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The Unnaturals
Life has a natural order which must be respected in order to achieve happiness. Most conservatives agree to that. Men and women are naturally different. Children are naturally different from adults. Suffering and death are a natural part of life, and we should be skeptical of any utopian scheme that wishes to circumvent them.
I concede all that. Yet in conceding that, I cannot help but conclude that my own existence is deeply unnatural. Let me explain.
Without the intervention of modern medicine, I would have died several times over in childhood. If you asked me whether Mother Nature intended me to be alive, the only reasonable answer I could come up with is “No”. Moreover, I’m a third-generation unnatural: the child of a child who would have died in childhood without heroic medical intervention. I married a man who has robust good health, but it’s likely that our children (should we manage to have any) will be fourth-generation unnaturals.
Moreover, asthma — the most obvious (though not the only) problem that should have caused my childhood death — intensifies with each successive generation. My siblings were luckier, some not having asthma at all. But when children with asthma are rescued from death and survive to reproduce, is it any surprise when future generations are born with worse asthma? Moreover, wouldn’t we expect similar results to hold for any heritable malady that used to kill people off before they reproduced but now — thanks to modern technology — doesn’t have to? What, if anything, does that mean for humanity as a whole?
Now, many asthmatics are highly intelligent and productive people. That is, productive if they can keep the asthma and its many comorbidities under control. Thanks to modern pharmacology, many can. Regardless, asthma is inherently an impediment to productivity and even life itself. Attempting to live a productive life with severe asthma these days involves all sorts of artificial manipulation, from consumption of artificial hormones to injecting yourself with mouse antibodies raised in hamster cells. Sometimes, even that is insufficient.
Wait, back up a sec. Injecting yourself with mouse-hamster antibodies in order to become more productive? Isn’t that sort of like transhumanism?
Well, is it?
Or what if — instead of injecting themselves with the mouse-hamster antibodies — asthmatics could inject themselves with a virus that infected their DNA with genes to express those antibodies? Would deliberately changing their DNA in this way make asthmatics any less human?
So often on Ricochet, we talk about natural-versus-unnatural in the context of death or reproduction; but if this divide is important at the endpoints of life, isn’t it more important in its midst? Where do we draw the line between natural and unnatural survival, between natural and unnatural functioning? And is it any surprise that — to unnaturals like me — the line already seems pathologically blurred? Is it any surprise that we unnaturals who respect traditionalist arguments for natural human boundaries also feel alienated from those boundaries?
What about you? Are you an unnatural, too? Has that changed your conception of what “natural” means, or if “natural” means anything at all?
Image Credit: DeviantArt user ThE-UnKO-LeMa.
Published in General
Here’s how I see it. We have a sense of the natural limits of life. A few people live past 110, but very few. So when people start getting really old, it’s time to stop taking heroic measures to prolong life. Normal measures yes, heroic, no. In between, life hasn’t reached its natural limits, so science should go to town to save people in those cases, though it isn’t always possible. I think most of us or our children have greatly benefitted from science in this way.
In terms of creating life, we must remember that a child is not a commodity, which can easily happen with too much manipulation by science. A child is a biological being that will almost certainly want to know his or her parents, which are necessarily male and female. A child is not an ornament to be created by science to specifications by adults and for the gratification of adults, no matter how kindly this is intended. When a child is conceived that parents can’t care for for some reason, by all means find good adoptive parents. But intentionally creating children for non-biological paretns–wrong, wrong, wrong.
There are some complex interactions here. Before my son was born, his head was too big for my wife’s pelvic bones, necessitating a C-section. So, you could say that only an “unnatural” form of childbirth allowed them both to survive. However, because of our modern high standard of living, my wife was better nourished during her pregnancy than if she was living in say, 1800. It’s possible if she was living in 1800, my son’s head wouldn’t have been as big at birth and a C-section would not be necessary.
Because humans are sentient beings created in the image of God. Dogs are wonderful creatures too and should be treated with respect, but if you had to choose between saving a human or a dog, it would be wrong to choose the dog.
