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Political and Legal Prolegomena to an Extended Republic of

Humanity, or Transhumanity
Steve Fuller
! Lessons from the "i#cult History of $Human Rights%
It s dmcut to deny that humans began as Homo sapiens, evoutonary ohshoot
of the prmates. Nevertheess, for most of what s propery caed human hstory
(.e., the hstory that starts wth the nventon of wrtng), most of Homo sapiens
have not quaed as human - and not smpy because they were too young or
too dsabed. In socoogy, we routney nvoke a trnty of shame - race, cass,
and gender - to characterse the gap that remans between the norma
exstence of Homo sapiens and the normatve dea of fu humanty. Much of the
hstory of soca scence can be understood as ether drecty or ndrecty amed
at extendng the attrbuton of humanty to as much of Homo sapiens as possbe.
It s for ths reason that the wefare state s very reasonaby touted as soca
scences great contrbuton to potcs n the modern era. But perhaps
membershp n Homo sapiens s nether sumcent nor even necessary to quafy a
beng as human. What happens then? Transhumansm takes oh from ths
aporia, as t opens the queston of whether some other bengs - not ony other
anmas but aso compex machnes - mght not come to occupy the status of
human n the future, despte not havng arsen as a genetc ohshoot of Homo
sapiens.
My startng pont s the hstorca speccty of the dea of human rghts as
somethng wth bndng ega force. Despte much phosophca tak and potca
asserton about what prima facie ook ke human rghts (most notaby the
Amercan and French Revoutons n the ate 18
th
century and ther nteectua
antecedents), most of these rghts have been on coser nspecton cv rghts -
that s, the rght for an ndvdua to be treated as an equa n a sef-governng
poty, or ctzenshp. Such rghts were never meant to be made ndscrmnatey
avaabe to anyone who happens to be a member of Homo sapiens. Rather,
rghts had to be earned by demonstratng a eve of competence, tradtonay
evdenced n successfu property management. Of course, ths gave a defaut --
yet st defeasbe -- advantage to nhertors of weath to dspay ther
managera competence.
The modern perod has been about seekng aternatve tests for the reevant
competence so that nhertance doesnt matter at a: One shoud smpy be
capabe of sustanng somethng substantay more than ones own physca
survva. Whe a certan eement of the Left st dskes the appea to cogntve
crtera for ctzenshp (perhaps even ncudng teracy), such crtera served
hstorcay to berase entry nto the poty, as one no onger had to arrve wth
weath but smpy a detectabe capacty to generate weath. Captasms focus of
cogntve prowess - aka nventon - estabshes the pont. (See aso the US
Consttutons creaton of the Patent Omce and |oseph Schumpeters subsequent
vaorsaton of Henry Ford as entrepreneur.) Indeed, most of the acrmony
between captasts and socasts over the past 200 years reduces to the smpe
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ssue of how to credt peope propery for what they have done. Ths s of course
a serous probem that requres redress, but qute dherent from how socety
shoud be organzed n a progressve fashon. Indeed, the very dea that one
shoud be concerned about who deserves credt for contrbutng to soceta
weath s a normatve prncpe shared by captasm and socasm, predatng
ther schsm: It s what put both of these deooges on the same sde aganst
those who contnue to beeve that heredty s utmatey the most reabe source
of soca order.
When I entered unversty neary forty years ago, the heredtarans woud have
been seen as hopeessy reactonary. However, the emergence of socoboogy
and ts second comng as evoutonary psychoogy has breathed new fe nto
the pro-heredty forces. Anma rghts actvsts are empowered by ths revva.
Thus, nstead of askng what new sks anmas mght need to acqure to survve
n an ncreasngy anthropomorphc word (what s beow dscussed as upft),
they smpy observe that anmas had survved perfecty we for menna pror
to human habtaton. Whatever ese one mght wsh to say about these
contrastng atttudes, the former s forward-ookng and the atter backward-
ookng n ts normatve orentaton.
From ths standpont, human rghts s a curous hybrd. After the Unted Natons
Unversa Decaraton on Human Rghts of 1948, the normatve force of human
rghts s that every member of Homo sapiens, no matter where they ve and
smpy by vrtue of speces membershp, s entted to a range of rghts that
approxmate those hstorcay covered by cv rghts egsaton. In other words,
an expcty heredty-based denton of humanty s nvoked to |ustfy
attrbutons that prevousy had been based on potenta or actua ndvdua
achevement. In |ursprudenta terms, natura aw and postve aw,
ncreasngy at oggerheads n the modern era, found a mutuay satsfactory
conceptua meetng pont n human rghts. Natura aw had ndeed protected a
members of Homo sapiens equay -- but ony reatve to ther natura standng.
So the rght to revouton was orgnay about aowng serfs to revot aganst
ther masters who abused ther power; but f serfs revoted aganst a benevoent
master, then they woud be n the wrong. For ts part, postve aw mantaned an
open-mnded atttude about the composton of socety |ust as ong as t was
composed of equas n the deep sense of those who coud support themseves
n the face of potenta opposton from feow equas. Such socetes, whe
typcay advanced by todays ghts, functoned as what we nowadays ca
gated communtes but used to be caed cty-states.
In ehect, human rghts resuted from removng natura aws herarchca vson
and postve aws etst practce, whe combnng the unversasm and
paternasm of natura aw wth the egataransm and berasm of postve aw.
