As many astute observers have pointed out, controversial new ideas are assimilated in three stages. First they're false and pernicious, then they're true but trivial, and finally they're what everyone claims to have believed all along. I see nothing to disprove this time-tested formula in the case of Francis Fukuyama's thesis about the "end of history." According to Fukuyama, the evolution of social structure has come to a natural terminus in the combination of free markets and liberal democracy. Though once we scoffed, I'm sure that now, as long as everyone else is willing to accept a few modest qualifications -- markets require vigilant and impartial regulation, periodic free elections are a necessary but far from sufficient condition of robust democracy, unequal distribution of economic power can and usually does translate into unequal distribution of political power, present-day levels of solidarity and selfishness are not eternally fixed -- my fellow democratic socialists will join me in graciously acknowledging that Fukuyama's thesis is just what we've always had in mind, or close enough.
Qualifications, however, are for earthbound thinkers; Fukuyama hasmoved on. In Our Posthuman Future, he has looked past the end of history and descried the end of mankind. Markets and democracy may be the last word for the human nature of 2002, but what if human nature changes?
Until recently, this wouldn't have seemed to most people a compelling, or evenan intelligible, question. But the last several decades have seen astonishingprogress in the life sciences. Evolutionary psychology has supplemented orsuperseded Plato, Freud, and Skinner; molecular biology, meanwhile, seems aboutto usurp the prerogatives of an even more august personage, sometimes known asthe Creator. The technology of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is no longerfantastic or even remote. Of course no one currently wants to end up there, oranywhere similar. But could it happen? And if so, how do we prevent it?
The first part of Our Posthuman Future is an informative survey of contemporary bioscience and its political implications. It's no longer much disputed, Fukuyama writes, that heredity is involved to a nontrivial extent in determining intelligence, criminal behavior, and secondary sexual differences. (Homosexuality remains an open question.) It's equally certain that environmental factors such as diet, education, peers, parents, and social conventions also play an important role. A few diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, can be traced to a single gene, but "higher-level behaviors ... are likely to have far more complex genetic roots, being the product of multiple genes that interact both with each other and with the environment." The findings of the Human Genome Project -- that we have fewer genes than previously thought -- make this even more likely. Still, "it seems almost inevitable that we will know much more about genetic causation even if we never fully understand how behavior is formed."
Neuropharmacology is one possible Huxleyan technology. Though less than 15years old, serotonin reuptake inhibitors (Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil) have beenadministered as antidepressants to a sizeable fraction of the population. So hasRitalin, a central nervous system stimulant that increases concentration andcurbs hyperactivity in children. These are valuable drugs, but worrisome ones,too. Conservatives worry that opportunities for self-discipline and characterdevelopment may be lost. Liberals worry that real-world causes of unhappiness andrestlessness may be obscured.
Like the relief of emotional pain, the prolongation of life can be too dearlybought. Throughout the developed world, as life expectancy rises and birth ratesfall, the median age is increasing sharply. Biomedical technology will probablyaccentuate this trend. Yet unless ways are found not only to postpone death butto extend the prime of life proportionately -- a much more difficult matter --disturbing changes are likely. Alzheimer's and other incapacitating diseasescould become epidemic. Pressures on younger workers and family members couldbecome intolerable. The rhythms of generational succession could be disrupted.
Genetic engineering is the most tempting and troubling ofbiomedical prospects. Genetic screening of embryos is on the horizon; indeedit's already in use for single-gene diseases. First attempts at human cloning arejust over the horizon. But germ-line modification, the alteration of DNA in thefertilized egg, is the real Pandora's box. Here the line between therapy andenhancement is blurred; the way is open to "designer babies" whose sex, IQ,physique, and other traits are predetermined.
Germ-line engineering may well be impossible; the scientific jury isstill out. Like computer-based artificial intelligence, it may turn out to be awill-o'-the-wisp, at least as currently conceived. Gene/environment interactionhas scarcely begun to be understood. The emergence of complexity -- in this case,of phenomes from genomes -- may be beyond the grasp of any information-processingtechnology, present or future. There may be no way to find out whether aparticular genetic intervention has unanticipated lethal consequences, except byperforming experiments that violate the right of informed consent. Fukuyama isrightly cautious in accepting claims about technical feasibility; in my(admittedly less well-informed) opinion, even stronger skepticism is warranted.
Still, it's only prudent to give some thought to what we should do if geneticengineering turns out to be feasible. The middle of Our Posthuman Future is an effort to lay ethical foundations for policy judgments. Why shouldn't we "seize the power," as one geneticist has put it, to "control what has been left to chance in the past"?
