971), to be an accurate depiction of modern North American liberalism, consisting of two notable tenets: citizens of a liberal society understand that rights are prior to any account of the good and that rights are based on the ordering of conflicting claims between

“persons” and legislatures.58

Over the course of English-speaking history, the dominant classes have come to

assume that efforts to increase freedom express something about what is good and that its

account of justice is the best account (1974/1998, p. 8). Grant’s point in turn is to clarify the

58 Although Grant’s benchmark for his analysis is the type of liberalism explicitly enshrined in the American constitution, he was well aware of the homogenizing influence the American superpower exerts on its neighbours and on the Western world, which is why he argued so forcefully for a defence of Canadian identity in works such as Lament for a Nation (1965/2005a). See Grant, 1974/1998, p. 69.

160 assumptions and ambiguities of modern contractual liberalism. The decisions that have come as a result of modern liberalism’s emphasis on calculating one’s self-interest within the social contract raise further questions about what it is to be human, and the answers it has given are ambiguous.

One of those ambiguities is that contractualism in liberal society is made even more complex by technology because, as Langdon Winner (1986) notes, “in the technical realm we repeatedly enter into a series of social contracts, the terms of which are revealed only after the signing” (p. 9). In essence, technology constructs even more social contracts, but for both Grant and Winner, this has greater potential to exclude certain people, particularly the vulnerable and weak who may not be able to adequately enforce the contract themselves.

There are no longer absolutes against which to measure one’s moral standing; for example, under the law, the concept of “personhood,” which provides the foundation for modern discussions of justice, is not equivalent to recognition as a human being, i.e., a member of the human species.

Transhumanism welcomes this distinction because it does not base entitlement to rights on “humanness” but rather leaves room for beings who do not fit a conventional definition of “human.” While transhumanists seek to eventually accommodate posthuman beings within the purview of justice, Grant and critics of transhumanism such as Kass and

Fukuyama deal with the more immediate concern for the injustice dealt to human beings who do not qualify as “persons” under the law. If we as a society already accept that “person” and “human being” are not equivalent terms, how then do we decide what is due in terms of justice to members of the same species? The distinction of persons or non-persons under the law is not a scientific one but rather what Grant terms as an ontological distinction. Judges

161 and lawmakers may find the distinction sufficient to clarify the bounds of their decisions, but for Grant it opens up quite another unavoidable and fundamental set of questions concerning what our species is. In his words (1974/1998. p.71), “[w]hat is it about any members of our species which makes the liberal rights of justice their due?” Grant does not believe that justice is a social construct, nor that it can be adequately grounded in self-interest as contractualism insists. Rather, drawing on an older notion of justice that combines classical

Greek philosophy with Christian tenets, Grant believes that justice absolutely exists and must be grounded in love (Cayley, 1986, p. 20). Platonic philosophy asserts a belief in the “good,” i.e., an eternal unchanging order for which human beings are naturally fitted and towards which they can orient their love. The Christian tradition contributes a sense of solidarity and compassion particularly with the weakest members of the species.

Grant wrote at a time when the legal and moral status of fetuses and embryos was front and centre in the abortion debate. The landmark decision in Roe vs. Wade, articulated by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, exemplifies for Grant pure contractual liberalism: rights are prior to the good, individual rights are protected, and the state is neutral concerning moral “values.” Social pluralism and state neutrality mutually reinforce each other; however, with state neutrality and moral pluralism comes ambiguity. While the decision was celebrated by contractualists as defending individual rights against the power of a legislature, Grant sought to raise crucial questions about the nature of human being that he believed were not being adequately answered by liberalism’s interpretation of justice.59

59 According to Grant (1974/1998), the precedent set by Roe vs. Wade “raises a cup of poison to the lips of liberalism. The poison is presented in the unthought ontology. In negating the right to existence for foetuses of less than six months, the judge has to say what such foetuses are not. They are not persons. But whatever else may be said of mothers and foetuses, it cannot be denied that they are of the same species…Also it is a fact that the foetus is not merely a part of the mother because it is genetically unique ‘ab initio.’ In adjudicating the right of the mother to choose whether another member of the same species lives or dies, the judge is required to make an ontological distinction between members of the same species. The mother is a person; the foetus is not. In

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Because they concern the nature of human being, his points also have relevance to the transhumanist context of how technology changes what it is to be human. Grant’s point is this: by ontologically designating some members of the species as non-persons not entitled to certain rights, where does the state draw its line? What makes a fetus, a newborn, a three- year-old, or a ninety-year-old, a person? If, practically speaking, it is simply a matter of making an ontological distinction that certain human beings are not persons, why shouldn’t the state decide that any of the above are not persons? Grant (1974/1998) presses:

Why are the retarded, the criminal, or the mentally ill persons? What is it

which divides adults from foetuses when the latter have only to cross the

bridge of time to catch up to the former? Is the decision [Roe vs. Wade] saying

that what makes an individual a person, and therefore the possessor of rights,

is the ability to calculate and assent to contracts? Why are beings so valuable

as to require rights, just because they are capable of this calculation?[...] What

is it, if anything, about human beings that makes the rights of equal justice

their due? What is it about human beings that makes it good that they should

have such rights? What is it about any of us that makes our just due fuller

than that of stones or flies or chickens or bears? (p. 72)

Personhood now defines the parameters of who is entitled to justice and yet it can also be understood as a historically contingent concept that is open to change. In other words, personhood does not have a fixed meaning. Transhumanists have already eschewed fixed notions of humanness, so perhaps it is not surprising that they also favour a potentially

deciding what is due in justice to beings of the same species, he bases such differing dueness on ontology” (p. 71). He adds: “What has happened to the stern demands of equal justice when it sacrifices the right to existence of the inarticulate to the convenience of the articulate?” (p. 72)

163 expansive notion of personhood, but, in light of Grant’s concern about how to justify inclusion and exclusion (1959/1995, p. 7), one must ask, what have transhumanists actually gained in trading humanness for personhood?60 Hughes (2004) for his part argues that the

whole thrust of democratic transhumanism is to “put more chairs at the table” (p. 79).

However, even if neither humanness nor personhood have fixed meanings, can ethics survive

without some form of fixed reference point?

This query is at the crux of the dilemma. Moral philosophers such as Grant and

MacIntyre and Rist contend that losing moral moorings means that society is adrift in a sea of

contradictory choices with few fixed points of reference by which to navigate. In the absence

of a publicly shared moral community, what comes to the fore are technological values such

as efficiency and productivity. Democratic transhumanists insist that liberalism possesses an

adequate number of fixed points in law and in the democratic process while also allowing

pluralism and tolerance to flourish in the public sphere so that people are free to choose their

values privately. Indeed, moral pluralism can be justified today because generally as a

society (although Grant refers specifically to the principles enshrined in the American

constitution) we are “agnostic about any claim to knowledge of the moral good” (1974/1998,

p. 69-70).

Why is there such disparity between views in one society? Grant offers one

explanation for it: until recently we as a society did not need to justify vigorously the concept

of modern liberal justice based on contractualism; liberalism’s proponents in the ruling class

60 Interestingly, there is now work emerging from a transhumanist standpoint that examines how the social contract may have to change in the face of “technologies of mind and life” that will make differences between people even more pronounced. Bill Hibbard (2008) speculates that combined progress in biology, neuroscience, and computer science will render invalid the assumptions on which the modern social contract rests. Similar to the foresight urged in the face of nanotechnology developments, Hibbard urges more preparation to anticipate and guide radical changes to the social contract.

164 have until now enjoyed both the fruits of secular progress and the strengths of a Judaeo-

Christian tradition. Even if one did not believe that justice meant simply calculated self- interest, there was not much impetus to challenge the paradigm deeply because liberalism and its associated technological progress delivered on comfortable self-preservation.

Debating the fixed or mutable nature of human being was largely an academic pastime.

However, in light of the transhumanist project it is now harder to avoid facing head-on questions about human nature when liberal society is presented with an ever-widening scope of technological developments that demand ethical decisions about the nature of human life.

Grant (1974/1998) observes that modern technology “organises a system which requires a massive apparatus…concerned with the control of human beings” (p. 9). This is what Grant and Heidegger consider cybernetics, or “the technology of the helmsman” and it speaks to the profound ways in which technological development both controls and modifies human behaviours and biology. In other words, this society is one that “exalt[s] human freedom” on the one hand and nevertheless “encourage[s] that cybernetic mastery which now threatens freedom” (p. 10). Can a society that is oriented towards technological control of the human being continue to maintain the political liberty and protection of individual rights enshrined in liberalism? North American society may take for granted that technological development goes hand-in-hand with political liberalism, but even today, countries such as

China demonstrate that “progress” by technological development does not require the support of liberalism’s frameworks. But to take it a step further, might technological development in some ways undermine liberalism? There is a clear tension between the freedom extolled by modern liberalism and the possibilities for cybernetic control which emerge from technological progress. On the one hand we understand the human species to

165 originate and exist within an environment ruled by necessity and chance, which seems to imply a type of “survival of the fittest” approach. On the other hand we insist that, weak or strong, rich or poor, young or old, we are supposed to live together according to principles that advocate equal justice (p.72).

Transhumanist James Hughes (2004) insists that democracy and technology “are the two key ways by which we can exert more control over our lives” (p. 8). That statement may reflect North American liberalism’s widespread belief that personal liberty and equality are the bedrock of Western society and that technological development helps foster these values, but Grant (1969/1995) notes:

Till recently it was assumed that our mastery of the earth would be used to

promote the values of freedom, rationality, and equality—that is, the values of

social democracy…The modern movements that believe in progress towards

social democracy assert the equality of all men and a politics based on it. But

the same liberal movements have also at their heart that secularism that

excludes belief in God. What kind of reason or evidence then sustains the

belief that men are equal? (p. 43)

Western secular political philosophies have deliberated over this for a few centuries, but Grant argues that the reason why equality has such a foundational position in our society is because the philosophies which contributed to modern liberalism all trace their origins to

Judaeo-Christian traditions, where equality was enshrined specifically: people were regarded as equal under God or through belief in God. To do away with that premise is to weaken substantially or to negate altogether the basis for equality among people. If modern science

166 insists that nature is not inherently good and that it is indifferent to humanity’s purposes, then

Grant sees no justification for the claim that there is inherent equality among human creatures who have evolved from the random processes of purposeless nature. Yet in particular it is democratic transhumanists such as James Hughes who insist that freedom and equality are due to all persons.

What are we to do if we recognize that quandary? Certainly equality does not have to mean homogenization, but at least one transhumanist commentator agrees with the need to rethink the place of equality in liberal society. Christopher Dewdney (1998) observes that

“one of the most vital human resources is diversity, and diversity, of necessity, requires inequalities. The biological reality of human variation has always been a fly in the ointment of equality, and its arbitrary injustices contradict ideal values” (p.63). Dewdney suggests that advocates of liberal democracy need to re-evaluate those foundations for a new millennium:

Not only have diversity and its attendant inequalities been ignored by

liberalism, despite its ostensibly meritocratic institutions, but they have also

lost sight of the more valuable aspect of maximum diversity: only by having

the widest spectrum of abilities, languages, cultures, sexualities and races can

we have real learning. Cultural and political insights, even if manifested as

conflict, are sparked only when differences rub against each other. (p.63)

Dewdney makes an important point about how liberalism must address the meaning of equality in society. The transhumanist understanding of equality applies to “persons” having an equal opportunity be self-determining. Dewdney’s point is to embrace diversity as a means for understanding the sheer variety of ways that self-determined beings can exist,

167 even if friction arises from perceived superiorities and deficiencies. But here again we encounter the problem of making a judgement about whether some differences are better than or superior to others. Dewdney does not offer much of a yardstick because diversity for him is intrinsically good. However, I do not think “maximum diversity” in itself is any guarantee of real learning between individuals and societies because learning also requires common ground and fixed points of reference by which to make one’s own judgements. Had Grant lived to personally engage transhumanist commentators he would likely argue that they have to find a principle other than equality on which to base their ethics or to articulate more clearly the basis on which people are equal. Grant believes that secular contractual liberalism has failed in crucial ways to justify the assertion that human beings (and not simply those deemed “persons”) deserve equal justice. He seeks to bring to light the ambiguity that ensues in a secular society that desires to retain freedom and equality as its foundations and yet eschews, as many transhumanists do, the Judaeo-Christian theological and philosophical roots that justified it in the first place.

The twilight of justice

Democratic transhumanists insist that technology is inherently neutral and is simply a

means for achieving human goals, while the morality of those goals are decided outside the

actual development and use of the technology. Grant contends that it is simply not accurate

to understand contractual liberalism as separate from the workings of technology and to take

an instrumentalist view of technology. For him, contractual liberalism does not help us

control and transcend the demands of technology because the technological imperative and

168 contractual liberalism share the same origins in modern thought which are premised on ways to gain knowledge that “summon…forth everything (both human and non-human) to give its reason, and through the summoning forth of those reasons turns the world into potential raw material, at the disposal of our ‘creative’ wills” (Grant, 1974/1998, p. 82). Any weight the modern conception of equal justice does carry comes from its reliance on older classical and biblical sources from which modern thought has consciously tried to disengage itself. Grant thus insists that neither the technological imperative nor contractual liberalism have been able to answer what it is about human beings that makes liberty and justice their due, why justice is supposedly what we are fitted for even when it’s not convenient, and why it is our good.

Yet these are the very questions we must face when advocates for nanotechnology and transhumanism offer visions of how technology will radically change society. Since liberalism is the dominant political paradigm of North American society, the inability of modern contractual liberalism to answer those questions is, for Grant, “the terrifying darkness which has fallen upon modern justice” (1974/1998, p. 86). The dawn of nanotechnology and transhumanism may reveal a future of dazzling possibilities, but when it comes to thinking about what is good and right to do, we have entered what Grant calls the

“twilight of justice.” The twilight of justice and the dimming of our ability to think about it clearly is fearful because we are left to question whether anything is objectively good, and whether there are any normative standards by which to judge the goodness of things.

Modern thought may not recognize the encroaching darkness, but Grant’s aim is to identify the darkness as such.

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If justice is no longer oriented towards any absolutes such as “the good ordering of the inward life” (1974/1998, p.84) and if justice is seen merely as the convenience of the social contract, then why should we not seek a notion of justice which is congruent with the demands of technology and the wills behind it which drive technological development?

What is it about other human beings that should stand in the way of what we widely consider as progress? At the time Grant wrote his commentary on technology and justice, even without widespread talk of human enhancement, he believed the thin edge of the wedge had been already set in liberalism’s judgements about the extent technological intervention warranted at the beginning and end of life in terms of abortion and euthanasia. Modern liberal justice speaks of need to ensure freedom and equality for all, confident that this can be achieved by exerting our “creative wills” to attain the greatest good for the greatest number, but Grant already saw instances of excluding certain human beings from that conception of justice, human beings who are too weak to enforce the social contract. The vulnerable include “the imprisoned, the mentally unstable, the unborn, the aged, the defeated, and sometimes even the morally unconforming” (p. 83). If we cannot account for the vulnerable, then it means that liberalism has come to support a society structured to attain “the human conveniences which fit the conveniences of technology” (p. 84). This is what Grant fears, because he considers this tyranny.

On tyranny

Tyranny is not a word frequently heard in our society, nor does its typical use invite a

more expansive interpretation. We usually envision tyranny as a regime led by a dictator

170 who is backed by an oppressive and violent military force, or a society where citizens’ freedoms and choices are drastically limited. Grant (1967/1998) rather refers to anything that

“denies both the chief ends of man--living well together and thinking” (p. 99). Grant’s adoption of the concept of tyranny may sound antiquated to some modern ears, but he insists that thinking about tyranny yields insight on how we think about justice. In particular he believes that modern interpretations of justice tend to comply with the demands of modern tyranny, rather than transcend them.

In modern society, the seeds of tyranny have been sown with techniques of control, including methods that induce people to want what is socially useful. When understood this way, one can see how, for example, the technology of the mass media, as far as it effectively inculcates common attitudes, can be part of this kind of tyranny despite the common emphasis on increased equality and freedom of expression enjoyed from access to mass communication (e.g., Ellul, 1965/1973; Postman, 1992). The ambiguity of the project of progress is to improve the standard of living for masses of people yet deny them the opportunity to think deeply; hence, an existence where one may live comfortably but think superficially constitutes a tyranny in Grant’s view (1967/1998, p. 99). Moreover, tyranny can be exercised without force, as with the “monolithic apparatus” common in Western society: enormous institutions, systems, and bureaucracies unrelentingly dedicated to overcoming chance--even though we may not think of them in those terms--strike some commentators as a headless tyranny. According to Ursula Franklin (1993/2006), technology

allows the control of people in ways that make the control invisible. Big

Brother no longer blares out of loudspeakers. Today Big Brother barely

beeps. The invisibility of control ought to concern us very profoundly. Even

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the most undramatic, trivial examples show how this control, this headless

tyranny, has permeated ‘normal’ life and become invisible. (p. 199)

Examples like computer passwords, swipe cards, bar codes, biometrics and surveillance systems come to mind. Franklin is concerned about how easy it has become to selectively exclude (or include) people from certain situations, about how easy exclusionary systems are instituted and accepted, about the dilution of responsibility, the lack of consent for being tracked or monitored, the potential for control becoming much greater, and the trivialization of arguments from principle, i.e., arguing against these forms when they seem so innocuous. Where once exclusion of certain categories of citizens was taken as a human rights issue, automated mechanical exclusion that results from technologies like swipe cards becomes trivial (p. 200). Franklin (1999) considers modern technological practice to foster a

“culture of compliance” that results in this headless tyranny (pp. 16-17).

Like Franklin, Grant believes that commitment to unlimited technological progress can lead to a type of tyranny because it forecloses on thinking about ways of being that are not circumscribed by the technological imperative. Being committed to technological development means being committed to continual change that is glossed over as progress.

Some may consider this a healthy sense of renewal, but Grant asks us to consider the possibility that tyrannies can include change, challenging previous notions of tyrannies being static or rigid. Modern industrial society harbours many opportunities for forms of tyranny because it operates in the spirit of progress and the “triumph of the will” (Grant 1988/1998, p. 142). Tyranny seeps in when institutions that were built to overcome chance become the very ones which “more and more negate the freedom and equality for the sake of which the

172 whole experiment against chance was undertaken.” (1967/1998, p. 100). Transhumanism’s advocacy for nanotechnology reflects that very intention to overcome chance in a bid to improve the human estate.

Grant’s definition of tyranny (1969) borrows particularly from an exchange he read between political philosophers Alexandre Kojève and Leo Strauss. The debate between

Strauss and Kojève in the 1950s is about whether classical or modern political science better understands the relationship between tyranny and wisdom.61 This is important because what

Grant draws from the debate is justification for why classical philosophy should still be relevant to modern problems. Kojève holds that philosophy may help one make sense of the social situation of one’s own age but that it will not and cannot reach conclusions beyond this. Strauss by contrast believes that political philosophy stands or falls on its ability to make statements that transcend history. From Kojève’s standpoint classical philosophy

should be shelved as an antiquity beyond which we have progressed; Strauss contends that

classical philosophy bears valuable and relevant insights on the modern era. Grant reiterates

in his own writing on technology and justice Strauss’ insistence that the discussion should

always be open about whether classical philosophy is sounder than modern.

According to Strauss, tyrannies are common to governments in all eras and even

though they may take different forms, they are recognizable as tyrannies to observers.

Although present-day tyranny is different from ancient tyranny, Strauss claims that ancient

philosophers rejected the presuppositions on which modern tyranny rests. Ancient

61 While tyranny and wisdom are perennially opposing forces in political philosophy, it should be noted that there are differences between classical tyranny and modern tyranny, and between classical accounts of wisdom and modern accounts of wisdom. What mattered to Grant was the relationship between the classical approach to its own problems compared with the modern approach to its own problems. Grant believed that classical wisdom could identify forms of classical tyranny more easily than modern society could identify modern forms of tyranny.

173 philosophers did recognize that science and philosophy could be directed towards the conquest of nature, but that they chose not to pursue those ends, deeming them as

“unnatural” and destructive of humanity. Because the identification of knowledge with power is already inherent in modern science and philosophy, Strauss claims that modern philosophy is unable to recognize and reject tyranny as clearly as classical philosophy could.

Grant agrees, which is why he sought to revitalize classical philosophy in the face of society’s commitment to technological progress. He believes that the prevailing modern

Western philosophies (which I also take to refer to ethical systems), whether that be contractualism, utilitarianism, liberalism, or variations thereof, may not recognize the various forms a technological tyranny can take.

For example, one of Grant’s concerns about modern technological society is that it leads to a universal and homogenous state. Both Strauss and Grant are concerned that a universal and homogenous state will be a tyranny. This is a point of contention between

Strauss and Kojève: Kojève assumes that the universal and homogenous state is the best social order, and that it is something that civilizations have strived for throughout history;

Strauss regards the achievement of a universal and homogenous state instead as equivalent to the achievement of tyranny and dehumanization.62

62 Kojève notes that Alexander the Great achieved the first success in realizing a universal state to which citizens belong, regardless of their ethnic or geographic background. Alexander’s conquests resulted in citizens sharing in a common essence of the state; however, Alexander’s “universal” state (which supposedly did away with the notion of race) wasn’t homogenous because it still contained class divisions. What did overcome class divisions was Semitic religion which extolled a fundamental equality of all for those who believe in God. This Kojève calls a “transcendental conception of social equality.” While Alexander held that masters and slaves do not mix because they are opposites, St. Paul ushers in the idea that master and slave (as well as Jew and Gentile) are equal under God. In this case homogeneity is created by freely converting. However, although a religion like Christianity purports to strive for universality and homogeneity, it is ultimately not attainable in this world; it can only be realized in the kingdom of heaven. Christian striving may lead to a universal and homogenous church, but not a state. For the state to be realized politically, Kojève claims, Christian theism had to be negated. This task was accomplished by modern philosophy and by efforts to secularize the religious idea of equality amongst all. This poses a problem for Grant. Like Kojève, he recognizes that the Western notion of equality was originally a Christian tenet, predicated on the equality that comes from belief in one God.

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The debate between Kojève and Strauss highlighted for Grant an essential truth about modern Western society, namely that the striving for the universal and homogenous state, whether in forms of global capitalism, liberal democracy, or technological society, is a concept that, regardless of citizens’ consciousness of the drive, remains the primary “ethical ideal” from which our society derives meaning (1969, p. 88). Thus, like Kojève, Grant believes that the universal and homogenous state embodies ideals towards which modern society aims, but like Strauss, Grant believes that this ultimately leads to tyranny.

What does tyranny mean for the inquiry at hand? Transhumanism and nanotechnology provide an opportunity to examine whether the seeds of tyranny are indeed sown by any of the assumptions or the rhetoric associated with outlooks that emphasize technological development. Transhumanism and nanotechnology embrace the same ethical frameworks as modern liberalism and both are bound up in the technological imperative that

Grant says is the unique preoccupation of Western technological society. However, because contractual liberalism is not independent of technology, it thus cannot serve as an objective ethical mooring when it comes to thinking through what is right or good to pursue with our technological innovations (1974/1998, p. 85). So far, modern technological innovation aims at overcoming the vicissitudes of chance. However, in the process of improving the human condition, technoscience also creates new challenges, whether in nuclear technology, genetically modified organisms, or reproductive technology.

The question Grant believes we must ask is “[w]hat degree of the overcoming of chance is necessary for the good society?” (1967/1998, p. 100) This is a question of limits.

However, if Kojève is content to do away with the Christian roots of a supposedly classless Western society in order to establish a universal and homogenous state (as opposed to a church), Grant claims that without recognition of its theist origins, liberal society has no other leg on which to stand to assert the equality of people. Grant is left to wonder (and believes liberal society should be wondering too) how the notion of equality can be legitimately established and asserted without some kind of religious commitment.

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Although successful communities require the overcoming of chance, Grant warns that the total overcoming of chance leads to tyrannies because tyrannies recognize neither limits to the will being imposed, nor the legitimate otherness upon which the will imposes itself.63 A

future where justice no longer relates to the limits of what we are fitted for is for Grant

“terrifying in its potentialities for mad inhumanity of action” (1974/1998, p. 88). Chapter 7

will discuss in more detail the notion of limits as it relates to human enhancement, but here I

consider the idea of love as an antidote to tyranny, because love is both a limit upon the

human will and a source of freedom.

What’s love got to do with it?

Given that Grant is not willing to relinquish his conviction that justice is due to all

human beings and that the living out of justice is what we are fitted for, his dilemma is how to think through and commit oneself to a comprehensive notion of unchanging justice when

the discoveries and demands of modern science and technology are changing the very

content of justice.

I note here that Grant’s certainty that the universe is beneficent rather than indifferent

or purposeless is framed by an irreducible, “primal” experience he had at the age of twenty-

three. Grant’s friends and Grant scholars refer to it as a “conversion” (Christian, 1993, p.

391, note 62; Rigelhof, 2001, p. 161) although more objectively it can be described as a

63 Although the mastery of nature originally sought by Enlightenment science and philosophy refers in large part to the overcoming of chance, we must remember that the prevailing Western ethos was still religious and that science was often guided by religious principles. Grant observes that modern science thus is also rooted in the idea of religious charity, in the sense that science turned from contemplation of the world as it is to the mastery of it in order to make the good life open to all. Grant’s observation is that the achievements of science that originated in the spirit of human charity actually and ironically lead to a type of tyranny.