As Samue Moyn (2011) has observed, the creatve genus behnd the UN
Decaraton was the Neo-Thomst Cathoc phosopher, |acques Martan (1882-
1973). I say genus because many thngs were accompshed by the dea of
human rghts that are nowadays often taken for granted. Frst, t kept the
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Cathoc ega tradton reevant n pubc fe, where t had been ncreasngy seen
as ant-modern and authortaran. Second, t removed potca barrers wthn
Chrstanty between Cathocs and those Protestants who were theoogcay
ncned to abandon natura aw atogether. Thrd, t provded a cear ega
groundng for wefare state and even socast poces, snce the exstence of
human rghts draws expct nternatona attenton to probems presented by
the dherence between what the Decaraton says and the actua exstence of
Homo sapiens. Moreover, the appea to human rghts does so n a way that
shfts the burden of proof onto those who mght st beeve that human dstress
s merey a oca concern that n the ong term w somehow take care of tsef,
ether through charty or bengn negect.
Sxty-ve years ater, the concept of human rghts n Martans orgna sense
st reay exsts ony n Europe, ncudng the UK, where t has spawned varous
bottom-ne grand coatons between partes of the manstream Rght
(Chrstan Democratc) and Left (Soca Democratc) to preserve the wefare
state n the face of sca pressures. These governments have aso been senstve
about mantanng nternatona deveopment ad as a constant percentage of the
state budget.
The Unted States of Amerca - estabshed as a repubc wth ndentey
expansve horzons - set an mportant practca precedent for the reazabty of
human rghts, especay through ts hstorcay open-door mmgraton pocy.
However, the USA s st not fuy sgned up to the dea of human rghts - though
t s very much sgned up to cv rghts. Consder ths: Promnent n the
opposton to Barack Obamas ehorts to get Amercans to nvest n heathcare s
the cam that t woud deny Amercans the rght to ve as they wsh. In a cassc
repubc, requrng that peope have heath nsurance mght make sense as a
crteron for ctzenshp. However, f youre aready a ctzen and you arent
troubed by natura aw consderatons about what makes a fe ob|ectvey
decent, then Obamacare mght we strke you as mposng an unreasonabe
tax burden. In ths context, Europeans woud pay the socast card and say that
even ctzens are aways aready ndebted to others who n varous ways have
enabed the condtons under whch they thrve. Ths creates an obgaton for
ctzens to respond n knd - to pay t forward, f you w -- to reamrm the vaue
of vng n your socety beyond the vaue of your own partcuar fe. But you
need to be receptve to the pecuar ega achemy behnd the dea of human
rghts for ths argument not to sound merey socast n the sense that many
Amercans - and not ony them - ncreasngy nd ohensve.
Despte the evdent shortcomngs of the USA on matters of wefare, a
scentcay vabe concept of the human t for the future -- of the sort
transhumansm needs -- coud do worse than take a esson from repubcan
democraces, whch bestow ctzenshp on those whom ts members are wng to
treat as equas n some egay prescrbed sense of recproca rghts and dutes.
Repubcan ctzenshp s about the mutua recognton of peers, not a status of
grace bestowed by some overbearng monarch. Moreover, repubcan
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consttutons dene ctzenshp n terms that do not make expct reference to
the nherted quates of the ctzenry. Brth n the repubc does not consttute a
prvege over those who have had to earn ther ctzenshp. A tradtona
expresson of ths dea s that those born to ctzens are obged to perform
natona servce to vadate ther ctzenshp. The Unted States has exceeded
the wdest hopes of repubcan theorsts (who tended thnk n terms of cty-
states), gven ts hstorcay open-door mmgraton pocy yet consstenty strong
sense of sef-dentty - not east among recent mmgrants.
In terms of a scentcay upgraded verson of human rghts that mght be
caed human ctzenshp, et us magne ths open-door mmgraton pocy as
ontoogca rather than geographca n nature. Thus, non-Homo sapiens may be
aowed to mgrate to the space of the human. Anma rghts actvsts beeve
that they are aready prmed for ths prospect. They can demonstrate that
prmates and aquatc mammas are not ony sentent but aso engaged n varous
hgher cogntve functons, ncudng what s nowadays caed menta tme trave
(Suddendorf and Corbas 2007). Ths s the abty to set ong-term goas and
pursue them to competon because the envsaged vaue of the goa overrdes
that of the dversons encountered aong the way. Whe ths s ndeed a good
emprca marker of the sort of autonomy that has been hstorcay requred for
repubcan ctzenshp, n practce anma rghts actvsts embed ths pont n an
argument for de facto speces segregatonsm. Such a move s prima facie
curous. If, say, apes and dophns are ndeed as cogntvey advanced as the
anma rghts actvsts suggest, then we mght expect that those speces woud
ke to foster coser soca bonds wth us and us wth them, whch woud enta
research amed at openng channes of communcaton (e.g., prosthetc
transaton devces, f not trans-speces pdgns), so that we mght earn from
each other and poo our ehorts to mutua benet.
But as a matter of fact, anma rghts actvsts generay ca for a separate but
equa pocy among the speces, n whch the ony enforceabe sense of rghts
s one of mmunty from body harm from humans. It s the sense of rghts qua
dependency that a chd or a dsabed person mght en|oy. That cams to anma
rghts carry no sense of recproca obgatons on the part of the anmas towards
humans rases questons about the actvsts sncerty n appeang to rghts at
a. (I sha return to ths pont n secton 3 beow.) However, f the actvsts are
sncere, then they shoud aso ca for a proactve pocy of what the scence
cton wrter Davd Brn (1980) has termed upft, whereby we prortse
research desgned to enabe cogntvey prveged creatures, regardess of
matera orgn, to acheve capactes that enabe them to functon as peers n
what may be regarded as an expanded crce of humanty. (Boethcsts w
have encountered a smar dea under the rubrc of enhancng anmas n Chan
|2009|.) Such research may focus on behavour modcaton, gene therapy or
prosthetc enhancement, but n the end t woud nform a Wefare State 2.0 that
takes serousy our obgaton to a of those whom we regard as capabe of beng
rendered human, n the sense of fuy autonomous ctzens n The Repubc of
Humanty (Fuer and Lpnska 2014: chap. 4).
