Transhumanistic Transcendental Perspectivism and a
Conjecture on the Lack of Emergent Identity in Stem Cell Clusters
Ben Hijink
Human cloning, in both its therapeutic and reproductive forms, confronts humankind with paradigm-shifting opportunities to care for, alter, enhance, and empower ourselves to a degree unprecedented in human history; however, as with all paradigm shifts, it calls forth fundamental questions of our being that cannot admit truly universal or eternal answers - except in the absolutist subjective interpretation some individuals and groups will assign to observed phenomena and whose dictates they will often attempt to impose on everyone else, regardless of their worldviews (whereas certain things one may value, such as tolerance and human rights have stronger support on a broad inter-subjective or compassionate basis). A reasonable method of consideration appears to be striving to imagine and actualize the "objectified well-being" of oneself and extend this consideration to all sentience (a kind of consequentialism that extends the ultilitarian advocacy of pleasure to a broader conception of well-being based on horizon-point objectivity), as articulated by Peter Railton - the concept of objectified well-being is not explored in this paper, but may be adressed in future essays. Interpretation of the meaning of this recent phenomena has depended in large part on attributions made to clusters of stem cells and belief in an order to nature that we are wrong to alter - that to live is to alter one s environment and be altered by it necessarily remains unacknowledged or is de-emphasized. Much of the modern debate over whether or not to endorse a complete ban on access to cloning technologies hinges on these two issues of interpretation as demonstrated in comparative essays by Steven Vere and Leon Kass, whereas a multitude of other considerations come into play if one s interpretation of the issues does not lead one to endorse a ban. While there are a plethora of novel technologies worthy of careful consideration, especially important subjects for technologically progressive communities such as transhumanists to address are the characteristics and appropriate status of cloned and un-cloned stem cell clusters in early and pre-embryonic stages. A model with great potential to expand and refine our interpretations of such forms of life and advance transhumanist thought may be found in the emerging philosophy of Transcendental Perspectivism.
Let us begin with a brief survey of the historical development of cloning. In 1938 Nobel Prize-winner and Nazi supporter Hans Spemann first proposed twining - which occasionally occurs in early cell division, resulting in identical twins - as a fantastical experiment. By 1962 John Gurdon claimed to have twinned frogs from adult cells. In 1963 J.B.S. Haldane coined the term clone in a speech and essay entitled, Biological Possibilities for the Human Species of the Next Ten-Thousand Years. In 1984 Steen Willadsen cloned a lamb using immature sheep cells. Using a variety of other mammals, scientists replicated his results. Dolly, a sheep cloned from the udder of a six-year-old ewe, was born as a result of work by Ian Wilmut. Dolly was the only one of 227 eggs fused with adult cells to have survived. In 1997 U.S. President Bill Clinton called for a four-year moratorium on cloning. In 1998 Teruhiko Wakayama, Ryuzo Yanagimachi and Toni Perry announced they had created three generations of genetically identical cloned mice using a more efficient technique than that used by Dr. Wilmut (http://www.dartmouth...of_Cloning.html and http://home.hawaii.r...hns/history.htm). In 2002 Clonaid, a research branch of the Raelian cult, announced it had created a cloned child though it has yet to offer any evidence for this claim, citing fear that the child might be taken away from its parents.
Technically, the clusters of stem cells (or blastocysts) used in experiments to develop therapeutic cloning techniques are terminated by the sixth day and only contain thirty to forty stem cells, and are therefore not considered embryos, which are defined as clusters containing one hundred or more stem cells though this distinction is irrelevant to those who believe that immediately after the genetic information of a sperm and egg cell are combined, or a stem cell is induced to divide and multiply a spirit takes possession of it and grants it the same status of a fully formed infant, teenager, senior citizen, or middle-aged adult. For most of its history, the Roman Catholic Church declared that ensoulment occurred 30 to 40 days after conception; however, seventeen years after declaring himself infallible in 1852, Pope Pius IX made abortion an excommunicable offense when he proclaimed that conception was the moment at which a divine soul entered one s body (the metaphysical process involved in the splitting of identical twins has yet to be addressed) (http://www.ivf.nl/human.htm). If one wishes to ascribe soul-like qualities to the biological organism unfolding, the most appropriate characterization would be that of a vegetative soul, as articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas, which is fundamentally distinct from that of an adult. It ought to be increasingly acknowledged that the case for full and complete ensoulment of fertilized eggs or stem cells triggered to divide by an electric shock rests solely on self-proclaimed papal authority. Progressive Catholics, as well as protestant ministers and laity many of who have empathetically supported such attributions ought to reconsider the basis for such claims. While Islam may be slow to recognize the rights of people with non-heterosexual orientations, it does not forbid women to have abortions until after 120 days around which time the soul is believed to enter the fetus with the exemption of cases in which the life of the mother is in peril (http://www.radio4all...nfo.php?id=6449).