The simplest answer is religious: Genetic engineering would set God's will atnaught. But Fukuyama respectfully sidesteps religion. Another possible answer isthat genetic manipulation unfairly (because irreversibly) "embeds onegeneration's social preferences" -- about temperament, personality, looks -- "inthe next." (Though couldn't such changes be reversed in the generation afternext?) Another reason has to do with class and equality: Won't geneticengineering increase inequality if only the rich can afford it? (Perhaps, thougheventually, Fukuyama contends, political pressure would force democraticgovernments to subsidize it for all.) The most compelling reason, I think, isecological: The human organism is a miniature ecosystem, and "ecosystems areinterconnected wholes whose complexity we frequently don't understand; building adam or introducing a plant monoculture into an area disrupts unseen relationshipsand destroys the system's balance in totally unanticipated ways." (One hopesFukuyama's admirers on The Wall Street Journal editorial page heard that.)
None of these reasons fully satisfies Fukuyama, however. He must havephilosophical underpinnings. So we get an elaborate argument, over severalchapters, to the effect that yes, there is a human nature, extreme socialconstructionists notwithstanding. It is the only plausible foundation for humanrights and political equality and, therefore, we had better not tamper with it.Ultimately, "we want to protect the full range of our complex, evolved natures"-- our souls -- "against attempts at self-modification," attempts that maysimplify us, blunting our suffering or elevating our IQ but robbing us ofemotional depths or imaginative heights.
After this philosophical flight, the book descends to policy. Though skepticalof most governmental regulation, especially at the international level, Fukuyamarecognizes that the biotechnology industry has "too many commercial interestschasing too much money for self-regulation to continue to work." Actually,"continue" is wrong: Self-regulation has not worked. Monsanto, Aventis, Eli Lilly,and many other pharmaceutical and agro-technical giants have acted unwisely orunethically, then bought, bullied, bamboozled, or otherwise successfullyneutralized critics and government regulators. But while Fukuyama seems unawareof how frequently industry self-discipline has failed in similar cases, he is atleast ready to acknowledge that it will likely fail in the case of humanbiotechnology.
What kind of regulatory regime, then, should exist and what issues should itaddress? The FDA, EPA, USDA, and NIH can't do the job, Fukuyama arguespersuasively. Human biotechnology is outside their mandate and beyond theircompetence. A new agency with enforcement powers is needed, perhaps modeled onBritain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority. As other states followsuit, varying national policies can be gradually harmonized.
America's national policy, Fukuyama suggests, should roughly be: yes totherapy, no (or at best maybe) to enhancement. Stem-cell research andpreimplantation screening would be presumptively legitimate when aimed atinherited diseases but doubtful when aimed at selecting traits or improvingperformance. Germ-line engineering, with its drastic and open-ended consequences,would be very doubtful. Human-reproductive cloning would be banned outright.These are wise suggestions. As Fukuyama observes: "The original purpose ofmedicine is, after all, to heal the sick, not to turn healthy people into gods."
Actually, if that observation were applied to politics as well, the question of genetic engineering might appear still more dubious. It might seem thatproductive as well as medical resources are better directed to meeting basichuman needs than to expanding the opportunities of the comparatively healthy andwealthy. The mere possibility of designer babies for some while others in thesame society, or other societies, can't afford proper care for their babies might seem ... unnatural.
"Our greatest social philosopher," as his publicists call him, is not, alas,our most acute social critic. One good reason, not mentioned in Our PosthumanFuture, for skepticism about biotechnological interventions, is the "economy of means" principle. The right-wing version of this principle: Just say no. The left-wing version: Expensive, complicated, and dangerous solutions are usually more profitable but less effective. Safe, simple, effective, and relatively cheap ways to increase intelligence and longevity in the American population include mounting the equivalent of the antismoking educational campaign against the high levels of fat, sugar, and salt in our national diet; encouraging physical activity, for example by forcing ourselves, through gasoline taxes and urban rezoning, to walk more, if only to get to public transportation; implementing national health insurance, or at least universal free health care for children under five; and subsidizing public radio and television. Reducing economic insecurity and environmental degradation also offers virtually unlimited opportunities for enhancing our beleaguered selves. But these policies won't make investors a lot of money -- on the contrary -- while pharmaceuticals and genomics will.
The best reason of all not to press forward into the posthuman future alsogoes unmentioned in this book. It's that the enormous resources required could beput to much better use helping the many people who do not now enjoy a humanpresent. According to the United Nations, roughly three billion people do nothave access to safe sewers, 1.5 billion lack clean water, 1.25 billion don't haveminimally adequate housing, one billion have no health care, and a half-billiondon't get the minimum daily caloric requirement. An unknown but very large numberare illiterate. Among the poorest fifth of the world's population, between 30,000and 40,000 children under five die each day from the effects of malnutrition andinfection; another 180 million barely hang on. The UN estimates that all theseneeds could be met, at a basic level, for a yearly expenditure equal to 10percent of the recently proposed U.S. military budget -- or slightly less thanAmericans and Europeans spend annually on pet food and ice cream.
We -- the fortunate "we" of Fukuyama's title -- already inhabit a differentworld than these hapless billions. Their "human dignity" is moot; their "complex,evolved natures" don't have much scope for expression. It's understandable thatthe biotech industry and the political class take no notice of these nonvoting,nonconsuming, noninvesting multitudes. But shouldn't our greatest socialphilosopher have thought to put in a word for them?