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The dea that Human beng = Homo sapiens has aways had a stronger bass n
theoogy than boogy. Ony the Abrahamc regons have ceary prveged the
naked ape over a other creatures. Evoutonsts of a strpes have seen ony
dherences n degree as separatng the powers of vng thngs, wth reatvey
few evoutonsts expectng that a specc bt of genetc matera w someday
revea the unquey human. A the more reason to thnk that n a future where
some verson of evouton prevas that repubcan theores of cv rghts are
key to pont the way forward. Ths prospect mpes that every canddate beng
w need to earn the status of human by passng certan crtera as determned
by those n the socety n whch he, she, or t woud propose to ve. The Turng
Test provdes a good prototype for examnng egbty nto ths expanded crce
of humanty, gven the tests neutraty to matera substratum.
It s not too eary to construct Turng Test 2.0 tests of human ctzenshp that
attempt to capture the fu compexty of the sorts of bengs that we woud have
ve among us as equas. A good pace to start woud be wth a sympathetc
renderng of ong-standng - and too easy dsmssed - anthropomorphc
attrbutons to anmas and machnes. Wefare State 2.0 poces coud be then
desgned to enabe a wde assortment of canddate bengs - from carbon to
scon - to meet the requste standard of ctzenshp mped n such attrbutons.
Indeed, many cassc wefare state poces such as compusory mass educaton
and chdhood vaccnaton can be understood retrospectvey as the orgna
potca commtment to upft n Brns sense - but apped ony to members of
Homo sapiens vng wthn the terrtory governed by a naton-state. The dea
now woud be to tacke the na barrer to fu humanty: Once we have overcome
pre|udce based on race, cass, gender and even speces, the substratum barrer
w reman - to wt, our prvegng of carbon over scon - or, n most genera
terms, natura s better than artca. As we sha now see, what Freud (2012) a
century ago dented as the narcssstc personaty can be used to understand
and overcome ths na pre|udce.
2. The Tale of &arcissus as a Lesson in the 'bstacles to Extending the
Republic of Humanity
The most famous rendton of the tae of Narcssus appears as an nventon n the
great Latn ove epc, Ovds Metamorphoses. In ths verson there are two man
characters, Narcssus, an accompshed hunter, and Echo, a uent and wtty
nymph whom a |eaous Hera, wfe of Zeus, consgns to a fe of speakng ony by
repeatng the na nes of whomever she encounters; hence, the meanng of
echo. After havng been so cursed, Echo fas n ove wth Narcssus, who ends
up beng frghtened away by her smpe repetton of what he says. However, the
goddess of revenge, Nemess, deems Narcssus response to be unfar, cursng
hm to fa n ove wth hs reected mage that he accdentay espes upon a
ake. Transxed for the rest of hs fe by hs mage as an ob|ect of fascnaton,
Narcssus ony reazes ts usory character |ust before he s about to de.
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In contemporary debates over personhood - n partcuar, ts extenson to non-
humans - the man take-home pont of ths tae s that we shoud not re|ect
quates that we esteem so hghy n ourseves when they are found n others,
smpy because they do not come from us. In Ovds tae, Echo s douby cursed -
rst by Hera, who recos when Echo chaenges her verba authorty, and then by
Narcssus, who recos when Echo mtates hs verba authorty. Perhaps the most
natura response to ths narratve premse n our tmes s to see Echo as the
archetypa modern woman who s damned whether she tres to get ahead (
la Hera, .e. at work) or stay behnd ( la Narcssus, .e. at home). However, I
beeve that t s more productve to see the narratve as an mped crtque of
the assocaton of authority and uniqueness - or, as the economsts put t wth
the sort of nsutng carty that ony abstracton can provde, value and scarcity.
Nether the vaue of humanty as such nor our own persona sense of humanty s
dmnshed by recognsng humanty n other bengs. To be sure, ths s much
more dmcut to acheve n practce than my pattude mght suggest.
Nevertheess, as the fate of Narcssus ustrates, the cost of not recognsng ths
mora fact s that one fas vctm to self-consumption - the opposte of the vrtue
of self-production, n whch the sef s pro|ected to every other thng, thereby
renderng t an ob|ect of concern. In Ovds day, the pont woud have been seen
through the ens of Cceros observaton about the Roman genera and consu,
Pompey: He was a man so n ove wth hmsef that he had no rvas. Speccay,
Pompey trusted hs own |udgement to such an extent that he became nexbe
n deang wth hs opponents over tme, whch brought about hs downfa.
Pompey was so sef-enamoured that he faed to see how others were tryng to
teach hm thngs that coud mprove hs poston. In ths deep cogntve sense,
then, he fe vctm to a fase sense of sef-ove, whch ed hm to do thngs that
went aganst hs own sef-nterest. If narcsssm s meant to stand for a
pathoogca condton, then ths shoud be t.
It foows that the antdote for narcsssm s a verson of anthropomorphism, a
psychoogca tendency that has admttedy come under suspcon from a varety
of quarters - rangng from evoutonary boogy to anma rghts actvsts to the
more fashonabe quarters of postmodern soca theory that fancy the term
posthuman. To be sure, f anthropomorphsm entaed a the quates that ts
opponents suspect, then t woud go tte way toward addressng the pathoogy
of narcsssm. However, when proposed n a reatvey postve sprt (e.g. by the
19
th
century theoogan Ludwg Feuerbach, who strongy nuenced the eary
Marx), anthropomorphsm s an nvtaton to unversase ones most esteemed
quates to others who show sgns of manfestng them as we. In other words,
anthropomorphsm requres an abstract dentcaton wth others that narcsssm
precudes. Thus, the anthropomorphst perceves the prima facie cogency of
anothers utterance not as a threat but as a frendy gesture n a word where
both are equay egtmate nhabtants and perhaps even share the same
utmate goas. In contrast, narcsssts w aways thnk that f what the other
person says makes sense, they coud have thought of t, whch then eads them
to dsregard the aen utterance as superuous, f not an artefact, vs--vs ther
own thnkng.
