Is human enhancement intrinsically bad?

To test the intrinsic impermissibility thesis, we need to examine whether the practice of human enhancement, on its most plausible understanding, can be a bearer of negative intrinsic value.⁸ This ought to be preceded by establishing conceptually sound notions of human enhancement and intrinsic value, as well as identifying some of their fundamental features. This also involves identifying what exactly is the subject of this ethical evaluation. In bioethics, human enhancement is typically understood as an action or process, “a deliberate intervention, applying biomedical science, which aims to improve an existing capacity that most or all normal human beings typically have, or to create a new capacity, by acting directly on the body or brain” (Buchanan 2011, p. 23; emphasis added). This definition has several closely and causally related parts that could all serve as subjects of our analysis. Conceivably, we could analyze separately the biomedical technologies used to perform the intervention, the intervention itself, and the result of the intervention. But here, I will focus on the intervention or activity itself, while assuming that the biomedical means/technologies are an indispensable part of the intervention.⁹ To determine whether enhancement as an act can be intrinsically bad, we need to take a closer look at what it means for a thing to have intrinsic value.

Two senses of intrinsic value seem relevant for our purposes: the value a thing has in itself and the value it has as an end. The first sense is the standard, predominant interpretation of intrinsic value as value a thing has ‘for its own sake’, ‘as such’, or ‘in its own right’ (Zimmerman 2001; Ronnow-Ramussen et al. 2005, p. xiii).¹⁰ Since this kind of value does not depend upon anything else, we say it is nonderivative (as opposed to derivative value that a thing derives from something else). In other words, it is the value a thing has solely in virtue of its intrinsic (nonrelational) properties. In the second sense, intrinsic value need not entirely depend upon the object’s intrinsic properties—it can depend in part upon the object’s nonintrinsic relational properties (Kagan 1998, p. 280).¹¹ This occurs when something that is extrinsically good is valued as an end because of the “interest that someone took in it, or the desire that someone had for it, for its own sake” (Korsgaard 1983, p. 172). Take uniqueness, a nonintrinsic relational property contributing to the intrinsic value of an object such as a work of art. Similarly, intrinsic value could be ascribed based on causal properties. For instance, a car’s capacity to perform at a particular speed can be found valuable in itself without the car ever being driven or there being an intention to drive it.¹² Although this second view of intrinsic value is not without its difficulties, it has its appeal. I will approach both senses of intrinsic value as relevant for my analysis, but will take that the assessment of the first sense has greater analytical weight because of its prevalence.

In addition to the two senses of intrinsic value, we should note that intrinsic value can have at least two valences, positive and negative (good and bad).¹³ In ordinary language, it is standard to understand ‘value’ and ‘valuable’ as something good or favorable. However, in philosophical parlance, it is not uncommon to distinguish between positive and negative value: “the claim that something has value may be predicated not on the judgment that it is good but, for example, on the judgment that it is bad, that is, that its value is the negative one” (Zimmerman 2001, p. 3). Also, intrinsic good and bad come in degrees of intensity, which makes intrinsic value computable.¹⁴ But when is it that things have intrinsic value? One traditional method for testing whether a particular thing can be a bearer of intrinsic value is Moore’s method of isolation. This test asks whether a thing is such that, if it existed by itself in absolute isolation, we would judge its existence to be good or bad (Moore 1993).¹⁵ Another method runs in reverse to Moore’s isolation test. Namely, the thing is a bearer of intrinsic value if we can imagine it to have value in any or all circumstances—that it carries its value with it, so to say (Korsgaard 1983, p. 171).¹⁶ Although there is more to both of these proposals, simplified versions will suffice for our current purposes. I will take it that a thing has intrinsic value if we found it valuable in all circumstances, or if nothing else existed in the world. What, then, are the preliminary implications of the intrinsic value debate for the discussion on the intrinsic value of HET?

Keeping all of the above in mind, it seems that human enhancements cannot be bearers of intrinsic value, and, therefore, cannot be intrinsically bad. If, however, they could have intrinsic value, this value is more likely to be positive than negative. My argument rests on four premises.

First, it seems implausible to say that biomedical interventions, in general, have value ‘in themselves’ or ‘as such’, regardless of anything else. This is because their value seems to depend entirely upon external factors, such as purpose or efficacy. Although HE aims to improve specific capacities, this tells us nothing about the intervention’s intrinsic (or extrinsic) value.