176 fundamental insight: “we are not our own” and we belong to an order greater than ourselves whose dictates require certain limits of us. That experience clearly affected him deeply; the conviction that we are not the source of ourselves serves as one of the foundations for his criticism of liberalism’s emphasis on the self as absolute, on the priority of self- determination, and on justice taking the form of a social contract.

This revelatory insight grounded the rest of Grant’s life’s work and his meditations on technology and justice. A further insight he gained from understanding that “we are not our own” is the role of love in ethical practice. Beyond its fixation on love as either “warm and fuzzy” or as sexual eros, North American liberal society does not commonly speak of “love” in the context of justice. So too it may seem an entirely foreign term in the context of this society’s scientific and technological development. But for Grant it is essential to recognize that at the very core of humanity is love, which he defines as “consent to the fact that there is authentic otherness” (1986, p. 38). Grant’s reading of classical philosophers, along with his reading of Christian philosopher Simone Weil (who would ultimately become Grant’s chief interpreter of Plato) confirmed to him that love and justice are inseparable.

While the theoretical foundations of modern liberal justice are contractual, at the root of ancient paradigms of justice is love, which is never contractual. For Grant and the ancients, loving justice begins with loving beauty (1984/1998, p. 438). Beauty is a focus on balanced proportions between excess and deficiency, which is why classical virtues are said to embody beauty. An appreciation of beauty is the most accessible and immediate experience of otherness available to us in day-to-day life.

If beauty means loving otherness, love of the other leads to love of the good, which means a love of the eternal and the justice that is proper to it (p. 438). The problem today for

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Grant is that “any statement about the beauty of the world is so easily doubted in our era, because it appears meaningless within the dominant language of modern science” (1986, p.

39). Modern science does require a sense of otherness, but as an object: “In all scientific explanations we are required to eliminate the assumption of the other as itself beautiful” (p.

39). If the only relation one has to otherness is that predicated on control and mastery of the object, there is room for little else. According to Grant, things and people cannot be loved as beautiful if they are constantly and ceaselessly analyzed as objects and treated as resources or raw material because the only recognition of otherness is simply in a thing’s instrumental value. Because of this, the language of science largely obscures the world’s beauty, even if there are scientists who personally assert appreciation for the beauty and elegance of what they do and what they study (pp. 40-41).

Thus the dominant, instrumentalist way of living and being in modern technological society, with its emphasis on objectivity and practicality, allows neither beauty nor love to flourish in their fullest expressions as vital virtues that mediate the boundary between the autonomous self and the (possibly opposing) other (p. 67). Certainly there are other modes of modern religious and philosophical thought that explicitly uphold love as a virtue, but in technological society these are largely relegated to the private sphere. In day-to-day practice, modern society does not seem to readily associate a comprehensive understanding of love with public discussions of morality, wisdom, or ethics. Grant disagrees with the tendency for modern Western society to think about justice separately from love; he believes that we are truly meant to love justice. Contractual liberalism’s interpretation of justice as simply calculated self-interest is not an interpretation that is open to love, which is why Grant turns

178 to views of justice that attempt to hold love and justice together, as found in Christianity and

Platonism.

In contrast to liberalism’s commitment to freedom as the highest value, Grant argues that true freedom comes not from asserting that we are on our own and that the future is of our willing and making, but rather from acknowledging that we are free because we belong to a loving eternal order (Davis, 2003, p. 276). If we are to hold to the classical concept of justice, we need to understand that justice is other to us (and not created by us) and that it can make demands on us that we don’t always like or desire. “[J]ustice is very often not what we want in any recognizable sense of ‘want’” (Grant, 1984/1998, p. 439) and therefore loving justice is not always convenient. Indeed, authentic love carries responsibilities that are non- negotiable and therefore not contractual, a state of affairs that contractual liberalism is simply not prepared to address.

Intimations of deprival

As mentioned earlier, Grant perceives modern justice to lack any orientation toward

“the good” in the classical sense. An orientation towards the good allows us to hold love and

beauty and justice together: to love the beauty of otherness as it fits in a natural order and

therefore to love justice as something that is due to each being because of its place in a

natural order. Certainly one can argue that the paradigm of goodness and justice to which

Grant refers comes from a time that perpetrated much injustice by modern standards, but

Grant further acknowledges that the classical hierarchical version of what things are fitted for

179 has been rightly replaced by a more egalitarian structure, which owes much to the influence of Christianity on modifying classical Greek thought.

What has been lost in modernity is that capacity to equate love and beauty with justice. Rather, modern justice focuses on the contractual nature of social cooperation and the necessary, calculated limits on one’s self-interested actions that might harm others.

Grant’s purpose is first to acknowledge the loss as a loss. As also mentioned earlier, transhumanists such as Hughes and Bostrom welcome the loss as progress beyond superstition, illusion, taboos, the supernatural, the transcendent. The loss is a liberation from the constraint of imposed morality or imposed meaning, in favour of aspirations for a fully self-determined existence. For Grant, however, the loss is a deprival of something essential to human well-being, an orientation toward the highest form of knowledge found through loving the good.

How to compensate for that deprival may be an entirely different matter, but there is enormous value to contemporary ethical discussion to recognize the loss. Technology is so much a part of ourselves, defining us in terms of our free, creative wills with the world at our disposal, that it is difficult to consider clearly or seriously that it might also be denying us something essential (Forbes, 2007, p. 229). The best we can do is to be attentive to

“intimations of deprival,” those moments in mass society when we glimpse that something is missing, or tune into the discrepancies between what words such as “freedom,” “equality,” and “justice” are intended to mean and what they actually gloss over or justify (p. 230).

These intimations are important because they remind us of things and ways of thinking that have been displaced by the dominant technological paradigm. Although we in the West may have to accept our fate, it also matters how we live our lives within that fate.

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Given the inherent difficulty in thinking outside the assumptions of modern thought, how can Grant himself claim to be able to think outside the paradigm in order to critique it?

Despite the risk of being dismissed as irrelevant by a secular, postmodern audience, Grant relies on reference points given in classical philosophy and Christianity because he believes their truths to be transcendental (Power, 1978, p. 94). His reference points are not to be taken as a romantic nostalgia for the past, nor as a negation of what is truly good about the present. At the same time, he is well aware that his stance makes his task even more difficult because there is little chance in justifying his position to or within the modern paradigm, especially when the modern belief in progress tends to imply that ancient philosophy is no longer relevant. The way ahead is not clear, especially for those who do find classical thought relevant, for those who do commit themselves to loving the good, and for those who are troubled by such intimations of deprival and struggle with society’s current orientation.

Grant concedes that “[t]he present darkness is a real darkness” (1969/1995, p. 68). Even so,

Grant attempts to shine his light with “a call to remembering and to loving and to thinking” and a call not to limit our search just to this society’s origins “in Athens and Jerusalem” but also to the “great civilizations of the East” as shown in Hinduism’s Vedanta (p. 65, 67), in

Buddhism, and in aboriginal cultural groups that still retain a sense of tradition and continuity with the past (1967/1998, p. 101). His advice is to be attentive to intimations of deprival.64

Taking to heart Grant’s advice to be attentive to intimations of deprival, we now set

forth into Part III to attend to those intimations in the context of transhumanism and

nanotechnology.

64 His own examples come from meditating on the character of North American society, Canada’s relation to modern imperialism, the role of religion in schools and universities, and his revival of the concept of tyranny (Forbes, 2007, p. 230).

PART THREE: WHAT IS GOOD TO MAKE OR UNMAKE?

EVALUATING THE EFFECT OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE ON ETHICAL

DECISION-MAKING

By examining the transhumanist ideology as a particular embodiment of technoprogressivism in Western society I seek to identify common ethical touchstones, be they implicit or overtly stated, between transhumanism and the wider liberal democratic society to which it belongs, and to assess the adequacy of these frameworks in discussing the social and ethical implications of nanotechnology, using a philosophical lens provided by George Grant.

Part II of this thesis examined some general ethical foundations for perspectives held by transhumanists, nanotechnology commentators, and George Grant. Part III examines how these perspectives relate specifically in regards to three “ethical” contexts in nanotechnology: molecular manufacturing (Chapter 6), human enhancement (Chapter 7), and public engagement with ethical decision-making (Chapter 8).

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CHAPTER 6

THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE’S IMPLICATIONS FOR MOLECULAR MANUFACTURING

Nanotechnology is among the suite of techniques and applications which transhumanists believe will dramatically alter the human experience, both indirectly through developments in computing, communications, materials science, and alternative energy, and perhaps directly through nanomedicine and cybernetic implants. However, it is clear that nanotechnology is not concerned simply with engineering better materials and that transhumanism is not simply about championing an individual’s right to enhance him- or herself. At their philosophical cores, at least when understood from a viewpoint such as espoused by Eric Drexler (1986/1990), both endeavours seek the mastery of matter: “The ill,

the old, and the injured all suffer from misarranged patterns of atoms, whether misarranged

by invading viruses, passing time, or swerving cars. Devices able to rearrange atoms will be

able to set them right” (p. 99). Both nanotechnology and transhumanism embody an explicit desire to overcome chance and the “constraints” of nature through technological development, a desire that, according to Grant, characterizes Western, and particularly North

American, society. However, the technological imperative--the assumption that if something technically can be done, it should be done--has come to align itself so closely with the idea of moral obligation that it is difficult to think of morality and the good in the sense that Grant means it, a sense which exists beyond the dictates of the human will. Nevertheless, I, like

Grant, believe the idea of the good to be more comprehensive and more demanding than current prevailing North American ethical frameworks, such as utilitarianism as practiced within contractual liberalism.

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Nanotechnology in the form of molecular manufacturing represents a radical if still theoretical form of making and unmaking the world. Its proponents argue forcefully that its development is inevitable, that it will be essential to improving the human condition, and that the change it will bring will be so profound that advance planning is required immediately in order to guide its development in the best direction. This chapter will explore how various commentators approach the concept of molecular manufacturing from an ethical standpoint, and how those standpoints tend to reinforce the technological imperative. I will then offer an analysis of those ethical frameworks grounded in Grant’s technological critique.

Ethical decision-making and molecular manufacturing

As we have seen in chapter 4, because the term “nanotechnology” can connote a variety of specific applications, the debate is still open over whether or not nanoscale science

and engineering can be considered revolutionary. However, we now focus on a definition of

nanotechnology that most commentators agree is radical and transformative, that being the

concept of molecular manufacturing.

Molecular manufacturing, also known as molecular nanotechnology (MNT),

productive nanosystems, mechanosynthesis, molecular engineering, or nanofabrication,

refers to programmable fabrication systems on the molecular scale that will be able to build

products cheaply and in large quantity by engineering from the bottom up. Eric Drexler first

articulated the concept of molecular manufacturing in 1981, expounding more broadly in

layperson’s terms with his book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology in

1986 and co-writing another volume, Unbounding the Future: The Nanotechnology

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Revolution, in 1991. Drexler’s conceptualization involves scaling down to the molecular level the mechanical engineering principles that currently govern such things as gears and motors at the macroscopic scale. He proposes a system of computer-controlled, programmable nanomachine “assemblers” that are able to construct matter with atomic precision from the bottom-up and that will eventually lead to “nanofactories” that construct macroscopic products on demand and according to almost any design specification.

Although Drexler’s original concept focuses on the miniaturization of macroscale mechanical systems, he also finds inspiration for bottom-up construction in the realm of molecular biology: while traditional mechanical manufacturing employs a paradigm of top- down fabrication where material is removed (e.g., through cutting, planning, grinding), by contrast the precedent for bottom-up construction is set by living systems which combine atoms to form molecules to form proteins, organelles, and cells, which in turn form tissues, organs, and organisms. What he proposes is essentially the complete replacement of the presently “crude” industrial system in favour of “thorough and inexpensive control of the structure of matter” (1991, p. 10). Molecular manufacturing is one of the more visionary goals described in nanotechnology literature and remains in a theoretical state. Some researchers would prefer not to put much stake in its claims, but the concept proves tenacious because a cadre of researchers is willing to invest its efforts in a long-term vision and because proponents assert that Drexler’s theoretical claims have yet to be disproved (Hall,

2005; Mulhall, 2002).

Although molecular manufacturing is not a reality, this form of nanotechnology undoubtedly exists as a concept, as a perspective shifter, and as a research direction. As I stated in chapter 4 regarding the Smalley-Drexler debate, the crux of the discussion seems to

185 be over the feasibility of various top-down and bottom-up organic and inorganic models, but not over the goal itself to gain nanoscale control over matter. For example, when we examine the criticisms of Drexler’s theory we find that even if his critics do not believe it feasible to mimic human-scale factory machinery at the nanoscale, the task of mimicking cellular structures, mechanics, and processes--from which Drexler’s inspiration derives-- nevertheless remains “a marvellous challenge” (Bensaude-Vincent, 2004, p. 4). Moriarty notes a similar case in point from a 2005 public forum in the UK that for the first time brought together leading British scientists with key proponents of the molecular manufacturing paradigm; here the main theme of the debate was over the viability of the inorganic, mechanistic molecular manufacturing model versus one driven by evolutionary bionanotechnology (2005, p. 117).

My question, however, is whether debates over methods qualitatively affect the intent behind the engineering. Methods certainly matter to scientists according to their disciplines, but for the intelligent lay person trying to discern how technological perspectives shape decisions about what, as Grant says, is good to make or unmake, the specific technical method seems for now less of a concern than the fact that, across the spectrum of scientific inquiry, the precise engineering of matter is a consideration at all. Therefore, I argue that those who might dismiss out of hand the concept of molecular manufacturing based on disagreements over specific models may also miss the opportunity to critically examine the shared technological mindsets that underlie the project and more fundamentally shape our perception of the world. Accordingly, although I focus primarily on Drexler’s mechanical conceptualization, my critique could easily extend to other models that seek the same ends through differing means.

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Speculation abounds about whether or not molecular manufacturing eventually will come to technical fruition and as such, predictions cannot always be accurate. In his article

“Navigating Nano Through Society,” philosopher Davis Baird (2007) by way of illustration recalls the head of IBM predicting in 1948 that there would only be a need for about a dozen computers in the United States; although Drexler’s equivalent predictions are the opposite when he forecasts the ubiquity of molecular manufacturing, Baird’s point about the revolutionary tone of nanotechnology rhetoric is that even technical “experts” can be completely inaccurate with foreseeing change in their field (p. 14). Harder still is it for those who try to scrutinize the related social and ethical issues of an as-yet undeveloped

“revolutionary” technology. Baird notes that commentators risk either getting hung up trying to forecast and debate specific but ultimately irrelevant details of technological change, or else they risk making blanket statements about the general goodness or badness of proceeding in a certain direction without accounting for how to judge between fundamentally different ways of living.

Despite the inherent ambiguities of technological development, it is nevertheless the nature of traditional ethical inquiry to judge the goodness and relative worth between various ways of being. Similarly it is the nature of philosophical reflection and cultural critique to examine collective attitudes and expectations such as embodied in the technological imperative and to judge whether they adequately address what it means to live well. This inherently involves making judgements, and to not be willing to do so would seem to spell the decay of ethics. Baird makes a valid point that will help orient the necessarily speculative nature of this inquiry: “while our reflections on current concerns can and should focus on specific societal and ethical concerns that arise from the current situation,

187 reflections on longer-term and more speculative possibilities should focus on process more than position” (2007, p. 15). Molecular manufacturing certainly fits the bill for being long- term and speculative. Thus Baird raises an essential question about the limits of speculation, both technical and ethical, to which transhumanist proponents of nanotechnology and George

Grant offer responses. Let us first consider the technoprogressivist outlook.

Molecular manufacturing remains one of the most speculative forms of nanotechnology, depicted by its advocates as a coherent body of theory awaiting some crucial technical breakthroughs. In response to Drexler’s vision of the transformative effects of molecular manufacturing there is a growing body of proposed guidelines and regulations for when molecular manufacturing theory becomes practice. Let me frame the technoprogressivist consideration of nanotechnology’s social and ethical implications with an observation by futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil (2003), who claims that there are usually three steps through which to pass when deliberating about the impact of future technologies: awe at their revolutionary potential, dread at their associated dangers, and the realization that we should guide their development responsibly and carefully in order to realize the promise and manage the peril (p. xlvi). For those steeped in the technosciences, Kurzweil’s remark may be so much a part of common sense as to be unremarkable. His assertion, however, is a precise example of the technological imperative that is worrisome in terms of ethical decision-making and that currently informs much of the discussion about the implications of molecular manufacturing. The imperative goes largely unquestioned because of the eminently practical purposes envisioned for nanotechnology such as the promise to improve the human condition by addressing age-old human problems of suffering, disease, poverty, aging, and death. As we have seen, transhumanists consider it a moral obligation to

188 overcome these problems through the application of technology; increasingly this perspective is affirmed and adopted, most often implicitly, in mainstream discussions of nanotechnology.

Although molecular manufacturing is thought to pose considerable dangers as well as offering profound benefits, there is little possibility according to most commentators that nanotechnology research can or will either slow down or stop. In light of this, proponents have already taken the time to exercise what they consider reasonable foresight, and much of it, as Baird suggests that speculative and long-term visions should be, is already process- oriented. Two examples of process-oriented, technoprogressivist thinking with regards to molecular manufacturing are scenario planning and the Foresight guidelines.

Scenario planning

In their book Unbounding the Future, Eric Drexler and Christine Peterson envision

the future by employing a technique pioneered by business strategists and adopted by

futurists, that of scenario planning. As Stewart Brand (1991) notes in the foreword to the

book,

all futurists soon discover that correct prediction is impossible. And forcing

the future in a desired direction is also impossible. What does that leave

forethought to do? One of the most valuable tools has proved to be what is

called scenario planning in which dramatic, divergent stories of relevant

futures are spun out. Divergent strategies to handle them are proposed, and

the scenarios and strategies are played against each other until the scenarios

are coherent, plausible, surprising, insightful, and checkable against real

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events as they unfold. ‘Robust’ (adaptable) strategies are supposed to emerge

from the process. (p. 7)

Drexler and Peterson (1991) approach the potentially transformative effects of molecular manufacturing through posing a grand “What if?” question: “What if molecular manufacturing and its products replace modern technology?” (p. 18). As Stewart Brand reminds us, the goal of scenario planning is not to correctly predict but rather to paint a picture of a coherent whole to get an idea of what molecular manufacturing could mean.

Through a series of vignettes (and by their count, their depictions are conservative),

Drexler and Peterson sketch possible consequences, likely trends, and guiding principles that flow from the technical feasibility of nanoscale engineering and that challenge two fundamental assumptions--or misconceptions, according to their view--held by the industrialized world: that industry as we presently understand it cannot be replaced, and that technology as we presently understand it cannot be replaced (1991, pp. 21-22). The prospect of molecular manufacturing allows Drexler and Peterson to reject those assumptions; rather than trying to fix the industrial system, they propose to do away with it altogether. From their perspective, the conventional industrial system takes for granted that manufacturing means pollution, that greater wealth entails consuming more resources, and that the only way out of poverty for developing nations is to industrialize, even though this poses great harm to the environment. Their scenarios think beyond those boundaries, depicting efficient, cheap, and durable solar cells, molecular medicine able to work in tandem with the human immune system, pocket supercomputers, technologies which reduce carbon dioxide emissions and thus lead to climate change reversal, accessible spaceflight, the potential of a global arms

190 race based on low-cost, high-quality automated military hardware (a scenario which demonstrates nanotechnology’s significant potential for abuse), material wealth for developing countries, the restoration of endangered or extinct species through biomedical applications, and environmental remediation that begins a slow return to wilderness, “when nature need no longer be seen as a storehouse of natural resources to be plundered” (p. 28).

Drexler’s and Peterson’s scenarios thus need to be wide and varied both to demonstrate the potential ubiquity of its contributions and to show comprehensive but divergent visions of the future to be determined by the choices we make today. Each of the aforementioned vignettes could be deconstructed to reveal “societal values” that presumably inform those choices. I will assess first one particular scenario and then the scenario-planning approach in general.

I find Drexler’s and Peterson’s “return to wilderness” scenario particularly interesting, for two reasons. First, it demonstrates their belief that molecular manufacturing offers an alternative to an industrial “technological fix.” Critics of technology such as

Willem Vanderburg (2000) argue that our society tends to apply technological solutions to technological problems and that much of this takes the form of “end-of-pipe” solutions which do not address the source of the problem in the way that preventive practices would (pp. 7,

17). In a way, then, nanotechnology does offer that alternative to an end-of-pipe industrial fix because it challenges current ways to think about industrial practices. The Industrial Age more than any other has treated nature primarily as what Heidegger calls a “standing reserve”

(1977, p. 17), a repository of value-neutral resources that exist to serve human beings’ creative wills. Drexler and Peterson acknowledge that an industrial understanding of nature is simply not sustainable and they argue that molecular manufacturing offers a different

191 paradigm that no longer needs to treat nature as a storehouse of natural resources ready for plundering.

However, the fact of the matter is, if we recall Grant’s perspective, molecular manufacturing is still a technological fix because it sees nanoscale matter itself as standing- reserve. Although the concept of molecular manufacturing emerged just around the time that

Grant died, I do not think it much of a stretch to use his interpretive lens to assert this. If anything, nanotechnology magnifies the technological preoccupations of the Industrial Age because it seeks to harness and control matter at the finest scale for human purposes. While in Drexler’s and Peterson’s paradigm, Brazilian rainforests, Canadian tar sands, and Angolan diamond mines may no longer be worked as intensely as they currently are, matter for molecular manufacturing feedstock must come from somewhere. They can argue that molecular manufacturing is less destructive of and more harmonious with the ecological system, but their claim that it is not a technological fix faces serious criticism. As Drexler and Peterson state: “nanotechnology in one form or another is a monumentally obvious idea: it will be the culmination of an age-old trend toward more thorough control of the structure of matter” (p. 41). However it is obvious only to those who see the world primarily as standing reserve. That certainly describes the prevailing perspective of the industrialized world, and while Drexler and Peterson take pains to distinguish their vision from the dominant industrial paradigm, they nevertheless perpetuate the belief that our technological endeavours to harness the capability of matter are no different today from ages past. Grant, by contrast, takes pains to remind us that human societies did not always see the world as standing reserve and that North American society in particular embodies the “startling novelty” of the new kind of synergy between human making and knowing.

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The second reason why Drexler’s and Peterson’s wilderness example is interesting is because it demonstrates how they accept the conventional, liberal, utilitarian framework concerning “values.” Throughout this excursus, our guiding question has been “how do we know what is good to make or unmake?” From chapter 2, we are now aware that “values” and “the good” do not necessarily mean the same thing. While Grant’s use of “good” demands that questions of ultimate meaning and purpose be addressed front and centre (i.e., is the universe is meaningful and beneficent, and is justice something that is unchanging and must be loved?), it is less clear what Drexler’s and Peterson’s assertion of “values” entails.

They state that the objectives of molecular manufacturing are self-evidently good (i.e., we have “old and stable” wants such as better housing, health care, transportation, education, and consumer goods at lower cost, greater safety and in a cleaner environment) which pre- empts the need to establish any further fundamental about why those objectives are good and why molecular manufacturing is a good means to procure them (p. 40). In terms of “values,” the self-evident goods of the wilderness scenario are presumably a sustainable system of resource use and a restoration of lost wilderness areas for people’s enjoyment and for the flourishing of a more balanced ecosystem. Conservation, preservation, and restoration are commonly identified as “environmental values” in the West, values which now presumably compete with or perhaps temper the industrialized world’s value on growth and productivity.

These remain presumptions on my part, however, because by using values language, Drexler and Peterson are not obligated to defend or reject the reasons why such goods are important.

Their job, we assume, is merely to offer the means (molecular manufacturing technology) towards ends they take to be for the common good (restoration of wilderness).

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This, however, is exactly the problem: the descriptor “values,” as supposedly distinct from empirical facts, has come to include such a mixture of human concerns, responsibilities, commitments, subjective preferences, tastes, religious convictions, and personal beliefs that it becomes increasingly difficult to discern what people mean by the term and why they profess their values as they do. Concepts that imply moral objectivity such as “wisdom,” “virtue,” and “truth” that once guided ethical deliberations have been shunted aside in favour of subjective values; and while appealing to “environmental values” or “social values” might sound like it addresses matters of deep import, the sheer variety of concepts that “values” can refer to renders the term itself vague. Recalling other human cultures and eras that have had rich moral and political languages to deliberate over matters of concern, Langdon Winner

(1986) argues that modern values language “acts like a lawn mower that cuts flat whole fields of meaning and leaves them characterless” (p. 158). Speaking of “values” offers no precision or depth for complex or nuanced moral argument because it does not allow distinctions to be made between its constituent concepts.

Lest this seem like a merely semantic argument, let us consider that when Drexler and

Peterson make their case for molecular manufacturing’s essential role in environmental remediation, they assume that their audience shares some collection of environmental values that favour preservation of resources and wilderness. In other words, they assume a moral consensus. But what is this based on? Why not plunder natural resources if they are available? Because the rate at which we do it is proving unsustainable? Because it causes harm to Mother Earth? Because industrial methods are too costly? Maybe all of the above; maybe none. The fact of the matter is that “values,” if considered separately from facts and if considered as subjective positions, do not convey shared reasons for action. Without a

194 clear idea of what is shared and why it is shared, the only thing that “values” perpetuate is confusion. This is the muddled moral language to which Grant, Winner, and MacIntyre all refer. Yet this is the language adopted by those like Drexler and Hughes—those who propose radical change through technology—to discuss how we are to collectively approach those changes.

This brings me to an assessment of the scenario-planning approach in general.

