Human Flourishing,Joy,and the Prospect of Radical Life Extension

Human Enhancement and Human Flourishing

Transhumanism is a movement that promotes the enhancement of the human condition through the deployment of advancing technologies such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. ⁷ It seeks the evolution of intelligent life beyond the human, both its form and limitations. ⁸ Though there are different strains of transhumanism, its ultimate vision is complete liberation from the constraints of natural evolution. ⁹

Sandberg describes efforts to construct and articulate ‘pure transhumanist concepts of meaning’. ¹⁰ The notion of extropianism was developed and disseminated by the Extropy Institute in the early 1990s—an institution that has shaped much of contemporary transhumanism. Transhumanist advocate Max More uses ‘meaning’ in a psychological sense (as opposed to teleological or ethical) in his claim that extropianism provides ‘an inspiring and uplifting meaning and direction to our lives, while remaining flexible and firmly founded in science, reason, and the boundless search for improvement’. ¹¹

So what does human flourishing mean from a transhumanist perspective? World Transhumanist Association (WTA) co-founder David Pearce argues that it is comprised by the absence of pain, and thus promotes an abolitionist project seeking the annihilation of pain in all sentient life (beginning with humans). ¹² Pearce terms his online manifesto to abolish suffering ‘The Hedonist Imperative’, thus revealing some of the philosophical underpinnings of the project. In this vision of the good life, well-being is genetically programmed. ¹³

Though largely in agreement with Pearce, WTA co-founder Nick Bostrom emphasises a more positive concept of the good life, that is, a life that is not only marked by the absence of suffering, but by an abundance of ‘good’ feelings. He offers the following appeal in favour of increasing both the quality and length of life:

Have you ever been so happy that you felt like melting into tears? Has there been a moment in your life of such depth and sublimity that the rest of existence seemed like dull, gray slumber from which you had only just woken up? It is so easy to forget how good things can be when they are at their best. But on those occasions when we do remember—whether it comes from the total fulfilment of being immersed in creative work or from the tender ecstasy of reciprocated love—then we realize just how valuable every single minute of existence can be, when it is this good. And you might have thought to yourself, ‘It ought to be like this always. Why can’t this last forever?’

Well, maybe—just maybe—it could. ¹⁴

Elsewhere, Bostrom represents death in fable form as an evil tyrant of a dragon, which must be killed. ¹⁵ The call for additional aspects of enhancement beyond life extension on the part of these transhumanists indicates that longevity alone is not the key to human flourishing; however, it clearly enhances rather than threatens the prospect of living a good life.

For the most part, transhumanist hopes for what humans might become rest on the assumption that human flourishing means that a person is the author of their own destiny, including their biological destiny. James Hughes, bioethicist and transhumanist, contends that ‘we cannot imagine the grandeur of transhuman civilisation’, in much the same way that the present civilisation transcends that of our Paleolithic ancestors. ¹⁶ Hughes’ affirmation of the transhumanist approach is driven by both positive and negative motivations. On the one hand, fear of becoming the ‘ensnared victims’ of the ‘exponentially growing web of machines’ requires us to embrace transhumanism and remain ahead of the ‘singularity’. ¹⁷ On the other hand, transhumanism represents the Enlightenment’s positive vision at its zenith, the means by which we might create once and for all a ‘single tolerant democratic society’. ¹⁸ For transhumanists, human enhancement is the route to a good life.

