Opposing Radical Enhancement & the Status Quo Bias

Lifespans of over a thousand years, enhanced levels of perception, never failing memories and IQs that would make Einstein look like a primate—the apparent benefits of radical enhancement are great, and they are many. With the dawn of new enhancement technologies that enable us to augment an increasingly greater number of bodily functions, several scholars have expressed their hope and belief that we will relatively soon be able to artificially improve our intellectual, physical and psychological capacities such that they far exceed the capacities we naturally possess.  Aubrey de Grey, as we have seen, has argued that aging will soon be considered a disease that can be cured. Ray Kurzweil, an expert in artificial intelligence, has predicted that technology will improve at so fast a rate that it is only a brief matter of time before we leave our biological bodies behind entirely and upload ourselves into infinitely intelligent machines. Yet not everyone is as keen as De Grey and Kurzweil to embrace radical enhancement technologies—Nicholas Agar, writer of Humanity’s End, hy we should reject radical  enhancement argues that as soon as we opt to radically enhance ourselves our relation to the world transforms in such a way that we might cease to be human since our experiences and the value we place on them will have transformed beyond recognition (1). Whatever the radically enhanced humans experience and value, he argues, it is not what we experience and value, and therefore not worth pursuing for us regular humans.  Doesn’t Agar, however, by this reasoning betray an irrational disposition towards maintaining the status quo?

Amalgam Comics' Super Soldier (1996). Injected with a 'super soldier' formula an exposed to solar radiation, he holds powers and abilities far beyond those of mortals.

The philosopher Nick Bostrom makes just this case by asserting that most opponents of radical enhancement suffer from a so-called “status quo bias.” In his view, bioconservatives and other sceptics of radical enhancement are only against it because they are irrationally disposed to favour the status quo. As such, they make the error of favouring one alternative over another simply because it preserves things as they are now. Blindly wanting to maintain what we have now in the face of seemingly better alternatives, Bostrom implies, many sceptics of radical enhancement are being irrational in the arguments they make. Hoping to expose this crippling fallacy, he and his colleague Toby Ord designed what they call the reversal test:

“Reversal Test: When a proposal to change a certain parameter is thought to have bad overall consequences, consider a change to the same parameter in the opposite direction. If this is also thought to have bad overall consequences, then the onus is on those who reach these conclusions to explain why our position cannot be improved through changes to this parameter. If they are unable to do so, then we have reason to suspect that they suffer from status quo bias.” (2)

In other words, they make the case that those opponents of radical enhancement who are also against intentionally diminishing our psychological and physical capacities are suspect of suffering from a status quo bias if they cannot prove that these capacities are currently at precisely the right level. As such, they not only attack the arguments of nearly every opponent of radical enhancement, but they also burden these opponents with the task of proving that radical enhancement cannot improve the status quo.

Since there are few opponents of radical enhancement who would consider diminishing our psychological and physical capacities a good thing, they should according to the reversal test prove why these capacities are now at an optimal level. We might, however question whether or not Bostrom provides the persons who take his test with a fair choice. He sketches a picture of radical enhancement as directly opposed to what we might call ‘radical diminishment’ and frames this opposition in such a way that radical diminishment corresponds with something that is morally bad, something that no one in his right mind would choose. According to Bostrom, since no one would want to intentionally diminish his mental or physical capacities, everyone should opt for the other alternative, which, presumably, is located on the other end of the moral spectrum and should be labelled “good”. If, given the choice between these two alternatives, someone refuses to choose either one of them, he or she implicitly chooses for maintaining the status quo and should prove why radical enhancement cannot improve it.

It seems to me, however, that given the choice between two alternatives one of which is demonstrably bad, no one would choose for this obviously bad option—but this is not tantamount to saying that the other option is at all desirable. Even though radical enhancement and radical diminishment stand in direct opposition to each other and radical diminishment is demonstrably bad, this does not mean that radical enhancement is automatically good. Additionally, someone who is against radical enhancement and also against radical diminishment does not implicitly claim that our psychological and physical capacities are precisely at the right level now. Someone may perfectly well be against radical enhancement without saying that we are optimal as we are, for example by claiming that it is not up to us to enhance ourselves, or, like Agar, by claiming that by trying to enhance our current position it may cease to be our position (since we may cease to be human). Neither of these examples amounts to saying that our current cognitive and physical capacities are optimal, yet I am quite sure that neither Agar nor someone who claims that it is not up to us to enhance ourselves would want to artificially diminish these capacities. Certainly, they do not have the burden of proving why radical enhancement cannot improve our current position—the burden to prove why we might benefit from radical enhancement remains with its proponents. This is not to say, however, that opponents like Agar should not respond intelligently to arguments in favour of radical enhancement.

Bostrom’s reversal test, then, is a clever rhetorical device targeted specifically at opponents of radical enhancement by presenting them with an unfair choice between two opposing alternatives one of which is demonstrably bad. Since no one would choose for the demonstrably bad option, Bostrom implies, the other alternative is better and the obvious way to go. If, however, someone is also against this better option, he or she implicitly opts for maintaining the status quo and as such should prove why the other alternative is not better. In reality there are more options. Someone is not either for radical enhancement, for maintaining the status quo or for radical diminishment. Someone may be discontent with his or her mental capacities, against radical enhancement and against radical diminishment without being irrational. The reversal test does not allow for this, and as such does not hold— despite its clever design.

Sources:
1. Nicholas Agar, Humanity’s End, why we should reject radical enhancement (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2010).
2. Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord, “The Reversal Test: Eliminating Status Quo Bias in Applied Ethics,” Ethics 116 (2006): pp. 664-65. Cited in Agar, Humanity’s end: p. 136.

Written by Barend de Rooij

2nd year student LUC

The LUC Dean's Masterclass is run each semester for the students who made the honour roll in the previous semester.