Scenario-planning need not be ethical by nature, but it is clear that Drexler and Peterson want to facilitate ways to envision the “best” scenario. Thus, each scenario must be propelled by an assumption about shared values or the common good, or else it would be an “entertaining and mind-stretching” but ultimately arbitrary exercise (p. 18). But again, on what basis do

Drexler and Peterson construct their scenarios? While the goods they examine may seem self-evident and indeed may be the same as those held by someone who professes as Grant does that the universe is meaningful and objectively good, modern society’s conventional use of values language allows Drexler and Peterson to remain silent on the question of the good and to separate, for example, their private beliefs about the meaning of the universe from practical, public concerns about alleviating pressure on environmental resources. Does this silence matter, as long as the ends are the same? While for many people it may suffice to accomplish practical ends and to keep their reasons to themselves, I do not believe ethical analysis can stop there.

Scenario planning envisions a variety of coherent futures, though not all of them are desirable. How are we to evaluate them? If we are to consider scenario-planning as a process to facilitate ethical deliberation, and if ethical deliberation does more than merely administer to practical needs, then appealing to “values” is not enough. Ethical deliberation

195 in any form must take a position on what is good to make and unmake, it must state why it is so, and it must establish some sort of limit to action. In this sense, despite offering a revolutionary way of understanding and manipulating the world, Drexler’s and Peterson’s use of the scenario-planning approach remains tied to a conventional ethical paradigm that deliberates about how value-neutral technology can be put to good and bad uses depending on one’s values. Because of the vague and subjective nature of values language, there is little that a discussion of values can do to challenge the prevailing technological imperative. If anything, as Grant asserts, values language just tends to serve the interests of the technological imperative. How else, then, are we to deliberate about the future that molecular manufacturing might open up?

Here I propose to look at the situation in two ways: from within the prevailing technological paradigm, and from a Grantian perspective which tries to think outside the paradigm.

Inside the technological imperative: the Foresight guidelines

Drexler presumes that we first know what it is we want to accomplish with molecular

manufacturing, and he presumes these goods, whether a cleaner environment, effective

medicine, or material wealth, are self-evident. If this is the objective, how do we get there

responsibly? Scenario planning has enabled nanotechnology proponents to frame the

challenges posed by molecular manufacturing as matters of public policy and industry

regulation. One particular perspective on regulating nanotechnology is that espoused by the

Foresight Nanotech Institute, founded originally as the Foresight Institute by Drexler in 1986.

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The non-profit public foundation bills itself as the first organization to educate society about the risks and benefits of nanotechnology. Over its history it has produced a number of policy papers, including the Foresight Guidelines for Responsible Nanotechnology Development.

This is a paper which developed from a 1999 workshop on molecular nanotechnology sponsored by the Foresight Institute and the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing; it is now in its sixth draft version.

The Foresight Guidelines are interesting because they represent a vanguard of process-oriented thought regarding the responsible development of nanotechnology. They are also highly regarded by a number of transhumanist commentators such as James Hughes and Nick Bostrom, and by notable transhumanist organizations such as the World

Transhumanist Association, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and the

Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. Because the authors of the guidelines foresee a future involving ubiquitous, commercialized molecular manufacturing, they have seized the present to deliberate over what that future could and should look like. Just as scenario planning offers a process-oriented, technoprogressivist contribution to ethical decision- making, the Foresight Guidelines claim similar technoprogressive, process-oriented origins.

The intent of the draft guidelines is not to be so prescriptive that they stunt innovation; rather they are meant to serve as a general approach to voluntary self-regulation and as an appeal to the maintenance of professional ethical standards with some regulatory oversight (Reynolds,

2002, p. 17). The authors hold that self-regulation is preferable to formalized laws because the practice of self-regulation is more flexible and widely accepted in research and industry sectors.

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Version 6 of the Foresight Guidelines comprises a set of three scorecards, each with a scale of scoring between 0 and 5, with 0 = no compliance and 5 = high compliance: one scorecard focuses on professional guidelines (using eight criteria for self-scoring); one focuses on industry guidelines (according to eight criteria); and one focuses on government policy guidelines (with eleven criteria). The guidelines cite the National Institutes of Health

“Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules”65 as setting a successful

precedent. These were adopted by the biotechnology community over thirty years ago and,

according to the authors of the Foresight Guidelines, they demonstrate how advance planning

and voluntary compliance can be possible and effective. The authors believe that

professional ethics, “soft laws,” and best practices are at least as effective as “hard laws” at

calling attention to and preventing unsafe practices, and that they can be useful as a first line of defence without being overly restrictive of innovation.

Among other things, the professional guidelines urge practitioners to be aware of

environmental and health consequences of specific nanotechnologies, to develop

nanotechnology with a total product lifecycle analysis, and to design molecular

manufacturing systems that do not require autonomous replication. The industry guidelines

include recommendations to provide traceability and audit trails for molecular manufacturing

device designs, to encrypt molecular manufacturing device code to discourage misuse, and to

use layers of redundant controls in system designs. Government policy regulations include

distinguishing the various types and levels of risk involved in nanotechnology development,

and to recognize that different risks require different regulatory policies. The guidelines urge

coordination across government agencies and the establishment of new agencies to deal with the different risks. They also encourage governments to offer economic incentives for

65 See http://www4.od.nih.gov/oba/rac/guidelines/guidelines.html (accessed October 1, 2008)

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“responsible innovation,” to enforce legal and criminal liability where appropriate to minimize accidental or wilful misuse of nanotechnology, and to offer incentives to encourage industry, government, and NGOs to continually improve on best practices for nanotechnology design and risk-management.

As mentioned in chapter 4, some nanotechnology commentators, such as Bill Joy, have argued that molecular manufacturing poses considerable dangerous risks and that there should be bans placed on certain developments. This suggestion triggers alarm bells with other commentators who claim that blanket bans will do more harm than good by pushing research into an unregulated underground. Where do the Foresight Guidelines stand on this?

Being process-oriented, the guidelines take for granted that nanotechnology development will proceed, and as such the animating question is “How best should we proceed?” rather than “Should we proceed at all?” Nevertheless, the Foresight Guidelines state that if genuine dangers are proven to exist, especially with self-replicating nanotechnology of the type envisioned (and warned of) by Eric Drexler, then certain relinquishment measures should be an option. For example, the guidelines state that relinquishment should apply to the development of any device or entity that can self-replicate in a natural environment.

Commentators point to now-customary defences against computer viruses which provide a

“reassuring test case” of our ability to regulate non-biological replication while the controls themselves remain effective and unobtrusive (Kurzweil, 2003, p. xlvii).

Similarly, the Foresight Guidelines also advocate a ban on self-replicating entities that contain codes for their own replication. In the proposed case of programmable nanobots

(feared to give rise to the “grey goo” mentioned in chapter 4), the machines would obtain their replication codes from a centralized secure server. In terms of security, theorists argue

199 that this type of broadcast architecture offers a layer of safety and control not even found in the biological world.

The guidelines are noteworthy because while they concentrate on the prevention of rampant, autonomous, and uncontrolled self-replication of assembler systems, they also take a broader view of the future in terms of protecting the environment, commenting on global wealth distribution, and urging for more collaboration in the global community to address the impacts of nanotechnology (Mnyusiwalla, Daar, & Singer, 2003, p. R10). The Foresight

Guideline authors agree that the benefits must be balanced with the risks but it is the position of the guidelines that nanotechnology has the potential to address a vast array of critical needs with both short- and long-term solutions that will have a “transformative effect on our quality of life” (Jacobstein, 2006, “Balancing Benefits and Risks,” para. 2). The known risks concern mainly the interaction of nanoparticles with human beings and in the environment, which includes toxicity concerns and product lifecycle considerations. The projected benefits relate to clean, efficient energy, longer healthier lives, more productive agriculture, access to powerful information technology and the eventual harvesting of resources in outer space.

Given the visceral resonance that improvements in (or rather, promises to improve)

“quality of life” has with many people, it seems obvious that, as the guidelines assert,

“[i]ndustry and government should have the maximum opportunity to develop and commercialize a manufacturing industry based on productive nanosystems designed for safety and reliability” and that nanotechnology should be developed in such a way that its

“substantial benefits” can be distributed “to the majority of humanity currently desperate to achieve material wealth at any environmental or security cost” (Jacobstein, 2006, “Reducing

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Risks, Improving Opportunities” section, para. 1). Nations seek to be wealthy and secure, and while technological abundance alone cannot take the place of civil society, the Foresight

Guideline contributors insist that technological development can reduce conflicts over resources.

Nevertheless, the authors also recognize that the real risk of nanotechnology lies in its capacity to be misused rather than its potential for accidents and so the Foresight Guidelines also address the possibility of abuse by terrorists or “non-state entities.” They state that prevention of abuse requires more than codes of professional ethics and multiple layers of built-in industrial safeguards; it also requires “thoughtful regulation, monitoring, and potentially the development of ‘immune responses’ to external threats” (“Replicators:

Autonomous and Non Autonomous” section, para. 3). The “immune response” advocated takes its precedent both from nature, when organisms come under attack from viruses and bacteria, and from the language of computing systems which employ anti-virus programs.

The Foresight Guidelines note that this may lead to a “predator-prey” cycle as competitors try to out-fox each other in attacks and defences.

The Foresight Guidelines, like Drexler’s espousal of scenario planning, are more process-oriented than prescriptive. However, even without being prescriptive it seems reasonable to expect that any call for action is informed by some guiding principle of what is good to pursue. Molecular manufacturing operates under the premise that matter eventually will be subject to precise control and that with this precise control it is good to make and do certain things. While scenario planning in itself does not have to yield ethical results, it is clear that there is an ethical undercurrent in how Drexler uses it to think about the implications of molecular manufacturing; so too with the Foresight Guidelines there is an

201 implicit desire that they be use to navigate the “best” course of action that will bring the most

“good.”

The reader will note that we encountered a similar approach in Glenn Harlan

Reynold’s analysis in chapter 4 of current options to ban, regulate, or relinquish certain types of nanotechnology research. In both cases the challenges of nanotechnology have been posed by Reynolds, Drexler, and the Foresight Guidelines authors primarily in terms of assessing degree and probability of risks as well as ensuring “safe” development, and translating those assessments into public policies and regulations. This ultimately means a search for common public values.

According to Drexler and Peterson, “[t]he coming revolution can best be managed by people who share not only a picture of what they wish to avoid, but of what they can achieve” (1991, p. 36). What do people want? Drexler and Peterson surmise that “[p]eople want better medical care, housing, consumer goods, transportation, education, and so forth, preferably at lower costs, with greater safety, in a cleaner environment” (p. 40). In Western society these are all fairly consistent, basic material goods. In the past we have had to compromise on cost, safety, quality and environmental impact, but Drexler and Peterson claim that molecular manufacturing “can be used to improve quality and lower costs and increase safety and clean the environment” (p. 40). Speaking from within the technological imperative, Drexler and Peterson claim that the precise control of matter is the best way (i.e., the most reliable, predictable, and efficient way) to achieve those old and stable goods. They argue that human beings have always sought more precise control over matter through technology, whether harnessing fire, refining agricultural techniques, or capturing energy resources. Nanotechnology represents for Drexler and his colleagues the most cutting-edge

202 capability to control matter, but it is not qualitatively different from other technological endeavours. Their approach enables them to separate the means from the ends because the means for procuring those supposedly stable ends has continually changed over human history. What they do not account for, however, is that other social, personal, cultural, and religious factors influence how people deliberate over acceptable and unacceptable ways to attain those basic goods.

The kinds of process-oriented thought found in current nanotechnology discussions such as scenario planning and the Foresight Guidelines are strong on offering the what and how of a situation, but they do not necessarily offer detailed or philosophical explanation of why that scenario may be best. Perhaps it is simply not the job of process-oriented thought to offer reasons why certain means and ends are good, but those engaged in the process must at some point elucidate either privately or publicly why they believe what they do, and that means we are still left with the question of what is good to make and unmake. Drexler’s and

Peterson’s statement about needing to share a vision of what we want to avoid and achieve with the coming revolution raises a recurring and trenchant question in ethics: is it possible in a modern pluralist society to share a vision for the future that is rooted not in a lowest common denominator (i.e., ensuring our species’ survival) but rather that considers what the highest ends of humanity might be? We already know that safety, while a necessary consideration, is not equivalent to “good” or “right” and it is also clear that calculating probability of risk is no guarantee of ethical or moral goodness either.

The Foresight Guidelines are impressive and detailed as far as preventive thinking goes, but they have already assumed that the benefits of developing nanotechnology outweigh the risks. The guidelines were also drafted with the assumption that North

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American liberalism provides a solid foundation for guiding technological development in desirable directions. George Grant, however, disagrees. We have seen how liberalism caters to the technological imperative, and how the technological imperative by its nature obscures or prevents altogether the asking of certain questions about justice, about what is owed to other human beings, and about what is good to make and unmake.

Beyond the technological imperative: George Grant’s critique

Justice in North American technological society has come to mean the calculation of self-interests within the social contract, rather than an inherent human orientation toward moral absolutes discerned from an external order. Perhaps it does not seem quite fair to find fault with the emphasis nanotechnology places on plumbing the depths of molecular standing-reserve when it seems that, if we speak as Grant does about what things are fitted for, the very essence of nanotechnology is to be fitted for seeking precise control of matter.

However, I interpret Grant’s point to be less about finding fault with the fruits of scientific endeavour and more about being aware of what gets obscured when one’s primary orientation is towards the kind of calculation and control that is so pervasive in technological society.

Molecular manufacturing, by its proponents’ own assertions, views the world through that transforming lens which sees matter in the context of how it can be changed and

“improved.” That lens specifically involves acts of calculation and acts of the human will on matter. However, beyond nanotechnology’s intention to treat matter itself, such as carbon,

204 silicon, and gold, as standing-reserve, what is of graver concern is when nanotechnology’s pursuit of molecular control of the world is turned on human beings.

Grant’s perspective asserts that the past four hundred years have seen a qualitative difference in how human beings know things and make things, when compared to millennia of human experience leading up to the Enlightenment that did not define human beings in terms of their technology. The difference since then in knowing and making subsequently changes our understanding of “justice” and why it is due to other human beings. Grant and

Heidegger remind us that love is an essential component of justice and that love means to be capable of thinking about something without the intention or desire to change it (Grant,

1969/2005, p. 625). Given that liberalism affirms that not all biological members of our species are also full members of the social contract, if members at all (here Grant cites the most vulnerable members of the species, such as fetuses, the aged, the mentally infirm),

Grant believes that contractual liberalism is impotent to address justice as something that is due to all human beings.

Grant has no definitive answers, but what he can do is to point out the ambiguities that arise from technological society’s current paradigm. The prospect of molecular manufacturing, understood through the breadth of its proposed applications, promises only to add to the ambiguity, despite its proponents’ insistence that it will improve the human condition. Even though nanotechnology advancements may be in the name of curing disease and helping us to live longer, healthier lives, the ambiguity deepens because technology is changing the very idea of human being.

Let us recall transhumanist James Hughes’ insistence that both technology and democracy are vital to asserting control over one’s life. Surely the discoveries and creations

205 of nanotechnology alone will not determine the future? Isn’t ethics, as Drexler and Hughes both claim, a matter of political judgement? And isn’t that assertion something that Grant, as a political philosopher, could stand behind? Let us also recall Baird’s lament at the opening of this chapter that we cannot judge the fundamental goodness or badness of a technological development. Baird’s dilemma demonstrates exactly what Grant believes to be the very real difficulty of ethical judgement-making in the modern world, that being our inability to judge between differing modes of existence that technology enables. Now more than ever it is essential to rethink liberalism’s conception of justice as it relates to the social contract.

“Values” and politics

Although Drexler and Peterson lead their own nanotechnology revolution by

declaring that nanotechnology will transform how we make and do things, they do not pay

heed to the possibility, as Grant does, that we will transform ourselves in the process. If they

insist that technology and industry as we know them can be completely replaced, they are

less clear about the status of our present values and traditions in the midst of massive

technological upheaval: on the one hand they claim that scenario planning and foresight will

“help us plan how best to conserve values, traditions, and ecosystems through effective

policies and institutions” (Drexler & Peterson, 1991, p. 23). On the other hand, they

recognize the possibility of enormous social and economic disruption, but their outlook on

how to account for social upheaval is troubling. They treat it as a manageable (though

“huge”) exception to their evaluation of molecular manufacturing’s overall costs and

benefits, calculating the benefits of “inherently clean, well-controlled, inexpensive, superior

technologies...applied with care” to outweigh concomitant existential risks as well as to

206 surpass the status quo of “inherently dirty, messy, costly, inferior [industrial] technologies”

(Drexler & Peterson, 1991, p. 255). Similarly, Chris Phoenix (2004), co-founder of the transhumanist-friendly Centre for Responsible Nanotechnology, speculates that molecular nanotechnology may render “disruption to the social and moral fabric, [and] cultural destruction,” among other existential threats to the human race (p. 53).

That thought alone should give people serious pause to consider how technology mediates our worldviews. Although the possibility of social and cultural upheaval does not prevent him from being a vocal supporter of molecular manufacturing and believing that such risks can be mitigated with proper management and planning, Phoenix’s meditation on the potential gains and losses from nanotechnology make it clear that Drexler and Peterson may not be realistic in their assurance that society can conserve values and traditions.

Clearly they believe technology is value-neutral in itself, and that foresight and wisdom can foster more good use of molecular manufacturing than bad. Phoenix seems to share the position that it is a matter of planning and policy, although he is blunter about the toll on values and traditions. Both, however, implicitly bolster the reasoning behind the technological imperative, do not question the inevitability of technological development, and believe that the reasonable approach is to manage risks and accept the costs of progress.

Their answer to how we decide what is good to make and unmake with transformative technologies is that it’s a matter of political will, of people engaged between good and bad political and personal choices. It is not up to technology but rather policy; policy requires foresight, and foresight is framed by three considerations: the possible, the achievable and the desirable. As Drexler (1986/1990) says:

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First, scientific and engineering knowledge form a map of the limits of the

possible. Though still blurred and incomplete, this map outlines the permanent

limits within which the future must move. Second, evolutionary principles

determine what paths lie open, and set limits to achievement—including lower

limits, because advances that promise to improve life or to further military

power will be virtually unstoppable. This allows a limited prediction: If the

eons-old evolutionary race does not somehow screech to a halt, then

competitive pressures will mold our technological future to the contours of the

limits of the possible. Finally, within the broad confines of the possible and

the achievable, we can try to reach a future we find desirable. (p. 52)

In fact, it may seem that Grant, being a political philosopher, would advocate for the same kind of political engagement urged by Drexler, Peterson, Phoenix, Baird, and even the transhumanists Bostrom and Hughes. After all, according to Grant, living well together and thinking deeply about the whole are the highest ends of humanity, and thus human activity is fitted for political thought and action. However, even though according to Drexler the final limitations on what is possible and achievable are ostensibly political judgements, those judgements are less able to speak objectively of what might be wise, virtuous, just, or good, and we are again left with the dilemma of measuring competing claims of values and political judgements. Unfortunately, the practice of political judgement has also been subsumed within the technological imperative: “the greatest predicament of our era is that the methods and purposes of political science have become technical just at a time when what is required of them is thought which quite transcends the technical. The present requires from

208 us above all the rethinking of every segment of human life in the light of technological civilization” (Grant, 1969/2005, p. 622).

Given the profound transformations forecast by transhumanists and nanotechnology visionaries, a re-evaluation of collective priorities and commitments seems in order; yet as long as nanotechnology commentators and transhumanists let the technological imperative pave the way for their political reckonings, then questioning the fundamental worthiness of

“revolutionary” technological pursuits will never really be open to serious scrutiny because the question of the good life has already been answered in terms of the technoscientific enterprise, and that defeats the purpose of political judgement which should be open to questioning every foundation of society.

With technology as the largely unacknowledged ontology of our times, technological civilization insists that the only meaning existence has is what we create and will, and yet that is not the type of conclusion that transcends the technical. Grant, speaking from a perspective that tries to think outside the technological imperative, contends that we absolutely must make decisions about technology based on a perception of an eternal unchanging good. However, he did not mean this would be an easy or a straightforward thing to think about: “it has become clear that most men falter as to what they think is true, and just and beautiful—so that they live in confusion” (1969/2005, p. 606). Grant says that the only way to overcome ambiguity is to think about what a thing is fitted for; however, it is also clear that technological society does not operate according to the concept of ultimate purpose or meaning.

Without ultimate meaning, or with an account given only in terms of the human will, civilization starts down the road to nihilism, for in Grant’s words, “not to know what

209 anything is fitted for is nihilism” (1969/2005, p. 625). Certainly there are some who are not troubled by that prospect of nihilism, such as transhumanist and libertarian thinker

Christopher Dewdney who welcomes a future fully determined by human willing; but for democratic transhumanists such as James Hughes, and for nanotechnology proponents such as Eric Drexler, whose writings uphold the standards of liberalism and seek to conserve some

“values” and traditions, it is apparent that they cannot see that their visions of the future ultimately lead to nihilism. Grant reminds us, however, that a nihilistic society presents countless possibilities for injustice, at least in the eyes of those citizens with a commitment to

“the good.” There are two facets of this prospect that I will address. The first is that political and ethical judgement can become victims of nihilism. The second is that anaemic political and ethical discourse opens the door to tyranny.

Politics at its core is about what people will stand up for, fight for, and even die for; its nature is to generate conflict, especially conflict about what is good, but when conflict is muted or absent, the issues become more about administration than politics. Grant is concerned that as long as the technological imperative takes priority, then questions of policy, planning, and regulation of emerging technologies will simply become matters of administration, rather than persistent and profound political discussions about the deeper meaning of human existence. If, as he contends, North American liberalism has accepted technological values as a good thing, then the technological society is beyond politics because its foundations are no longer a matter of conflict (1969/2005, p. 608). The means to realize the technological society may be in dispute, but not the end itself. Thus, the Foresight

Guidelines, as useful as they could be in guiding the responsible development of nanotechnology in light of the technological imperative, may actually end up being a

210 testament to liberalism’s administrative acumen, rather than its political or ethical robustness to deliberate about what is good to make and unmake and thus to step outside the technological imperative.

The other faces of tyranny

When politics becomes diluted, the door opens to tyranny. Might citizens of the

technological society be so confident in the idea of technological progress and in the idea of

liberalism as the best context in which to better the human condition that they would not

recognize tyranny if presented with it? Chapter 5 introduced Grant’s notion of tyranny as

any state of being that impedes or denies human beings’ main ends, living well together and

thinking deeply. In modern society, this can include the “headless” tyranny spoken of by

Ursula Franklin, consisting of invisible technologies of control which include or exclude groups of people without their awareness or consent, and it can include what Grant calls the

“universal and homogenous state” dedicated to the total overcoming of chance. Thus it

would seem that liberal democracy still has to reckon with various forms of tyranny. Where

might molecular manufacturing weigh in on the issue of tyranny?

We recall that Grant believes that the universal and homogeneous state is a harbinger

of tyranny. Drexler and Peterson do address the idea of universalization and

homogenization, though not to the same effect as Grant. They recognize a trend towards

uniformity in terms of economic unions such as the European Union and in terms of the ways

that multinationals shape the global community, but they insist that molecular manufacturing,

rather than encouraging even more uniformity, will instead permit “radical decentralization”

211 of economies. This will mean that communities and nations could potentially be more economically independent than the current global economy allows. Drexler and Peterson suggest, perhaps counterintuitively, that groups that wish to conserve their values and traditions from the “turbulent outside world” should actually embrace the changes molecular manufacturing could usher in because it will ultimately allow them to pick and choose what technologies best conserve their values (1991, p. 237). In a sense, they argue that universalization of molecular manufacturing will lead to economic diversification.

Drexler and Peterson might be still accused of favouring the techno-fix, but at first glance it seems more like a recipe for pluralism than tyranny. However, even though they envision that molecular manufacturing will result in economic diversification, they further acknowledge that it will also enable nations to be more economically independent so that political will exercised by economic sanctions and export restrictions will have little force:

“By weakening the ties of trade, molecular manufacturing threatens to weaken the glue that holds nations together. We need that glue, though, to deal with the arms control issues raised by molecular manufacturing itself. This problem, caused by the potential for decentralization, may loom large in the coming years” (p. 237). Their answer is to regulate advanced technologies in a way that creates minimal potential for abuse while also encouraging innovation (p. 255-256). What this means politically is to institute new frameworks for global cooperation, and perhaps governance, in order to manage the widespread change nanotechnology promises.

Readers attentive to Grant’s definition of tyranny may wonder whether global governance might entail eventual political homogenization, but Drexler and Peterson insist that they mean an emphasis on “balanced international progress” and cooperative

212 development through joint research programs rather than dominance by any one nation or technological rivalries between nations. In fact, this could mean the adoption of more international protocols, such as the proposed International Convention on Evaluating New

Technologies (ICENT) first suggested by the ETC (Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration) for use in the United Nations. It also means a focus on civilian goals rather than development for military ends, but recognizing the possibility of a nanotechnology-driven arms race, Drexler and Peterson urge nations to conduct mutual inspections as is currently the case in arms control policies.

However, commentators such as Chris Phoenix and Ray Kurzweil insist that there is an inherent competitive element to nanotechnology development, particularly in the field of military applications. For example, although Kurzweil endorses the Foresight Guidelines, he equates technological progress and risk management with offence and defence strategies in a competition among nations for global technological superiority, a race that favours the side of liberal democratic superpowers and the creation of ethical and legal standards that will not restrict free inquiry.66 He criticizes the extensive regulation to which biotechnology and

medical technologies are subjected because this slows innovation (Kurzweil, 2003, p. xlvii).