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In ths respect, narcsssm s the compementary pathoogy to what the US
socoogst W.E.B. DuBos (1903) orgnay dented as doube conscousness.
In other words, f some subatern group comes to thnk of tsef as the domnant
group sees them (.e. doube conscousness) but tres to gan maxmum
advantage from that psychc condton, then t nvtes members of the domnant
group to respond wth revuson when a member of the subatern group appears
to match the domnant groups standards (.e. narcsssm). In DuBos own case,
a European-traned back man hodng a Ph.D. from Harvard n the rst decade of
20
th
century Amerca provoked suspcon, f not outrght fear and oathng -
perhaps a racst verson of what robotcsts dub the uncanny vaey, whereby
humans are taken aback by androds that seem to possess too many human-ke
quates yet qute ceary do not possess a human nature (Mor 2012). Thus,
presagng peopes preference for deang wth more mechanca ookng
androds, DuBos dscovered that whtes (and even some backs) may favour
backs who conform to the serve stereotype. Put as a more genera worry:
Smpy the knowedge that a beng s composed of scon rather than carbon
mght serve as a source of pre|udce, regardess of the bengs demonstrated
capactes.
To be sure, the narcssst coud have probaby come up wth whatever statement
was uttered by the aen beng that caused hm or her to reco as Narcssus dd
to Echo. Nevertheess, the ogca compatbty of coud have and dd not
provdes a breedng ground for a sense of common humanty to whch the
narcssst s nsenstve. Put t ths way: The narcssst coud never be convnced
that another entty - perhaps even a member of Homo sapiens - has passed the
Turng Test. Aan Turng wanted to know whether machnes can thnk and
concuded that the best way to nd out was to have a known thnker - a human
beng - |udge the responses to questons from a beng whose dentty was
hdden. Artca ntegence researchers have treated ths test as a chaenge for
desgnng computers potentay t to ve as equas wth humans. Thus, f the
unknown beng answers a seres of questons to the satsfacton of the ntegent
questoner, then that beng passes as ntegent, regardess of ts matera
makeup. To be sure, there s the ssue of the number and nature of the questons
necessary before reachng a |udgement, as anyone who has watched the m
Blade Runner w mmedatey understand. However, a narcssst coud never
fary admnster the Turng Test because the very fact that the nterrogated beng
s not onesef woud aready pre|udce the nterrogator aganst the beng. In other
words, the narcssstc nterrogator woud nterpret every smarty to onesef as
a veed dherence that requres further scrutny, perhaps magnng that he or
she coud have programmed the scrutnsed beng.
Ths suggests the need for awyers wth a transhumanst sensbty to craft a
workabe concept of Prvacy 2.0 that aows access to track record wthout
access to matera orgn - n other words, an enforceabe noton of prvacy that
prevents the nterrogators from cheatng on the Turng Test. After a, the dea of
standng as a ega person s that one s teray regarded under a mask (as the
persona, n Greek drama) wth a cear sense of whch propertes of the beng are
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reevant (or not) to the case at hand. Ths dea w be harder to mantan n a
word where the dherence between track record and matera orgn s burred by
the potca desre to pre-empt varous forms of prohbted behavour based on
nterpretve strateges expcty desgned to unmask the suspect. However, I
dont mean ths as an argument aganst the very dea of governments and
busnesses mnng data for securng or promotng varous forms of soca fe.
After a, t s one thng to mne bg data to determne that someone s key to
commt a crme; t s qute another then to dsarm that person of any defence
aganst a crmna charge by camng that t was n ther nature to commt the
crme. In the atter case, a purported (scentc) understandng of the capactes
of a partcuar conguraton of matter serves to undermne the suspects
autonomy by preventng them from provdng an aternatve account of why they
dd what they seem to have done. Here Kant and Netzsche woud be on the
same page n suspectng that such naturastc appeas are reay shows of
power that ipso facto dehumanse the beng n queston - whether ts nature s
carbon- or scon-based.
Now, of course, for the foreseeabe future, any canddate androd person w
have been orgnay programmed by someone who coud functon as ts
nterrogator n a Turng Test. But shoud that fact matter n |udgng the enttys
worth as a person on the same terms as onesef? After a, the boogca
reproducton of Homo sapiens has aways nvoved - however crudey and
mperfecty - the shapng of ohsprng n the parents own mage. In ths respect,
the care avshed on the chd s smpy an extended opportunty to make the
chd aware that he or she has been deberatey brought nto exstence. From a
psychoanaytc standpont, narcsssm s normay seen as a deformaton of ths
process. Dependng on whch anayst you beeve, a narcssstc personaty
resuts from ether too much or too tte care avshed on the chd durng the
perod when he or she s wecomed as a new member of the human communty.
In both cases, the emprca connecton to the parents matters many as a prima
facie vrtue that may become a source of pathoogy. The non-narcssstc chd
comes to acqure a sense of sef-worth that s comparabe to the parents own,
even whe reazng hs or her own created character. From ths perspectve, the
future ooks brght for androds whose sense sef s nsted through sustaned
nteracton wth ther creators who every so often are peasanty surprsed and
perhaps even nstructed by behavours emtted by ther creatons.
