More on Secular Bases for Exceptionalism
Human exceptionalism seems so self evident to me that I am somewhat nonplussed that it is even considered debatable. Yet, a growing chorus adamantly deny that humans are entitled to a special status. But many would-be exceptionalism debunkers seem to be skeptical as a means of achieving a particular end.
Some, for example, want us to act exceptionally toward other species, or yearn to intelligently redesign ourselves into post humanity, and see human exceptionalism as standing in the way of the great project. Others hate religion and denigrate exceptionalism as a method to undermine faith.
We all know that religious belief supports exceptionalism. But there are also bounteous secular approaches to embracing our unique status, as well. This 2004 article from Spiked ("What Makes Us Exceptional?") provides an interesting analysis, in which Sandy Starr points to evolutionary differences (unusual speed in brain development) as well as our capacity to move beyond natural selection and change ourselves culturally and impact the world "in a deliberate fashion." A few key quotes:
"Over the course of human history, we have been successful in cultivating our faculties, shaping our development, and impacting upon the wider world in a deliberate fashion, quite distinct from evolutionary processes. While evolution by genetic mutation and natural selection can be shown to follow certain patterns, this process lacks the capacity of human society to formulate specific and conscious goals...
The latest discoveries about our biological evolution...appear to point to the opposite conclusion, confirming rather than denying human exceptionalism...As Kenan Malik, author of Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell Us About Human Nature, argues: 'We are biological beings, and under the purview of biological and physical laws. But we are also conscious beings with purpose and agency, traits the possession of which allow us to design ways of breaking the constraints of biological and physical laws.' Our biological evolution provides necessary, but insufficient, conditions for our further development through society....Since our humanity consists in more than our biology, biology alone cannot account for how we came to be human."
It's a good article and I think this is an important discussion. If we deny human exceptionalism, it seems to me that the cause of universal human rights is on very thin ice.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 8:37 AM
22 Comments
22 Comments:
The New York Yankees pay Derek Jeter $20 million a year because of his exceptional baseball talents. Shouldn't they also pay his sister $20 million? She can't play baseball worth a darn. But she is closely related to Derek, and if the Yankees don't pay her lots of money, she probably won't ever be a millionaire. In fact, if the Yankees don't pay lots of money to all of Derek's relatives, some of them may even end up starving in the gutter, and we all agree that would be a bad thing. So because Derek Jeter is an exceptional baseball player, the Yankees ought to pay lots of money to all his relatives.
There's a problem of logic here. Jeter's baseball exceptionalism does not per se confer financial entitlement on his talentless relatives. Saying it does doesn't make it so. Perhaps there is some reason the Yankees should pay big bucks to Jeter's sister and relatives, but we need some rational bridge to get from (1) Derek Jeter is an exceptional baseball player to (2) all his talentless relatives are owed lots of money by the Yankees. The bridge might be (X) the Yankees ought to be charitable and help out Derek's talentless relatives. But then why does this duty of charity extend only to the circle of Derek's relatives? Why not include everyone who lacks baseball talent? (If it's because duties of charity do not imply correlative rights and can be exercised at one's discretion, this puts individual relatives of Derek at risk, and we don't want that.)
The claim that Derek Jeter, but not his talentless relatives, is entitled to be paid lots of money by the Yankees is logically defensible. Also defensible is the claim that not only Jeter but his sister and relatives and everyone else in town ought to be paid a good deal of money, if not by the Yankees, then by other businesses or by the state, because, regardless of baseball talent, they all have lives that can go well or ill for them. But in order to claim that some individuals who have no baseball talent are entitled to lots of money just because some other individuals do have exceptional baseball talent, and further, that some individuals who have no baseball talent (or may even have a bit more baseball talent than Derek's relatives) are not entitled to lots of money (although perhaps we ought to give them just a little bit of money because it would be wrong of us not to, even though they have no qualities that entitle them to anything at all), requires tying oneself up in logical knots.
On the other hand, if George Steinbrenner says, "Hey, it's my team and my money, and if I want to give lots of it to my players and their relatives and to no one else, that's my business because I'm The Owner," well, who can argue with that?
What one can receive in compensation based on talent and etc., has nothing to do with intrinsic equal value as a human being. They are different matters altogether.