For him, effective technological development means that regulatory structures need to be streamlined, and that people simply have to learn to adapt to change quickly. This contrasts with Drexler’s and Peterson’s hope that there will be opportunities to conserve values and traditions.

66 For example, the favoured sequence of development for some transhumanists would entail a race to perfect “nanotech immune systems and other defensive measures” before “offensive capabilities” were achieved by other nations or groups. This pertains to nanotechnology used in conjunction with biotechnology and to nanotechnology operative in artificial intelligence systems. In the former case, transhumanists seek for their side (one assumes this is a liberal democratic country like the United States) to have the upper hand in terms of defence (vaccines, sensors, anti-viral agents, diagnostic systems, protective equipment) against biological warfare agents, and in the latter case they seek the development of measures that promote “friendly AI” in the face of engineered intelligences that surpass human capabilities. See Bostrom, 2003a, section 3.4, para. 4.

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Indeed, realistically speaking, it is not in the interest of those who profit from the short-term benefits of the accelerating pace of technological development to discuss slowing down, especially when the climate for development is framed as a race for superiority.

However, when nanoscience research is described as a race among nations, we must stop to ask why the hurry and to what end (Berne, 2005, p. 1261). The United States Department of

Defence has already framed its nanotechnology mandate as a competition to retain superiority of what it considers a defensive technology (Altmann, 2006). This may protect the interests of one nation, but having an overly competitive outlook, especially predicated on the belief that development is a race, detracts from the collaborative efforts required for adequate ethical deliberation, especially when the issues are so complex and interconnected.

One must wonder how learning to adapt quickly to change will impact on society’s collective efforts to think deeply about the whole. Kurzweil’s desire to keep up the pace may be a recipe for the “soft” tyranny that concerns Grant because there is simply no option not to be part of a future shaped by technological competition.

To extend the tyranny scenario further, let me cite an example used by transhumanist scholar Nick Bostrom. Like Drexler and Peterson, Bostrom favours significant emphasis placed on international cooperation and collaboration to develop nanotechnology responsibly, but he also realizes the perils that presents. I will quote Bostrom’s scenario

(2002) at length for the clarity and direction of this thought:

Creating a broad-based consensus among the world’s nation states is time-

consuming, difficult, and in many instances impossible. We must therefore

recognize the possibility that cases may arise in which a powerful nation or a

coalition of states needs to act unilaterally for its own and the common

214 interest. Such unilateral action may infringe on the sovereignty of other nations and may need to be done preemptively.

Let us make this hypothetical more concrete. Suppose advanced nanotechnology has just been developed in some leading lab. (By advanced nanotechnology I mean a fairly general assembler, a device that can build a large range of three-dimensional structures – including rigid parts – to atomic precision given a detailed specification of the design and construction process, some feedstock chemicals, and a supply of energy.) Suppose that at this stage it is possible to predict that building dangerous nanoreplicators will be much easier than building a reliable nanotechnological immune system that could protect against all simple dangerous replicators. Maybe design-plans for the dangerous replicators have already been produced by design-ahead efforts and are available on the Internet. Suppose furthermore that because most of the research leading up to the construction of the assembler, excluding only the last few stages, is available in the open literature; so that other laboratories in other parts of the world are soon likely to develop their own assemblers. What should be done?

With this setup, one can confidently predict that the dangerous technology will soon fall into the hands of “rogue nations,” hate groups, and perhaps eventually lone psychopaths. Sooner or later somebody would then assemble and release a destructive nanobot and destroy the biosphere. The only option is to take action to prevent the proliferation of the assembler

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technology until such a time as reliable countermeasures to a nano-attack have

been deployed.

Hopefully, most nations would be responsible enough to willingly

subscribe to appropriate regulation of the assembler technology. The

regulation would not need to be in the form of a ban on assemblers but it

would have to limit temporarily but effectively the uses of assemblers, and it

would have to be coupled to a thorough monitoring program. Some nations,

however, may refuse to sign up. Such nations would first be pressured to join

the coalition. If all efforts at persuasion fail, force or the threat of force would

have to be used to get them to sign on (“Retain a last-resort readiness for

preemptive action,” sec. 9.3).67

Unilateral pre-emptive action is not new to human history, but with this scenario

Bostrom implicitly argues from within the context of the technological imperative: although his analysis intends to be proactive in anticipating the dangers ahead, his outlook is completely informed by a moral obligation that impels us to better the human condition through mastery of human and non-human nature. Bostrom, Drexler, Kurzweil, and others are quite constructive in their contributions because, to be fair, they must be able to construct

67 Elsewhere he reiterates: “A preemptive strike on a sovereign nation is not a move to be taken lightly, but in the extreme case we have outlined--where a failure to act would with high probability lead to existential catastrophe--it is a responsibility that must not be abrogated. Whatever moral prohibition there normally is against violating national sovereignty is overridden in this case by the necessity to prevent the destruction of humankind. Even if the nation in question has not yet initiated open violence, the mere decision to go forward with development of the hazardous technology in the absence of sufficient regulation must be interpreted as an act of aggression, for it puts the rest of the rest of the world at an even greater risk than would, say, firing off several nuclear missiles in random directions…While we should hope that we are never placed in a situation where initiating force becomes necessary, it is crucial that we make room in our moral and strategic thinking for this contingency. Developing widespread recognition of the moral aspects of this scenario ahead of time is especially important, since without some degree of public support democracies will find it difficult to act decisively before there has been any visible demonstration of what is at stake. Waiting for such a demonstration is decidedly not an option, because it might itself be the end.” (Bostrom, 2002, sec. 9.3, para. 5)

216 various scenarios to get the dialogue going. Therefore, for me to raise the subject of tyranny in the futures they envision is not so much to reflect on unilateral action taken by hostile or defending nations but rather to be aware that the dominance of the technological paradigm now demands global heed to the technological imperative. Nations have no choice but to join the race or be left behind.

What is at stake is nothing less than improving human health, nations’ economies, and the global environment, which are weighty promises regardless of whether framed in the context of collaboration or competition. Commentators on all sides have determined that there is no opting-out, due to the inevitable and inexorable march of technological “progress” bolstered by an increasingly globalized faith in technology as the best way to improve the human condition. However, once this concept of technological progress is agreed upon by society--and increasingly by nations worldwide--then there is little left for politics to do in the scenarios that transhumanism envisions. It may even spell the end of ethics (Schmidt,

2008).

Deep political thinking is fuelled by necessary and constructive conflicts about the good ends of society, but if the technological society has already largely affirmed what good ends are, then politics rather becomes a matter of administration. But I affirm Grant’s assertion that the destruction of politics is what leads to tyranny, and the technological imperative increasingly denies the opportunity for true political thought. Thus, now more than ever, we must rethink the notion of tyranny and whether it applies to a future oriented towards the control of matter.

Such assertions may ultimately fall mostly on deaf ears because ours is a society where questions of the good have not only slipped off the radar through neglect but also have

217 been actively purged from public view. Speaking outside of conventional frameworks for modern ethics inherently entails addressing an initially small audience and although I believe

Grant’s perspective holds enduring and broad relevance, like Grant my objective cannot be to convince those for whom questions of the good are meaningless. There is probably little convincing to be done of transhumanists and nanotechnology proponents who believe that the path is open to impose our wills on a purposeless and morally neutral world. Rather I seek to explore with those for whom questions of the good are still relevant in ethical decision-making about technology and justice.

Perhaps the area where “the good” still has residual resonance and therefore can be more easily examined is that of human enhancement. It is apparent that Grant was most concerned about turning technology toward the mastery of human beings, even if it is in the name of health and security and abundance, because here the idea of tyranny becomes a much more personal, and potentially more insidious, matter. The next chapter will examine the role of nanotechnology in human enhancement and will contrast the ethical frameworks of transhumanists with that of Grant’s moral philosophy.

CHAPTER 7

THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE’S IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN ENHANCEMENT

We have seen from chapter 3 that transhumanism seeks to improve the human condition specifically through technological development, and that “improvement” refers to a broad range of capacities, including longer and healthier lifespans, access to sufficient material resources, access to a clean and safe environment, and the potential to expand one’s physical, cognitive, and emotional abilities. We have also seen that improvement is commonly thought of in terms of “self-directed evolution” where the individual is free to choose the means and extent of enhancement. The crux of transhumanist thought is that the more that can be known about the human state and the more that individuals can exercise autonomous control over hitherto unchosen states, the greater the chance that individuals have to live a happy life.

We have also seen that, for a thinker like George Grant who believes there is more to existential meaning than creative acts of the human will imposed on the accidental collocation of matter, the quintessentially American pursuit of happiness cannot be the primary orientation for moral and ethical thought because happiness does not necessarily provide insight or orientation towards the good. However, given his starting assumption that

“the good” is real and that justice needs to be loved, what is the place of a thinker such as

Grant who, contrary to the dominant spirit of the age, attempts to think beyond the technological imperative and does it by asserting the validity of an external standard that his interlocutors are likely to deny? Such is the profound difficulty of evaluating between positions that derive from very different starting points.

218 219

Given the responses of transhumanists such as James Hughes and Nick Bostrom to critics such as Leon Kass, Francis Fukuyama, and Bill McKibben, it is quite likely that

George Grant would be dismissed by transhumanists as simply another bioconservative.

Grant, like the aforementioned critics, appeals to the inviolability of human nature and to the idea of limits. His Platonic and Christian intellectual heritage firmly grounds him in a paradigm that contends that justice must be oriented towards an absolute, unchanging good.

But more than his American counterparts, Grant recognizes deeply just how difficult it is for any modern philosophy to challenge the technological imperative once technology has become the ontology of the age. He has thought comprehensively about the ambiguities of liberalism and the fragmented nature of modern moral language. Because he spoke from the mid-to-late twentieth century and from a distinctly Canadian perspective, he offers a view that is potentially more constructive because it is slightly more removed from the American technological imperative in which the transhumanist dialogue is currently steeped.

The previous chapter explored the meaning of and assumptions behind the technological mastery of matter according to the molecular manufacturing paradigm, but now we turn to the technological mastery of human nature by way of self-directed evolution and human enhancement technologies. Questions of justice and the good seem even more pressing when the mastery of human matter is at stake, and nowhere is this more evident than in the question that animates this thesis: how do we know what is good to make and unmake?

Does democratic, secular liberalism provide an adequate framework in which to discuss remaking the human species, or is it possible that we need a different type of ethic? With that query continuing to light the way, let us examine the moral climate in which discussions of human enhancement through nanotechnology unfold.

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Nanotechnology and human enhancement

Specific current and projected human enhancements are obviously wide and varied,

and it is not the intention of this thesis to investigate the ethical issues posed by particular

technologies. Rather, because the transhumanist emphasis is on the cumulative effects of

technology--which I have argued constitutes a distinguishable ontology--I will examine patterns of thought that reflect the technological imperative and inform transhumanism’s

overall ethic for self-guided evolution and contrast them with those that inform Grant’s

perspective. Nevertheless, it is helpful to contextualize the discussion with examples of how

nanotechnology relates to human enhancement. The use of nanotechnology for human

enhancement is one of the most visceral and controversial issues to arise in discussions of

nanoethics because it challenges traditional notions of what it means to be human and

because it suspends us between promises of superhumanity and threats of degradation.

Chapter 3 alluded to what sorts of enhancements transhumanists anticipate, and what sorts of

technologies might achieve their goals. This section will outline more specifically the role

that nanotechnology plays in fostering transhuman reality.

One of the commercially available fruits of nanotechnology research is the lab-on-a-

chip. “Lab-on-a-chip” is a common concept found in nanotechnology literature and it refers

to shrinking the capacities of an entire laboratory to the size of a microchip, in terms of

analyzing blood and tissue samples or detecting viruses or chemical agents in real time with

the minimal amount of samples and equipment. Like a macroscale lab, a lab-on-a-chip still

involves studying the chemical interactions of liquids and gases but it is combining the

principles of microfluidics (i.e., the “lab”) with computer lithography (i.e., the “chip”) which

221 pave the way for such miniaturization at the nanoscale. Chips are increasingly available for commercial use ranging from protein and DNA analysis to cancer detection.68

Lab-on-a-chip technology refers mainly to instruments that facilitate detection,

testing, and diagnosis, but there are other nanoscale innovations that could be applied on

much more intimate terms with the human body. Research in molecular imaging, for

example, studies how cancer cells in very early stages could be tagged with fluorescing

quantum dots within a patient’s body to detect the location and degree of cancer growth,

allowing for more precise imaging and treatment and less invasive detection procedures.

Quantum dots would be of further use in targeted drug delivery, where precise doses of

cancer-targeting molecules would be attached to quantum dots and activated once the cancer

cells had been marked (e.g., Vashist, Tewari, Bajpai, Bharadwaj, & Raiteri, 2006). While cancer treatment remains one of the most high-profile goals of nanomedicine, the imaging and detection techniques developed will have almost unlimited applicability to investigating and treating other human diseases and conditions.

Using many of the same nanoscientific principles, nanotechnology promises more effective ways to map DNA, which then opens the door to pharmacogenomics, the study of how genetic variation relates to drug response (e.g., Kalow, Meyer & Tyndale, 2001; Kriz,

2008; Wong, Linder, &Valdes, Jr., 2006). In other words, nanotechnology bodes the further development of personalized medicine, which refers to optimizing drug combinations for an individual’s unique genetic blueprint.

In addition, research is being conducted into developing more effective implants and prostheses that would be less subject to rejection by the body because they are better able to

68 See for example, Lab on a Chip http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/LC/Index.asp (Accessed October 2, 2008).

222 bridge the gaps between synthetic and organic material. This includes everything from engineering better joints to growing transplantable tissues and organs in the lab to designing blood substitutes that transport oxygen more efficiently (e.g., Chang, 2007; Gonsalves,

2008). In the case of the latter, there is one oft-cited innovation in transhumanist nanotechnology literature which demonstrates the far-sightedness of the nanotechnology enterprise. With the increasing ability to engineer with atomic precision, commentators envision cellular-size sensors and tools to integrate into the body, such as the “respirocyte,” an artificial red blood cell whose design was pioneered by Robert Freitas, Jr. Freitas (1998) claims that his design would be able to deliver 236 times more oxygen to the body’s tissues per unit volume than naturally-occurring red blood cells, and to remove a similar amount of carbon dioxide. The device is still very much in a theoretical stage, but Freitas claims that the engineering theory behind the respirocyte design is sound, much as Drexler argues for the theoretical feasibility of molecular manufacturing. Potential uses range from treating cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, to providing emergency artificial respiration and transfusable blood substitutes; from underwater breathing, to improving sports performance and enhancing personnel performance on the battlefield.

As we extrapolate about the variety and extent of potential human enhancements, what also becomes clear is that one of the major objectives of short- and long-term research into human enhancement using nanotechnology is for military purposes. For example, work at the Institute for Soldier Technologies at MIT focuses on augmenting human strength and capabilities through exoskeletons as well as providing emergency medical treatment, such as wound dressing and controlled release of medications, delivered directly through the

223 soldier’s battlesuit.69 The Institute for Soldier Technologies demonstrates how, just as the

internet originated in DARPA military research, so too nanotechnology for human

enhancement finds its progenitor in defence research.

The exploration of brain-machine interfaces is yet another frontier where both

military and civilian nanotechnology research is anticipated to make great inroads. Like any

frontier, there are particular figures who lead the charge, or at least set the rhetorical tone.

Noted inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, having established his credibility particularly in the field of artificial intelligence, now advocates for research that fuses the human with the machine. Like many technology forecasters, Kurzweil projects that computers as distinct objects will soon disappear, having become intimately integrated with countless everyday applications; however, he pays particular attention to extrapolating an intimate relationship between nanotechnology and the human brain. Kurzweil describes a future where a dense lattice of nanobots throughout the brain would communicate with individual neurons and thus enhance brain functioning, feelings and thoughts. This, according to Hughes (2004) would enable the brain

to think faster thoughts; to multitask; to record and playback thoughts, dreams

and feelings; and to switch seamlessly between immersive virtual reality and

sensory reality. Most importantly a nanobot-pervaded brain would allow

computing media to capture and record a dynamic model of each of our brains

down to the last synapse. (p. 44; see also Kurzweil, 2003, pp. xliv-xlv)

Transhumanists find this an exciting and liberating scenario for it speaks to the potential to upload one’s consciousness into a fleshless medium less subject to the ravages of time

69 http://web.mit.edu/isn/research/index.html (Accessed August 11, 2008)

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(though, I might add, perhaps subject to decay in other forms), or to create a backup of the mind should anything untoward occur to one’s own corporeal hardware and software.

The machine metaphor and human nature

Just as I noted previously the prevalence of the machine metaphor to describe nature in the context of molecular manufacturing, so too the machine metaphor prevails in transhumanist discussions of human enhancement, particularly brain enhancement. It is common to encounter depictions of human nature and behaviour explained in terms of information patterns and the brain as a network of information-processing nanostructured systems that can be upgraded and modified.

Such materialist language may be merely metaphorical, but we must also be attentive to the implications of its use when commentators further insist that the process of human betterment means upgrading and modifying the brain to improve “collective behaviour and productivity” and produce a “more efficient social structure for reaching human goals,” as in the words of American nanotechnology advocate Mihail Roco (quoted in López, 2004, p.

11). Noted longevity commentator and biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey (2005) uses similar language to describe how aging should be approached, calling it an “engineering problem.”

Although as I noted in the previous chapter, this is unsurprising and supposedly practical language with which to talk about manipulating matter in the context of molecular manufacturing, the fact that engineering language and calculation translates easily into paradigms for human enhancement should make us attentive to whether we have lost anything by placing so much emphasis on the machine metaphor.

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From the perspective of a transhumanist advocate such as Gregory Stock, the ease with which we may use the machine metaphor is entirely acceptable because technology is an intimate and inseparable component of what it is to be a human being. Stock argues that increasing cyborgization will not in fact define the future in a way that reflects popular culture’s fascination with incorporating mechanical implants and prosthetics in the human body, and the stuff of Hollywood films such as The Terminator and The Matrix. Rather, he maintains that, for all intents and purposes, we are already “fyborgs,” or functional cyborgs, which is a term Stock borrows from artificial intelligence theorist Alexander Chislenko to refer to how we currently tend to fuse ourselves functionally, rather than physically, with our machines (2003, p. 25). Stock claims that we as a species have a long history of being both biological and technological when we realize that wearing clothing, cooking food, using vaccines, and engaging in economic activity are essentially technologically-mediated ways to improve life. Such fusing of the artificial with the natural is thus neither novel nor foreign.

There is novelty to our situation, however, if we remember Grant’s understanding that technoscience is a qualitatively new way to define and mediate the human experience.

Although it is common for technoprogressivists to depict technological development as a gradual transition of upgrades and improvements, their assumption that humanity has been engaged in essentially the same kind of technological activity is misleading because that assumption does not account for the myriad of ways that social, cultural, and religious forces tempered (and some may say, constrained) the technological imperative. The past four hundred years have seen the rise of technoscience as the primary way to gain knowledge of the world and the decline of other ways to know. As a result, whether enhancement is for

226 health purposes or for military applications,70 the systemic use of engineering language to

describe the human condition creates problems for a thinker like Grant because it ultimately

abstracts human beings from the complicated context of life, a context that must be informed

by love of the good. As we will discuss later in this chapter, to ignore or to be unaware of

the external, normative presence of the good is not just a loss to humanity, but an embrace of

nihilism and a step toward tyranny.

In light of such fundamentally contrasting interpretations of technology, what

implications do perspectives such as those put forth by Kurzweil, Stock, and Grant have for

thinking through the ethics of technologies turned towards human enhancement? That

question leads us into a discussion of the relationship between eugenics, love, limits, and

tyranny, because these are essential factors in our consideration of how the technological

imperative changes how we think about justice. To contextualize that discussion, I begin my

critique by addressing what some of the current literature makes of the distinction between

therapy and enhancement.

Therapy and enhancement

When we speak more concretely about how altering biology can help humans

flourish, inevitably the debate arises over what constitutes therapy and what constitutes

enhancement. Generally we understand that we intervene with “nature” and biology to

70 See Phoenix (2004) for how nanotechnology in the form of molecular manufacturing will shape military capabilities and subsequent human enhancement endeavours. Phoenix’s tentative answer to the possibility of an arms race and the creation of “new theatres” for conflict covers a lot of ground but glosses over the profound implications; in one short paragraph we are told of the growing importance of detecting submicroscopic devices in our environments, of the increased accessibility of outer space and the ocean environment, of the need to both implement and disrupt large scale sensory arrays, and of the resultant need to engineer organisms that will be able to live in this reality: “Living organisms (especially humans) are high-value and perhaps high-resource targets, and may require advanced engineering to monitor and protect without excessive disruption” (p. 38).

227 restore deficiencies, to heal illness, and to return functions to “species-normal” levels.

However, the line between therapy and enhancement is still the subject of much debate: some commentators argue that the line is blurry, others agree but emphasize the need to acknowledge as a society that there should be a line, and others eschew the idea of public consensus on lines, arguing that it should be left to individuals to make their own choices.

Many technological developments are couched in terms of therapeutic benefits that will help people attain the “normal” range of capabilities. However some of those benefits, when extended to those already in the “normal” range, are thought to have the potential of pushing the bounds of even the most capable representatives of the species.

I do not dispute that technological interventions are necessary and desirable for some medical conditions; what I find interesting are the ways in which commentators in the discussion draw their boundaries. Leon Kass and Francis Fukuyama, for example, both accept the necessity of medical intervention in therapeutic cases; however they draw the line at what they consider enhancement. Fukuyama (2002), for one, believes that therapy can be substantively distinguished from enhancement and that medical research can be directed towards the former with restrictions put on the latter (p. 208). By contrast, some transhumanists have argued that there is no way to distinguish in theory between therapy and enhancement and thus also no way to distinguish in practice. For example, when speaking of a future which he predicts will include the proliferation of genetic selection technologies, geneticist Lee Silver reasons that therapy is not distinct from enhancement because regardless of the reason for modification, the inevitable result will be a child with a genome containing elements not found in either parent’s genome (p. 209). While the end result substantively may be the same, this is not reason enough to abandon the current ethical

228 project. Although the range of “species-normal” capacities can be quite broad, for ethics to have any efficacy we must be attentive to the idea of limits. Where they should be drawn may be debatable, but that they should exist cannot be debatable, if one is to do ethics (p.

210).71

On eugenics

As advocates for human enhancement, transhumanists recognize that many

significant advancements in human enhancement technology will arise from research

originally intended as therapy for the diseased and disabled. While they acknowledge that

therapy-driven research is itself a worthy focus for scientific and technological research,

Bostrom and Hughes quite clearly endorse opportunities to turn “therapeutic” advancements

into enhancements for those deemed to be in the traditionally “healthy and normal” range.

Some enhancements may come as the result of getting parts of the body to work in more

efficient ways, facilitated with pharmaceuticals or replacement parts developed usually for

the ailing, such as heart patients or those afflicted with Alzheimer’s, and then adapted to

optimize the functions of “normal” people. Other enhancements might take place at the

beginning of life and may end up being inheritable. In fact, transhumanists argue that some

of the most profound changes to the human condition may come as the result of reproductive

decision-making, which opens up much more grey area in regards to what defines

71 It should be noted that transhumanist thought does not accept enhancement unquestioningly. If transhumanists debate opponents about the distinction between therapy and enhancement, they discuss amongst themselves the need to distinguish between types of enhancement. For example, Nick Bostrom asserts that a distinction needs to be made between positional and intrinsic enhancement. Positional enhancements offer competitive advantages to individuals because others do not have them (a common example would be the positional advantage of height or speed). Other enhancements are considered beneficial in themselves such as increased intelligence. Bostrom claims that the democratic transhumanist stance encourages enhancements of intrinsic benefit rather than focusing on positional advantages. See Bostrom 2005a, section 5, para.10.

229 autonomous decision-making. Nanotechnology’s contribution to genetic engineering techniques will play an intrinsic, though perhaps less obvious, role in refining the kind and degree of choices available to prospective parents. Those choices, however, particularly those made available by genetic selection technologies and breakthroughs in personalized medicine, represent both groundbreaking and controversial capacities to engineer the human germline.

Inevitably this raises the question of eugenics, of purposely choosing or weeding out genetic traits in a population, known as positive and negative eugenics, respectively.

Proponents of genetic engineering technologies are careful to distance themselves from the spectre of eugenics that haunted the last century. Now-denounced eugenics programs were originally judged to be in the public interest and were predicated on state-sponsored selective breeding or sterilization of citizens to produce a “better” population, but the subsequent coercion and force that characterized those programs provoked public outcry and an overwhelming rejection of state-enforced eugenic practices. By contrast, present and future genetic selection technologies are argued to be based on autonomous parental choice in a private decision-making sphere. For example, given that today’s reproductive technologies usually produce a selection of potentially viable embryos rather than just one at a time, transhumanists contend that prospective parents should have the opportunity to choose amongst a selection of embryos for the child judged to have the best possible life.

What is even more interesting is that some commentators argue that genetic screening, even for non-disease traits, should be a moral obligation. Ethicist Julian

Savulescu (2001) outlines the nature of this obligation as the “principle of procreative beneficence.” He argues that parents who use genetic technologies (such as pre-implantation

230 genetic diagnosis and in vitro fertilization) have a moral obligation to select the embryo they judge will have the best life based on all the available genetic information, including information about non-disease traits such as intelligence, height, and character.