A potenta case n pont s the androd BINA48, whch means Breakthrough
Integence va Neura Archtecture 48 exaops per second processng speed and
48 exabytes of memory. More concretey, BINA48 conssts of a bust-ke head
and shouders mounted on a frame who speaks answers n response to typed
questons. The androd appears to be modeed on a Jackie Brown-ke Afrcan-
Amercan woman, but n fact s based on - and named for - the wfe of the
meda awyer who has perhaps done the most to promote the dea of rghts for
machnes capabe of sustaned creatve extenson of dgtay upoaded cogntve
processes. Ths awyer, Martne Rothbatt, who began fe as Martn Rothbatt, s a
transgender ceebrty n the Unted States. However, her man concern these
days, va the Terasem Movement, s the cutvaton of cyberconscousness
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through the contnuous upgradng and pubc exposure of BINA48. The basc dea
s that BINA48 stores a that she earns and redepoys t n ncreasngy
sophstcated and creatve ways, n the course of whch she deveops what
Rothbatt (2012) cas a beme, a stye of beng-n-the-word. Now n her fourth
year of exstence, BINA48 comes across - at east to ths nterocutor -- as an
nsghtfu abet rambng - a pub phosopher functonng sghty over the mt
(.e. she has dmcuty decdng when the ength of an answer was sumcent to
the queston, but otherwse s very uent).
At ths pont, the dherence between the ega case for anma and machne
personhood shoud be made expct, f t s not aready cear. Anma rghts
actvsts are ceary amng for recognton of a sense of personhood that s
detached from the possesson of dstncty human quates, even f that means
concedng a dmnshed sense of rght, as I have aready suggested. In contrast,
machne rghts actvsts am to bud machnes that match, f not surpass,
supposedy dstnctve human achevements - n a Turng Test fashon - n order
to acqure personhood for those machnes. Whereas anma rghts actvsts tend
to speak n terms of sanctuares and other segregated spaces that aow
anmas to ve as they were boogcay meant to ve, machne rghts actvsts
favour ncreasng nteracton and even ntegraton wth humans as part of an
open-ended process of mutua earnng and accommodaton. In the more
dystopc versons of ths vson, the machnes may even surpass and domnate
the humans. I may be exaggeratng the mped potca dherences here - but I
beeve ony sghty.
(! "oes Extending Rights to )nimals "iminish the *oncept of Right+
Removng the need to be Homo sapiens to quafy for human ctzenshp -- say, n
terms of the extended Turng Test crtera dscussed above - woud nvte
comparson wth the European Unons pocy for the accesson of new member
states. The pocy assumes that canddate states start wth certan hstorca
dsadvantages vs--vs membershp n the Unon but that these are n prncpe
surmountabe. Thus, there s a pre-accesson perod n whch the canddate
states are montored for potca and economc stabty, as we as treatment of
ts own ctzens, after whch ntegraton occurs n stages - startng wth free
mobty of students and workers, the harmonsaton of aws, and revenue
transfers from more estabshed member states. To be sure, there s pushback by
both the estabshed and the canddate member states. But notwthstandng
these panfu perods of mutua ad|ustment, the process has so far worked and
may prove a mode for the ontoogca unon of humanty. The gradua
assmaton of women and ethnc mnortes as free-standng agents n the pubc
fe of modern naton-states has aso conformed to ths pattern, abet at varous
rates and to varyng degrees of success.
However, as was aso suggested above, t s not cear that those who wsh to
expand the mora crce beyond Homo sapiens to other anmas, as opposed to
machnes, wsh to change - et aone upft - these creatures as a condton of
ther beraton. Thus, when on 2 December 2013, the eadng Amercan ega
10
theorst of anma rghts, Steven Wse, ed n New York State the rst awsut to
uphod the rght to body berty of four captve chmpanzees, hs proposa was
smpy to transfer them from ther cages (where they functoned as pets,
entertaners and ab sub|ects) to a dedcated sanctuary where they can ve
among feow chmpanzees. Ths ed many awyers to accuse Wse of confusng
the dea of protecton - the ega coverage of whch woud ncude not ony
anmas but aso, say, the artefacts and stes that UNESCO has desgnated word
hertage - wth rghts n the strct sense that are assgned to free-standng, sef-
determnng bengs (Sebert 2014).
To be sure, the anma rghts movement has never been competey cear on
what t means to expand the mora crce (Snger 1981). But we can get a sense
of what they have n mnd by consderng the normatve reference ponts of the
movements eadng phosopher, Peter Snger, who has gone so far as to suggest
that Darwn repace Marx and the tasmanc gure of the potca eft (Snger
1999). Snger often ponts to Tooey (1972) as formatve n hs thnkng about the
condtons under whch somethng has a rght to fe. Foowng Tooey, Snger
argues that f a rght to fe presupposes the possesson of future-orented
desres, then whe some cogntvey underdeveoped humans may not have a
rght to fe, some cogntvey deveoped anmas may have |ust such a rght. So
far t sounds as f a reasonaby strong sense of persona autonomy s requred for
a rght to fe.
At the same tme, though, Tooey and Snger wsh to make these |udgements on
the spot based on natura potenta, wthout consderng the prospect of
artcay enhancng that potenta (e.g. makng a genetcay bnd chd see or
at east smuate vsua access through some other medum).Ths, n turn, serves
to restrct what s meant by future-orented desres. Indeed, Snger and most of
hs foowers n practce revert to a reatvey weak sense of personhood, whereby
a servceabe set of nterests s deemed sumcent to possess a rght to fe,
regardess of how those nterests are estabshed or satsed. Indeed sometmes
anma rghts defenders demonse autonomy as an especay specesst
crteron of personhood that gnores the obgaton that humans have to enabe
the ourshng of non-human speces wth exstenta horzons radcay dherent
from ther own. In ths context, Snger snges out for crtcsm Bernard Wams
(2008) posthumous work, The Human Pre|udce, whch attempts to defend pro-
human atttudes on smpe grounds of group oyaty: an ontoogca us vs. them.