Second, HE interventions are unlikely to have value as ends because they are not desired as ends—they are merely a means to other valuable ends. For example, interventions that aim to improve the immune system or cognition are best understood as a means to some other valuable end, such as health or virtue. Even if we equated enhancement with the end result of the intervention, such as improved memory, hearing or empathy, it is still reasonable to say that we want these goods as means to some other end, like a good life or happiness. More precisely, enhancements are merely tools for acquiring all-purpose goods—things that are necessarily good, but should not be conflated with intrinsically good things—i.e., their value is always consequentially justified.¹⁷ Thus, it seems that enhancement interventions cannot be bearers of intrinsic value on either of the aforementioned interpretations. This creates a considerable burden for the bioconservative case.

Third, in order to claim that enhancements are bearers of intrinsic value, we would have to show that they have value in any or all circumstances or in absolute isolation. First, it is not at all obvious that biomedical interventions carry their value with them—in all conceivable circumstances—regardless of their interaction with other things. It is essential to know whether an intervention makes a person better or worse off, in order to judge it good or bad. This suggests the value we ascribe to interventions is entirely contingent (not intrinsic).¹⁸ We can easily imagine scenarios in which an intervention to improve one’s hearing or memory would make a person better off, as well as worse off. Looking at the intervention (or its intrinsic properties) in isolation, without taking into account any external factors, reveals nothing about its value. Unless we can determine the value of the intervention regardless of its consequences, it will not be a likely bearer of intrinsic value.¹⁹ We draw a similar conclusion when we apply the second rationale. If an improvement in cognition was the only thing in existence (i.e., there are no viable targets of implementation), and we still found it valuable, only then would the value count as intrinsic. But ascribing intrinsic value to such interventions is not intuitively appealing, and even if we were to allow it, we would face the following implications.

Fourth, if HET can be bearers of intrinsic value, it follows (according to the two-valences rationale) that this value can be positive, as well as negative. In fact, bioconservative claims about the intrinsic badness of HET set the ground for a counterpoint about their possible intrinsic goodness. Conceptually, at least, we have equally good reasons to believe HET are intrinsically good or intrinsically bad. One might even suggest that we, in fact, have conceptually sounder reasons to believe HET are intrinsically good. Namely, if we were to judge HET a priori, it seems more reasonable to ascribe positive value to interventions that are designed to deliver good things such as improving the quality of life.²⁰ In principle, we are compelled to accept at least one of the following: either HET cannot be bearers of intrinsic value and are, therefore, intrinsically neither good nor bad; or they can be bearers of intrinsic value, in which case they can bear both intrinsic goodness and badness.

The ‘unnaturalness concern’ comes in a stronger and a weaker version: enhancements are bad owing to their unnaturalness alone, or they will, due to their unnaturalness, disrupt the preservation of the natural. Although these two versions raise fundamentally different concerns (intrinsic and contingent), they are closely and causally related, and can be jointly addressed. The goal here is to examine both claims with respect to the two senses of intrinsic value. In other words, I examine whether HET are bad in virtue of their intrinsic properties (such as unnaturalness), and whether they are bad in virtue of their relational properties (such as the capacity to disrupt the natural).

The stronger version views unnaturalness as an intrinsic property of HET because enhancements are deliberate interventions (they do not occur naturally) brought about by artificial means. The ‘unnaturalness concern’ rests on the assumption that the natural is good, sacred, and should be honored, while the unnatural is bad and should be avoided (Sandel 2004, 2007; Kass 2003).²² It follows that enhancements—as far as they are unnatural—are bad in themselves. This approach, however, fails to distinguish between the natural and the good—the natural is not always good (e.g., natural disasters), and the unnatural is not always bad (e.g., art) (see e.g., Kamm 2005; Buchanan 2011). Not only is the strong version of the unnaturalness concern conceptually flawed, but it is also inconsistent with common practice. For instance, we rarely object to the use of artificial means in medicine merely because they are unnatural. Bioconservatives have themselves recognized the inconsistency of objecting to the means of enhancement due to their artificiality: “[since] the use of artificial means is absolutely welcome in the activity of healing, it cannot be their unnaturalness alone that upsets us when they are used to make people ‘better than well’” (Kass 2003, p. 21). Although there is a sense that the naturalness of means matters, as Kass notes, the problem of means “lies not in the fact that the assisting drugs and devices are artifacts, but in the danger of violating or deforming the deep structure of natural human activity” (2003, p. 22). Thus, it seems that unnaturalness alone is not an intrinsic property of HET that can ground negative intrinsic value. This brings us to the second part of the unnaturalness concern and the other sense of intrinsic value.