Although there are currently no genetic tests available other than sex selection to choose for non-disease traits, Savulescu is among the vanguard that anticipates radical breakthroughs in the coming years. While Savulescu argues only in favour of choosing between the alternatives presented by IVF in the form of multiple fertilized embryos, transhumanists seek to take it a step further to argue for the eventual design and creation of the alternatives themselves, through genetic manipulation techniques such as stem cell therapy, germline engineering, cloning, and gene transfer.

The principle of procreative beneficence has been criticized on several counts by other scholars (e.g., Birch, 2005; DeMelo-Martin, 2004; Herissone-Kelly, 2006) but what makes Savulescu’s argument important here is his insistence that the moral obligation upon parents must be worked through privately and without coercion. Medical professionals may be justified in giving “non-coercive advice” as to which embryo might have the best opportunity for the best life or persuading parents to access as much genetic information as possible to make an informed choice and to counter parents’ “irrational fears” (a loaded term in itself) about interfering with nature or playing God, but as a pre-emptive measure against charges of eugenics, Savulescu argues that where there is a clash between those private decisions and public policy, any public policy in a liberal democracy should presume in favour of parental autonomy.72

72 Indeed, Bill McKibben dryly notes that governments will be accused of being totalitarian if they try to stop people from choosing eugenically. See McKibben, 2003, p. 189.

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This is where the tenets of democratic liberalism, such as freedom for self- determination, are argued to provide sufficient boundaries to prevent the recurrence of state- sanctioned eugenics. However, a critical look at eugenics must also look at noncoercive practices that involve individuals making autonomous decisions, because if parental decisions about what constitutes the “best” life for a child may be considered private, those choices still have a public effect and are themselves subject to social interpretations of disease and disability (DeMelo-Martin, 2004, pp.78-82).

It bears asking whether, taken cumulatively, private decisions about designing a better human being may still have similar outcomes in producing social change as earlier, now-rejected eugenics programs. Certainly the factor forbidding certain types of people from reproducing is absent. Certainly the factor of government or other centralized forces coercing the public is absent, although the lines do become blurry between persuasion and coercion. Absent these factors, is it still eugenics?

For Savulescu, the answer is no, because it matters who is making the decision and whether it is made in a private, autonomous sphere between prospective parents or whether it is part of a public, coercive eugenics program. For James Hughes, however, it depends on one’s definition of eugenics. If it has a racist, classist or authoritarian slant then it is something to be condemned; otherwise, if it means believing

that individuals, free of state coercion, should have the right to change their

own genes and then have children, then the advocates of human enhancement

and germinal choice are indeed eugenicists. If eugenics also includes the

belief that parents and society have an obligation to give our children and the

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next generation the healthiest bodies and brains possible, then most people are

eugenicists. (2004, p. 131)

In this sense, as long as the spectre of coercion is dispelled, some transhumanists are not perturbed by admitting that their ideology could be construed as eugenic. Hughes argues that “[w]e are constantly changing and shaping the patrimony we pass on to future generations, and it is our ethical responsibility to shape it for the better as best as we know how, and not to leave it as it is” (p. 150). This to me embodies one of the most honest depictions of future eugenics. The term carries a lot of negative, fearful connotations but transhumanists are quite clearly attempting to reclaim the original concept, which simply refers to being “well-born.” What eugenics means to transhumanism is not force but rather choice, and when put forth in those terms, Hughes believes the idea of eugenics becomes more palatable.

Nevertheless, there are still problems with that outlook, even when the shadow of coercion is dispelled. Hughes’ claim that most people, given the chance, would be eugenicists further testifies to how the technological imperative pervades so much decision- making in our society: if we can give our children “better” potential through technological intervention, isn’t it self-evident that we should? That kind of reasoning demonstrates how the technological imperative can become conflated with the moral imperative to make life as good as possible, whatever the individual understands “good” to mean.73 The discussion of

73 Hughes’ reasoning links the moral obligation on the part of the parents in making germinal choices to provide the best potential for their children to the greater degree of self-determination their offspring will possess as a result of having the best fundamentals chosen for them. This is a counterargument to the claim that germinal choices constrain the child’s autonomy. In his words: “…just like birth control, abortion and family planning, germinal choice is likely to increase the fit between kids and the desires of their parents, making both happier in the long run. Transhuman technologies will actually strengthen families by helping to ensure that every child is an even more wanted child, including all their various traits.” (Hughes, 2004, p. 134)

233 eugenics is relevant because, far from being shelved as a lesson resolutely learned from a shameful past, in this new incarnation it embodies the technological and moral imperatives that actively shape our present and future. The essential difference transhumanists strive to make about eugenics concerns the means, not the ends: authoritarian, centralized, racist, or classist-tinged policies should be condemned, but individual, freely-made decisions about preferences for children should be accepted and supported.

This brief survey of some of the transhumanist ethical principles regarding genetic selection technologies raises the question of how society views eugenics if it does not involve the destruction or harming of those currently living but rather is aimed at preventing future cases of disease and disability.74 While transhumanists claim to support rights for the

disabled, they nevertheless consider it proactive and preventive to select during the

reproductive process against certain traits and conditions that lead to conditions that currently

constitute disease and deficiency. Is this the most effective route for dealing with the social

“burden” of disease and disability? This is a thorny issue because it is harder to prove that

any harm is being done. Although it is ostensibly the “weak” and vulnerable that

transhumanists seek to help by eradicating deficiencies that cause weakness in the first place,

journalist and writer Edwin Black (2004) considers any eugenic approach to wage war on the

weak because he is concerned that technological fixes are being inappropriately used to solve

74 There already exists a dialogue between transhumanists and disability activists regarding the ways that technological development has both the potential to improve the lives of those conventionally labeled disabled and to hinder simply being accepted for what one is. It should be noted that some transhumanist commentators assert that the disabled lead the way into a transhuman future because their lives are already intimately connected with and dependent on technology, ranging from prosthetic limbs to specialized computing interfaces. The disabled, more than anyone else, deserve a voice in the conversation, and transhumanism makes a point to acknowledge their needs, insisting that the disabled have a right not to be “fixed” and not to be coerced into accepting society’s standards of “normality.” See World Transhumanist Association, “The Physically Disabled” (n.d.). Other disability activists are nevertheless wary that the transhumanist vision may exacerbate discrimination and inequity. See Wolbring 2003, 2006, 2008.

234 social injustices. At the very least it bears asking what eugenic approaches say about the social stigma around weakness and vulnerability.

Humanitarian Jean Vanier (1998) reminds us that people with disabilities often lead their parents, friends, and family “from a world of power and competition into a world of tenderness and compassion” (p. 128). Speaking from his experience with the cognitively disabled members of the L’Arche communities, Vanier elaborates: “The excluded, I believe, live certain values that we all need to discover and to live ourselves before we can become truly human. It is not just a question of performing good deeds for those who are excluded but of being open and vulnerable to them in order to receive the life that they can offer. It is to become their friends” (p. 84).

Would a world whose members had fewer disabilities still find room for compassion towards those who will inevitably be identified as weak, especially as the results of conditions that could have been fixed or prevented and were not? Transhumanist reasoning clearly believes that reducing defects and deficiencies in a society makes society collectively better, and saves individuals from unnecessarily suffering the burden of disease and disability. There is much discussion to be had beyond the scope of this thesis regarding

Hughes’ distinctions between full citizens, disabled citizens, and sentient property (2004, p.

221 ff.) and rebuttals put forth by disability activists such as Gregor Wolbring (2003, 2006,

2008) who offer thoughtful and nuanced arguments against eugenic transhumanist perspectives that seek to “fix” what is perceived to be broken. Suffice it to say that although the democratic transhumanist notions of “citizenship” and “personhood” are intended to be increasingly inclusive, transhumanist advocacy for the new eugenics has implications for how we understand justice, especially for the weak and vulnerable with regards to the social

235 contract. Indeed, eugenics has been construed by some as necessary for justice; for example,

Rawls, in A Theory of Justice, offers what appears to be an endorsement of noncoercive eugenics because in his view, justice dictates that the parties to the social contract would want to leave the best genetic endowment for their descendants (Rawls, 1971, p. 107-108;

Sandel, 2004, p. 60).

While that reasoning might appease those who are able to enforce the social contract, the question remains whether that outlook adequately accounts for all aspects of what it means to live well as a human being. More than a debate over coercion or choice, eugenics and transhumanism embody the drive towards mastery, towards remaking nature to serve our needs and to suit our purposes. A commitment to mastery and overcoming chance alienates us from any understanding that human powers and achievements are gifted to us in one way or another and that to some extent, in Grant’s words, “we are not our own.”

Loving one’s own: “accepting love” and “transforming love”

Transhumanism holds that technology is an integral part of being human, but it is

undeniable that the human condition also includes the capacity to love. I believe that a

discussion of love is an underestimated and yet essential component of considering the

relationship between technology and justice because love is a state of being and a practice that consistently draws our attention beyond the human will and its attendant desire for control and predictability. I find Grant’s definition of authentic love to be particularly compelling because he too tried to articulate its relevance in a technological world, at the risk of being dismissed as impractical. Authentic love expresses the belief that we are not our

236 own, i.e., we do not have complete control of our circumstances, our relationships, or our destinies. We know we are not our own in our experience of loving the otherness of what is close to us. This is called “loving your own.”75 If one can love one’s own, and recognize

that one is fitted to love one’s own, this is a first step towards loving less immediate forms of

“the good.”

Loving one’s own means loving not with a sense of ownership but rather with an

openness to a sense of the other. Authentic love does not immediately seek to change what is

loved. Although Grant does not consider himself in a position to give any definitive answers,

his suggestion to cultivate a virtue of openness in our attempt to seek knowledge of the world

is a tonic to our preoccupation with control and mastery.

Openness tries to know a thing in itself, and does not impose change. This stance

clearly runs counter to this society’s problem-solving fix-it approach to progress. Openness

acknowledges the intrinsic worth and goodness of other things and people while the

paradigm of control operates as if the world is neutral and can only be made good by human

effort (Grant, 1967/1998, p. 101). To respect otherness, one must let it be: this can easily be

misconstrued as inaction or passivity, but what it means is to preserve a sense of otherness by

recognizing a sense of the good that precedes, supplants, or transcends human willing.

Grant’s own approach has two facets. His Platonism interprets justice as love for the

beauty of otherness and thus involves the limitation of one’s own will by cultivating virtues

(the four “classical” ones being courage, wisdom, moderation, and justice). His Christian

interpretation is more radical: when intelligence is enlightened by love, it recognizes eternal

75 Canadian poet Dennis Lee’s insight gained from Grant is that “[h]umans are being human when they love their own” (Lee, 1990, p. 13). Another poetic interpretation of this dictum is to “[l]ove what belongs to you, by family or kin, or what is close to you, by heart or proximity. Love your heritage and tradition, what comes down to you by ancestral blood and experience.” See Porter (2007).

237 order and eternal good. Moreover, Christianity emphasizes the need to give oneself away for the sake of others, particularly in the midst of affliction or in the absence of the good (Peddle

& Robertson, 2002, p. 96-97). In both the Platonic and the Christian accounts of the good, the relationship between the human and the good is not defined by the assertion of the human will but rather by a sense of openness and receptivity. For Grant, receptive human activities include art, prayer, religious rituals and observance, contemplation, and the practice of philosophy, although these are not immune to being undermined or co-opted by the doctrine of progress, the technological imperative, and the triumph of the will. But in each authentically receptive activity there runs a current of receiving a “gift” from an eternal source. The openness cultivated in these receptive activities helps us appreciate the eternal as eternal and not simply as another human-generated activity, the way, for example, that a materialist interpretation of neuroscience might reduce religiosity to a network of neural connections in the brain.

Given the emphasis on quantification, rationality, and objectivity that pervades many

Western institutions of thought, one must consider whether there is there any room to be taken seriously in academia when one speaks of loving one’s own. What relevance does this have to transhumanist aspirations and to the precise control of matter to achieve those aspirations? Grant argues that human activity has become overly dominated by generative activities concerned with the “triumph of the will.” This instrumentalizing approach to the world constantly subordinates “otherness” to the human will; it ignores or denies the lovability of what is actual, meaning that there is less love of what is and more effort to pursue what could be.76 Philosopher Ian Hacking (2005) observes that our society cultivates

76 In his Christian context, Grant struggled between the theology of glory--a triumphalism echoed in the doctrine of progress which seeks to see the human will prevail--and a theology of the cross, where Christ gives

238 a sense of possessive individualism that leads us to presume that everything is ours to change, including our physical, emotional, and cognitive attributes (p. 27). Because liberalism carries such a deeply-entrenched sense of autonomy, it is quite easy for transhumanism to justify its belief that each person can and should exercise self- determination through technological enhancement. This has raised enough controversy already when individuals contemplate enhancing themselves but becomes even more complicated when discussed in the context of parental love.

What I find ambiguous is how close willing and loving can actually be in our worldviews: let us return to the salient example of genetic enhancement in procreation, a scenario frequently analyzed by transhumanist commentators and critics alike, to illustrate the ambiguity between willing and loving. Although current genetic technologies are far from presenting a buffet of choices for prospective parents to design offspring of precise specification, some selection procedures such as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis already exist for screening an embryo’s gender and a variety of chromosomal abnormalities and inherited genetic abnormalities. In theory such procedures could be used to identify and select for non-disease genetic traits. I discussed earlier how transhumanism encourages genetic selection once technologies are safe and accessible, on the basis that it is meant to endow one’s offspring with the best potential and that it is no different from ensuring adequate nutrition, education, and care. For a rebuttal, I turn to the perspective of philosopher Michael Sandel, who affirms Grant’s concerns about the role of love.

Genetic manipulation may seem more troubling than other types of “enhancements”

(such as education, nutrition and health care) we already use in raising children but according

his will away to an eternal order rather than choosing to let his own will rule (i.e., not my will but thine); for Grant, Christ’s greatness lay in giving that will away when given the choice. See Athanasiadis, 2001.

239 to Sandel (2004), morally speaking the difference is less significant than it seems:

“Bioengineering gives us reason to question the low-tech, high-pressure child-rearing practices we commonly accept. The hyperparenting familiar in our time represents an anxious excess of mastery and dominion that misses the sense of life as a gift” (p. 58).

Genetic engineering lays siege to the fact that children are gifts, accepted as they come and not treated as objects of design or instruments of our ambition. Sandel, quoting theologian

William F. May, insists that parenthood is the ultimate “openness to the unbidden” (p. 56).

This is an essential component of love, and yet transhumanists would argue that the choice to engineer one’s offspring is itself an act of love because it is intended to look out for the child’s best interests. Both Sandel and transhumanist James Hughes agree that genetic engineering is a eugenic practice; for Hughes this is acceptable as long as there is no coercion involved, but removing coercion from the equation does not solve the problem for Sandel:

“The problem with eugenics and genetic engineering is that they represent the one-sided triumph of willfulness over giftedness, of dominion over reverence, of molding over beholding” (p. 60).

Accepting what is given may be taken as a constraint, or it may be understood as a gift.77 The ambiguity of love, according to theologian May, is that parents give their children

two kinds of love: accepting love and transforming love. Accepting love is an affirmation of

the inherent being of the child; transforming love seeks the well-being of the child. Ideally,

each aspect balances out the other so that neither is in excess (Sandel, 2004, p. 57). Too

much accepting love tips the balance towards indulgence and neglect; too much transforming

love means it doesn’t respect the autonomy of the child. In Sandel’s view, “overly

ambitious” parents focus too much on the transformative aspect of love, an excess of which

77 For more on the givenness of life, see Marion (2002).

240 borders on hubris (p. 57). From a theological point of view it is to misunderstand our place in creation and confuse our role with God’s; from a secular view it means the devaluation of what Sandel considers to be essential features of any human morality, such as humility, responsibility, and solidarity (p. 60).

Obviously a parent must not be passive in the face of a child’s illness, but Sandel argues that too much emphasis on choosing the traits of one’s offspring is at odds with the humility of being open to a gift. Until now, the intrinsic relationship of parent to child has been one that at its best is based on humility and an openness to the unbidden (2004, p. 56).

In fact, part of what humanity has in common is the unbiddenness of existence. Even simply for practical purposes this society recognizes the fact that certain traits are unbidden, which is why the U.S. Senate voted to prohibit genetic discrimination in the American health insurance industry; Canada has yet to take a position (Knoppers et al. 2004; Knoppers & Joly

2004). But beyond this, the idea of social solidarity has depended to an extent on the fact that we do not choose everything about our existential circumstances. Evolution tells us that success depends on adaptation to one’s environment (or adapting one’s environment to oneself, as the case may be), but in light of this and the prospect of genetic manipulation, we might be inclined to ask what exactly the successful owe to the least advantaged, if anything.

Sandel’s claim is that the successful are fortunate partially because their gifts are not of their doing and that there is felt an obligation to share when people cannot be faulted for lacking comparable gifts. It is easier to experience solidarity if we believe our circumstances are attributable to fate or chance. In this sense, Sandel’s emphasis on appreciating the gifted quality of human existence may provide one answer to Grant’s question of how society can justify that each person is due equal justice:

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A lively sense of the contingency of our gifts--a consciousness that none of us

is wholly responsible for his or her success--saves a meritocratic society from

sliding into the smug assumption that the rich are rich because they are more

deserving than the poor…As perfect genetic knowledge would end the

simulacrum of solidarity in insurance markets, so perfect genetic control

would erode the actual solidarity that arises when men and women reflect on

the contingency of their talents and fortunes. (2004, p. 62)

Technoprogressivism does not leave much room to accommodate contingency or chance when it seeks to overcome those very obstacles. With that in mind, and cognizant of how much the technological imperative pervades contemporary contractual liberalism, can we rely on solidarity and compassion to flourish within democratic transhumanism’s version of contractual liberalism, especially when it is not convenient? If we put any weight on

Grant’s critique, then purely contractual liberalism can be found lacking.

On limits

Human beings are a complicated mix of self-interest and compassion, and if love is

consent to authentic otherness, there seems to be ample opportunity for transhumanists to

claim that transhumanist ideology opens up quite a lot of potential for otherness. There is

little doubt that parents who express eugenic preferences would claim that it is done out of a

sense of responsibility and love. However, the problem with transformative love and with the triumph of the will is the negotiation of limits.

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The relevance of limits is a particularly contentious aspect of human enhancement: while critics of technoprogressivism believe that humanity is bound by certain intrinsic limitations, transhumanists are committed to challenging and overcoming those limitations and therefore ushering in the posthuman condition. For example, transhumanist and technoprogressivist thought may consider “aging, disease, feeble memories and intellects, a limited emotional repertoire and inadequate capacity for sustained well-being” (Bostrom,

2003b, “Basic conditions for realizing the transhumanist project”) as biological shortcomings.

Perhaps, however, such physical and biological limitations help to foster awareness of the ways in which we actively and intelligently restrain ourselves. This is the position taken by writer, environmentalist, and technology critic Bill McKibben, who does not view biological limits as obstacles. While Kurzweil and transhumanist thinkers applaud our species’ remarkable ability to adapt, McKibben asserts that what makes us unique is our ability to restrain ourselves, to decide not to do something that we are able to do and to say

“enough.” Even though, as transhumanists point out, being “natural” does not necessarily mean that something is right or “good,” McKibben nevertheless believes it wise to embark on any pursuit of knowledge by attuning oneself to a balanced ecological order.

This I think is another way to express the belief that we are not our own. For example, ecological wisdom says that any system dedicated to unlimited growth and domination is simply not sustainable. Humanity’s capacity to grow and dominate expresses itself in the 21st Century through technological prowess, but as Langdon Winner (1986)

asserts: “it remains to be seen where we will draw the line, where we will be able to say, here

are possibilities that wisdom suggests we avoid. I am convinced that any philosophy of

243 technology worth its salt must eventually ask, How can we limit modern technology to match our best sense of who we are and the kind of world we would like to build?” (p. xi). Critics such as Winner and McKibben are concerned that Western society’s technological attempts to improve itself are no longer adequately oriented towards limits, while Grant further contends that the technological imperative almost completely obscures the possibility of asking those questions seriously because we believe that the only way to know is by doing.

Of course, transhumanist thought may be criticized for revelling in the far-reaches of human innovation and adaptability, but it certainly should be clear that the movement does not eschew all limits but rather circumscribes different boundaries than drawn by

“bioconservatives.” For example, one may, as “bioconservatives” do, accept biological limitations as what define the species, or one may see them as worthy challenges for ingenuity to overcome. The limitations of life-and healthspan are certainly of interest to transhumanist inquiry, but for others the real fascination is not with immortality but rather with exploring the potential limitlessness of varieties of physical, emotional, and cognitive experiences that contribute meaningfulness and richness to an enhanced, active life, regardless of the timespan. Transhumanists are more likely to accept physical laws of nature as adequate boundaries, because physical laws still give sufficient leeway for creative endeavour; in the meantime, the challenge is to push the limits of the possible. What many transhumanists do reject is the idea that limits apply to human innovation, at least in figuring out what is possible, because modern paradigms of knowledge insist that the mind must have free reign for inquiry. Again, this is a restatement and even an embrace of the technological imperative. From that perspective, reasonable brakes on innovation should be in the form of regulations and policies once innovation has been seen through. The emphasis on regulating

244 speaks to the belief that democratic liberalism provides sufficient limits, but as I mentioned in chapter 5, the contractual and utilitarian nature of liberalism has no provision for non- negotiable limits. In Grant’s words: “all progressive moralities are condemned as not being able to withstand the temptation of the limitless. There is no place in their theory for saying

‘no’ to certain types of action” (1959/1995 , p. 100). Lacking a sense for saying a categorical

‘no’ propels society into a future with much potential but little purpose and tolls a death knell

for ethics and moral philosophy.

Does the “triumph of the will” lead to nihilism?

Despite its Judaeo-Christian origins, modern Western science and society have

striven to distance themselves from the transcendent, asserting the moral indifference of

nature. In transhumanist terms, this translates into the following assertion: “Who we are now

seems to be a product of nature and nurture, most of which is beyond our control. So, if this

genetic-environmental lottery is truly random, then why should we be constrained to its

results?” (Lin & Allhoff, 2006, p. 51) If nature is morally neutral and if reason is an

instrument at the disposal of our creativity and innovation, then technological society, as I

alluded to earlier, is defined by the “triumph of the will.” Here the will does not answer to

external or absolute standards, because it is the sole judge of its actions. This can be an

exciting thing; as Grant remarks, “[n]o wonder ours is the most dynamic society in earth

when we believe we have to make the meaning of our own lives” (1964/1998, p. 392) but he

also foresees the creative will turned on human beings: “the challenge of the will is endless to

the resolute, because there is always more ‘creation’ to be carried out. Our freedom can even

245 start to make over our own species” (1969/1995, p. 27). That was a prescient remark, for this is exactly what the transhumanist enterprise seeks to do.

Some may find this prospect profoundly liberating and an antidote to the vicissitudes of nature. Indeed, Grant observes that the “goal of modern moral striving” is to ensure that all are free and equal, which may seem a noble goal at first. Grant’s point is not to disparage democratic liberalism as inappropriate or detrimental to human living; his purpose is to warn that liberalism’s uncritical embrace of the technological imperative may be its ultimate undoing because “[w]e have achieved equality in our society at least at the point where we massively can liberate people from all sense of meaning” (1964/1998, p. 389).78 Lacking an

orientation to norms beyond the human will results in nihilism, that is, to will without

meaning. Thus Grant cannot revel in the freedom to innovate that liberalism promulgates

because of the enormous blow that the triumph of the will deals to discerning meaning and

purpose in what he still takes to be an ordered universe.

Nihilism is a tricky topic to meditate on in a world awash in competing interpretations

of what it means to be human. To will nothing does not necessarily entail apathy. Grant’s

point is that beyond meeting material needs, a society that has no objective way to discern

what is good to make or unmake ultimately means that collective human existence lacks an

overarching meaning. For the most part, the average person concerned with securing the necessities of life sees the human will oriented towards achieving practical, material ends of alleviating sickness, eliminating poverty, and reducing conflicts over resources; in fact, achieving these are testament to the power of the human will and understandably provide

78 This was not just a wry remark for Grant; in an address to social workers, Grant notes that the disconnect between freedom and myth makes itself evident in the proliferation of mental illness in society. Recalling Plato’s statement that mental illness is socially-defined, Grant suggests that the separation of freedom and myth will produce new forms of mental illness, for which society will likely encourage medication, rather than addressing the root of the cause (1964/1998, p. 390).

246 enough of an orientation for those not inclined to introspection or existential contemplation.

I take Grant’s assertion to mean that although society is not destined to collapse into chaos imminently, a society without “meaning” is one destined for civilizational decline.

Modern social commentators such as Jane Jacobs (2004), Ronald Wright (2004), and

Thomas Homer-Dixon (2006) have similarly indicated their belief that North American society may be in decline now that it has largely abandoned any comprehensive narrative about where we have come from, where we are going, and why we are here. As was the case for the Roman Empire, a civilization can survive in decline for quite a long time. Slow decay may not be noticeable in the short term, but it is nevertheless a profound loss to humanity.

Ironically, as Schmidt (2008) notes, liberals may be able to identify, and be appropriately alarmed by, the triumph of the will on other shores, which is why some forms of eugenics and genocide can be roundly rejected by the West (p. 163). However, identifying nihilism at home is much more difficult because the triumph of the will often means that the masses in the developed world can live a quite comfortable and relatively affluent existence and be hardly aware of how the lack of purpose can lead to the “atrophy of the soul” (Grant

1964/1998, p. 392). So too liberalism faces decay through nihilism as long as we hold that the human will is the source of all meaning.