Unsurprsngy Snger does not nd Wams argument persuasve - and nether
do I. Moreover, Wams speces chauvnsm pays nto Sngers assocaton of
specessm wth racsm and sexsm n the ndex of potcay ncorrect atttudes
for an enghtened age. Yet, ther sef-avowed progressve credentas
notwthstandng, Snger and hs foowers fa to acknowedge that broady
wefarst pro|ects have aways requred substantay transformng those who
are deemed unfary dsadvantaged as measured by some standard of soca
|ustce. Ths s why so much of cv rghts egsaton, whe couched n the
rhetorc of removng barrers based on race, cass and gender, has nvoved
11
compeng these dsadvantaged peope to attend schoos, undergo medca
treatments, and undertake empoyment - a desgned, hopefuy for better and
not worse, to take the dsadvantaged outsde ther comfort zones. (Ths has been
the great promse of amrmatve acton.) By extenson, at east certan anmas
mght be somehow enhanced so that they acqure a sense of autonomy that
aows us to recognse them as equas. Of course, t may aso mean that humans
earn anma anguages (perhaps va some prosthetc transaton devce),
perhaps pror to the deveopment of some hybrd nterspeces ngua franca. The
tempate for ths strategy s the ehorts to open up trade reatons between
Europe and the rest of the word, admttedy a very chequered egacy.
If autonomy n the strong (Kantan) sense s one great enemy of the anma rghts
actvsts, another s anthropomorphsm, even though they often refer
sympathetcay to anmas n the same terms they mght very young or dsabed
humans. For exampe, Andrew Fenton (2012) takes serousy that we mght work
toward some dea of chmp-based consent to expermenta partcpaton,
modeed on pedatrc research ethcs. The basc dea s that we mght persuade
chmps - as we do chdren -- to consent to partcpate n scentc research by
gettng them used to expermenta apparatus and ab condtons, so that they
reaze that ther ves are not under any substanta threat. I put persuade n
scare quotes because Fenton concretey proposes that chmps be nstructed n a
way that aows ther dssent to be ceary regstered, even f we do not qute
understand why they dssent. Here one mght wonder whether Fentons
comparson s qute far to chdren, who after a have the potenta to
demonstrate much greater powers of comprehenson through anguage.
However, t does reect a common anma rghts strategy of mnmzng the
dherence between chdren and mature apes to estabsh an ntutve sense of
contnuty between humans and non-humans.
On the other hand, Fenton s aso senstve to a set of concerns cosey
assocated wth the ate boethcst Raymond Frey (2002), who argued that dong
research on anmas that s not permtted on humans may smpy |eopardze
anma ves wthout apprecaby contrbutng to knowedge of how humans work.
(Ths echoes a concern that Chares Darwn orgnay rased about hs defender
Thomas Henry Huxeys enthusasm for vvsecton.) Fenton foows Frey n
suspectng, perhaps rghty, that scentsts routney gnore doubts about the
cross-speces generasabty of the resuts of anma-based research out of a
more genera dsregard for the vaue of anma fe.
The ogc of ths argument mpes that the excessve restrctons on human
partcpaton n scentc research mposed by nsttutona revew boards -
whch are typcay more concerned wth nsttutona abty than the actua
beefs and desres of the woud-be sub|ects - shoud be reaxed so that humans
are aowed to partcpate n rsky research that woud otherwse needessy
endanger anmas. Both epstemoogy and ethcs woud benet from the move.
To be sure, nether Frey nor Fenton draw ths concuson, as they are more
concerned wth mnmzng harm to anmas than maxmzng benet to humans.
12
However, Veronka Lpnska and I draw |ust ths concuson n he !roactionary
"mperative (Fuer & Lpnska 2014). Here we foow the Unversty of Manchester
boethcst Sarah Chan n supportng a cuture n whch the rght to partcpate n
scentc research woud be promoted by potenta human sub|ects who sef-
organze themseves as proactve nterest groups (Chan et a. 2011).
But make no mstake: Notwthstandng the appeas to the dsabed and chdren,
anthropomorphsm n the servce of anma rghts s presumed by ts defenders to
be no more than a necessary ev - though some actvsts detect a atent
mascunst bas underyng the anthropomorphsm, one that prveges, say, apes
over brds as ntutve bearers of rghts (Davs 2012). (One s remnded of the
#nimal $arm sogan: A anmas are equa, but some anmas are more equa
than others.) In any case, from ancent tmes, those concerned wth anma
wefare have taken the capacty to suher pan - understood as a mna
experence whereby a bengs sense of body ntegrty s under drect threat - as
payng an mportant conceptua, and perhaps utmatey forensc, roe n
provdng a crteron of personhood that deay mght be read oh the
physoogca dsposton of an organsm wthout havng to engage n any
potcay ncorrect or epstemcay dubous anthropc pro|ectons. Moreover,
anma rghts actvsts captase on the capacty of anmas to fee pan n
captvty so as to gan emotona everage wth those who do not aready beeve
that anma ves are ntrnscay vauabe.