Jeter is not more important morally than his talentless cousin--he can just make more money. Einstein had no superior claim to human instrinsic worth than a child with Down. Otherwise, we are really just a bunch of social Darwinist--survival of the fittest, strongest, and richest.
Aeolus - Did you see this last season? A good player, yes, but I don't think that I'd label Jeter as "exceptoinal" after a few of those games, and A-Rod has some explaining to do...
All kidding aside (my beloved Yankees didn't get to the Series!!!), there's a diference between paying an athlete for his specialized abilities and accepting all humans as having intrinsic value. Each and every human being has his or her own specialization: a certain combination of genetics and pure human will that allows a person to excel in one particular field or have one stand-out ability that sets that person apart from every other person.
But specialization of the kind we see in humans is unique to humans because it combines biology with will. I am a fairly good artist because I received genetics from my mother's father (who was a scientist, philosopher, and painter), but I'm also a fairly good artist because I have a fascination with anime and want to emulate the great Japanese manga and anime artists of the 20th Century. Physical talent will only get you to "good." It's strenght of will that will get you to "master." I also am very good in science, but I don't want to be a scientist. I enjoy quantum physics and mathematics as a hobby, but even though I have a natural talent for both, I will never excel in them because I do not will to.
That's where human exceptionalism comes in. Without human will, Jeter would be a "good" baseball player, but I doubt he would ever make the $20 he's making (and robbing us Yankee fans out of, if you ask me - didn't he make an error in that game against Toronto?) because he would not will himself to improve himself.
Among animals, natural selection encourages the best to survive and pass on good genes. Among humans, good genes are nothing without the human will.
The difference between your position and mine is not whether or not humans are exceptional, but where you draw the line between those entities who are exceptional and hence deserving of rights, and entities that are not, and don't.
Your position is that any clump of cells with a human genome is exceptional and deserves full human rights, whether or not it has consciousness or even a nervous system. My position is that organisims only deserve that if they have achieved some rudimentary level of awareness.
There are advantages and problems with both positions. It's easier to draw a bright line based on genetics than one based on awareness. But granting full rights to zygotes violates many intuitions about personhood. For one thing, we grant human rights based on a model of individuals as autonmous, but embryos can't live independently. About 50% of fertilized eggs fail to implant or spontaneously abort. If we thought of them as person we would be in the midst of a huge catastrophe of death. But we aren't, because they are not persons.
Bioethicists say that Terri Schiavo wasn't a person, too, and as a consequence, could have been harvested for her organs rather than dehydrated. Don't you see where this leads?
The one line I think we should not cross for any human organism at any stage, is instrumentalization.
I thought it was more like 75% of zygotes that didn't make it. That's something that happens in nature. We're all surrounded by a catastrophe of death all the time: every single human being on this planet, including you, is under a death sentence. People naturally die at every stage of life, from conception to age 120. That doesn't excuse other people's hurrying them along.
I have no problem with harvesting organs from a body in Terry Schiavo's condition, assuming it was consistent with her wishes or the wishes of her legal guardian. And, no, I don't know where it leads. I certainly know where the opposite view led in the particular case -- it led to one of the most pitiful displays of illegitimate government intervention in the private sphere that I've ever seen. The only good that came out of it is that Bill Frist will never be president.
People use each other's bodies all the time. Do you propose to outlaw all organ donation? What about pregnancy? The developing fetus pretty radically instrumentalizes its mother's body. If people have an absolute right not to have their bodies used, then that is a strong argument for abortion rights. Sure you want to go there?
I'm reposting a thought from earlier--
I'm going to refrain from my usual argument that human exceptionalism has to be backed up with some external theological framework and work from a simply secular argument.
One consideration is thinking of humanity as our own intellectual property that we have developed in society by blood sweat and tears. We should NOT dilute our "trademark" as humans by attempting to equate the rights of other species to ours and to negate the value of members of our species who have potential (embryos) or did have human value (PVS). Ultimate human value is extended to any human tissue.