I am not convinced that technoprogressivists would ever accept the charge of nihilism, and yet if Grant is correct in defining and diagnosing North American nihilism, then we are presented with a profound loss. This is why Grant took Nietzsche’s writing seriously and why I present those arguments here, despite the fact that transhumanists generally minimize any connection to Nietzsche’s thought, preferring the utilitarian philosophy of thinkers like J.S. Mill. Grant meets Nietzsche’s thoughts about the “last men” and the

247 nihilists on level ground and I think it is relevant to raise them in the context of technoprogressivism because it seems to me that the transhumanist ideology is exactly what

Nietzsche and Grant foresaw. Of the “last men,” Grant explains Nietzsche’s meaning thus:

“The last men are those who have inherited the ideas of happiness and equality from the doctrine of progress… The little they ask of life (only entertainment and comfort) will give them endurance” (1969/1995, p. 44-45). Technology critics from Neil Postman (1985) to

Langdon Winner (1986) to Jacques Ellul (1990) have similarly noted the connection between technological society and its diversions and distractions that allow us to “amuse ourselves to death.” Of the nihilists, Grant (1969/1995) explains: “These are those who understand that they can know nothing about what is good to will. Because of the historical sense, they know that all values are relative and man-made…” (p. 45).

The preceding discussion in this chapter, as well as chapter 5 of this thesis, has already outlined how transhumanism embodies this type of triumph of the will. Thus Grant believes that Nietzsche’s prediction is now coming to pass. Of course, in Nietzsche’s version, neither the last men nor the nihilists deserve to be the “masters of the earth.”79 It is doubtful that transhumanists would see themselves either as last men or as nihilists, given their belief that human enhancement allows the boundaries of human meaning and purpose to be drastically expanded. Were transhumanists to engage with Nietzsche’s thought it is quite possible that they would argue that they do deserve to be masers of the earth, inasmuch as they know they are the source of their values and are willing to joyfully create in the face of

79 In Grant’s words, Nietzsche believed that “[n]either the nihilists nor the last men deserve to be masters of the earth. The nihilists only go on willing for the sake of willing. They assuage their restlessness by involvement in mastery for its own sake. They are unable to use their mastery for joy. The last men simply use the fruits of technique for the bored pursuit of their trivial vision of happiness. The question is whether there can be men who transcend the alternatives of being nihilists or last men; who know that they are the creators of their own values, but bring forth from that creation in the face of chaos a joy in their willing that will make them deserving of being masters of the earth” (Grant, 1969/1995, p. 47).

248 moral meaninglessness (Grant 1969/1995, p. 47). But since Nietzsche’s terminology finds little resonance in liberal democracy, few have engaged seriously on Nietzsche’s terms.

Nietzsche’s point, like Grant’s, is that Western society should face squarely the question of why we hold onto vestiges of belief in external norms. Nietzsche’s proposal is that we eschew traditional ideas about justice which root themselves in equality under God, that we recognize that human beings are not entitled to equal justice, and that we let those with the strongest wills prevail. Technoprogressivism embodies the triumph of the will that Nietzsche anticipated, and yet it retains a commitment to normative notions of freedom and equality that derive from Western society’s Judaeo-Christian origins.

I must be clear and state that most transhumanist commentary does not focus on remaking the species for the sake of innovation; there is the very real concern for alleviating human suffering, curing disease, and healing disability. Any discussion of limits in the face of what many would consider humanitarian concerns must account for this fact. Even so, limits usually define how goals are reached safely and effectively, but how much do we allow a sense of non-negotiable limits to define the goals themselves? Most innovations have a very real humanitarian problem to solve, and in the face of such a variety of pressing afflictions, one may wonder how appropriate it is to worry about limits when there is so much suffering to alleviate. Indeed, one could even argue using Grant’s paradigm of justice that we are fitted for innovation and self-directed evolution because technology has become an integral part of who we are. But as long as one maintains the objective and overarching presence of “the good” and the intrinsic beneficence of the universe, one must subjugate innovation to the limits imposed by the good.

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Humanity has proven itself remarkably adaptable to change, but the questions remain:

Is adaptability the same as improvement? Are there limits to either? Ray Kurzweil and transhumanists such as James Hughes and Nick Bostrom are confident that humanity’s deliberations will be able to keep up with technological innovation because they believe that as the technologies that surround us become more sophisticated and powerful, so will our knowledge improve to help us manage the dangers (Kurzweil, 2003, p. xlvii). What is important for them is that our ethical deliberations keep pace with technological development.

When ethics is considered in terms of calculating all the relevant risks and benefits, it may seem reasonable to urge along as fast as possible the collection of data and the subsequent calculations; this is a position that regards ethics as a practice that is refined as new information is added to the system. However, if the discussion about technology and justice is to be truly open, we must acknowledge philosophies such as George Grant’s which states that ethical wisdom is not a matter of gaining new knowledge as quickly as possible, but in recognizing limits, order, and absolutes in the universe.

The fundamental problem that modern technoscience poses is that if ethical deliberation indeed is inherently a judgement about limits, and if the creative will is essentially limitless, then there no longer seems to be a place for ethics alongside the technological imperative. There will always be more things to create, more novelty to seek.

Thus, while transhumanists celebrate the limitless potential of human innovation, Grant mourns that the idea of limit has been displaced by that of innovation, because without any sense of ultimate purpose to guide human willing and human loving what is left is nihilism.

Bluntly put, if human existence can be ultimately reduced to the accidental collocation of

250 atoms, why should we care about the lives of others, especially if they get in the way of exercising our wills?

Technological society preoccupies itself with what is possible, a fixation which does not brook non-negotiable limitations. As we have seen, ethical questions in a technological society usually ask “how best to proceed?” but rarely is the question “should we proceed at all?” seriously considered. The technological imperative has thus undermined any belief that we can legitimately know what is good in advance of what is possible; rather, only by finding out what is possible can we then determine what is good to do (Grant, 1986, p. 33-34). An approach rooted in terms of love and the good certainly might sound irrelevant and impractical, because as Grant (1974/1998) puts it, even if one believes that the ancient account of justice is true and that there is an unchanging good which makes demands on us, modern technoscience obscures the possibility for sustained thought about the good, focusing as it does on explaining necessity, chance, and existence without reference to ultimate purpose or ultimate obligations (p. 88). Yet traditionally, ethical thought has concerned itself with questions of limits. Is there room any longer on the technoscientific landscape to deliberately establish limits that say “here and no further?” This is the twilight of justice of which Grant warned.

The tyranny of “choice”

When limits take a backseat to innovation, not only does the triumph of the will

potentially lead to nihilism, but it may also open the door to tyranny. Having introduced the

notion of tyranny in the context of molecular manufacturing, we now examine it in the

251 context of human enhancement. We recall from the previous chapter that Grant describes tyranny as that which impedes living well with others and thinking deeply about the whole.

One hallmark of tyranny is the movement towards universalization and homogenization. Both nanotechnology and transhumanism address aspects of the universal.

Nanotechnology does so in terms of the expected ubiquity of its products (i.e., nanotechnology will be incorporated into widespread applications) and its unifying paradigm of matter (i.e., matter is made of molecules over which nanotechnology seeks precise control). Transhumanism does so in terms of the inevitability of technological convergences

(such as through “nano-bio-cogno-info” technologies) and the opportunity for equal access to enhancement technologies advocated by democratic transhumanism. The aforementioned facets do not of themselves spell tyranny. Neither does it seem that the multitude of innovations promised by nanotechnology and the variety of enhancements sought by transhumanism necessarily lead to anything that could be considered homogenization. Even those who find relevance in Grant’s thought have insisted that technology is less homogenizing than Grant claimed it to be (Andrew, 2003, p. 482). But the universalization and homogenization Grant was thinking of concerns the way that the technological imperative directs human activity towards constant change and innovation and reduces opportunities to be open to things as they are and to an order beyond that defined by human activity. If the technological drive increases relative freedoms and enhances people’s lives, it is nevertheless dedicated to mastering human and non-human nature. This is the ambiguity of technology that Grant seeks to bring to light with his perspective on tyranny.

So too do “bioconservative” critics of human enhancement such as Leon Kass and

Francis Fukuyama often invoke fictional dystopias like George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous

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Huxley’s Brave New World as warnings about the ambiguity of technology and the potential for technoprogressivism to become tyrannical. Their warnings are dismissed out of hand by many transhumanist commentators as fear-mongering about types of totalitarian regimes that liberal democracies would not stand for. But what of the possibility that tyrannies may evolve gradually and gently? Kass, for example, argues that Brave New World in particular speaks to “our own most humane and progressive aspirations” such as happiness and comfortable self-preservation. This for him is why human enhancement poses such an ethical slippery slope. The lines can be blurry between humanitarianism and tyranny when the goals are well-meaning and the methods require compliance without exception. Tyranny does not always require despotism or external controls, and dehumanization may be a gentle path (Kass, 2001).

For a perspective on how transhumanism and nanotechnology might contribute to tyranny, I will introduce an idea which may strike some as ironic: the concept of “choice” so valued in Western society might actually harbour potential for tyranny. We accept that people have a desire, and moreover a right, to choose their careers, their living situations, their pastimes, their relationships, their values, their futures. Autonomy and equal opportunity are sought after and defended as preconditions for self-determination. It may seem incongruous to inquire whether a society that ardently defends “choice” might also possess the potential for “tyranny.” However, when “choice” is treated as an end in itself there are troubling implications.

For example, transhumanist thinker Gregory Stock (2003) suggests changing the term

“germline engineering” to “germinal choice technology” (p. 110-111). A simple change in label subtly orients the emphasis towards parents autonomously choosing the “best” for their

253 prospective children and away from questioning the integrity of human nature, the limits of action upon other human beings, and the proper ends of human living. It is clear for transhumanists that choice is better than chance. Transhumanists argue that realistically there will never be a total overcoming of chance and this is why they think human beings should capitalize on every edge they can gain and broaden their selection of choices as much as possible.

What is worrisome is the way that North American society enshrines “choice” itself as a value within liberal democracy. Bill McKibben (2003) calls choice “one of the most seductive words in the modern vocabulary,” contending that “[i]n the endless buffet line that constitutes modern consumer culture, we’ve learned to think of choice as our highest value”

(p. 188). Its “constant, mantralike use” justifies a multitude of actions, among them the kind of self-determined evolution advocated by transhumanism.

There are two points worth mentioning. First, when coupled with a pervasive consumer culture, equitable access to enhancement technology raises the question of the potential commodification of the body and of information about the body. Indeed, transhumanist James Hughes (2004) has no compunction about treating enhancement as a choice made by a fully informed consumer when these choices have been vetted for safety and effectiveness and have passed rigorous and robust regulations (p. 22). My concern is that laws which ensure the safety of the consumer do not necessarily have anything to say about the good life. While Hughes sees no problem with employing a consumer model in his ethical outlook, one must ask how the diversity of choices about enhancement will be affected when set in a marketplace of supply and demand. The reality of consumer culture is that it thrives on keeping the consumer current, and conforming. The worry over

254 enhancement technology is that as long as it is equated with the inevitability of progress and with the motivations of consumerism, then there really is little choice between accepting it or rejecting it. This is the second, and deeper, problem with the technological imperative and the rhetoric of choice.

What transhumanists overlook is the reality of making choices in a technologically- mediated world: we may have choices about what kinds of technology to engage with, but there is no choice not to engage with it. The technologically-mediated world is in fact not a buffet or a supermarket of stand-alone choices, but rather, as Grant points out, it is more like a package deal where one has to deal with terms and conditions not of one’s choosing (1986, p. 32). Thus, despite technological society’s embrace of liberal tenets of freedom, choice, and autonomy, there is nevertheless an inevitability of certain technological developments which leads to a collective technological determinism.

Transhumanists dismiss claims that the project of human enhancement is deterministic by arguing that one’s environment shapes oneself just as much as one’s genetics; that should genetics advance so far as to be able to turn genes on and off, genetically-altered children will be able to reverse changes they don’t like; and that we have always sought to influence our children in certain ways and that genetic engineering is no different than providing an education or a stable home life. But McKibben, like Grant, seeks to point out the ambiguity of choice: one person’s choice may mean another person’s constraint. Choice may be a “powerful rhetorical device” in our society but for McKibben enhancement technologies advocated for under the banner of choice are actually “the most anti-choice technologies anyone’s ever thought of” (2003, p. 190). He emphasizes particularly choices made by parents on behalf of prospective children. The freedom of one

255 generation to choose the characteristics of the next may mean the constraint of the latter in terms of their self-determination; conversely the constraint placed on the choices of one generation may mean freedom for the next. The question is how to strike a balance between the two. Despite its advocacy for autonomous decision-making, transhumanism has insisted with its principle of procreative beneficence that, should procedures be proven safe and effective, parents are morally obligated to use germinal choice technology. For McKibben this means the possibilities for meaningful choice for successive generations dwindles the more that germinal choices are made on their behalf (p. 189). McKibben argues if this society values freedom to choose, we have to be aware what the implications are on other people’s freedom to choose, even if we perceive that life would be better for the genetically engineered.

Some commentators insist that enhancement doesn’t erode human agency so much as explodes it altogether. Philosopher Michael Sandel (2004) contends:

As humility gives way, responsibility expands to daunting proportions. We

attribute less to chance and more to choice. Parents become responsible for

choosing, or failing to choose, the right traits for their children…One of the

blessings of seeing ourselves as creatures of nature, God, or fortune, is that we

are not wholly responsible for the way we are. The more we become masters

of our genetic endowments, the greater the burden we bear for the talents we

have and the way we perform. (p. 60)

What happens to a society’s sense of a common moral community when issues of responsibility become private affairs, as would be the case, for example, of genetic choice

256 technologies in the context of reproductive decision-making? Does increased personal responsibility for one’s life choices erode the viability of a cohesive, common moral community? While communities once had a basis to express solidarity in the face of both misfortune and blessing due to “necessity and chance,” is there any more need for a publicly shared morality given the push to maximize control--and responsibility--over one’s life choices? We are caught between the pull of two forces, between autonomous individuals seeking to freely exert their wills in the name of self-realization, and communities seeking to limit human action in the name of a shared idea of the good life. Moral relativism notwithstanding, ethical discussions usually focus on identifying a common good. For ethical thought to be in any way relevant or effective, advocates of self-realization must acknowledge a sense of shared good, and vice versa. The more profound the choices we face, and the more responsibility we may have to bear for those choices, the more necessary it becomes to clarify and discuss publicly why we hold the commitments we do.

As the history of basic human rights suggests, Western society has expended great effort asserting moral progress based on an increased awareness of our common humanity and a universal set of moral principles originating from that common humanity. However, because transhumanism undermines the notion of a fixed human essence, biological or otherwise, we must also re-examine the idea of moral progress, at least the kind based on belonging to a common human species. Although transhumanists believe there is a moral imperative to enable individuals to gain greater control of their lives through technology and democracy, an appeal to natural common humanity could very well become obsolete. As we have seen, the transhumanist solution is to make “personhood” the common grounding concept. Yet however much this term may intend to be inclusive, history shows that in

257 reality, “personhood” is an ontological distinction with no absolute moral standing and which has excluded certain members of the species from the social contract. Although Bostrom insists that the debate over who currently is or isn’t a human being should be conducted separately from attempts to expand the realm of personhood, it is nevertheless a legitimate question that needs to be addressed in the context of human enhancement. Indeed, given that a non-human sentient being has yet to be deemed a person (and excluding that legal status given to corporations), one could argue that it is more important to account for human beings who are currently or risk being left out, rather than anticipating beings yet to be included.

Discussions of moral progress, of personhood and humanness and citizenship need to be conducted in public, and on a continual basis. Indeed, democratic transhumanists and critics of the technological imperative alike agree that something must be shared in terms of a common moral language. One of the questions informing this thesis has been whether or not

North American liberalism provides enough of a framework to make robust decisions about what human beings owe to each other and why. Transhumanists argue that the tenets of secular liberal democracy adequately provide a neutral arena in which publicly to discuss ethical issues.

Using Grant’s interpretive lens, it has been my contention that the tenets of contractual liberalism are bound up too closely with the technological imperative to offer any sustainable critique of the technological worldview. Secular liberalism is not neutral, given its commitment to the technological imperative and the ambiguities and shortcomings that arise from interpreting justice as calculated self-interest. Even if contractual liberalism were neutral, the problem with leaving moral judgement solely in the private domain is that we no longer share reasons for taking action. Technology critic Langdon Winner (1986) concurs

258 with that troubling state of affairs: “When values are looked upon as subjective, it makes little sense to raise questions of why or to ask for reasons…When basic moral and political ideas are bypassed with such alacrity, any hope for finding a rational basis for common action vanishes” (p. 159).

Although commentators on nanotechnology and transhumanism have raised essential questions about how technology changes our understanding of matter and of ourselves, more consideration needs to be given to how technology changes how we as citizens engage with those ethical issues. The next chapter will examine how questions of nanotechnology and human enhancement are being posed for the consideration of the lay public, and the role that civic engagement plays in ethical deliberation about transformative technology.

CHAPTER 8

THE TECHNOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE’S IMPLICATIONS FOR CIVIC ENGAGEMENT WITH

NANOTECHNOLOGY

Throughout the course of this thesis I have tried to show how technology, as a mindset or worldview, structures our lives, our relationships with each other, our understanding of the natural world, and our attentiveness to ethical questions. As I have indicated in previous chapters, nanotechnology commentators such as Eric Drexler and democratic transhumanists such as James Hughes and Nick Bostrom insist that ethical deliberation about technology is mainly a matter of exercising political will and preserving personal values. Although collective and individual decision-making is essential, that position does not account for technology as ontology. George Grant argues that the issue at stake is not whether that technology can be used well or badly. Rather, he insists that political, moral, and ethical judgements have become so tied up with the technological imperative in North America that it is extremely difficult to think outside a paradigm which fundamentally asserts the primacy of the human will to control human and non-human nature. Indeed, when nanotechnology is thought of as a “perspective shifter,” the force of the technological imperative is implicitly acknowledged because of the profound way that technoscience re-envisions the world and our supposed control over it (Brand, 1991, p. 6;

Fogelberg & Glimell, 2003).

I believe that both nanotechnology and transhumanism are perspective shifters in the way that they implicitly highlight the extent to which the human will and its creations affect the planet and the life it supports. If the technoprogressivist rhetoric is to be believed, no

259 260 citizen’s life will be untouched by the discoveries of nanotechnology, and most people will have to make choices about the extent to which they want to avail of other life-enhancing technologies. Deliberating over the purpose and meaning of perspective-shifting, revolutionary technology thus cannot be thought of solely as the domain of either ethical or technical “experts” because our entire society stands to be affected. As nanotechnology’s intent to precisely and thoroughly control matter converges with the transhumanist project of self-directed evolution, public deliberation over what is good to make and unmake becomes more important than ever before.

Nanotechnology commentator Geoffrey Hunt (2006) reminds us that

[i]t is not as though first we shall develop nanotechnology and then decide

how to use it. Nanotechnology is already embedded and taking shape within

the socio-economic life we have chosen for ourselves. How we conceive,

prioritize, design, resource and manage nanotechnological development are

decided by the vision or visions we have of ourselves as human beings.

Perhaps it is time to ask now, as nanotechnologies develop and become

pervasive, what visions of human life we actually have, whether they are

adequate to truly human purposes, and what vision (or visions) would be

conducive to the future global welfare of humanity. (p. 193)

How do we conceive visions of the future, and how do we deliberate about which ones are worthy to pursue? At the heart of that question lies the nature of the good life, which I have been examining over the course of this dissertation. However, we have also

261 seen how the technological imperative obscures serious discussion of the good life, having answered those questions for itself in technological terms.

We know that thinkers such as George Grant believe the good life must be discerned in accordance with external, objective norms. Transhumanists insist that the good life is largely a matter of the greatest good for the greatest number, or the ability for individuals to pursue happiness through autonomous self-realization while avoiding harm to others. From both perspectives, deliberation over the good life entails the practice of citizenship. If we equate citizenship not with a passive status or a right but rather with the active practice of political (and I would add, ethical) judgement, then we can see that citizenship is a way of knowing things and doing things. It concerns engaging with each other in public to make judgements about what is worthy to pursue in terms of justice, of living well with others, and of thinking about the good (Barney, 2007, p. 14).

What complicates the practice of citizenship is the fact that, as this thesis has argued, technology is also a way of knowing and doing. In previous chapters I considered some of the philosophical foundations and existential assumptions that contribute to contractual liberalism’s complicity with the dominating tendencies of the technological imperative. That complicity demonstrates North American society’s shortcomings and blindspots in framing ethical questions in molecular manufacturing and human enhancement. Although technoprogressive thought welcomes the advances promised by technological innovation, it generally seems satisfied that human beings in secular, liberal democratic societies will chart a wise course based on society’s values. By contrast, Grant argues that thinking in terms of

“values” is inadequate to meet the technological destiny ahead because the very idea of value rationalizes rather than critiques the triumph of the will. What then should be the tone of this

262 much-needed conversation on visions of humanity’s future? In this chapter I consider and evaluate more holistically the issue of citizen engagement with and deliberation over transformative and “revolutionary” technology. I will examine what nanotechnology commentators have to say about the role of citizens, what challenges the technological imperative presents to public engagement with nanotechnology, and how a “techno-critical” approach may provide some useful ethical touchstones for public deliberation about technology and the good life.

On “stakeholders” and citizens

Because the reach of a nanotechnology-pervaded world is so wide, there is acute

interest to involve in nanotechnology discussions more than just those recognized as the

scientific and engineering experts. However, it is not always clear that attempts at public

engagement with science and technology policy are truly invitations for critical thinking or whether they are attempts simply to get the public onside with policies that have already been determined. How exactly should the public be involved? Let us begin with the idea of

“stakeholder involvement.”

In the study of science, technology, and society, the term “stakeholder involvement” is often used to depict the need to account for public interest. For example, because nanoscience and nanotechnology research fundamentally involve introducing to the realms of public health and environmental safety certain materials and devices with novel and largely untested characteristics, commentators have identified the public as having a stake in discussions about exposure to nanoparticles. This acknowledges that many nanotechnology

263 products will be publicly available to consumers (such as in cosmetics or paints) and as such must meet certain health and safety standards. But beyond demanding consumer standards for health and safety, what other roles, responsibilities, and expectations should intelligent citizens of liberal democracies claim when thinking about new technologies? Of course, “the public” tends to be a homogenizing label for a group made up of drastically differing and numerous members, and many of the nanotechnology consultations and surveys that have involved members of the public can be subject to scrutiny for their degree of exclusivity or inclusivity of certain interests, but for the purposes of this discussion, “the public” shall refer to laypersons with no particular specialist training in science or technology (Gavelin &

Wilson, 2007).

First we consider the idea of reciprocity. Oftentimes in matters of public policy and technology, “engagement” has been one-way, where government, industry, and academic attempts to involve the public in ethical discussion actually take the form of “educating” from a top-down position in order to promote adoption of a technology and assuage public concerns. Other attempts at “educating” may actually mean simply informing the public of the results of a process from which public input has been excluded; thus, even though they are identified as stakeholders, there is little guarantee that “public” involvement will be meaningful, or at the very least that it will constitute a reciprocal discussion (Balbus,

Denison, Florini, & Walsh, 2006, p. 138).

If members of the public are to be known as stakeholders, nanotechnology “experts” should not underestimate the relevant perspectives, experiences, and expertise the public has to offer (Balbus et al., 2006, p. 138). What some nanotechnology commentators would prefer to see is grassroots involvement, including public collaboration with researchers and

264 policy-makers from the outset to identify priorities for research, as well as ways to express expectations for and concerns about the means and ends of research. According to James

Wilsdon and Rebecca Willis (2005) of the UK think tank Demos, the relationship between science and society has changed over the decades; the paternalistic belief of the scientific establishment struggling to educate an ignorant public now gives way to a dynamic composed of a more humble science in dialogue with a more assertive public (p. 7).

Nanotechnology commentator Davis Baird (2007) sees a similar “waning of society’s naïve technological enthusiasm,” and a consequent increased interest in social and ethical assessments of emerging technologies (p. 6). Hunt and Mehta (2006) agree, insisting that

“[o]ne cannot generally predict what the public will think about an emerging technology--one has to inform them, to ask their views, listen to their questions and involve them, and as early as possible” (p. 8). Thus, in scientific and academic communities, there seems to be a move away from depicting the public as a passive mass which needs to be informed of the benefits of nanotechnology and a move towards emphasizing the trust and multi-faceted consultation that needs to be built between the public and institutions of science and governance.

Aware of the increasing pace of technological development, some nanotechnology commentary, such as the United Kingdom’s House of Lords Science and Technology

Committee report from 2000, indicate that there is unease about scientific advances running ahead of public awareness and assent, and that what is required to allay the unease is an openness on the part of researchers and policy-makers, both about uncertainties regarding the technical developments and about honestly engaging the public in dialogue. The report insists that building public trust need not hinder healthy public scepticism, and that engaging a trusting but critical public can be more constructive than obstructive to research and policy-

265 making (cited in Barnett, Carr & Clift, 2006, p. 203). Similarly, the Danish Parliament established the Danish Board of Technology as an independent body in 1995 (it was preceded by the Technology Board, a statutory body established in 1986) to discuss and evaluate technology from a non-specialist citizen’s perspective and to advise the government on issues of technology, society, and the environment. Small working groups met in 2004 to gauge “Citizens’ Attitudes Towards Nanotechnology” and in 2006 to produce a report on

“Toxicology and Nanotechnology.” Although modest in those specific efforts, the Danish

Board of Technology represents an alternative and multi-faceted approach to citizen engagement with technology. The American National Nanotechnology Initiative launched in

2000 by the Clinton administration encouraged from the very outset discussion on the social, economic, legal and ethical implications of nanotechnology. This was an attempt to engage the public in consultation in a way that genetic engineering and nuclear science had not, and which had subsequently entangled those fields in issues of public mistrust once the technology had been developed.