Aganst ths backdrop, t s nterestng to read Wennemann (2012), a work by a
Cathoc phosopher, whose concepton of posthuman personhood nvoves
sayng that t s sumcent but not necessary to be a member of Homo sapiens to
count as a human, whch he equates wth a personhood. Thus, n one deft
ogca manoeuvre, Wennemann manages to uphod the vaue of brngng a
potenta (ncudng potentay aborted) members of Homo sapiens to maturty
whe mantanng a rather hgh bar for non-Homo sapiens to be credted wth the
same status. In partcuar, the capacty to suher pan ipso facto wont cut t. Here
Wennemann draws on the fact that n Abrahamc theoogy, suherng s the
feeng assocated wth an opportunty for deep earnng, on the bass of whch a
persons mora state may then be |udged. In ths respect, suherng s not
somethng to be avoded at a cost or perhaps even mtgated as qucky as
possbe; rather, t s somethng to be overcome, deay n a way that eaves one
stronger.
Ths ast pont hghghts a decate probem for anma rghts actvsts n ther
appea to human rghts as a rghts benchmark. The content of the UN Decaraton
mosty references rghts n the sense recognsed n postve aw, namey, a
socety of ndvduas each of whom s presumed to possess consderabe
autonomy. In the Decaraton, freedom from body harm and securty of matera
we-beng are not ends n themseves but smpy provde a patform for free
expresson through art, scence and cuture - the means by whch humans assert
ther dstnctveness as a speces. (Abraham Masows sef-actuasaton
psychoogy s a natura concomtant of ths dea of human rghts.) In that case,
13
mght t not be possbe for a beng capabe of art, scence and cuture, yet
unencumbered by Homo sapiens% carbon-based needs, be egbe for human
rghts -- especay f humans can nteract wth such creatures and respect ther
achevements n these areas? Ths, of course, has been the promse of artca
ntegence research and other Goem-ke pro|ects. But we mght aso add the
generaton of avatars n cyberspace and perhaps even the Search for
Extraterrestra Integence (SETI).
Here t s teng that Steven Wses ega defence of anma rghts s based on
ony a part of the modern composte noton of rghts ad down n the eary 20
th

century by the Yae consttutona awyer, Wesey Hohfed (1879-1918). Hohfeds
egacy has owed many through hs Oxford foower Herbert Hart, who n turn
ad the foundatons for modern anaytc phosophy of aw (Hart 1961). Hohfed
(1919) ohered a sef-styed moecuar anayss of rght nto ts ogca
components, one eement of whch s mmunty from others aterng your
consttuton wthout your consent. However, for Hohfed, ths eement provded
ony a quarter of the concept of rght, whch aso ncudes more postve notons
of power and prvege - that s, outrght sef-asserton, not merey protecton
from sef-negaton. Accordng to Wse (2000), ths rather mted sense of rght -
normay reserved for chdren and the dsabed - s smpy meant to be the thn
edge of a thcker ega wedge. I am not so sure. The defaut contempt for
autonomy and anthropomorphsm exhbted by many anma rghts actvsts -
and extendng more broady to those who woud cam rghts for nature -
suggests that egay enforced protecton woud end the matter. To be sure, more
actvsm woud be needed to brng the rest of the anma - not to menton pant -
speces under the rubrc of rghts, even n Wses attenuated sense, but the
resut woud be a supercay attractve patchwork word that n reaty woud be
an ecoogca verson of Aparthed.
Phosophers have ong wondered whether anma beraton entas a serous
commtment to anma rghts. The |ury s st n deberaton. Here t s worth
recang that the appea to rghts (.e. cv rghts) has hstorcay requred that
those who woud be treated as free-standng ndvduas worthy of bearng rghts
need to re-enact the orgna strugge of those who estabshed those rghts. Ths
s a stronger requrement than the smpe capacty to t nto a arger corporate
whoe, whch the concept of ecoogy often suggests. Ths s why natona
servce has been so promnent n repubcan democraces, the potca system
that has done the most to promote rghts. Ca t an deoogca vaccnaton
pocy, f you w. In any case, your capacty for sef-asserton aganst a
countervang force - as good an emprca denton of autonomy as any -
marks you as worthy of rghts. You dont smpy captuate or adapt: You eave
your mark. As ong as anmas do not have the opportunty to prove themseves
n such a manner, then the appea to rghts on ther behaf s no more than a
euphemsm for a state of protected dependency. Lbertarans, often the scourge
of sef-styed progressves, understand ths pont better than anyone ese.
14
,! *onclusion- The *entrality of .plift to the Extended Republic of
Humanity
At ths pont, et us return to the concept of uplift rased earer n our dscusson.
An nterestng wtness s George Dvorsky, who sts on the board of the Insttute
for Ethcs and Emergng Technooges (IEET), s a founder of Toronto
Transhumansts and the chef contrbutng edtor to the popuar futurst webste,
io&. In addton, Dvorsky s a Buddhst, |ust ke the co-founder of the IEET, the
socoogst and boethcst |ames Hughes, who together organzed a most
remarkabe conference at Yae Unversty n December 2013, shorty after Steven
Wse had ed hs ega bref on behaf of the four captve chmpanzees. It was
arguaby the rst tme that advocates of anma and machne rghts faced each
other over ther preferred futures - posthumanst n the case of anma rghts
actvsts, transhumanst n the case of machne rghts actvsts, the former de-
centrng the human as a ocus of vaue, the atter extendng t (Fuer 2012:
chap. 2). Dvorskys own vew on ths matter s nterestng because he s on
record as supportng speces upft as part of a generc expanson of ntegence
n the unverse (Dvorsky 2008).
