Re: Rebuilding the Extropy FAQ

From: Nick Bostrom (nick@nickbostrom.com)
Date: Sat Dec 16 2000 - 22:09:41 MST


Dan Fabulich wrote:

>While I happen to agree with Article 7 of the Transhumanist
>Declaration, I assert that it is not part of what it is essentially to
>be a humanist or a transhumanist to respect non-human animal
>sentience. Indeed, many self-ascribed secular humanists emphasize the
>absolute priority of human sentience over animal sentience. (I'm sure
>they didn't even consider artificial sentience or extraterrestrial
>sentience.)

One of the points of divergence between transhumanism and humanism is that
transhumanists explicitly reject a certain anthropocentrism common among
some humanists. This holds in the direction of possible future
technological sentients, but also in my view in the direction of other
biological sentients, be they extraterrestrials or non-human sentient
animals on Earth.

>A fascist with a consistent restricted sense of what it is to be
>"human" may argue that the domination of one race over another is
>characteristic of the "human" character of one race relative to the
>other less evolved or mutant race. Were the fascist correct about
>this definition of "humanity," it would be no less implausible to
>expect a humanist fascist than to expect a humanist who believed that
>it was the right of humanity to dominate over horses, cattle, sheep,
>etc.

Would such a characterization of the human character really be consistent
with transhumanism, though? And even if it were, since transhumanists hold
that there is no moral prerogative attached to being human per se, but only
to various properties which humans have (e.g. sentience), it would make no
difference from the transhumanist perspective if some human race weren't
human in the fascist's sense.

>Even under a relatively normal definition of what it is to be human,
>fascists usually also have (incorrect) consequentialist arguments in
>favor of genocide and racial slavery, arguments that most individuals
>benefit more than minorities are harmed by fascism. They might argue
>that a tiny minority ("the Jews," for example,) has the character of
>making life considerably worse for the rest of human society, and that
>punishing members of this racial minority is as justifiable on the
>grounds of human welfare as the punishment of a human criminal for his
>crimes: though the criminal is human, punishing criminals makes life
>better for all the rest of us.

If we were living in one of those logically possible worlds in which
exterminating a minority would lead to overall better conditions, then
maybe transhumanism in that world would favour that. But we're living in
the actual world, and transhumanism as it is defined here incorporates
certain contingent truths about this world. That respect for the rights of
minorities is good, is one of these claims that is part of current
transhumanism, as I think is reflected in the rhetoric about the importance
of individuals having the right to make their own choices about whether to
use new technologies for example.

Now, there are parts of transhumanism that could change, and transhumanism
would still be transhumanism. So if you wanted a "logical" definition of
transhumanism you could not include those parts. But then, maybe
transhumanism is not one of those concepts that admit of a neat clear-cut
logical definition. Recall Wittgenstein's example of the concept of a game
- there is no non-trivial property that can be articulated that all and
only games have; rather, "game" is a concept whose instances are united by
a "family resemblance".

Suppose (no matter how implausible it is) that an irrefutable scientific
discovery was made that some human race was by its very nature constituted
such as to be the master of some other race, and that that would lead in
the long run to the best results for everybody. Then I suppose one would
(even as a transhumanist) have to favor the "master race" taking over. But
does that means that it is no a part of transhumanism that such racism is
wrong? I think not. (I did say in an earlier email that one could
consistently be a "flat-earth" transhumanist. But that is a different case,
because transhumanism does not speak of the shape of the earth, whereas it
does speak, in general terms, about how we should relate to each other as
human beings.)

I know that from a philosophical point of view, it would be nice to have a
sharp set of necessary and sufficient conditions for being a transhumanist.
But in practise, I fear that imposing such a definition would either lead
to too many theses being baked in (dogmatism) or else to the whole notion
of transhumanism being fairly vacuous, which would make it impossible for
example in a media interview to represent the "transhumanist perspective"
on some concrete issue. So I think we will have to live with some
ambiguities, while working towards a more gradual articulation and
refinement of the world-view we call "transhumanism".

Dr. Nick Bostrom
Department of Philosophy
Yale University
Homepage: http://www.nickbostrom.com



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