Computer Scientist Steven Vere and Biochemist Leon Kass have expressed radically divergent views on whether it is ethically permissible to clone human beings. Their essays are juxtaposed in Science, Values, and the Popular Imagination, the textbook for a Philosophy of Science class offered at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Vere expressed a technophilic enthusiasm for the procedure in ways that should be questioned for impinging on the wishes of the dead, though he also promoted a ban on a closely related technology because of its potential for misuse. In his obscurantist essay Kass insisted that cloning technologies be banned internationally to avoid allowing humanity the degree of control it would gain over itself and its progeny, which could result in a myriad of repugnant outcomes that present grave threats to the dignity of humanity.
Vere states, Much of the negativity about human cloning is based simply on the breathtaking novelty of the concept rather than on any real undesirable consequences. He continues by defining a clone as a time-delayed identical twin and that all cloning should be done on an individual and voluntary basis. He then presents his two main arguments for cloning: to allow families to conceive twins of exceptional individuals, and to allow childless couples to reproduce. He adds, In a free society, we must also ask, Are the negative consequences sufficiently compelling that we must prohibit consenting adults from doing this? We will see that in general they are not. Targeted laws and regulations are his solution to anticipated abuses. His advocacy of the cloning of exceptional people raises questions about the expectations placed on the shoulders of such clones and the respect such delayed twins deserve as individuals who would be unique despite the extensive similarities they would share with the individual from which they were cloned; however, as this behavior is widely expressed already in the relationships between parents and their non-cloned children, it is not a justification for a ban, but for educating the people involved in cloning procedures and intervening in cases of child abuse as with any families. Vere appears to contradict his assertion that all human cloning must be voluntary when he advocates cloning deceased people either because they were exceptional or victims of massacres (such as the victims of Nazi concentration camps or Stalinist gulags). Later he specifies that a living person is entitled to an automatic copyright of their genetic code and should not be cloned without written consent. Two more conditions he puts on his advocacy are that there should be a ban on cloning murderers and violent criminals and a ban on using artificial uteruses to gestate cloned infants. Lastly, of immediate relevance, he mentions that bans on human cloning in the U.S. and Europe would not prevent cloning in [former] dictatorships such as Iraq, that might clone the dictator or create an army of thousands of clones of Arnold Schwartzenegger, except by a global ban on dictators. He states prophetically, If Saddam Hussein wants to clone himself, nothing short of a major military invasion can stop him (http://mikeai.nm.ru/.../cloning_e.html).
In his initial paragraph, Kass chooses to collate Dolly, the first successfully cloned sheep, with the Christian poem Little Lamb by William Blake, a poet of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He states, She is the work not of nature or nature s God but of man and I a child and Thou a lamb, despite our differences, have always been equal candidates for creative making, only now, by means of cloning, we may both spring from the hand of man playing at being God. Though he claims to present a secular philosophy, his quasi-religious critiques provide ample reason for skepticism. He emphasizes a nearly complete lack of differentiation between the cloned being and its genetic offspring a pillar of his argument - stating, Dolly came into being not only asexually - ironically, just like He [who] calls Himself the Lamb but also as the genetically identical copy (and the perfect incarnation of the form or blueprint) of a mature ewe, of whom she is a clone.