The weaker version is concerned with HET’s capacity to disrupt the natural; this capacity could be a nonintrinsic relational (most likely causal) property that affects HET’s intrinsic value. As I already acknowledged, bioconservatives are not concerned with unnaturalness simpliciter, but rather with the preservation of the natural (status quo). Naturally given processes such as natural procreation, the human life cycle and flourishing are inherently precious and should be preserved (President’s Council on Bioethics 2003, p. 288). Enhancements therefore represent a threat to the natural—they can interfere with or override it.²³ This view suggests that there are necessary consequences (in this case, negative ones) caused by intrinsic properties of enhancement.²⁴ Thus, if an object can have value derived from relational properties such as causal properties (e.g., Kagan 1998), this could affect the value HET have as ends.

However, even if all of these claims are true, they do not decisively determine the intrinsic badness of HET. First, we should not conflate necessity with intrinsicality. Necessary consequences do not show that HET are intrinsically bad. Even though necessary consequences can strongly affect moral judgment, their actual value is always consequentially (derivatively or relationally) justified. For instance, pollution is a necessary feature of air travel, but not its intrinsic property, i.e., it does not make flying intrinsically bad. Even if HET were to have necessarily bad consequences, this would not decisively determine their intrinsic value.²⁵ Second, even if enhancement’s capacity to disrupt the natural is indeed a casual property that can impact its intrinsic value, this tells us nothing about the valence and the degree of that value. If value as an end need not be based on intrinsic properties alone, since the object can have value as an end in virtue of some subset of its properties (Kagan 1998, p. 291), this would equally apply to all sorts of nonintrinsic properties. In order to plausibly claim HET are intrinsically bad, we have to show that intrinsic value based upon relational properties (such as the capacity to disrupt the natural) is not only negative, but so negative that no amount of positive value could justify the use of HET. Conceptually (as argued in the previous section), we have no particular reason to assume HET’s intrinsic value is negative. Empirically, evidence is not yet available to support either positive or negative intrinsic value in HET.

On this version of the bioconservative view, pursuing HET indicates bad character, i.e., it reveals the possession of an intrinsically bad disposition to act. For instance, Sandel explains we should not be so concerned about enhancements undermining valuable things such as effort or human agency, but instead about the attitude and dispositions that prompt the drive to enhancement. This concerns the problematic aspiration to “remake nature, including human nature, to serve our purposes and satisfy our desires. The problem is not the drift to mechanism but the drive to mastery” (2004, p. 54). This desire is not only detrimental (or instrumentally bad) to our sense of giftedness and humility, but it also indicates (intrinsically) bad character. However, it is far from clear how we should interpret the drive to mastery: does it motivate enhancement, does it constitute it, or is it perhaps identical with it? Still, we can try running these different possibilities against our two main senses of intrinsic value. In this section, I examine whether HET are bad in virtue of their intrinsic properties, such as (indicating) bad character; and whether they are bad in virtue of their relational properties such as desiring mastery.

First, let us consider whether HET are bad in themselves in virtue of indicating bad character. Pursuing HET indicates bad character, i.e., it reveals the possession of an intrinsically bad disposition to act. Thus, if we take bad character as a property intrinsic to practicing enhancement, we could perhaps claim that this grounds the negative intrinsic value of HET. A similar interpretation comes from Buchanan, who explains the “concern that the pursuit of enhancements, independently of its consequences, itself indicates bad character” as the expressivist or nonconsequentialist type of character concern (2011, p. 69). By contrast, consequentialist concerns are “predictions that the pursuit of enhancements will result in a worsening of our characters” (Buchanan 2011, p. 69). The expressivist concern can be further understood as the claim that a stable desire to enhance is itself a manifestation of vice or, at least, predominantly the expression of a vice (Buchanan 2011, p. 69). But can the agent’s character plausibly ground the value some activity has in itself?

The suggestion that HET are bad in themselves because they are motivated by bad character is flawed in several respects. It is generally mistaken to think about desires, motivations, and character traits as intrinsic properties because they are typically subjective/relational. These properties must be intrinsic to an enhancement intervention in order to ground its intrinsic value. However, they are not constitutive of its description or definition, or in any other way part of its intrinsic nature. An agent’s character traits, motives, and desires might count as relevant nonintrinsic properties, but surely they do not determine the value that an enhancement intervention has in itself. Enhancement critics may identify enhancement with the desire for mastery or assume that they are intertwined/closely related. But even then, they would still have to show why desiring mastery is bad in itself—what is intrinsically wrong about taking control over (human) nature (assuming that taking absolute control is even possible)?²⁶ The wrongness of such interventions is not self-evident because the ‘hesitation’ and ‘unease’ we may feel about enhancements are not decisive for determining their intrinsic badness.