Of course, ths eaves open whether such an expanson of ntegence s meant
to happen by reducng uncertanty n the norma communcaton between
humans and anmas (perhaps by humans earnng anma codes) or by
ntroducng human-ke ntegence nto the anmas themseves ( la upft),
though Dvorsky ceary has the atter n mnd. At a metaphysca eve, the
dstncton ooks ke evouton v. creaton. But even wthout the theoogca
backdrop, there remans the queston of who exacty needs to change - and to
what extent - n order for ths goba ncrease n ntegence to occur. Dvorsky
(2008) rees on the ntuton that as ong as the anmas can retan ther
memores, they woud recognse the mprovement to ther ves wrought by
nteectua enhancement, even f t s brought about ndrecty, say, by the
enrchment of anma ves though engagement n trade wth humans. Perhaps n
the sprt of Haeckes ate 19
th
century dea that ontogeny recaptuates
phyogeny, Dvorsky supposes cross-speces upft to be a process by whch, say,
apes or dophns acqure somethng that prevousy ony humans had, but
wthout osng what they aready possess. However, f, as Dvorskys more
ethcay orented comments suggest, ths process nvoves ssues hstorcay
assocated wth cvzng natve knowedge, then more of a trade-oh may be
requred, whch then rases ssues concernng the terms - aong the nes
suggested above by Andrew Fenton - on whch mutua consent mght occur to
egtmze upft. But the overa drft of Dvorsky (2008) s not so far from the
cassc defence of mperasm as the ogca extenson of berasm - namey,
that humans have an obgaton to enabe other speces to be as t as they are to
nhabt a word where utmatey we can a ve as equas.
Under the crcumstances, one mght thnk that Dvorsky woud have then gven
up entrey on the (not excusvey) Arstotean dea of there beng a natura
way for a speces to exst n the word. However, at the aforementoned Yae
conference, I rased to hm the prospect of resurrectng the Neanderthas,
somethng that has been recenty advanced by the Harvard medca genetcst
15
George Church, who notorousy camed that a woman coud we be a surrogate
mother to such a beng, gven the avaabty of Neandertha DNA and our
current eve of competence n synthetc boogy ('er (pie)el 2013). Gven that
vrtuay a those concerned wth such matters woud grant Neanderthas the
status of persons, then mght not ther resurrecton (or de-extncton, cf. Church
and Regs 2012) ncrease the vaue n the word, at east nsofar as personhood s
taken to be an nherenty good of bengs. However, Dvorsky was havng none of
ths. Hs response to me suggested that the addton of canddate persons ke
Neanderthas by non-natura means woud key resut n ther msery, f not
ncrease the msery of the word more generay. The tme and pace for the
Neanderthas had come and gone.
Thus, Dvorsky appeared to have a strong sense of natures overrdng normatve
character, yet wthout attrbutng to nature the personaty of a creatve dety, as
promoted n Chrstanty by, say, thestc evouton (Cathoc) and ntegent
desgn theory (Protestant). Indeed, Dvorskys antpathy toward synthetc
boogys genetc adventursm appears profoundy conservatve and certany
unbecomng of the IEET set, who sef-descrbe as technoprogressve.
Nevertheess, n the future ths argey suppressed Chrstan-Buddhst dvde,
dubbed anthropc-karmc n Fuer (2006: chap. 11), s key to gan greater
promnence as the terms of potca dscourse and pubc fe - n ethcs,
economcs and ecoogy - are more expcty framed as questons about the
source of vaue n the word. To see the rst shoots of ths emergng word-
hstorc conct shoud study the academc phosophca debate between will
theory and interest theory as aternatve accounts of the nature of rghts (Wenar
2011). The former corresponds to the Chrstan/anthropc sde, the atter the
Buddhst/karmc sde of the personhood dvde. On the one hand, w theorsts
see rghts as vehces for self-assertion n a presumaby free and open space,
whch paces a premum on mted abty so that agents ehectvey possess a
rght to be wrong. On the other hand, nterest theorsts see rghts as vehces
for self-protection, as f the sef were a pot of and or terrtory - the body --
whose |ursdcton s determned more by enttement than actua agency. A
strkng way of castng the dherence s to observe that whereas nterest
theorsts tend to regard the w theory of rghts as an unreectve verson of
tsef (.e. a faure to recognse the mts of ones beng and hence the restrcted
nature of ones proper nterests), w theorsts see the nterest theory as pre-
emptvey mtng the agents capacty for change, based on an nductve
nference from what has enabed the agent to oursh n the past.
The w theorys crtque of the nterest theory of rghts puts the pro|ect of cross-
speces upft n a teng ght. It woud seem to mpy that those anma rghts
actvsts who operatonase rghts n terms of sanctuary for sub|ugated speces
short-se ther anma cents by refyng the cents comfort zones as boogcay
grounded nterests. (Here the actvsts may be unwttngy tradng n an
outdated evoutonary narratve n whch anmas are more saves to ther genetc
hertage than humans.) In any case, the argument for upft rests on the dea that
humans are an exceptona speces n that we are the ony ones who sumcenty
understand the entre natura word to take actons to drect ts future course n
16
decsve ways. Maybe t has been a a cosmc accdent, as Darwnsts seem to
beeve - but we dont know that for sure, ether. Humantys track record, whe
chequered, s arguaby mprovng. In any case, gven our emergng sense of what
consttutes a good fe for ourseves, why not try to extend that across nature?
Yes, we may fa, but then theres no reason to thnk that fe w contnue to
oursh by our not ntervenng so drecty. Ths s an updated verson of |uan
Huxeys (1957) orgna motvaton for conng transhumansm. Huxey wanted
to reassert humantys unqueness n the face of Darwns own defaut speces
egataransm, whereby a fe s composed of exacty the same stuh and, at
east n speces form, we are a utmatey condemned to extncton. Huxeys
souton was to use our very knowedge of evouton as a mora ever for our sef-
transcendence - and, foowng the upft agenda, the sef-transcendence of other
speces. Ths argument requres that we trust the hstorca track record n
scence and technoogy - that s, to beeve that the record speaks to a sncere,
open, productve but certany fabe, conversaton wth a arger reaty that
seems to be aways proddng us to move on.
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