A counterposition to human enhancement is put forward by a number of thinkers who identify as secular humanists. Leon Kass, founding chair of the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics, envisions a public bioethics that begins ‘by reflecting upon the highest human goods and understanding the latest technological advances in this light’. ¹⁹ Kass approaches the question of human enhancement by examining the ends, the means, and the overarching narrative of meaning in which the drive to master one’s own nature is situated. ²⁰ The problem is when the means to a particular end (e.g., a brightened mood) becomes unintelligible (e.g., through biopharmaceutical intervention), disconnected from the human significance that usually accompanies the natural means (e.g., a personal achievement or the arrival of a loved one) to such an end. ²¹

In order to consider the good of the end to which human enhancement might be directed, Kass asks us to entertain a thought experiment in which everyone chooses an ageless body and permanent state of happiness. To assess the full implications of what might be construed as a choice that concerns individuals acting in freedom, ‘we need to make the choice universal, and see the meaning of that choice in the mirror of its becoming the norm’. ²² In the absence of a natural shape to life, a steady decline toward old age and death, the old would not give way to the young, and the young would not grow into their own maturity. ²³ The removal of all negative affect to maintain constant psychic tranquillity is similarly a deprivation, diminishing the full range of human experience. Kass reminds us the prospect of feeling true happiness is connected to the ability to feel deep unhappiness. ²⁴

Kass explicitly defines human flourishing as ‘a life-long being-at-work exercising one’s human powers well and without great impediment’. ²⁵ Technological enhancement of human capacities disrupt, dilute and distort ‘the deep structure of unimpeded, for-itself, human being-at-work-in-the-world’, which constitutes human flourishing according to Kass. ²⁶ The best things in human life are conditioned by finitude: ‘engagement, seriousness, a taste for beauty, the possibility of virtue, the ties born of procreation, the quest for meaning’. ²⁷ Kass speculates further that ‘genuine human flourishing is rooted in aspirations born of the kinds of deficiencies that come from having limited and imperfect bodies’. ²⁸ For secular humanists, flourishing is bound up in the shape, trajectory and limits of a natural human life cycle. ²⁹

The Relation of Joy and Human Flourishing

We now turn to Miroslav Volf’s recent exploration of joy in the context of human flourishing to assist in our reflections on the human enhancement debate. Volf defines joy as the ‘crown of the good life’, as an ‘emotional attunement between the self and the world…experienced as blessing’. ³⁰ He highlights the difficulty of precisely defining joy, as it interacts with practices, dispositions, thoughts, actions, and more, but suggests that it can be summed up as ‘life being led well’ and ‘life going well’. ³¹ While Volf’s treatment of joy is very recent and preliminary in nature, he attempts to articulate a clearer definition by attending to its constituent parts. Joy unites the three basic dimensions of the good life (agential, circumstantial and affective), manifesting ‘a positive affective response to an objective external good construed rightly and about which one is rightly concerned’. ³² Essentially, joy is the ‘manifestation of the good life’, the indicator of one’s flourishing. ³³ What insights are yielded if we use Volf’s anatomy of joy and tripartite structure of human flourishing as a framework for interrogating the perspectives on human enhancement described above?

The first obstacle we come up against is the fact that both transhumanists and secular humanists appeal to joy in quite divergent visions of the good life. The attribution of joy to more than one conception of the good life can mean several things. Firstly, there may be a plurality to human flourishing. Secondly, some may incorrectly categorise certain feelings as joy. ³⁴ Finally, the affective experience of joy may not always function as a reliable indicator that one’s vision of the good life is true. As Volf has indicated, joy is more than simple affect—it also requires the alignment of the will to an ultimate good. Yet the affective dimension of joy, at least, might be experienced even when it is not properly construed toward an external good. Volf speaks of multiple joys, each possessing a ‘moral valence’ (which can be negative). ³⁵ As with all means of discernment, joy is subject to the epistemological constraints that accompany human finitude.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that all of these reasons are true. Should we then jettison the notion of joy altogether as a normative concept for contemplating the good life? By no means! We have seen that within a secular framework, the notion of joy goes some distance to articulate a sense of human flourishing. For the secular humanist, it denotes a celebration of creaturely finitude—a flourishing within the limitations of creaturehood (though they might not use the theistic language of ‘creaturehood’). For the transhumanist it signifies humanity’s potential for glorification, the optimistic joy of possibility.

