Leon Kass in his essay “Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Perfection” (2003) tells the reader about some advances in the modern biotechnology and their possible impact on the society. He states that humanity is near the beginning of the golden age of the branch of science. He seems to be appreciating the benefits biotechnology gives to the whole humankind such as prolongation of life, cures for diseases and so forth. In fact, however, he expresses his concerns about the non-therapeutic use of the achievements of contemporary science. These concerns are linked to the nature of human beings who may use the achievements for their profit. It is explained by the possible outcome in which people may use the achievements as instruments for bioterrorism or social control. Kass states that unnecessary modifications of the body may lead to dehumanization. He also discusses the issue in terms of bioethics concerning human’s desire to gain perfection of the body and the mind. (Kass, 2003). It is possible to agree with the above statements because human beings historically tend to use any scientific advantages to achieve their goals which are not always peaceful. One of the most obvious examples of such behavior is the use of the atom in order to produce weapons instead of energy. Science is a dangerous toy in human’s hand.
Kass states that the distinction between therapy and enhancement does not help to distinguish which use of biotechnology is ethical or unethical due to the complexity to determine a universal standard for health. He also provides three obvious objections to the non-therapeutic uses of biomedical technologies. All of these objections are connected to the main values of modern America such as health, equality, and liberty (Kass 2003).
Kass criticizes self-modification for three features which it includes.
The first one is the attitude of mastery over nature. His critique is explained by the fact that having no worthy purpose for such mastery people are conversely ruled by their unsteady impulses, thus, they are mastered by nature (Kass, 2003). This opinion seems to be fair and well-reasoned. Moreover, if one approaches to the opinion keeping in mind the multitude of events which proved the dominance of nature over humanity.
The second one concerns the unnatural means of self-modification. In Kass’s opinion, when people resort to the artificial means of improvement they lose their role of the agents of their self-improvement and, thus, the gained achievements are not their personal ones. The issue concerns psychic activities as well. In a word biological intervention makes meaningfulness of human’s life cycle disappear (Kass, 2003). Some people may consider it appropriate to gain advantage in an artificial way while the others do not. All of this will bring inequality and conflict to the whole society and, thus, the statement seems to be correct.
The last feature criticized by Kass concerns human’s aging. He says that there is a great variety of human goods that derive from aging process, natural life cycle and succession of generations. For instance, acceptance of death. Kass states that prolonged life or preservation of youthfulness may result in the intensification of human’s desire to delay death. (Kass, 2003). This statement is also persuasive. It seems more appropriate when human’s way to the end is accompanied by a gradual fading than when a person dies suddenly without any signs of aging or disease.
References
Kass, L. R. (2003). Ageless bodies, happy souls: Biotechnology and the pursuit of
perfection. The New Atlantis, (1), 9-28.
