Abstract
Gerald McKenny asserts, correctly I think, that mainstream bioethics dismisses normative claims about human nature as irrelevancies. The reason for this curt dismissal is that there is no such thing as human nature, at least a nature grounded in or derived from human biology, about which normative claims can be made. Human beings, and what they value and how their values are perceived, are imaginative constructs that change over time. Consequently, so-called human nature is malleable and therefore subject to willful control and manipulation derived from what humans value at any given time. Religious beliefs and philosophical convictions may influence the moral preferences of individuals, but they do not provide an objective and universal standard regarding the uses of biotechnologies in pluralistic societies. In short, there is no natural or given moral standard that may be used to determine for what purposes biotechnologies should or should not be used.
McKenny believes, again I think correctly, that this sweeping dismissal of a normative biological human nature is mistaken. To the contrary, McKenny argues that there are at least strong normative aspects of biological human nature that can be discerned and should exert a strong influence in determining whether or not specific biotechnologies should be deployed to achieve certain therapeutic or enhancement objectives. Many who make a case for a normative human nature employ theological arguments and categories, but this does not disqualify them from influencing policies or procedures governing the ethical use of biotechnology. Many other ardent proponents of a normative human nature eschew any appeal to religion and make thoroughly secular arguments. McKenny believes, however, that such writers, both theological and secular, often lend themselves to being ignored due to flaws in their arguments. The purpose of this book is to identify and overcome these shortcomings.
McKenny develops a four-fold typology of prevalent arguments regarding the normative status (NS) of human nature. In each instance he summarizes the case being made for a normative status of human nature, and then proceeds to strengthen it through judicious editing in ways he believes make it less susceptible to being ignored by mainstream bioethicists.
The first normative status (NS1) reviewed by McKenny is nature as given. Nature, including biological human nature, has an independent and objective status that cannot or should not be altered at will. Rather, medical interventions and especially enhancement techniques should be limited by and conform to this given status. Most proposed genetic enhancements are thereby condemned because they ignore or transgress this moral standard. Oliver O’Donovan, Michael Sandel and Jürgen Habermas are leading representatives of NS1. One principled objection to this stance is that even if some consensus regarding the given moral status of nature can be reached, it is difficult to explicate what constitutes a licit intervention as opposed to one that is illicit. For example, O’Donovan, Sandel and Habermas all object to genetic alterations yet do not condemn other medical interventions that are invasive but have become standard medical practice. Both potentially enhance the wellbeing of patients but why tinkering with the genes is wrong is, according to critics, not adequately explained. Although McKenny contends that NS1 is ultimately not persuasive, it nonetheless offers an important warning against the limits of human mastery and Promethean arrogance. In other words, any attempt willfully to engineer the human genome should proceed with extreme caution.
NS2 propounds human nature as the foundation of human goods and rights. Human beings have evolved to a point where they now enjoy the capacity to reason and govern themselves in unprecedented ways that promote their own flourishing. This evolutionary achievement is most readily apparent in liberal democracies that are governed by the rule of law. To pursue a so-called enhancement of the human gene pool is simply too risky. These willful efforts, as opposed to natural evolutionary patterns, may very well prove regressive rather than progressive. In this respect the transhumanist goal of replacing natural selection with one purposively selected by humans is a dangerous idea that should be steadfastly resisted because it jeopardizes the underlying evolutionary foundations of current social and political achievements. Francis Fukuyama and Leon Kass are leading proponents of NS2. Fukuyama and Kass are often dismissed by critics as recommitting the naturalistic fallacy of deriving an ought from a presumed is. These critics are confident that whatever goods and rights humans enjoy they exist nowhere in nature but are ingenious constructs. McKenny, however, thinks this dismissal is ill-informed. Indeed, he finds much to commend in NS2 given the rich moral tradition in which human values and virtues are developed by trying to conform to a normative understanding of human nature. McKenny’s chief complaint is that many defenders of NS2 portray human nature, and its resulting goods and rights, in too static a manner; evolution should only take us to a certain point and then stop. But this effectively eliminates eschatology from ethics, bioethics in particular, a condition he attempts to correct in NS4.
Malleable human nature (NS3) is the third slot in McKenny’s typology. Since human nature, like all of nature, is indeterminate and open-ended it is easily susceptible to technological intervention. Consequently, there is no compelling reason why humans should refrain from shaping their own nature. Indeed, there is a moral obligation to do so as co-creators with God in fulfilling or completing their destiny as creatures. Biotechnology is simply a useful tool in constructing a more desirable future and should be employed extensively as its uses become perfected and further developed. Some of the leading lights of NS3 include Donna Haraway, Philip Hefner, Ted Peters, James Peterson and Laurie Zoloth. McKenny’s chief complaint with NS3 is that it does not, or cannot, describe the good it wishes to achieve in advance. Rather, the good is determined or added-on, based on the technological potential of the proposed intervention. For instance, the good that biotechnology is deployed to achieve is whatever the technology can deliver. The good being chased by co-creationists is always changing and elusive. But this virtually equates change with good, a very puzzling stance for ethicists in general, and bioethicists in particular, to adopt. Cancer, after all, consists of changed cells. Additionally, although McKenny never invokes the name of Pelagius, his Augustinian proclivities might have prompted him to sense that a Pelagian odor pervades the content of NS3.
With NS4, human nature as the condition for imaging God, we come to the preferred spot in McKenny’s typology. NS4 is not merely favored by McKenny but represents his own normative position on human nature, thereby comprising the most constructive chapter (5) in the book. Drawing upon the works of Kathryn Tanner and Karl Barth, McKenny contends that the imago Dei should provide the standard against which proposed uses of biotechnology may be assessed. Since humans are embodied creatures, the divine image they bear is not divorced from biology, but neither is their biology a restrictive or determinative factor. The imago Dei also transcends creaturely finitude, providing an eschatological element in deploying biotechnology. This constructive tension between biology and transcendence enables McKenny to employ some of the strong normative claims about the given natural status of human in NS1, the evolutionary achievements of NS2, and the dynamism of NS3, while mitigating their respective weaknesses of naturalism, evolutionary inertia and arbitrary technological development. McKenny believes this normative stance permits selectively beneficial uses of biotechnology, while preventing its haphazard or dangerous employment in a nihilistic assertion of human mastery over nature and human nature. Biotechnology may be used for both therapeutic and enhancement purposes so long as the proposed uses do not deny or weaken the imago Dei as the basis of human nature and identity. Consequently, in assessing biotechnology there is a strong cautionary tone emphasizing the need for prudential judgment.
Biotechnology, Human Nature, and Christian Ethics is a welcome contribution to the field of Christian ethics generally, and Christian bioethics particularly. The typology McKenny develops maps a terrain of moral reflection on biotechnology that had been visited frequently by many explorers but had remained uncharted. There is now, at least, a much-needed rudimentary map identifying the major navigational channels. McKenny’s constructive proposal is, if not entirely convincing, highly engaging, and should prompt further reflection and investigation. Moreover, the book provides a venue—human nature—for returning Christian contributions to so-called mainstream bioethics. This return is crucial as biotechnology becomes an increasingly powerful instrument in the hands of those who strive to remake human creatures into superior posthuman artifacts. In this respect, McKenny has not written the final word on this issue, but some important first words for promoting a more far-ranging and genuinely public debate on whether human nature is a reality to be reckoned with or a mere fiction easily discarded.