How can we determine whether a joy is properly oriented toward an external good? As seen earlier, similar visions of the good life can engender quite different responses to the technological enhancement of humanity. Though secular humanists and transhumanists tend to share the belief that liberal democracy represents the pinnacle of human society, the former reject future human enhancement in order to protect the present social reality, whereas the latter see enhancement as the very means by which such a social and political utopia might be established. Whereas transhumanists would engineer joy, humanists locate joy in the contours of an ordinary human life. The presence of joy alone does not affirm or arbitrate between visions of human flourishing.

It seems that the real question, therefore, is whither is true joy directed? Genuine joy results when one’s vision of the good life lines up with external reality, with objective good. In the context of defining human nature, Graham argues that secular naturalist accounts (which include both the transhumanist and secular humanist positions surveyed here) offer a degraded understanding as a result of the divorce between concepts of God and concepts of humanity and nature. The dualistic portrayal of humanity and nature in contemporary criticism parallels the sidelining of speech about God in public discourse. ³⁶

To restore a theological horizon is to root these categories in a narrative of divine origin and value, owing their ultimate significance not merely to their own utility or perfectibility but a value that is conferred by an Other who is irreducible to temporal interest or appropriation. ³⁷

Volf designates relations between God and human beings as the condition of possibility for all human flourishing. ³⁸ His vision of the good life is underpinned by the claim that ‘the right kind of love for the right kind of God bathes our world in the light of transcendent glory and turns it into a theatre of joy’. ³⁹ Though he acknowledges the potential for other religions to adopt similar structures of joy, he represents a Christian understanding of human flourishing.

How does this Christian vision of the good life improve on those previously discussed? It may help to consider human flourishing in relation to two different poles. The first pole constitutes human being and existence as it is currently experienced, bound by creaturely finitude. The second pole constitutes humanity transcendent, achieved through either a deification process (religious) or technological enhancement (transhuman). The secular humanist locates human flourishing at the creaturehood pole; the transhumanist at the transcendent pole. ⁴⁰ The Christian is able to attest human flourishing at both poles, and all locations between them. Contra the transhumanist, a Christian perspective asserts that true joy can be experienced in the here and now—and need not wait upon future transformation. It offers not only the consolatory joy of secular humanism that is always constrained by finitude but hopes in a future where joy is no longer incompatible with immortality and perfection.

A Christian notion of joy thus bridges the gap between ‘mundane’ flourishing and ‘transcendence’. Joy has both present and future dimensions. Though they diverge markedly on the means (and often the form) of transformation, Christians share with transhumanists a sense that human flourishing is linked with human becoming. Both transhumanists and Christians acknowledge some form of the ‘human predicament’, the sense that humanity is not presently all that it could be. But where transhumanists see a disease, with human enhancement the cure, ⁴¹ a Christian perspective recognises that humans are incapable of effecting their own healing and salvation. Unlike the secular humanist who looks only to finite life for joy, Christians joyfully anticipate a glorious eschaton, and a triumph over present human frailties.

These visions of the good life can similarly be distinguished by the future to which they are oriented. Jürgen Moltmann first drew attention to the difference between futurum (the future is a continuation of the present) and adventus (the future arises from outside of time and space as a fulfilment of divine promise). ⁴² The end to which transhumanism is directed (the ‘external good’ in Volf’s framework) is futurum, and humans are the agent of a technological redemption. ⁴³ In contrast, a secular humanist position that locates all meaning in a ‘natural’ life cycle has no valid standpoint from which to prescribe or judge what is natural or normal—the interventions of medicine have been increasing life expectancy for some time already.

