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Philosophical Issues in Pharmaceutics pp 189–219Cite as

The Wisdom of Nature: An Evolutionary Heuristic for Human Enhancement

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Part of the book series: Philosophy and Medicine ((PHME,volume 122))

Abstract

Human beings are a marvel of evolved complexity. Such systems can be difficult to enhance. When we manipulate complex evolved systems, which are poorly understood, our interventions often fail or backfire. It can appear as if there is a “wisdom of nature” which we ignore at our peril. Sometimes the belief in nature’s wisdom—and corresponding doubts about the prudence of tampering with nature, especially human nature—manifests as diffusely moral objections against enhancement. Such objections may be expressed as intuitions about the superiority of the natural or the troublesomeness of hubris or as an evaluative bias in favor of the status quo. This chapter explores the extent to which such prudence-derived anti-enhancement sentiments are justified. We develop a heuristic, inspired by the field of evolutionary medicine, for identifying promising human enhancement interventions. The heuristic incorporates the grains of truth contained in “nature knows best” attitudes while providing criteria for the special cases where we have reason to believe that it is feasible for us to improve on nature.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On the role of mid-level principles in one area of applied ethics, see Beauchamp and Childress 1979.

  2. 2.

    Which side effects are acceptable depends, of course, on the benefits resulting from the enhancement, and these may vary between subjects depending on their goals, life plans, and circumstances.

  3. 3.

    Increasing oxygen levels (another requirement for metabolism) also improves cognition.

  4. 4.

    In like manner, we can view vaccinations both as therapeutic (or, more accurately, prophylactic) and as enhancing.

  5. 5.

    It should be noted that IQ correlates negatively with fertility in many modern societies (Udry 1978; Vancourt and Bean 1985; Vining et al. 1988). This might be an example of value discordance between human values and evolutionary fitness.

  6. 6.

    Evolution might still have the last laugh if in the long run she redesigns our species to directly desire to have as many children as possible or to have an aversion against contraceptives. Cultural “evolution” might beat biological evolution to the punch.

  7. 7.

    The items in the list need not be final goods. Characteristics that are mere means to more fundamental goods can be included. For example, even if one thinks that musicality or musical appreciation is not intrinsically good, one can still include them in the list if one believes that they tend—as a matter of empirical fact—to promote well-being (e.g., by creating opportunities for enjoyment).

  8. 8.

    Adding a carbon dimer to a diamond surface using a nanotechnological tool would take more than 6.1 eV (Merkle and Freitas 2003), about 20 times more energy than is released by the ATP hydrolysis that powers most enzymatic actions.

  9. 9.

    For their comments, we are grateful to Rebecca Roache for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper and to the audience at the TransVision 2006 conference in Helsinki, Finland, for useful questions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Nick Bostrom & Anders Sandberg

Authors
  1. Nick Bostrom
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  2. Anders Sandberg
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Correspondence to Anders Sandberg .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Arts and Sciences, MCPHS University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Dien Ho

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Bostrom, N., Sandberg, A. (2017). The Wisdom of Nature: An Evolutionary Heuristic for Human Enhancement. In: Ho, D. (eds) Philosophical Issues in Pharmaceutics. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 122. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0979-6_12

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