Nanotechnology’s attempts to encourage discussion concurrent or even prior to technology development is a distinguishing feature in nanotechnology’s contribution to framing issues of technology and ethics. The changing perception about the nature of public engagement has cultivated a variety of methods for engagement such as deliberative polling, focus groups, citizens’ juries, consensus conferences, stakeholder dialogues, and deliberative mapping.80 In the UK, these have been used to discuss everything from organ transplant

options to genetically-modified foods to the toxic hazards of nanoparticles. Canada has been

slower to follow through on methods of public engagement, and many recommendations,

80 For more detailed descriptions of these methods, see Wilsdon and Willis, 2005, pp. 27-29.

266 while modelled on measures taken by other nations, remain in their early stages (Holtz, 2007;

2008).

When done well, public engagement shows how laypeople, researchers, and decision- makers can come together in meaningful and constructive dialogue about complex issues, leading to more informed policy decisions and research directions. It also affords scientists room to reflect on the wider implications of their research while allowing laypeople to become more actively aware of scientific topics as well as informed and empowered. As civic experiments in countries such as the United Kingdom show, public engagement with topics in science and technology can foster mutual understanding between scientific specialists and the public, as non-specialist laypeople gain appreciation for how to think about science policy and research, and as scientists and policymakers learn to appreciate the meaningful contributions of non-scientists (Gavelin & Wilson, 2007)

However, despite the apparent shift in power, the process of public engagement still has a distance to go because questions that solicit public input tend to be restricted in scope and timing in terms of the research and development cycle. In terms of scope, oftentimes attention focuses on debating the nature and degree of risk involved, while deeper questions about “values, visions, and vested interests” that orient technoscientific inquiries are not delved into (Wilson & Willis, 2005, p. 7). Indeed, it is common for policy and regulatory discussions to forge ahead as if the debate on ends had occurred, or to assume that the ends are obvious and agreed upon when it is far from clear where consensus actually lies. In terms of timing, even if such questions do get raised, sometimes it is too late in the process to alter the course of technological development, or the questions are not linked back with research

267 priorities or policymakers. This is why more advocates for public engagement favour approaches that take discussions further “upstream,” i.e. earlier in the deliberative process.81

There are two more factors to be aware of when working with deliberative models of

democracy. First, the process cannot be approached simply as a means to gather and

quantify enough data to plug into a problem-solving formula and calculate a solution. We

must keep in mind Vanderburg’s observation that technological progress does not

cumulatively and definitively solve problems; rather, each new technology generates new

ignorance and consequently new problems (2000, pp. 44-45). Taking care of a specific

problem may actually introduce a whole new set of challenges, as reproductive technologies

illustrate. For example, now that the problem of infertility can be technologically

circumvented through various methods of in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, and

surrogate motherhood, new moral dilemmas arise, involving the commercialization of

reproduction, the return to eugenic practices, the moral status of frozen embryos, and the

prospect of human cloning.

Secondly, although many commentators are confident that public political judgement

about technology yields much constructive potential, it cannot simply be a case of inserting

more deliberative processes into an existing framework girded by conventional assumptions

about technology. Conventional thinking holds that technology is a suite of neutral

instruments that humans use well or badly. If, however, we understand technology as an

ontology embedded into a social context, then we may be more attentive to the ways that it

81 However, the where and the how of public engagement is complicated by another salient concern, that of funding: while civic participation has been effective in drawing attention to concerns about supersonic jets and nuclear energy, scientists such as Ursula Franklin are concerned that the more that research is privatized, the less input citizens will have. Franklin contends that research funding that comes from private sources makes it harder for researchers to engage the public in an honest and transparent way. She further argues that publicly funded technoscientific research must always be open to public scrutiny over the ways that research attains collective goods (Franklin, 1999, pp. 61-69).

268 shapes us as much as we shape it. Conventional thinking on the part of policy makers and economists assumes that individuals make political and economic decisions based on innate beliefs, values, or preferences such that a simple opinion poll or referendum would be sufficient to reveal what those attitudes are. As Wilsdon and Willis (2005) note, conventional wisdom assumes that “[e]veryone…will have a view on a particular technology…we just need to find out what it is” (p. 32). However, views are not static.

People’s beliefs are shaped by the way they interact with the issue. The deliberative model of democracy could help reveal and clarify Western society’s assumptions about technology if care were taken to both delve into the underlying motivations of “revolutionary” technology and to do it early on in the consultative process.

To that end, although I applaud nanotechnology researchers and commentators for urging more discussion and public engagement upstream, we must be prepared to acknowledge that an invitation to critique the nanotechnology vision, and more fundamentally to critique the reasoning behind the technological imperative, will not necessarily legitimize the project or the process. For example, a Grantian critique challenges the fundamental assumptions upon which the technoscientific enterprise is built, questioning as it does whether the human will is the sole arbiter of meaning. Were the public to consider a Grantian critique of the technological society, a different set of concerns would have to be confronted, particularly regarding how human action accords with the good and whether we can know in advance of experimentation that there are some things that ought never to be done. Even so, there is the question of how much weight such critiques carry. Given liberal society’s profound commitment to the technological imperative, perhaps those Grantian concerns will not be given serious consideration by many in government, industry, or

269 academia. This is a particular challenge for the practice of technological critique, especially given society’s technoscientific ambitions to provide a guiding vision for what is both possible and desirable in the future.

Technological convergence: Technoscience as a guiding vision for society

What the technoscientific enterprise has shown over the past few hundred years is just

how much of a creative force it is. Philosopher Ian Hacking notes that while science was

traditionally portrayed to be the neutral observation and explanation of natural phenomena,

the technoscientific approach must be acknowledged as a force that shapes the world,

creating phenomena (whether vaccines, genetically modified organisms, “buckyball”

nanoparticles, or artificial intelligence) that never existed before (Cayley, 2007a). It seems to

me that if we are reasonably to approach questions of ethics and technoscience as engaged

citizens, then we must first be clearly aware of that fact. In particular, it seems essential to

realize that the creative force known as technoscience demonstrates how the acts of knowing

and doing come together in entirely new ways. This is what Grant means when he argues

that technoscience has become an ontology. As an ontology, technoscience both implicitly

and explicitly provides a guiding vision for society, but one that excludes thinking about the

good. This section will introduce the concept of technological convergence to illustrate the

technoprogressivist tone that currently informs how nanotechnology is presented for public

consideration in the name of human betterment.

One increasingly common—and potentially problematic—way of framing questions

about technological development for public deliberation is through the idea of technological

270 convergence. Because there is growing overlap between certain fields of technological development, both mainstream nanotechnology projections and transhumanist commentary anticipate the inevitable convergence--usually between nanotechnology, genetic engineering technologies, information technology, and artificial intelligence research--into a combined area of research bearing profound consequences for the future of the human species.

When fields converge, they are expected to yield more and greater accomplishments than each field might produce on its own. For example, both transhumanist commentary and mainstream government-sponsored reports on nanotechnology such as the United States

National Science Foundation/Department of Commerce’s report, Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, anticipate the profound advances issuing from the union of nanoscience, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science. According to project leader Mihail Roco: “All disciplines share a common ability to work at the molecular and nano length scales using information technology and biology concepts” (2002, p. 93).

The convergence is especially evident when DNA is spoken of as an informational code, genomes are considered biological computers and molecular intervention is thus understood as reprogramming. These may be useful analogies, but for some researchers they are interchangeable concepts and matter literally is “programmable code.” Such a technical approach to the physical world means that nanoscience helps erase boundaries between organic and inorganic material, and between information and materiality, by encouraging a universal machine language where bits, atoms, genes, and neurons are convertible (López,

2004, p. 12). The “nano” contribution is particularly relevant because the nanoscale provides an interface for previously separate fields that ultimately might lead to a unified paradigm of matter.

271

To what end convergence? In the pursuit of a unifying paradigm for matter what also emerges is an attempt to put forth a guiding vision for humanity from the purview of technoscience.82 Although historically-speaking, practitioners of secular modern science

insist that science is value-neutral and silent on the ultimate purpose and meaning of life, in

practice society nevertheless considers science and technology essential to defining what it

means to better the human condition. Documents such as the Converging Technologies

report (2002) uphold that belief:

Technological superiority is the fundamental basis of the economic prosperity

and national security of the United States, and continual progress in NBIC

[nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive

science] technologies is an essential component for government agencies to

accomplish their designated missions. Science and engineering must offer

society new visions of what it is possible to achieve through interdisciplinary

research projects designed to promote technological convergence. (p. 14)

Most people will recognize that what is possible is not necessarily good. However,

the essential point here is that the technological society believes that we cannot decide what

is good until we know what is possible. This is the technological imperative. Once we know

what is possible, we can exercise political influence and personal judgement to decide what

good uses to put technology to. However, philosophers such as George Grant argue that this

perspective puts the technological imperative ahead of all other ethical considerations; by

82 Similarities may be drawn with biologist Edward O. Wilson’s resurrection of the notion of “consilience,” or the synthesis of knowledge from different specializations in order to establish a framework for the unity of knowledge. While convergence in our present context refers to the union of various fields of science and technology, consilience is a more concerted effort to unite the sciences and the humanities. See Wilson, 1999.

272 contrast he insists that we have to recognize first what is good and then let that determine how we realize the possible, otherwise there is little for ethical deliberation to do. Similarly, critics of technology such as Albert Borgmann (1992), Jacques Ellul (1964), and Langdon

Winner (1986) are wary that the visions of a desirable society offered solely or primarily by a technoscientific worldview are not sufficient, given that they tend to be biased heavily towards instrumentalizing the world. Thus, as much as convergence strives for unity of knowledge, it is knowledge gathered in the name of intervention in and control of material aspects of the world, leaving little room to accommodate perspectives based on an idea of the world’s intrinsic goodness and on discerning one’s place in a larger, beneficent order.

Should technoscience provide society with a guiding vision? Clearly there are indications that it already does, but if so, it cannot be the only vision proffered.

Nanotechnology commentators Hunt and Mehta (2006) state that as far as nanotechnology goes, “[i]f it is not only acceptable, but welcome for Feynman, Drexler and others to speculate about what science can do, should do and what benefits it may bring, then it is surely also acceptable and welcome for others to speculate about what science cannot do, should not do and what risks it may bring” (p. 7). This is the point of considering the views of Grant and the so-called “bioconservatives” who challenge the technological imperative.

Technology scholar Langdon Winner (1986) notes that while there is much excitement about what lies at the cutting edge of technology, “the interesting puzzle in our times is that we so willingly sleepwalk through the process of reconstituting the conditions of human existence”

(p. 10). What scholars hope will nudge us awake from utopian dreams and dystopian nightmares is building a solid dialectic of thought centred on the relationship between

273 technology and ethics. To be fair, Roco and Bainbridge (2002) portray the Converging

Technologies report as an attempt to do this. They note that

[s]cience and engineering as well as societal activities are expected to change,

regardless of whether there are policies to guide or promote such changes. To

influence and accelerate changes in the most beneficial directions, it is not

enough to wait patiently while scientists and engineers do their traditional

work. Rather, the full advantage of NBIC developments may be achieved by

making special efforts to break down barriers between fields and to develop

the new intellectual and physical resources that are needed. (p. 7)

As we have seen, part of breaking down those barriers involves more collaboration and consultation with the lay public to negotiate a vision for the future. Currently the emphasis on the notion of convergence may inappropriately enforce consensus on the moral imperative. If anything, it is rather ironic that the search for unity, convergence, and order is alive and well on the technoscientific front, when 21st Century Western liberal society is

more and more uncertain about any kind of normative external ethical or moral order.

What about “moral convergence”?

That is why this thesis has chosen to explore a critique of technology that challenges

the assumptions of technoprogressivism. With all the buzz around technological

convergence, we must give due consideration to whether “moral convergence” is at all

possible amidst what appears presently to be great uncertainty about moral order; this to me

274 seems to be what is behind the practice of citizenship and the goal of ethics, that being to engage in public dialogue on the common good. Even if modern ethics calls into question classical philosophy’s idea of an absolute good, there is still a need to examine and re- evaluate society’s shared reasons for action, or else there is little for ethics to do, if it is to be more than the administration of rules and regulations.

Many perspectives from nanotechnology and transhumanist spheres do recognize the need for renewed, broad-based dialogue. In fact, it is in part due to the efforts of technoprogressivists to anticipate the implications of perspective-shifting technology that the public is in a position to critically evaluate its relationship with technology. Further to this, those in traditional science and policy decision-making positions are increasingly aware that the public is not just concerned for risks and impacts of technological development but also more fundamentally about what purposes and intents drive innovation in the first place

(Wynne, quoted in Wilsdon & Willis, 2005, p. 15).

The path is not clear, however. If we think about the practice of ethics and of citizenship as the attempt to foster constructive moral dialogue concerning ideas about the good life, then presently that discourse is primarily phrased in terms of “values.” As we have seen throughout the course of this inquiry, values language presents a problem for critiquing the technological imperative. The problem is that when the only concept that ethical deliberation can converge around is that of “values,” then the deeper reality of technological change is obscured. Grant has argued that technoscience provides an ontology which is not open to the idea of the normative good, but rather employs the concept of subjective values which coheres to the premise that only the human will creates meaning. If we accept that

275 only human beings create meaning, however, we must implicitly accept that “values” are subject to change.

Questions such as “how does technological development impact society’s values?” are common in technology studies literature as a way to articulate the tension between what is possible and what should be done. However, the deeper implication is that our values just may have to accommodate our technoscientific discoveries, that what we consider good may have to change in light of what we find is possible. This means that what is good is always conditional. This in turn undermines the notion of limit, especially non-negotiable, categorical limits. An ethic predicated on an objective good asserts just the opposite: justice requires that our actions accommodate the limits set by an unchanging good. Grant is deeply troubled by the course being charted, because the next step (a step which has begun already) is to turn the triumph of the will upon fellow human beings, in the name of improving the human condition.

With no categorical boundaries or obligations to limit human action what is there to prevent society from one day deciding, as Nietzsche predicted, that there is nothing due to certain members of the species except extermination (Grant, 1986, p. 94)? No doubt transhumanists would balk at such extrapolation, given the eugenic lessons supposedly learned from the last century, but Grant, given his position against abortion and euthanasia, argues that members of the species continue to be subjected to those sorts of decisions. The fundamental problem with liberal ethics from this perspective is that the concept of values lacks the braking mechanism provided by unconditional limits, which once more raises the question of tyranny.

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The tyranny of “values”?

If we recall again Grant’s meditations on forms of tyranny, what should come to mind are factors that impede thinking about the good and living well together. Although values language affords the impression--and indeed the sincere belief on the part of many who use it--of tempering the technical factor with the human factor and addressing the core of the human condition, what actually happens is that the values approach uses language that homogenizes and confuses the reasons why people take the stances that they do on the nature of human well-being and the future of the planet. As much as citizens of North American liberal democracies might believe that a discussion about “values” demonstrates liberalism’s respect for individual autonomy, freedom, and choice, critics like Langdon Winner argue that values language is hollow, symptomatic of our collective inability to distinguish the nuances between beliefs, opinions, principles, arguments, biases, needs, desires, individual interests, and the common good (1986, p. 159; see also MacIntyre 1981). In our public deliberations about the good life, the catch-all term “values” includes too much, at the expense of precision of thought at a time when we need clarity. What is even more disheartening is that few citizens seem to recognize the extent of the loss, because so many have adopted the discourse of “values.”

The problem is twofold in the context of this discussion about the role of “values” in technological society. Firstly, according to Winner (1986), we call upon “values experts,” often in the social sciences and humanities, as custodians of traditions to speak on behalf of what is good and how to maximize it (p. 159-160). This is problematic because our fundamental existential questions simply cannot be answered by specialists; the real knowledge sought transcends any academic expertise or specialized knowledge, even though

277 many in the social sciences and humanities are willing to step up and accept the role of

“values” expert (p. 163). Wilsdon and Willis (2005) concur in their analysis of current nanotechnology discourse that “different types of intelligence need to be viewed alongside one another, rather than in a hierarchy which places science above the public” (p. 34). This is the reason why interest in public engagement and deliberative democracy models have been gaining momentum in recent years.

Secondly, while we as a society believe that people’s values are an important “input” to processes of problem-solving and decision-making, attempts to gather knowledge about people’s values try, ironically, to recapture something that was purposely and relatively recently discarded in the name of individual moral autonomy, that being an openness to traditional ways of knowing and thinking about the good, many of those ways being rooted in some version of natural law. The reality of the situation is that the emphasis on technoscientific expertise has come at the expense of competence in addressing basic age-old questions of humankind, such as how to live well together and what constitutes justice

(Winner, 1986, p. 162).

The problem, Winner insists, is that modern technological society has neither the language nor the institutions to support sustained, serious, and comprehensive scrutiny of fundamental questions about the human experience. If ethical deliberation could previously be expressed in terms of virtue, wisdom, and justice, Winner argues that such terms have lost their deep significance in the public sphere, leaving civil society bereft of a rich and expansive vocabulary with which to conduct moral discourse. If society did have robust language and institutions through which to deliberate, the technological imperative would not have as pervasive a hold on ethical decision-making as it currently does, because we would

278 have other ways to legitimately know in advance of experimentation what ought and ought not to be done.

Moreover, according to Grant, the lack of comprehensive thought about the whole is one condition for tyranny. Thus, framing public engagement in terms of how society’s

“values” can guide the ethical use of technology actually limits the quality and depth of critique that can be done of the technological imperative because values language and the technological imperative both rest on the assumption that human willing takes priority when it comes to discerning what is good to make and unmake.

Authentic political engagement, by contrast, should be open to questioning all such assumptions in a society, but as we have seen in chapter 2, even in liberal society there are some tenets that are largely beyond questioning, such as the fact-value distinction, the priority of the human will, and the acceptance of freedom rather than the good as the defining essence of humanity. Ironically, those very tenets have undermined liberalism in the sense that they have removed from the public sphere fundamental deliberation about humanity’s highest aspirations towards what is good and worthy to pursue, leaving it instead as a matter of private judgement. According to Grant (1969), in the absence of public dialogue on the common good, the “demands of technology… [become] themselves the dominating morality” (p. 129). But as Schmidt (2008) points out, technoprogressivism makes it impossible to conceal that ethical thought is failing us because technological values based on efficiency, productivity, and calculating probability of risk are not enough to sustain humanity’s non-technical search for meaning and purpose (pp. 167-168).

If civic deliberation on our shared technological future is to be in any way effective, we must first be conscious of where our moral frameworks come from and whether they are

279 adequate to make judgements about the path ahead. By flagging the problem with “values,”

Grant draws attention to the real ambiguity between our desire to retain the idea of a common moral community and the ongoing difficulty of maintaining common ground. He takes that ambiguity as evidence that our moral language is in disarray, even while our technoscientific inquiries are set to converge.

What can we gather from Grant?

I take that observation to be one of Grant’s major contributions. He tried to

understand technological society for what it is, and he discovered that it is deeply ambiguous

(1984/1998, p. 443). He identified the need to think beyond the technological imperative and

to think about moral judgement in a way that does not simply justify the status quo. At the

very least, this is what Grant has attempted to do in his moral and political philosophy by

challenging the idea that freedom should be the defining essence of humanity and by

insisting on the relevance of unchanging standards such as love, justice, beauty, and the good

in modern ethical discourse.

But here also is a profound difficulty with perspectives that attempt to counter the

technological imperative. When Grant challenges the primacy of human freedom and innovation in his critique of the technological imperative, he also questions the fundamental tenets of liberalism, which themselves often go uncritiqued. But as far as freedom goes,

Grant reminds us that freedom does not have to mean absolute freedom; other societies and systems of meaning value freedom but circumscribe it and direct it towards a higher purpose.

Theological freedom, for example, is oriented towards God who is understood to be the

280 ultimate source and completion of the good, the Alpha and the Omega (Grant, 1969, p. 138).

Thus, neither of Grant’s own orienting systems of meaning, Christianity and Platonism, can support freedom as the ultimate end of existence. The problem today is that, although not as extreme as libertarianism, liberalism and transhumanism do champion autonomy as the highest good. Because of that shift in priorities, Grant sees the traditional notion of justice losing out as a result of the dual ascendancy of freedom and the will and the subsequent dilution of normative moral standards by the language of values.

While a thinker such as Langdon Winner opposes the term “values” for its sheer vacuity, Grant opposes its use in society without reflection about where the concept originates and why it has established itself so firmly in the ethical vocabulary. When citizens and decision-makers use the term “values” to discuss ethics and technology, it may very well be in full consent that the only meaning to human existence is that which is willed. This is the sense in which Nietzsche meant it, and although transhumanists distance themselves from

Nietzschean thought, this seems to be the sense that some of them mean it too. If, having clarified ideas about values, technology, and justice one cannot hold to a Nietzschean nihilism, Grant offers the notion of the good as something that remains relevant to ethical deliberation, for the way that it provides a sense of limit, for the way that it integrates love into an ethical framework, and for the way that it reminds us that “we are not our own.”

Admittedly, that offering likely will be more constructive for those who already have a commitment to the good. Grant’s point in this case is that using the term “values” eliminates the possibility of reverence if one intends to commit oneself to the idea of the good

(1984/1998).

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There is no question that from a Grantian perspective, if modern ethical deliberation on the common good fails to recognize the true novelty in the way that the modern technoscientific enterprise equates knowing with doing (i.e., the triumph of the will), and if it fails to recognize a sense of the good that is not human-made and which makes a claim on us, then it is impotent to think beyond the technological imperative. This is why Grant insisted on the wisdom of examining traditional, classical, or ancient perspectives on existential questions. By this he does not seek to bury his head in past philosophies to escape present ambiguities, but rather he uses those “traditional” insights to attend to contemporary

“intimations of deprival.” This means that Grant tried to pay attention to signs of the times and changing patterns in behaviour and thought regarding humanity’s relationship with technology to discern whether we are being deprived of something essential in spite of all the ways we have found to better the human condition. Talk of “the good” is certainly absent from many modern ethical frameworks, but is that absence a deprival? Grant (1969) is willing to entertain the idea that what we have lost could also be described as “illusions, horizons, superstitions, [and] taboos” that kept us from being masters of our own destinies, but the point is to recognize the loss as a loss (p. 138).

For Grant the technological imperative has left us with only two possible reactions to the fact that we have become technology: we can celebrate human ingenuity and the freedom to create, loosed as we are from systems of meaning that bind our actions to non-negotiable limits (as many transhumanists encourage us to do), or we stand muted before the onward march of inevitable technological progress because we have lost the language of the good that could have effectively articulated the loss. Silence is not passivity, however, because as

Grant says “[o]nly by listening for the intimations of deprival can we live critically in the

282 dynamo” (p. 141). There is a third option, which is to loudly employ the language of the good regardless. And although he was sometimes reduced to silence in response to the din of progress, Grant also fully realizes that the standards he draws on to articulate the loss may strike many as antiquated. He is “painfully aware” that a pluralistic, postmodern society is far from being amenable to statements about a normative, external good, but society’s incomprehension of beauty, love, and justice as measures of the good is itself witness to the loss (Power, 1978, p. 96).

As I mentioned in the introductory chapter, dialectical method illuminates complementarity between ideas and also irreducible differences between ideas; throughout this thesis I have been sketching the dialectic between technoprogressivism and what might be considered a “technocritical” approach, and here we seem to arrive at an irreducible difference: whether there truly is an unchanging good, or whether human action and meaning is solely a matter of human will.

In light of that gulf, what I conclude is that Grant is constructive to this dialogue, but not in a sense that might appease policy makers or that would be immediately recognizable to those accustomed to the workings of the technoscientific enterprise. This is why I find his work to be illuminating yet frustrating. One cannot expect his thought to be prescriptive or even systematic because his intention above all, as is mine, is to advocate mindfulness of moral language, mindfulness which begins with oneself and extends to raising the awareness of others (Power, 1978, p. 96).

This thesis has been an attempt to bring to light some of the assumptions that currently inform discussions of technoprogressivism and the ethical implications of nanotechnology, discussions that will ultimately result in individuals and societies making

283 moral judgements about the future of humanity. At the most basic level, the question of public engagement with technology demands that laypeople and “experts” alike be aware of the assumptions they make about society’s relationship with technology and the language in which they express that relationship.

A final example I take from Grant is that one may commit oneself to trust in the inherent goodness of the universe but not to trust blindly. Grant (1986) recalls Socrates’ recognition that doubt is necessary to practice both philosophy and science but that doubt also makes trust possible (p. 43). In a contemporary context we might do well to remember that this is the objective of citizen engagement with science and public policy; the rise of citizen’s juries especially in European countries on topics such as nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and human enhancement is an acknowledgment that the public needs room both to reserve judgement (i.e., to doubt, to inquire, to debate claims) and to trust the integrity of the deliberation process. Thus I conclude that constructive public deliberation on technology and justice requires both trust in deliberative processes and mindfulness of moral language.