You say, wait a second. That means the thousands of human skin cell sloughed off from me into the carpet, that has value! Well, no, except that all human tissue has the right not to be taken for property or experimentation. You can suck up my skin cells into the vacuum cleaner and you can even dump my carcass into an inferno if we run out of room in a cemetery, but you have no right to take parts of me without my consent and use them. My biological identity and privacy may be at stake. If accused of a crime or to prove identity in high security, my DNA may be checked according to lawful procedure. But no one should have the right to suck up that skin cell of mine and for some reason use that tissue and clone me (yes, I am that egotistic to think someone would want to). Actually I have signed up as an organ donor at death but that was my consent and I want my next to kin to confirm and determine that at my death and no one else.
And yes if there are other sentient and "transcendent" life forms out there in space, they are free to promote their own trademark among their own species and ecosystem. If we were to encounter them part of our discovery and confrontation would be how to respect each other's trademark value.
Can we agree that our "trademark" value prevents unauthorized use of our individual and communal heritage? HOLD those PATENTS!!!
mtraven:
Wellllll I don't know that I'd say the only difference between our positions is where the line is drawn. I know you accept that some human-types are people and thus exceptional, and we're 100% in terms of those folks, but when I say that both PVS suffers and embryos are people, too, I'm going to the exact biological definition. They've got the genetics, they live, reproduce (even an PVS person has cells in his body that reproduce), and they die. Both a foetus and a PVS sufferer fit the biological definition.
Now what you're saying is that you feel that an organism needs consciousness to be considrerd a person. I have a deep-seated philosophical reason to believe that everything, not just all creatues, but everything down to hydrogen atoms and below, to plain ol' light, is conscious, and likewise everything up to planets and the universe itself.
There's scientific evidence that backs up my belief, and I'd be happy to share but it can be a bit tedious, so I'm not going to unless someone is interested (email me at puckrobyn@aol.com if you're interested). There really isn't any scientific evidence that says that only things with brains are conscious.
You said, "But granting full rights to zygotes violates many intuitions about personhood." The theory of personhood may be violated, yes, but that's a theory that's mostly religious-based: it backs up the ideas of most hard-core atheists, rather than having full and complete scientific backing. Even some atheists I know of are convinced that everything is conscious because scientific evidence leads in that direction.
What I'm trying to say (and failing miserably) is that the burden of proof is rather on the proponent of personhood to prove that only things that exhibit certain criteria are really conscious. I'd be happy to back up all my arguments with citations from consciousness studies; I'm interested in seeing what kind of scientific evidence you're willing to present to back up your belief that consciousness is limited.
If everything is conscious then we would be in big trouble, since we couldn't even eat a salad without destroying a conscious, rights-deserving creature.
There may or may not be some sort of cosmic, all-pervading consciousness in the universe. I would say not, but even if there was I have a hard time seeing how it could be relevant for bioethics since it does not draw any useful distinctions.
mtraven -
Protoconsciousness (what plants and inorganic stuff has) is more closely aligned to animal consciousness. It's not will-based (meaning that there's no individualized will behind it) so it doesn't have the kind of specialization that humans have. Everything *is* affected by what humans do; eating a plant is very similar to eating an animal in that respect. I don't see anything wrong with eating animal flesh, though I've known some aniamls that display almost human-like will. It's how you handle it (why I eat mostly kosher food). Same thing with plants. Just to explain why the whole "you can't eat a salad without destroying..." thing. You are, but it's a protoconsciousness. Without a mind. You need to be respectful and not wasteful. That's all.
As to what said belief has to do with ethics: if everything has a consciousness, then the playing field is level. Everything has a basic self-awareness. How do you differentiate, then, between a blade of grass and an unborn baby? A baby will develop its own will. A blade of grass won't. If I meet a talking tree I won't eat its fruit, but you can test plants and see that they have a very, very limited will. Humans are special because they have a specialized will. They can decide what they do and do not want to do and what they want to become. It's evident that babies display that will in utero. Unborn babies suck their thumbs, kick, respond positively and negatively to certain stimuli (music, voices, etc). Their decisions are limited by their environment, but they do display will. Therefore, where a zygote is concerned, we don't know how much will it evidences, but we can assume that it has its own will because of its biology - it will turn into a small person, not a blade of grass. The best bet is to err on the side of positives and assume that the moment of conception is when a small person, complete with the chemicals to create a brain capable of handling an individual will, is formed.