The concern about mastering our nature may collapse into the previously discussed concern about the value of the natural. Although it is flawed to assume that natural is always good, as I previously showed, bioconservatives seem to be making an implicit claim that deliberate changes to human nature are illicit or immoral: “[to] successfully claim that a change in a person’s nature is intrinsically immoral, we need a premise that there is an obligation to limit ourselves to the capacities provided by evolution” (Lindsay 2012, p. 19). Hence, if there is even the slightest chance of HET being intrinsically bad, because they presumably indicate a bad desire, bioconservatives need to show why mastering our nature is bad in itself. This is yet to be proven, but such a claim seems difficult to sustain.

On the second account of intrinsic value, even if the indication of bad character cannot ground the value of an enhancement intervention in itself, some nonintrinsic relational properties could contribute to its value as an end. Nonintrinsic relational properties such as subjective experience, a manifestation of excellence, causal properties, etc. can contribute to a thing’s intrinsic value (e.g., Kagan 1998). Desiring enhancement (or mastery—assuming they amount to the same thing) as an end would count as relevant subjective experience. This assumption seems prima facie justified since desires are typically relational and desiring a thing as an end is one of the valid ways to ascribe intrinsic value. However, I argued in the first section that it seems most reasonable we desire enhancement as a means to some other end, such as health, virtue, or beauty—not as an end in itself.²⁷ Thus, as far as we desire mastery instrumentally, the bioconservative assumption is wrong, and even if we desired mastery as an end, mastering our nature would not be proven necessarily bad.²⁸

Furthermore, it is erroneous to equate enhancement with complete mastery. Even if we take mastery to represent a manifestation of excellence, which counts as a relevant nonintrinsic relational property and could contribute to the value a thing has as an end, it does not follow that enhancement is that thing. Enhancement should not be equated with mastery because mastery stands for improving a skill to the point of perfection, whereas enhancement is typically understood as any (and not necessarily the highest) degree of improvement above the norm. A distinction between greater and complete mastery would allow us to show, at best, that enhancement indicates a desire for greater mastery broadly considered, but not necessarily complete mastery. Bioconservative claims seem most plausible when we talk about complete mastery, less so for less than complete mastery. Most advocates of enhancement (except perhaps radical transhumanists) would say that enhancement does not aim for complete mastery (perfection) at all, but merely an improvement on the current state of affairs.²⁹ If so, the entire argument from ‘perfection’ might be missing its target.

One might object that enhancement could lead to mastery (or other intrinsically bad things) on similar grounds as it may lead to the disruption of the natural—in virtue of its causal properties. Causal properties of an object are relevant for intrinsic value when the object produces or is a means to another valuable object (Kagan 1998, p. 283).³⁰ Thus, if enhancement is a means to (or produces) mastery, and mastery is intrinsically bad, then enhancement may produce negative intrinsic value in virtue of its relational/causal properties. However, as I already argued, not only is enhancement not necessarily a means to complete mastery, but complete mastery is not decisively intrinsically bad. If we are, in turn, discussing only greater levels of mastery, in broader terms, the bioconservative argument applies with even less strength.

Even if we grant that the desire for mastery necessarily motivates enhancement and that mastery is intrinsically bad, which in turn affects the intrinsic value of enhancement (in virtue of its causal properties), it does not follow that the value of enhancement as an end is necessarily negative on balance. We would need to show it to be so overwhelmingly bad that it grounds the negative intrinsic value of HET. Since nonintrinsic properties only contribute to intrinsic value, their effect is not decisive. Contributive value is commonly understood as the value of a part in an intrinsically valuable whole (Korsgaard 1983). Thus, the bioconservative assumption that the desire for mastery is so bad that it outweighs all other contributing factors is not obviously true and calls for additional support. I argued earlier why such a claim is not conceptually stronger than the claim about the intrinsic goodness of HET, but I offer additional reasons in the next section.