While some of the uses of cloning technology Kass mentions are questionable for the de-individualizing consequences they would have for clones and the cloned, Kass makes the blanket statement that most people want none of the following scenarios: providing a child for an infertile couple; replacing a beloved spouse or child who is dying or has died; avoiding the risk of genetic disease; permitting reproduction for homosexual men and lesbians who want nothing to do with the opposite sex; securing a genetically identical source of organs or tissues perfectly suitable for transplantation; getting a child with a genotype of one s own choosing, not excluding oneself; replicating individuals of great genius, talent or beauty ; and creating large sets of genetically identical humans suitable for research on, for instance, the question of nature versus nurture, or for special missions in peace and war (not excluding espionage), in which using identical humans would be an advantage.
It is worth mentioning that the genetically identical source of organs or tissues would come from stem cell clusters coaxed into forming the organ or tissue instead of a fully developed human infant eventually such transformations might be possible to create inside a patient s own body. Kass asserts that disgust or revulsion is a primal wisdom that ought to direct us to oppose the Frankensteinian hubris to create human life and increasingly control its destiny; man playing God. In his next sentence, Kass displays his own overconfidence when he states, Almost no one finds any of the suggested reasons for human cloning compelling; almost everyone anticipates its possible misuses and abuses. Regardless of whether or not it is banned there are bound to be abuses, which is the reason for regulation, oversight, and intervention to curtail them instead of banning them, which would probably force the procedure underground. This is just one example of him couching a weak, extreme assertion in the same sentence as a much stronger one. Kass states that cloning typically is discussed within three contexts, which he calls the technological, liberal and meliorist. The technological context sees cloning as an extension of existing techniques for assisting reproduction and determining genetic make-up of children that is neutral outside of the intentions and applications of its users, while the [t]he liberal (or libertarian or liberationist) perspective sets cloning in the context of rights, freedoms and personal empowerment and the meloirist perspective embraces valetudarians [i.e. the chronic invalids ] and also the eugenicists who see it as a new prospect for improving human beings.
Kass declares cloning to be a major alteration, indeed, a major violation, of our given nature as embodied, gendered and engendering beings and of the social relations built on this ground. Later he states, Genetic distinctiveness not only symbolizes the uniqueness of each human life and the independence of its parents that each human child rightfully attains, conveniently ignoring the lack of such symbolization for genetically identical siblings alive today. Among other derogatory characterizations, Kass confounds incest and reproductive cloning, as the result is to be the parent of one s own sibling. Considering cases in which sisters and brothers have raised their own siblings elicit no general disgust, this equivocation seems intended specifically to conjure up images of a woman who chooses to have a child cloned from her DNA gestate in her uterus, but even in that instance the child would not have the same restricted genetic inheritance as a child created from incestuous copulation. Kass continues, As with any product of our making, no matter how excellent, the artificer stands above it, not as an equal but as a superior, transcending it by his will and creative prowess. He contends that as scientists view their cloned animals as instruments to serve the rational purposes of humans, so would cloned humans become the artifacts of their parents, and that such a dehumanizing arrangement make even a single clone unacceptable.
Using the slippery slope argument, Kass reminds us that twenty years ago proponents of in-vitro fertilization denied that the same principles that were used to justify it would be applied to more artificial practices such as cloning, as well as more eugenic practices. In his opinion a utilitarian treatment of prospective human life is worse than the mere destruction of nascent life. Yet, he does not object to creating and using cloned early [human] embryos for research purposes on principle though he suggests that he might raise objections to the use of sexually produced embryos. While for Kass full reproductive cloning in other animals may be permitted, the scientific community must not be allowed to experiment on human embryos unless they accept a complete ban on reproductive cloning. Ultimately, though Kass concedes a ban may prove ineffective or otherwise prove to be a mistake, he endorses a ban in order to put the burden of practical proof that clearly shows what medical good can be had only by the cloning of human beings on the proponents of the technology, or as he describes them, the proponents of this horror. The issue of how practical proof might be provided by scientists who are banned internationally from experimenting on even pre-embryonic clusters of stem cells he fails to address (https://web.princeto...0repugnance.htm).
Transcendental Perspectivism provides a fresh approach in the critical debate over the meaning of cloning, particularly in its therapeutic form. In his recently published book, Compassion: A New Philosophy of the Other, Dr. Werner Krieglstein extends earlier work in the development of Perspectivism and collects relevant ideas expressed by other authors to develop a philosophy of Transcendental Perspectivism, which emphasizes not the traditional first or third person of formal Western philosophies, but the second person in a scope that extends beyond humanity to embrace a wondrous universe alive at an indefinite number of scales in a terrific variety of forms.
