The CNS-ASU Program

TRC Program 2: Human Identity, Enhancement and Biology

Scenario: The creation of “hybrid biological” materials through directed biological assembly means designing molecular assemblies that can control the natural biosynthetic circuitry of organisms to confer novel properties, or duplicate natural, biological processes in non-living devices. These nanotechnologies raise the possibility of not just monitoring but also influencing human health, behavior, and performance, while at the same time eroding distinctions between what is biological and what is not.

Goal: To investigate the historical, philosophical, cultural, and political dimensions of the interactions between human biology and human values in the context of new nanotechnologies.

Activity 1: History, philosophy, and human values: Human-machine combinations (“cyborgs”) tend to be less morally and socially troubling than human-animal combinations (“chimeras”), potentially boding well for nanotechnologies. But we may have already witnessed the move from promise to peril in the public response to nanotechnologies which – through their manufacture (directed biological assembly), function (biochemical or biophysical, not biomechanical), or location (the brain) – may be so lifelike that introducing them into humans may seem more chimerical than cyborg. These new hybrids would raise significant questions about what it means to be biologically human – questions of great and persistent significance in philosophy, anthropology, and bioethics. Moreover, while the creation of part-human biological chimeras (e.g., xenotransplantation, stem cell biology) has to date focused on restoring human functioning, nanotechnologies raise the possibility of enhanced human performance (e.g., in intelligence or cognition). If so, then these new hybrids may also raise critical questions about the nature of personal identity and what it means to be psychologically or cognitively human. Consequent to questions of biological, psychological, or cognitive identity are questions about boundaries: Are there boundaries that we do not wish to cross, such as introducing nanotechnologies into brains or germ cells? What can we learn from prior discussions of the boundaries, identity, and “purity” of species that may guide ethical and political deliberations? Using empirical and conceptual methods from history, philosophy, and bioethics, we will address these enormous questions in novel and tractable ways, developing a theoretical and practical assessment of current and potential developments in nanotechnologies and the questions of human identity. After reviewing and analyzing prevailing approaches to human species and personal identity, we will develop and explore through research workshops and iterative, collaborative writing a framework for evaluating the novelty, desirability, and moral acceptability of potential transgressions and elaborations of human identity via nanotechnologies.

Activity 2: Culture, practices, and institutions: With the possible ability to transform “life itself,” nanotechnologies may also transform cultural and institutional arrangements. This transformation requires at least two types of response: the management of the inherent ambiguity of nanotechnologies (human-made, though potentially biologically produced) through legal, regulatory, commercial, and other means; and the collective production of “future imaginaries” – new networks of intellectuals, politicians, scientists, engineers, clinicians, business executives, bureaucrats, consumers, and others envisioning possibilities around which scientific practices become organized. Scientists and others participate in redesigning culture and society through the ways institutions – as much as scientific practices – are made to change over time. Accordingly, it is crucial to attend not only to the practices of scientists and engineers as social agents, but also to the future worlds they imagine, especially as we try to avoid pitfalls of novel biotechnologies in the past. Through interpretive, qualitative analysis of descriptions of research in scientific, therapeutic, business, and legal contexts, we will illuminate the ways in which shifting biological and engineering research and practices influence, and are influenced by, broader societal effects on transformations in (conceptions of) human and other life forms. This research will help inform our joint deliberations about the ethical, social, and cultural propriety of NSE in its emerging biological applications.

Human Identity Program Leaders: Jason Robert (ASU) and Linda Hogle (Wisconsin).