So far, we have examined the possibility of different intrinsic (unnaturalness; bad character) and nonintrinsic (disrupting the natural; desire for mastery) properties grounding the negative intrinsic value of HET. We saw that the debate on intrinsic value poses various challenges and, absent further argument, offers no reason to assume HET are intrinsically bad. However, there is another variant of the bioconservative argument: HET may vitiate intrinsically valuable things; as far as they do so necessarily, a relevant concern arises regarding the intrinsic value of HET.³¹ This argument raises two concerns: (i) do HET in fact represent a threat to intrinsically valuable things (do they necessarily generate bad consequences), and (ii) even if they do, can necessarily bad consequences ground intrinsic value? Here, I mainly focus on the second concern, showing that HET are not necessarily a threat to intrinsically valuable things (not all HET will generate bad consequences), and even if they are, this does not determine their intrinsic value.

I mentioned earlier that bioconservatives believe enhancements represent an aspiration to remake human nature and take absolute control over our lives. The negative side of this aspiration, according to Sandel, lies in the possibility of destroying the appreciation for the gifted character of human powers and achievements; in other words, we would be missing the sense of life as a gift (2009, pp. 53–54).³² Genetic enhancements will “undermine our humanity by threatening our capacity to act freely, to succeed on our own and to consider ourselves responsible—worthy of praise or blame—for the things we do and for the way we are” (2009, p. 78). Similarly, Fukuyama (2002) fears that biotechnologies threaten to undermine our human essence and dignity, and are likely to create a genetic underclass. His argument about human dignity states that enhancement will undermine the grounds for a nonarbitrary claim to equal respect: “What the demand for equality of recognition implies is that when we strip all of a person's contingent and accidental characteristics away, there remains some essential human quality underneath that is worthy of a certain minimal level of respect–call it Factor X” (2002, p. 149).³³ What we want to protect from future advances in biotechnology is “the full range of our complex, evolved natures against attempts at self-modification. We do not want to disrupt either the unity or the continuity of human nature, and thereby the human rights that are based on it” (2002, p. 172). The question then is whether HET will necessarily undermine values such as giftedness and human dignity and how this relates to their intrinsic value.

Enhancements are not necessarily incompatible with, nor will they necessarily undermine intrinsically valuable capacities such as giftedness and dignity. Several scholars challenged Sandel’s argument stating not only that the deterministic approach to enhancement is false, but that enhancements might in fact improve some capacities we find intrinsically valuable (e.g., Kamm 2005; Savulescu 2009; Buchanan 2011; Lindsay 2012; Hauskeller 2013).³⁴ Even if some extreme versions of enhancement might represent threats to intrinsically valuable capacities (perhaps radical transhumanism), it is not a necessary feature of enhancements that they do so. It is more important to focus here on the concerns that considerations of intrinsic value bring about: can necessary consequences ground intrinsic value?

Let us look more closely at Fukuyama’s argument about the undermining of human dignity. Fukuyama holds that the genetic lottery is inherently unfair, but also profoundly egalitarian, while replacing it with choice threatens to increase the disparity (2002, p. 157). In other words, the natural lottery is not bad despite its necessarily bad properties, while self-modification such as HET is bad for being brought about deliberately. Fukuyama suggests that unfair but egalitarian circumstances (such as being equally subject to nature) are better than unfair and inegalitarian (such as deliberate self-modification). While this is a relevant concern in its own right, it does little work for determining the negative intrinsic value of HET. If the natural lottery is good merely because it is natural, then this argument collapses into the (un)naturalness concern. If the natural lottery is good because it is not as bad as deliberate change, then the concern is not about HET’s intrinsic but rather its contingent properties.

Alternatively, we may take that necessary consequences are relevant for the value a thing has as an end, assuming they count as nonintrinsic relational properties. It is disputable whether consequences can count as nonintrinsic relational properties because consequences are usually distinct from something’s properties. But even if this were possible (for reasons of necessity or causality), challenges similar to those discussed previously would emerge. We need to show that the value as an end would be, in sum, negative—the badness of HET’s nonintrinsic properties (necessary consequences) would have to outweigh all other considerations. I have already argued that this claim is not particularly convincing from a conceptual standpoint; considering the points I make against the necessary badness of HET in this section, it seems even weaker. At any rate, a more substantive claim is needed if we want to argue that HET are intrinsically bad in virtue of their consequences. Critics of enhancement have not offered plausible arguments on this matter so far, and my analysis suggests this can hardly be expected.

In summary, bioconservative arguments grounded in unnaturalness, the desire for mastery, and necessary consequences do not warrant any conclusions about HET’s intrinsic value. They are, as they currently stand, highly speculative, incoherent, and empirically unfounded. Now that we have drawn tentative conclusions about the intrinsic status of HET, we need to explore how this reflects upon the intrinsic impermissibility thesis, presented in the first section.