Cells are not fully human because they work together to form a greater consciousness and thus have no individual will. Sperm fall in this category. They are programmed by DNA to seek out an egg, but they do not have an individual unique will of their own until conception.
General consciousness only gets you so far. After that you need to look at what makes humans exceptional.
mtraven -
Protoconsciousness (what plants and inorganic stuff has) is more closely aligned to animal consciousness. It's not will-based (meaning that there's no individualized will behind it) so it doesn't have the kind of specialization that humans have. Everything *is* affected by what humans do; eating a plant is very similar to eating an animal in that respect. I don't see anything wrong with eating animal flesh, though I've known some aniamls that display almost human-like will. It's how you handle it (why I eat mostly kosher food). Same thing with plants. Just to explain why the whole "you can't eat a salad without destroying..." thing. You are, but it's a protoconsciousness. Without a mind. You need to be respectful and not wasteful. That's all.
As to what said belief has to do with ethics: if everything has a consciousness, then the playing field is level. Everything has a basic self-awareness. How do you differentiate, then, between a blade of grass and an unborn baby? A baby will develop its own will. A blade of grass won't. If I meet a talking tree I won't eat its fruit, but you can test plants and see that they have a very, very limited will. Humans are special because they have a specialized will. They can decide what they do and do not want to do and what they want to become. It's evident that babies display that will in utero. Unborn babies suck their thumbs, kick, respond positively and negatively to certain stimuli (music, voices, etc). Their decisions are limited by their environment, but they do display will. Therefore, where a zygote is concerned, we don't know how much will it evidences, but we can assume that it has its own will because of its biology - it will turn into a small person, not a blade of grass. The best bet is to err on the side of positives and assume that the moment of conception is when a small person, complete with the chemicals to create a brain capable of handling an individual will, is formed.
Cells are not fully human because they work together to form a greater consciousness and thus have no individual will. Sperm fall in this category. They are programmed by DNA to seek out an egg, but they do not have an individual unique will of their own until conception.
General consciousness only gets you so far. After that you need to look at what makes humans exceptional.
I believe in human exceptionalism as well as a version of (what you might call) personhood theory. I don't think they are mutually exclusive. Rather, quite logical in that the secular basis of human exceptionalism - at least it appears to me as argued in this site - is conciousness.
Embryos, if anything, have the genetic potential to achieve human exceptionalism.
Royale: But that creates subjective rather than objective standard of worth. And fetuses have potential, yet are not deemed persons, while my late Uncle Bruno would have been said to have lost his personhood when he was dying of Alzheimer's but I will be damned if he wasn't exceptional still.
The work of Bill Hurlbut on what should cause us awe about the human embryo is worth looking at in this regard.
Yes, you're absolutely right. I would happily term fetuses and the incompitent as non-persons in a very similar way that people are not legal persons until they are 18.
But I also think that non-persons have rights too. Genetic potential deserves SOME rights, as are the incompetent.
PS - your logic is actually similar to mine but your drawing line is that full genetic potential makes a human entity.
If you don't believe me, ask yourself this - what species do sperm and ova belong to?
I would the say the same about zygotes. They are not complete organisms, although they have elements thereof.
Sperm and ova are not mere cells of the parents. They are independent, have different genetic make-up, move about on their own. I would suspect (but don't know for sure), that they have different proteins on their surface.
Either way, you must first define what is an "organism" or "complete human" of which, there is no definitive answer.
btw - I don't see a problem with human exceptionalism and trans-humanism. They are compatible.
Good to see you again, Royal! BTW - Read that story you posted. Very funny. I suggest you get yourself a good editor and start sending in stuff for publication in magazines. I know you have a "day job" but you've some talent...
ANYWAY! If everything has a basic protoconsciousness (as many atheistic scholars of Consciousness Studies have asserted), what differentiates humans from The Rest Of The World would be biology - our human biology is such that protoconsciousness can expand to be human will.