This philosophy draws heavily on Stuart Hameroff s theory of quantum consciousness, an expanded version of which Krieglstein refers to as quantum animism, an outlook on our universe that may be particularly helpful in our assessment of embryonic or pre-embryonic clusters of stem cells. Quantum animism differs from naﶥ animism in that it does not propose that spirits inhabit rocks and trees and mountains, but it does imply that there are bits of (albeit primitive) conscious material at some scales in the objects, using a broader perspective of consciousness. Quantum animism begins by observing that many things have an inside and an outside, as well as preferred states if not desires, pleasure and pain. It also observes that that complex animals, single celled creatures and in some ways photons and electrons appear to make choices. This system goes beyond quantum determinism in allowing for some degree of selfhood and choice at many levels (including our own). However constrained the choices are at various scales it proposes more is at work in our universe than merely uncontrollable determinism or randomness. As a possible instance of such choice, he describes the complex behavior of a type of single celled organism that lives in puddles of water that somehow knows or decides to join together with others of its kind when food is in short supply in order to form a slug with cells acting as neurons to form a brain, a digestive tract to form a gut and layer of organisms that die in the process of acting as its skin cells. An example he gives of our limited ability to understand the internal experience of phenomena outside of our scale and experience is that from the perspective of a helicopter, a line of cars snaking in or out of an area might be mistaken by an extraterrestrial being as a single organism (assuming the being had some sensing ability akin to eyes in order to observe the unfamiliar sight). He states that one of the ideological ancestors to an objectivist outlook in which humanity seems adrift in a dead universe is to be found in the Cartesian Dualism of the Enlightenment, in which Descartes asserted that animals did not really suffer because they could not conceptualize their pain and that the only reason for humans not to torture animals was that it could predispose them to cruelly treat a rational fellow human. Further, we will never know whether conscious life forms exist at scales so large we are unable to observe or even imagine them, or dimensions we cannot access (Krieglstein).
Another aspect of Transcendental Perspectivism is the promotion of a society that seeks to promote and foster positive self-actualization for the whole of its diverse membership. Drawing on Riane Eisler s works, he advocates pursuing a partnership model of mutual empowerment in society rather than a dominator model. After describing her hypothesis that a dominator model of hierarchy first observed by nomadic humans in horse herds may have been adopted for its efficient, albeit oppressive, societal organization lead by an alpha-male and regulated by fear and intimidation, Krieglstein presents this quote from her on hierarchies of actualization:
[They] are primarily based not on power over, but power to (creative power, the power to help and nurture others) as well as power with (the collective power to accomplish things together, as in what today is called teamwork). In hierarchies of actualization, accountability flows not only from the bottom up but also from the top down. That is accountability flows in both directions.
An example of a meeting of the two models Krieglstein mentions is the original inhabitants of the Indus Valley who operated as a partnership society which was overrun and converted to a caste-based, dominator model by the invaders from the Aryan mountains. Another example comes from the history of Cyprus before and after the influence of the Roman dominator model - after Roman influence did violent spectacle become highly esteemed and intimate relationships take the form of property agreements favoring the male sex (Krieglstein).
Transcendental Perspectivism offers a novel approach in the debates on human cloning in that it encourages one to attempt to understand the very phenomenological experiences of organisms (and other potential forms of life) in order to hypothesize what, if any, perceptions such a being might have of our actions based on what we can observe of the life form prior to engaging in our particular forms of ethical calculus; indeed, a compassionate yet realistic approach such as this may often as not permit us to move beyond mischaracterizations of life forms based on tradition or other highly questionable forms of authority and either suggest we proceed with certain technological developments or investigate alternative paths to our objectives if we are the causing a great amount of suffering without the support of sufficiently compelling reasons. In the case of human therapeutic cloning, Transcendental Perspectivism strongly suggests that the procedure does not negatively impact a pre-embryonic cluster of stem cells or an early embryo lacking an emergent identity (or perspective). This emerging philosophy is eminently compatible with the key transhumanist value of morphological freedom, or the freedom to alter one s own embodiment and corresponding appearance, abilities, and given nature as it corresponds well with dynamic hierarchies of actualization and the partnership model of mutual empowerment (http://www.nada.kth....icalFreedom.htm).