Though not writing from a religious perspective, Kass too acknowledges that joyful immortality cannot be attained through the biomedical conquest of death. ‘Mere continuance will not buy fulfilment’. ⁴⁴ The desire to escape death, suggests Kass, masks the more authentic longing for a wholeness that cannot be satisfied in earthly life. ⁴⁵ The human longing for the eternal and the imperishable as represented by Kass is also adventus, not futurum. Kass is less explicit on whether these human longings correspond to a real adventus event beyond finite earthly life, or whether they are simply futile dreams, artefacts of finitude. ⁴⁶

What this means for the question of human enhancement is yet to be established, with Christians lining up on both side of the debate. While many cry ‘playing God’ at the mention of enhancement technologies, ⁴⁷ considering them a transgression of the boundary between Creator and creation, others would argue that such technologies have their place, employed by humans as they participate in God’s ongoing creation. Ted Peters, for example, suggests that as Christians are called to envision a better future, they must ‘keep the door open’ to the possibility of human technological enhancement and endeavour to be good stewards of these emerging technologies. ⁴⁸ Regardless of which view is taken, however, the Christian distinction between adventus and futurum is preserved, human flourishing is not seen as incompatible with mortality, and God is acknowledged as the true agent of transformation.

Questions surrounding human enhancement represent new opportunities for theologians to engage in cross-disciplinary reflection on many of the ‘big questions’, and to recover a place for God in public discourse. What is our purpose? What constitutes the good life? Do we determine our own destiny? A renewed focus on joy is central to all of these reflections. Indeed, Volf points out the activist dimension of joy—it seeks the future. ⁴⁹ ‘All joy wants eternity—wants deep, wants deep eternity’, wrote Nietzsche. ⁵⁰ A joyful Christian vision of the good life, which answers both the secular humanist respect for creaturely finitude and the transhumanist hope for glorious transformation, therefore possesses strong normative potential for academic teaching and discourse particularly as we contemplate the future of human being.

For joy to operate effectively as a normative marker of the good life, several steps are suggested. Firstly, in our own discourse we might reserve the very term ‘joy’ to describe something greater than affect alone. Elsewhere, we might highlight inconsistent uses of joy and distinguish between joyful feeling (an emotion) and ‘true joy’ (an abiding state). This is not the only instance in which a feeling can be conflated with a larger entity; as affection may be confused with love, so euphoria may be misconstrued as joy. Equally damaging is the conclusion that an absence of joyful affect corresponds to a defective conception of human flourishing—we know that mood and mental state can be influenced by a myriad of biological factors. Finally, we might pursue the possibility Charles Mathewes describes of forming a broad ‘alliance for joy’. ⁵¹ The pursuit of joy is an inclusive programme, and a number of religious and philosophical traditions might acknowledge a common formal structure to the good life that combines the agential, circumstantial and affective dimensions. There is some overlap already between Kass’ examination of means and ends within an overall narrative of meaning, and Volf’s focus on agential and circumstantial components to human flourishing—using such frameworks normatively might shift the dialogue to the more vital question of: to what ends, to what external good? The key dimensions of the transhumanist and secular humanist visions of the good life find greater affirmation in the Christian perspective; and thus are fertile ground for an alliance for joy.

Volf’s tripartite account of joy helps us to situate the various approaches to human flourishing that surround debates over human technological enhancement, though corrections have been offered to narrow what might be properly categorised as ‘joy’. A Christian joy is oriented toward the external good of God’s future redemption of creation (circumstantial). It requires humility, faithfulness, and hope (agential). In The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, Virgil exhorts Dante, after the long process of reordering his loves in hell and purgatory, to ‘let your pleasure be your guide’. ⁵² In an analogous way, we may consider the positive affect of joy, experienced in a context of moral formation, a reliable indicator of attunement between the self and the world, and thus applicable to our response to particular technologies. Within this perspective, enhancement technologies do not bear the burden of bringing into effect the good life for us; neither should they be prohibited from the outset as antithetical to human flourishing. Like all human activity, governed by careful ethical reflection, they may take their place among the various ways in which we seek to improve both ourselves and the entirely of the created world, bounded by the recognition of God as the agent of ultimate redemption.