Therefore, while I agree with your statement, "Embryos, if anything, have the genetic potential to achieve human exceptionalism," I disagree with the intention behind it: that embryos don't already have exceptionalism. The genetics that turn embryos into small people are built in, programmed into the human machine that they become. It's simply an assembly problem while they're in the uterus, but otherwise they're already completely human. They won't grow to be anything else. Thus, they should already have exceptionalism. A person with one arm doesn't count for less just because he's got less of a body than the rest of us (i.e. the temporarily able-bodied). So why should an embryo, a small person with less body than the rest of us but carrying the same computer codes that our own cells have, count for any less?
Last thing: "I don't see a problem with human exceptionalism and trans-humanism. They are compatible." Really? How do you see that? Please do not attach any sarcasm to the previous question - I really am interested in your viewpoint because nobody I've met up with has suggested the two are compatable yet, and I'm curious about what you see.
T E Fine,
re: Oinkworld
Thanks. That was an enjoyable little piece. If I had the time to write, I would.
re: personhood, embryos, et al.
I feel we may be arguing what to call a rose. In my logic, it makes sense to call them non-persons, for a wide variety of reasons I've laid out previously on this website.
But that doesn't mean I don't afford them nothing, i.e., no respect, no dignity, etc...Embryos, Alzheimer's patients each receive some dignity. (and I use the term dignity loosely synonymous with "rights"). But which and how much? I dunno, but I am more concerned with why. And to me, the why is because they have the potential to develop the brain, for embryos, and for the incompacitated, because they once had a brain.
I am actually uncomfortable with our current contraception practice whereby conceived embryos are routinely discharged.
re: transhumanism
I find compatibility in how I define the two terms. One can easily find incompability if one defines either transhumanism or human exceptionalism in ways that are incompatible.
Transhumanism to me is about the species evolutionary future - will we remain the same (as the crododiles and sharks did for millions of years), will we die out, or will we change. I assume it will be the latter, thus we should plan ahead.
Now, I didn't say we should do it with all means (recom DNA, eugenics, etc...). Absolutely not. If one defines trans-humanism as that, then one will quickly reach incompatibility with something.
Human exceptionalism to me, is that human life is more important than the lives of other species, in general. We use other species as resources, etc...we're dominant, and as Wesley repeatedly said, that is pretty obvious and self-inherent.
That itself does not forbid genetic change. But, if one felt that being exceptional, we cannot tinkle with our genetic makeup, fair enough, but I don't see that as an extension of being the most important species here.
The complication seems to be whether we are an exceptional animal, or a being which is not an animal (differing in kind, not degree) which happens to inhabit an animal body - from zygote to natural death.
It is different to say we have a soul than to say we have a neocortex. One can posit avian exceptionalism because they have feathers and so can fly and we cannot. It is all biomatter, simply with a different arrangement which grants different powers. Flight or reason.
But consider if we could either goad a monkey's brain to become larger, or implant some electronics to give them the power of reason, would they join us in the exceptional category or not? Machines can reason but not create. Animals can feel but not act with reason.
Personally, I don't see evolution as being scientific (in the sense of experiments, hypothesises, etc.), so I don't argue from that point. Nor does it matter whether we evolved or were designed. Either something lies within human beings that doesn't exist within in animals - and I don't mean something abstract though it need not be material - or our exceptionalism is chauvinistic.
(I don't mean to infer a hard separation - that we are a ghost in a machine - humanity is the synergy and synthesis of body and soul).
Thomas -
How dare you say what I was struggling to say more eloquently than I did! Heeee! Very beautiful and concise, that last line was. The big problem is that I frequently use the "machine" metaphore describing humans because our bodies have mechanical actions to them similar to a robot, though I agree with your statement, "humanity is the synergy and synthesis of body and soul." Can I borrow that some time?
Royal -
I've gone back and re-read some of your recent posts about personhood and exceptionalism, and I think I see now where you're coming from. I'm still not sure I agree with your position on transhumanism. While some self-transformation in the name of human growth is beneficial, I have great faith that the abundence of pure stupidity that our species is noted for will cause us to turn everything bum-over-teakettle. All it takes is one idiot playing with the wrong things. And there's no way to idiot-proof the system; we'll just breed a better strain of idiot. Gattaca comes forcibly to mind...
Finally, I know what you mean about finding time to write. I'm with Virginia Woolf - I want a room of my own and $30,000 yearly (adjusting for inflation from the 500£ she suggested way back when).
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