Two further things can be said. Regarding trust, too often technocrats and bureaucrats underestimate the deliberative capacities of the average citizen on the grounds that civic deliberation slows down competition and innovation, or else the public is left out of deliberation altogether because of the belief that decisions should be left to scientific or policy “experts” (Barney, 2007, p. 26). Regarding mindfulness, Grant’s critique of the technological imperative is constructive because it reveals the ways in which technology closes down on opportunities to question the nature of the good life, the ends of nature, and the limits of human action. Ironically, although attentiveness to technology is essential to ethical deliberation, in practice, society measures successful mastery of technology through

284 forgetting. According to Langdon Winner (1986), history shows that society fully masters technology—or perhaps technology fully masters society—when technology can finally go unnoticed, when it becomes so ubiquitous and pedestrian as to be forgettable or taken for granted. That mastery entails not control but rather forgetting is a remarkable observation, and it lies at the crux of much technological critique; critics of technology warn that society is simply not aware of the dynamics of its relationship with technology. Attentiveness to the truth of the situation thus has to be the first step to any kind of deliberation about the good life. Even if one ultimately disagrees with a Grantian assessment of the relationship between technology and justice, at the very least it nudges one to clarify exactly where one does stand.

CHAPTER 9

CONCLUSIONS

In part I of this dissertation I indicated that there are several ways to think about

technology, whether as a suite of value-neutral tools, as a system, or as an ontology. I

referred to two broad philosophical perspectives on technology and ethics which those in the

philosophy of technology designate as the Continental approach and the Anglo-American

approach. My purpose in highlighting these interpretations was to illustrate that one’s

understanding of technology has implications for how one frames ethical questions about

technology.

With those contrasting perspectives in mind, and having indicated my belief that the

Continental approach deserves more attention for its constructive potential than it is currently

getting, I pointed out in part II the salient features of the elements which I am triangulating in

this thesis: George Grant’s interpretation of technology and justice, the technoprogressivist

foundations of transhumanist ethics, and the emerging contours of nanoethics.

I have found that transhumanism’s technoprogressive stance and indeed of a lot of nanotechnology commentary can be categorized as Anglo-American in their approaches, which emphasizes that ethics mainly constitutes risk assessment and regulating of emerging technology within the utilitarian, democratic framework of North American liberalism.

Because the Anglo-American perspective understands technology to be value-neutral, it further understands that technology’s uses should be and indeed are determined by political deliberation according to society’s values. However, guiding the Anglo-American approach both explicitly and implicitly is the “technological imperative” which assumes that the only

285 286 way to know what is good is to figure out what is possible. In essence, what results is that judgements about the good become subordinated to the freedom to innovate.

Though the Anglo-American perspective prevails in the emerging dialogue on nanotechnology, I have found it neither an entirely satisfying nor a truly comprehensive stance to take when trying to evaluate questions of the good. Perhaps it is one thing to claim, as some commentators do, that technoscience should and does remain silent on questions of the good in order that its pursuits be directed by a higher authority that can speak to the good.

This is implied by the Anglo-American approach, whose “higher authority” purports to be the principles of democratic contractual liberalism. However it is quite another thing for technoscience to actively deny or obscure the possibility of addressing transcendental questions, and in practice this seems to be what is happening in North America, whether intentionally or not.

The more that technoscience is used to describe and evaluate the myriad facets of the human condition, the less opportunity there is to consider seriously the concerns of transcendental moral realism, i.e. whether human beings ultimately must answer to standards beyond those which they create. The language of technoscience tends to dominate other perspectives, rather than accommodate them, which is why the pervasive force of the technological imperative seems to me both to contradict the premise that technology is value- neutral and ultimately to undermine North American liberalism, despite the widespread claim that the principles of liberalism are what guide technological development.

To contrast with the Anglo-American approach, I have demonstrated what ethical considerations are important from a Continental perspective. Here I use Grant to represent the view that technology is not value-neutral but instead changes the very standards by which

287 we try to decide what is good to make and unmake. Guiding Grant’s Continentally- influenced critique is a form of transcendental moral realism which challenges the primacy of the technological imperative, insisting that we can know in advance that there are some things that should never be done based on the conviction that justice must be ultimately grounded upon non-negotiable limits, that human freedom and human self-assertion have to answer to standards beyond themselves, and that the absolute good is real.

I have argued for the validity of Grant’s perspective because it expresses what I experience as two truths: (1) that technology has become the ontology of North American society, and (2) that “the good” exists and provides an external orientation through which to judge human action. I will treat these claims in succession.

Firstly, despite the fact that Anglo-American approaches treat the processes and products of technoscience as value-neutral, it is quite clear that the social context of technoscientific practices plays a significant role in what gets discovered or created, and in how those discoveries and creations occur. For example, at MIT, exploratory research in self-healing exoskeletons and “smart” biomedical textiles based on nanostructured materials is funded in large part by government military organizations, as mentioned in chapter 4. The specific intent of this research and innovation is to produce better-equipped soldiers for more sophisticated warfare. Thus the values inherent to the social context directly influence both the practice and the goals of the research. More importantly, modern technoscientific practice creates ethical situations hitherto unknown. For example, Monsanto’s genetically- engineered “terminator” seeds posed dilemmas about applying patents to living organisms; nuclear reactor technology created ethical dilemmas regarding not only the safe disposal of nuclear waste but also the moral question of creating it in the first place. A nanostructured

288 military exoskeleton with the ability to heal wounds on the battlefield or to deliver neurostimulants that negate the need for a combatant to sleep then changes not only the very nature and potency of warfare but also the non-military possibilities for “human enhancement.”

The point of this thesis is to show that the technoscientific practices that design and create terminator seeds, nuclear reactors, and military exoskeletons are the same frameworks that have come to define the human essence (at least from a Western perspective) and lend meaning to human existence in the 21st Century. When technoprogressive thinker Gregory

Stock pronounces that “technology is us,” he affirms the pervasiveness of the technological

drive to predict and control nature. This for me is further evidence that technology has

become the ontology of our age. This is why the “Continental” philosophical approach that

defines technology more broadly as a value-laden worldview seems to me a more accurate

portrayal of the present situation than that depicted by the Anglo-American perspective. But,

as Grant’s critique of technology shows, if technoscience provides an ontology for North

American society, in so doing it also legitimizes certain forms of knowledge and downplays,

ignores, or simply denies other forms of knowledge. “How can we know if we don’t try?”

seems at first a reasonable justification for technoscientific pursuits because according to that

paradigm, to know is to do. This is the essence of the technological imperative. What I have

tried to argue in this thesis, however, is for the validity of other forms of knowledge,

particularly knowledge of a pre-existing, universally-binding “good.”

This leads me to the second reason why Grant provides a useful lens. Within a

Continental-style critique of technology, my own existential and ethical perspective aligns

closely with the type of transcendental moral realism that girds Grant’s approach. Although

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Grant was not a systematic ethicist in the professional sense, his commitment to Christian and Platonic foundations compelled him to take seriously the belief in absolute good. While

Grant’s ultimate justification for his belief must be left open to scrutiny through his own writings, a word must be said for my own justification, which is the following: I possess a similar orientation that defines the good in terms of discernable norms, standards that I take to be prior not only to the moral choices I personally make but also prior to the choices in front of all human beings who are in positions of moral decision-making, whether they realize it or not. Akin to traditional concepts of “virtue” (with examples including the

Christian cardinal virtues of temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice), these norms are not prescriptive rules but rather habits of being. I have found these best laid out in the work of philosopher Bernard Lonergan, who calls them “transcendental precepts”: be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible. It is entirely possible to overlook or deny those norms, but I contend that this is the result of biases and blindspots that obscure a reality that every human being is fundamentally equipped to verify for him- or herself. Here I refer to

Lonergan’s “transcendental method” (1999, pp. 13-20) which lays out what I take to be a systematic, objective, and verifiable account of human knowing.

The conclusion I draw from recognizing the normative way that human beings know themselves and know the world is that there also exist norms for human behaviour, i.e. the human good (Lonergan, 1999, pp. 47-52). When Lonergan identifies a normative structure for human knowing, he is also describing a process by which people can discover objective good because acknowledging one eventually entails acknowledging the other.83 This is the

thread that Grant’s thought picks up on. While Lonergan explains the human good in terms

83 Lonergan (1999) is careful to note that although the structure of knowing does not vary, the content does, as well as the full flourishing of the capacity to know, due to various biases and blindspots that accompany each person’s attempt to know him- or herself.

290 of a common, built-in human experience of “self-appropriation” (i.e., the process by which one consciously comes to know how one knows) Grant expresses it in terms of an orientation to norms beyond the human will. The crux of what both Lonergan and Grant are saying is to recognize that there are fundamental givens in human experience, verifiable by human experience, which human beings do not create but rather discover about themselves.

Because I have verified the process of moral decision-making through my own experience as a decision-making subject (in terms of the method explained by Lonergan) and because that experience subsequently enables me to affirm that the good is real (in terms similarly expressed by Grant), then certain questions that deal directly with “the good” become for me fundamental and recurring concerns that any ethical perspective on technology must be able to address. These include concerns about the non-negotiable limits of human action, the non-contractual nature of justice, and the role of love in discerning what human beings owe to themselves and to each other.

My research into a wide spectrum of contemporary ways to think about technology leads me to judge that technoprogressivism in general and transhumanist commentary in particular lacks the ability to fully address such questions. I further find technoprogressivism’s claim that individual autonomy is the primary essence of humanity to contradict the undeniable experience of “otherness” that defines human relationships.

Human beings are certainly self-determining subjects, but ultimately their choices must be made in the context of relationships. Because of that contradiction and because of technoprogressivism’s failure to convince me that it has asked all the necessary questions, I find myself coming to much the same conclusion that Grant reached in his own exploration

291 of moral philosophy: for every technological advance that we appear to be making, it is also vitally important to account for what we may have lost.

To illustrate that point, in part III I considered what the Anglo-American and

Continental approaches to technology and ethics mean in the context of molecular manufacturing, human enhancement, and public engagement. I argued that when the technological imperative doesn’t get challenged, then questions about the good life and the proper ends of human beings get overlooked in public discussion of ethics because the technological imperative has separated means from ends and leaves ends to be privately determined. I indicated how this separation of means from ends may lead to nihilism and tyranny, particularly in subtle forms that erode the language of moral justice. Finally, I argued that Grant’s transcendental moral realism offers a way to think outside the technological imperative and to return to the heart of ethics, which includes love as an essential component of justice, combined with attentiveness to the whole.

But what are the practical implications of a Grantian critique? As I mentioned in chapter 8, Grant did not seek to be prescriptive, but I will venture a few further comments. I believe that, were Grant’s concerns to be taken seriously, nanotechnology research would slow down significantly to allow time and space for the public to reflect and deliberate over its shared conceptions of the good life. Furthermore, the rhetoric extolling the spirit of competitiveness would be tempered by a deeper concern for getting things right rather than getting there first. And despite heated debate about the impossibility of banning either processes or products facilitated by the nanotechnological control of matter, a Grantian approach would likely encourage government and industry to prohibit certain activities.

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Moreover, I believe there is significant accord between a Grantian critique of technology and the practice of what scientist and engineer Ursula Franklin calls “principled decision-making.” An advocate for public engagement with issues in technology, Franklin offers some general but practical criteria to help citizens assess the moral justice involved in any technoscientific undertaking. According to Franklin, principled decision-making can occur when citizens can ask of any public project the following questions: (1) Does it promote justice? (2) Does it restore reciprocity? (3) Does it confer divisible or indivisible benefits? (4) Does it favour people over machines? (5) Does its strategy maximize gains or minimize disaster? (6) Does it favour conservation over waste? (7) Does it favour the reversible over the irreversible (Franklin 1999, pp. 127-128)? It seems to me that Grant’s concern for sustained public discussion on the good life finds practical expression in

Franklin’s criteria for principled decision-making.

In the introduction to this thesis, I posed several questions that would inform the scope and direction of this inquiry: Do current commentaries on the social and ethical implications of nanotechnology provide comprehensive analyses of the relevant issues?

What might be missing from the discussion? What sorts of biases do the commentators show? What happens when technological progress becomes thought of as a moral obligation? I also asked whether there is a place on the modern ethical landscape for a moral philosophy such as Grant’s that is grounded in “the good.” The constantly changing landscape of nanotechnology research means that answers to these questions cannot be definitive, but let me now offer some preliminary conclusions.

It is encouraging to see analyses emerge early on from a variety of disciplines that either call attention to or address themselves directly to nanotechnology’s concomitant social

293 and ethical issues. When I began research for this dissertation in 2004, it was clear that certain scholars and commentators recognized the need for ethical dialogue to occur even before the anticipated technologies were viable. It was also clear from my view that much more deliberative work needed to be done to account for a broader range of perspectives because the emerging discussion had a distinct technoprogressive tone. For example, the

Foresight guidelines, true to its name, had anticipated the need for systematic and formalized ethical thought and had by then clearly and admirably articulated its mandate and vision for the responsible development of molecular manufacturing. Any researcher who was willing to embark on that pioneering path at least had an idea of what technoprogressivists understood responsible and “ethical” development to mean. Much of the commentary I gathered at that time referenced the Foresight guidelines, Ray Kurzweil, Eric Drexler, and other technoprogressive sources. As I mentioned in chapters 3 and 4, early contributions to the discussion were by transhumanist-friendly commentators who had an interest in seeing nanotechnology develop into applications that could improve the human estate.

What I also noticed at the start of my research was that despite the sustained attention that nanotechnology was garnering globally as countries strove to establish their own national nanotechnology initiatives, and despite the momentum building in mainstream, non- specialist awareness of nanotechnology, both as a suite of products/processes and as a conceptual perspective-shifter, there was a relative dearth of commentary particularly with regards to Canadian perspectives on nanotechnology policy. Although Canada was in the process of establishing its own National Institute for Nanotechnology, it was not clear that any coherent, multidisciplinary, public ethical dialogue was taking place in this country,

294 compared with the efforts of nations such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the

United States.

Fortunately over the course of my research since 2004, more Canadian commentary has been published, such as discussion papers sponsored variously by the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy (Holtz, 2007, 2008), the Canadian Council of Academies

(2008), and Environment Canada (2007). Given the inherent uncertainty involved in what nanotechnology might bring to fruition, the preliminary recommendations of the reports remain quite general but reflect the typical spectrum of concerns raised in reports issued in other Western, industrialized countries, including the need for lifecycle analyses of products, better labelling of nanomaterials in consumer products, and the need for greater public engagement, particularly with civil society organizations. It has been fascinating to watch the discussion unfold in real time over several years, both in terms of seeing the Canadian contribution grow and assessing the adequacy of society’s ethical frameworks as it grapples with uncertainty that is by turns exciting and foreboding.

What I have found more generally from my research is that academic, governmental, corporate, and watchdog commentaries on the future of nanotechnology from Western perspectives collectively show an appreciation for the complexity and variety of ethical issues involved, ranging from the unknown toxicity of nanoparticles, to the potential “digital divide” within and between countries, to eugenic concerns that anticipate greater control over the human genome, to the feasibility of the runaway self-replicator scenario. In this sense they offer a broad and coherent spectrum of interpretations.

What is absent from the conversation, however, is a sustained discussion about the proper ends of human life that must take priority over the technological imperative. I believe

295 this is an essential concern for those with a commitment to transcendental moral realism.

Such views are not completely absent, but they certainly do not prevail in the discussion which mainly frames ethical issues not in terms of the good life but rather in terms of managing risk and ensuring safety. This state of affairs testifies not only to the fact that the

Anglo-American view of technology prevails in North American society but also to the fact that technoscience has now become so powerful and complex that its impacts, particularly with respect to innovations deemed “human enhancement technology,” simply cannot be gauged adequately in the controlled confinements of a lab. Despite modernity’s claim that science provides verifiable knowledge and certainty about the world, 21st Century

technoscience shows instead the great uncertainty associated with its discoveries and

innovations (e.g., Beck, 1992). Risk assessment has been a natural response to that

uncertainty, but has assigning risk assessment to the domain of ethics detracted from the

traditional role of ethics? I believe that it has. Thinking in terms of safety and risk does not

necessarily equate with thinking about “the good.”

Commentators such as Leon Kass, Francis Fukuyama, Bill McKibben, and George

Grant have certainly weighed in on what it means to preserve human nature, human dignity,

or the good above the technological imperative, but in most nanotechnology commentary

there is a sense that we won’t know what is good to do until we find out first what is

possible. Any view that challenges this reasoning risks being dismissed as technophobic,

reactionary, or simply irrelevant, but the fact remains that we cannot as a society have a

comprehensive conversation about what is good to make or unmake with transformative

technology if we have already collectively accepted the presumptions of the technological

imperative. As I have argued in this thesis, the discussion is not comprehensive because the

296 technoscientific approach excludes asking questions about the good and it excludes questioning certain assumptions about what constitutes legitimate knowledge; no discussion of technology and ethics can be truly comprehensive unless it includes those views which challenge the fundamental assumption of the technoscientific enterprise, that the only way to know is to do. If we can first acknowledge that current discussion largely lacks perspectives which delve into the good, we can then deliberate over whether through that absence we are liberated from unnecessary theological and philosophical ballast or whether we are instead deprived of crucial ethical moorings.

Once one is aware of that question, one’s answer reveals one’s biases in the midst of a technologically-mediated world. I have indicated the bias of democratic transhuman towards a technoprogressive, utilitarian ethic that leaves reckoning about the proper ends of human life to be done privately by the individual, rather than making it the priority of public deliberation. Where once the proper ends of life might have been sought through collective religious or philosophical guidance and an appeal to a transcendent order, technoprogressivism makes it is possible to think about those ends in terms of this-worldly, self-directed evolution because of its belief that we are individually responsible for creating our own meaning. Humanity may be deprived of nothing from a technoprogressive standpoint, but for an ethics founded on transcendental moral realism, humanity is suffering a profound loss. Because the technoprogressive perspective eliminates the idea of final purpose from people’s ideas of how to live well in common, it is virtually incomprehensible to speak of the good life having any kind of objective standard, which means that the good life becomes a discussion about values. Part III of this thesis highlighted what some of the

297 challenges are when “values” replaces “the good,” ranging from confusion and vacuity in moral discussion to, ultimately, the rise of nihilism.

I have stated how and why I find troublesome the stated claims of transhumanist ideology, but I am also concerned by something less obvious, that being the implications of an unexamined life. What becomes of those who are not attentive to their own biases towards or against technoprogressivism, those who are swept along in technological change without pause to see how it might accord with their own reckoning of the good life? If it has been relatively easy in daily life to avoid deep thinking about what it means to be a human being, the promise and peril of nanotechnology and human enhancement will make that reckoning impossible to ignore much longer.

We are only beginning to confront the depth of the deliberations ahead; through our wills and our innovation we strive to remake our environment and ourselves through altering both incrementally and drastically the bounds of the human condition. If indeed technology has shown that we can influence and possibly overcome necessity and chance, why then should we limit our innovations by systems of justice and notions of absolute truth and goodness founded on the ancient reasoning which modern technoscience has striven to refute? Furthermore, if creativity and will are grounded in unlimited human freedom, why should we limit that innovation by claiming that doctrines of equal rights are essential to justice (Grant, 1974/1998, pp. 79-80)?

Those questions cannot be confronted clearly unless we recognize some essential foundations: What do we believe our relationship with technology to be? Why do we believe it to be so? What do we believe justice to be, and why is that so?

298

Here we must confront the “civilizational contradiction” that both Nietzsche and

Grant foresaw, and which I explained in chapter 2. In the face of unprecedented power to use the human will to intervene with human and non-human nature, we still have a sense that some sort of normative justice is due to other beings, if not the planet itself, and that sense of justice is rooted in ancient concepts about moral order, or the good. Technological reality seems to indicate that the world is ours to shape, while Western society’s traditional moral frameworks remind us of the need for limits. Nietzsche insisted that there is no need to live in the contradiction any longer, if people have the courage and vision to creatively will their own meaning in the midst of chaos. But surely he is not right, that we owe nothing to the weak, to the vulnerable, to the less creative? The discoveries and creations of technoscience certainly reinforce the idea that human and non-human nature can be mastered to a significant extent; but the trenchant question remains whether there is a human nature, human integrity, or human dignity which needs to be recognized in the midst of the possibilities for technological intervention. I believe that there is, and yet today it seems impossible to discuss preserving this without invoking some form of the technological imperative—how can we know what is or isn’t human nature until we find out what is possible to alter? A stance such as Grant’s transcendental moral realism, which holds that absolute good is real, cannot accept an account of existence that does not include love, beauty, justice, and goodness as real truths, truths that must take precedence over the technological imperative.

What then is the place of a moral language of the good, given the challenges ahead and technoprogressivism’s own utilitarian approach? The fact that transcendental moral realism situates itself outside the technological imperative is both a strength and a potential weakness. It is constructive because it tries to conceive of justice as more than just

299 calculated self-interest. Justice always involves the encounter with otherness, and transcendental moral realism’s apprehension of otherness is through love. Thus it is constructive because it takes into account the irreducible human experience of love in its reckoning of what is good. It is constructive because it upholds the necessity of limits to human action. It is constructive because it reminds us of the constant tension of human existence between being and becoming: for Nietzsche and for technoprogressivists, human existence is focused on always becoming more and better, while transcendental moral realism insists that there needs to be room simply to be. Transcendental moral realism is nevertheless in a precarious position on the modern ethical landscape. This is because prevailing technoscientific perspectives, having undermined the relevant moral language that could sustain such thought, make it harder to think deeply about the good life. However, this does not indicate an inherent or mortal defect with the perspective, but rather the need for a critical mass of people to re-orient themselves to such transcendental questions.

In the place of sustained public dialogue on the good life, technological progress has taken on the authority of a moral obligation. What are the implications of treating the technological imperative as a moral imperative? In this thesis I have tried to show that the technological imperative rarely gets questioned, that the idea of eugenics is revived in other guises, that technical limits end up defining ethical limits, not vice versa, and that even though the “triumph of the will” may be in the service of bettering the human condition, it might come at the expense of other facets of human being such as compassion, solidarity, and attentiveness to an order beyond oneself. As a moral obligation grounded in human beings’ own wills and having no external standards with which to measure the worth of an action, what happens is that the triumph of the will becomes self-justifying. From a

300 transcendental moral realist framework, such “oblivion of eternity” (Grant, 1974/1998, pp.

88-89) leads to nihilism, tyranny, and the end of ethics.

For those who cannot give up that transcendental framework, the contradiction between the good and the triumph of the will lives itself out in the kinds of visceral “nerve- racking situations of justice” (Grant, 1984/1998, pp. 440-441) from which we make sense of being, whether that entails taking a stance on reproductive ethics, euthanasia, nuclear energy, cybernetics, eugenics, germ-line genetic engineering, or molecular manufacturing. While one may be tempted to seek definitive resolutions to ethical dilemmas or to gloss over evidence of contradictions when deliberating over the issues, the efforts of both Grant and

Simone Weil demonstrate that trying to pay due credit to contradictory ideas is not necessarily “evidence of a discreditable intellectual weakness” (Forbes, 2007, p. 201).

Sometimes reality shows us incompatible truths that no amount of intellectual refinement or methodical reasoning can dispel; in this case the point is not to skim over or hide the inconsistencies, but rather, in the true spirit of a dialectical approach, to identify both complementarity and irreducible differences between ideas. To recognize contradictory ideas, as Weil (1956) insists, is to “experience the fact that we are not All” (p. 411). This too is an experience with otherness, one that is better apprehended through love rather than a logic that simply seeks consistency.

As I stated in chapter 1, Grant considered the dialectical method to be grounded in eros, in that to know a thing is also to love it. I think nanoethics can benefit from this interpretation of the dialectical approach because currently the terms of engagement are set up more as a struggle between opponents, where there are debates to be won and lost, whether between Drexler and Smalley, Kurzweil and Joy, Hughes and Kass, transhumanists

301 and bioconservatives. Too much emphasis on out-arguing one’s opponent and refuting contradictions closes down on channels of communication and excludes more constructive ways to frame the discussion. As a case in point, Langdon Winner (1986) observes that our debates about technology, society, and the environment often take a narrow view of what constitutes an acceptable discussion, usually drawing on concepts of efficiency and risk to define the parameters (p. x). What Grant does is bring challenging concepts to the table as a way to lift us out of an exclusively technoscientific mindset.

George Grant was concerned that the technological imperative is such a deeply ingrained part of society--particularly in North America--that there will be little questioning of the ways in which technology profoundly shapes how we think about ethical questions in the first place. Nanotechnology and transhumanism present unique opportunities both to test and to challenge that concern. While technological futurists and transhumanist visionaries predict nothing less than revolutionary change in how we treat disease, engineer materials, wage war, consume energy, and protect the environment, even the more moderate mainstream speculations promise that nanotechnology will have a pervasive effect on people’s daily lives. Nanotechnology proponents and critics alike claim that the field will have profound impacts not only on how we understand the workings of nature but also on how we understand our deliberate control and precise manipulation of matter.

Transhumanist commentators advocate heavily for nanotechnology’s scientific and technical advancements because of promises to deliver on self-evident goods such as increased quality of life, more efficient use of energy, reduction of material scarcity. By contrast, I have tried to suggest in this thesis that the ends do not always justify the means, and that principles

302 taken as self-evident should in fact be justified not only in practice but also in thought (Grant,

1974/1998, pp. 66-67).

In the introduction I referred to Grant’s preoccupation with questions of being, of his sustained dialectic with great minds of the past, of his assertion that philosophical questions lie at the heart of human being. His struggle to think through technology can be a catalyst for engaging in our own dialectics with the great minds of the past and of the present as we navigate a future rife with profound questions about the nature of matter and human beings.

303

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