The Body as Symbol: From Enhancement to Enchantment
Richard Rice, PhD., Professor of Religion, Loma Linda University
The resources of modern medicine now enable us to enhance human life in a variety of ways, but some fear their widespread application has the potential of reducing the body to a commodity and the practice of medicine to a mechanical exercise. The challenge is to realize the benefits of enhancement while avoiding its potential pitfalls. To achieve this, we propose adopting a symbolic perspective on the body, one which affirms the value of the body by virtue of its relation to something of greater value, namely, the person whose body it is.
Thanks to advances in medicine, we can now cure diseases, relieve suffering, and sustain life with unprecedented effectiveness. Modern techniques also enable us to achieve goals that are less physical than psychological and cultural, like transforming our appearance. And when put to these ends, they sometimes manifest a tendency to treat the body as a commodity. The tremendous increase in cosmetic procedures today—the most familiar form of enhancement, for example—reflects the widespread contemporary view that the body is the ultimate expression of the self.
The question is whether we can enjoy the benefits of technology without succumbing to its liabilities, whether we can enhance, or modify, our bodies without commodifying them, without unduly exalting physical appearance or ability? To do so, we need a perspective that affirms the body without exaggerating its significance—a way of looking at the body that enables us to look beyond the body to other, more important, features of human life.
Our proposal is that we view the body as a symbol of the person. As Paul Tillich describes them, symbols, like signs, point beyond themselves, but symbols differ in that they “participate” in that to which they point. That is, they are intimately and irreplaceably connected to their objects.
As a symbol of the person, the primary value of the body lies in its capacity to represent the person whose body it is. And because it is intrinsically, not merely extrinsically, connected to the person, the body deserves to be valued and cared for. For this reason, forms of enhancement that promote the body’s capacity to represent the person have great value. Because the reality is greater than the symbol, however, because the value of a person is not reducible to his or her body, nor to any physical feature or ability, forms of enhancement that obscure the significance of the person, say, by exaggerating certain physical certain features or abilities, are objectionable. Thinking of the body as symbolic of the person thus keeps the physical dimension of human existence in its proper perspective. It affirms the irreplaceable value of the body, yet subordinates it to the superior value of the person.
A symbolic perspective on the body thus contributes to the re-enchantment of medicine by reminding those who promote healing that it is persons, not mere bodies, that they serve, and that bodies are important because they are intimate and irreplaceable manifestations of the persons they represent.
The resources of modern medicine now enable us to enhance human life in a variety of ways, but some fear their widespread application has the potential of reducing the body to a commodity and the practice of medicine to a mechanical exercise. The challenge is to realize the benefits of enhancement while avoiding its potential pitfalls. To achieve this, we propose adopting a symbolic perspective on the body, one which affirms the value of the body by virtue of its relation to something of greater value, namely, the person whose body it is.
Thanks to advances in medicine, we can now cure diseases, relieve suffering, and sustain life with unprecedented effectiveness. Modern techniques also enable us to achieve goals that are less physical than psychological and cultural, like transforming our appearance. And when put to these ends, they sometimes manifest a tendency to treat the body as a commodity. The tremendous increase in cosmetic procedures today—the most familiar form of enhancement, for example—reflects the widespread contemporary view that the body is the ultimate expression of the self.
The question is whether we can enjoy the benefits of technology without succumbing to its liabilities, whether we can enhance, or modify, our bodies without commodifying them, without unduly exalting physical appearance or ability? To do so, we need a perspective that affirms the body without exaggerating its significance—a way of looking at the body that enables us to look beyond the body to other, more important, features of human life.
Our proposal is that we view the body as a symbol of the person. As Paul Tillich describes them, symbols, like signs, point beyond themselves, but symbols differ in that they “participate” in that to which they point. That is, they are intimately and irreplaceably connected to their objects.
As a symbol of the person, the primary value of the body lies in its capacity to represent the person whose body it is. And because it is intrinsically, not merely extrinsically, connected to the person, the body deserves to be valued and cared for. For this reason, forms of enhancement that promote the body’s capacity to represent the person have great value. Because the reality is greater than the symbol, however, because the value of a person is not reducible to his or her body, nor to any physical feature or ability, forms of enhancement that obscure the significance of the person, say, by exaggerating certain physical certain features or abilities, are objectionable. Thinking of the body as symbolic of the person thus keeps the physical dimension of human existence in its proper perspective. It affirms the irreplaceable value of the body, yet subordinates it to the superior value of the person.
A symbolic perspective on the body thus contributes to the re-enchantment of medicine by reminding those who promote healing that it is persons, not mere bodies, that they serve, and that bodies are important because they are intimate and irreplaceable manifestations of the persons they represent.