Therapy, Cultivation, and Enhancement
Nicholas Sparks, PhD (c), Saint Louis University
One central question in the debate over human enhancement is whether there is a well defined, morally significant distinction between therapy and enhancement. (Resnik, 2000; Daniels, 2000; Kamm, 2005; Jones, 2006; Chadwick, 2008; Jotterand, 2008; Agar, 2013; Gyngell and Selegid, 2016; Hoffman, 2017; Austriaco, 2021) Agar (2013), for example, thinks that there is a morally significant distinction, and distinguishes between moderate and radical forms of enhancement, and objectivist and anthropocentric ideals of enhancement. More recently, Austriaco (2021) argues against the traditional therapy/enhancement distinction, instead advocating for a therapeutic/non-therapeutic distinction that makes room for ‘therapeutic enhancements.’ Sorgner (2022), on the other hand, argues that there is not a morally salient distinction between therapy and enhancement at all, since it rests of accounts of health and human nature which, whether objective or subjective, are inevitably problematic. And Hoffmann (2017), fittingly, reports a general lack of consensus on the question whether the therapy enhancement distinction possesses normative force.
My argument is that both sides of the debate over human enhancement—both permissive and bioconservative approaches—have largely failed to appreciate a crucial distinction latent in the debate. (Giubilini and Sanyal, 2015) On the one hand, bioconservatives generally, though not always, fail to appreciate the naturalness of certain forms of technology and technological intervention that might genuinely qualify as enhancements. They therefore risk erecting too firm a barrier between the natural and artificial. On the other hand, permissivists generally tend to collapse many forms of human activity into the category of ‘enhancement.’ Permissivists, then, risk overly relaxing—or outright eliminating— the barrier between the natural and the artificial. What these mistakes suggest is that we understand neither human nature/the human condition, nor human enhancement. The effects of this are, predictably, stultifying. By illustrating the mistakes latent in both permissive and bioconservative approaches, I aim to motivate a more fine-grained distinction between therapy, cultivation, and enhancement. Having drawn this distinction, I conclude by considering the extent to which theists—specifically, Christians—can endorse and practice human enhancement, in light of an account of the human person (and nature generally) as a gift to be cultivated. There has been a spate of recent work on this subject. Jason Eberl (2022) develops a Thomistic perspective on this account, and Victoria Lorrimar (2022) and Michael Burdett (Lorrimar and Burdett, 2019) work out an account of creaturely co-creation in this context as well. I critically engage with these and other recent contributions.
My argument is that both sides of the debate over human enhancement—both permissive and bioconservative approaches—have largely failed to appreciate a crucial distinction latent in the debate. (Giubilini and Sanyal, 2015) On the one hand, bioconservatives generally, though not always, fail to appreciate the naturalness of certain forms of technology and technological intervention that might genuinely qualify as enhancements. They therefore risk erecting too firm a barrier between the natural and artificial. On the other hand, permissivists generally tend to collapse many forms of human activity into the category of ‘enhancement.’ Permissivists, then, risk overly relaxing—or outright eliminating— the barrier between the natural and the artificial. What these mistakes suggest is that we understand neither human nature/the human condition, nor human enhancement. The effects of this are, predictably, stultifying. By illustrating the mistakes latent in both permissive and bioconservative approaches, I aim to motivate a more fine-grained distinction between therapy, cultivation, and enhancement. Having drawn this distinction, I conclude by considering the extent to which theists—specifically, Christians—can endorse and practice human enhancement, in light of an account of the human person (and nature generally) as a gift to be cultivated. There has been a spate of recent work on this subject. Jason Eberl (2022) develops a Thomistic perspective on this account, and Victoria Lorrimar (2022) and Michael Burdett (Lorrimar and Burdett, 2019) work out an account of creaturely co-creation in this context as well. I critically engage with these and other recent contributions.