Human Nature and the Creation of New Values‪.‬

The concept of human nature, having fallen on hard times during the modern period, has become a focus of contemporary interest. This renewed interest centers around the new genetics, especially the real possibility of genetically transforming our species. Asking ourselves what kind of transhumans we might become compels us to consider what traditional values we would wish or be able to preserve. What part of our human nature should remain in a posthuman future? Is it even possible to significantly change human nature without abandoning human values? If not, should we even consider tampering with our genetic legacy? Such questions recall the Copernican conflict between science and religion, with the battle now being waged not over an astronomical center of motion but over the ultimate source of values. Do values descend from spirit, reason or imagination or do they ascend from the ground of human nature? Given their modern antagonistic history, both science and religion seem ill suited to resolve the moral controversies a posthuman future raises. Religion's commitment to preserving traditional values makes its relation to scientific advance problematic. Religion initially attempted to suppress the New Science and thereafter fought a rearguard action against a science triumphant. To be sure, a rapprochement between science and religion finds growing support today. Nevertheless, where scientific developments threaten traditional values, religion's instinctive response is to react defensively rather than proactively embrace change. Arguably, religion plays its positive cultural role vis-a-vis science precisely by acting as a brake shoe on the juggernaut of scientific advance. Science's relentless quest for knowledge and ruthless self-criticism launch it into a state of permanent revolution in regard to its own models. Given technology's power to transform society, scientific advance virtually guarantees constant moral and social upheaval. Science seems ill suited to tackle questions of value, because its practice undermines values even while being indifferent to them. In regard to the fact/value dichotomy that it helped to establish, science situates itself on the side of objective facts. Today, postmodernists, sociologists of knowledge, and philosophers of science have exposed science's claim to value-free objectivity as naive. Most scientists, however, continue to see themselves as empiricists and seem uncomfortable making moral or speculative claims that go beyond the facts. At the same time, many scientists have joined the chorus of those who recognize that, regardless of the fact/value dichotomy's ultimate validity, the scientific enterprise has major ethical, legal and social implications that must be addressed and cannot be ignored prior to conducting research. Science, then, lacks expertise in regard to the values it undermines, while religion reacts defensively to changes that threaten them.