The quantum animist component of Transcendental Perspectivism allows one to endorse the use of multiplying clusters of undifferentiated stem cells to create needed organs, repair damaged spinal cords, fight Alzheimer s disease, dramatically extend human life and health spans and eventually manipulate biological age of sentient beings as we know them without resorting to the assertion that the harvested material is not truly alive. At the stage in which therapeutic cloning techniques would redirect stem cells to form an organ, or serve human needs in other ways, the cells would not have an overarching conscious system that would be destroyed. Instead, such a community of living cells would simply continue to multiply and actualize into an organ or other bodily material, just as every other cell in a human s body contributes to an overall process but does not direct the process, which occurs at a different scale in the emergent, fluid consciousness developed from a complex organism s biological DNA blueprint, its environment, its relationships to other complex organisms, and the interpretations and choices it makes that help shape its personality. Such an outlook allows us to see therapeutic cloning not as the destruction of life (albeit cellular life, the same that is shed by our skin each minute), but a conversion and growth of life toward cooperative ends such as helping to sustain complex systems that support more complex forms of consciousness. From all we can ascertain on the nature of stem cell, it is safe to say that they will not mind performing their functions in a different context.
As for reproductive cloning, the partnership model would seem not only to promote tolerance for the choice to raise a cloned child so long as the child was loved, cared for, and permitted to actualize as they felt called, regardless of how divergent or similar their vocations were from the person from which they were cloned, but would also be prone to question the rigid definitions of family evident in the work of Leon Kass, and the use of the slope metaphor that implies that present, familiar conditions are superior to alternatives. Overall, the philosophical position would appear to oppose responsible reproductive choices confronting members of a free society being forcibly restricted by the government for what it considers their own well being (such as polyamorous families). An instance of responsible consideration in matters of reproductive choice would include refraining from subjecting late term human fetuses to an unnecessarily high rate of death and deformation by attempting to reproductively clone humans prior to making improvements in the technique that reduce the rate of such problems until they are at or near the rates for reproduction with un-cloned fetuses. Once reproductive cloning is a more reliable procedure, it should become the prerogative of those intimately involved.
We are entering a time in which the options available for people to shape the conditions of their own biological existence will be expanded considerably. What are needed are more precise - and expansive definitions of life itself. A view expressed in the Transhumanist Declaration is that by being generally open and embracing of new technology we have a better chance of turning it to our advantage than if we try to ban or prohibit it. An example of this is that Steven Vere has admitted that a ban on artificial uteruses would not stop people who are willing and able to mass-produce human; instead, technological abuses against human rights - such as the clone army scenario - are what should be of concern to society, and are best guarded against through regulation that seeks to prevent specific abuses, rather than all uses, of emerging technologies. Transcendental Perspectivism advocates being generally open to and accepting of other perspectives, such as that of Transhumanism for the mutual well being of all sentient parties. Transhumanism advocates the well being of all sentience is another view expressed in the Transhumanist Declaration (http://www.transhuma...declaration.htm). Disgust and repugnance have played a large part in the inhumanity of humans to each other throughout history. Inasmuch as we have the capacity to choose, and are subject to conditions in which we have such choices, we have the potential to develop and exchange much more positive outlooks, such as Transhumanism and Transcendental Perspectivism, and promote actualization and transcendence in our lives and our society.
Krieglstein, Werner. Compassion: A New Philosophy of the Other. :
Rodopi, 2002.
Olberding, Amy ed. Science, Values, and the Popular Imagination. :
McGraw-Hill, 2003.
Railton, Peter. Facts, Values, and Norms: Essays Toward A Morality of Consequence. :
Cambridge University Press, 2003.
SEE ALSO:
http://www.cod.edu/d...Krieglstein.htm
http://www.perspectivism.com/READ.HTM
http://www.perspecti...om/MANIFEST.HTM
http://www.perspecti...TERCONTENT.HTML
http://www.perspectivism.com/
http://www.isud.org/timetable.html
AND
http://www.cod.edu/d...y_Olberding.htm
http://www.apa.udel....l/1999/GIV.html
AND
http://books.cambrid.../0521426936.htm
Edited by Ben Hijink, 17 July 2003 - 05:11 PM.