The rational human must be aware and respectful of the natural order, but need not be a slave to it.
e.g. If ye want to build a house on a floodplain, ye gotta be aware that floods are gonna happen, and therefore either ye do yer best to build accordingly, or ye choose to build elsewhere.
The same is true of human nature. One must be aware of nature’s influence, but one need not be a slave to it.
e.g. If you want to be a professional NHL player, ye gotta be aware of what it takes to become a professional NHL player, and therefore you either build yourself up accordingly or you choose a different career path.
It is almost always the incorrect view to fight nature (by trying to stop flooding in the first example, or to demand that the NHL change its hiring practices in the second), or to be a slave to it (by prohibiting construction on a floodplain, or by abolishing professional hockey altogether).
I realize that everyone is commenting on this from the standpoint of how modern medicine is used to extend lives beyond what our ancestors could have achieved. I think a case can be made from a Christian point of view that there is nothing wrong with that. Jesus himself cured people who were lepers and brought Lazarus back to life. Maybe it is His will that the “unnaturals” continue to spend time on Earth and modern medicine is the means to do that.
I suspect this is where Midge is going. Technology is being developed that will allow for artificial gene mixing of two male or two female “parents.” Should this occur, there will be children without either a biological mother or a biological father.
I think she’s asking, why shouldn’t we allow for this type of artificial reproduction when we’ve already so drastically altered the “course of human events” through technological advancements.
I’m joking around with her because this is one discussion I can’t imagine Ricochet’s hamsters handling. It’s too deep and would take too many bytes over too many years to come to a satisfactory conclusion. See Aristotle, for starters.
But a lot of modern medicine isn’t about saving life, but rather enhancing the quality of it. Where does that fit in?
Many conservatives have a visceral distaste for performance-enhancing drugs. But if I choose a medicine not because it is necessary to save my life (there may be other medicines out there that do that) but because it adds to my comfort and functionality, thereby making it easier to be more productive, how am I not enhancing my performance?
Not dying from asthma (even bad asthma) these days is fairly easy if you’re a non-poor US citizen. The tricky part is getting the best improvement with the fewest side-effects. A lot of modern medicine is like that. What separates licit lifestyle enhancement from illicit?
I agree. On the issue of using biotechnology to enhance human performance, I tend to think that it is inevitable, but I suspect and hope that it will take a different form them direct manipulation of human DNA. I think for ethical and practical reasons, it might make more sense to engineer the DNA of microorganisms that live symbiotically with humans. We have many natural symbionts already. That way the biological alterations would be an adjunct to the person’s existing biology, not a revision. You could take an antibiotic to get rid of dysfunctional symbionts. I’m getting into the realm of science fiction, but my intuition is that direct manipulation of human germline DNA will never be a common practice in a free, civilized society.
I’m anticipating jokes about midi-chlorions, FYI :) .
My feeling is that performance enhancing drugs are okay, if you use your abilities to fight crime, or Nazis :) .
I worry about the commodification of old men:
This illustrates, for me anyways, that one of the areas of political conflict stems from the very definition of “nature”. For many, “nature” refers only to the living world, while (as your comment describes) for others it refers to the entire Universe.
In the living world, entropy is the exception. Even upon death, the organism is absorbed back into the living world anew.
In the Universe, on the other hand, entropy is the rule (and indeed is inevitable).
Folk argue about the degree to which Humanity affects the living world, but one cannot dispute that the influence is large. On the other hand, virtually nobody argues that Humanity’s influence on the Universe is anything other than negligible.
True.
That would really have to depend on who the human was, now wouldn’t it?
Midge–about “performance enhancing”–well, there are always side-effects. We’d like to have some simple formula to tell us what is right and what is wrong, but there isn’t one. We have to examine the trade-offs, physical and spiritual. That’s why we need philosophy and ethics. We have to hash out a lot of these issues that way.
OK. So if I find that I can tolerate a certain level of discomfort (say, some arthritis, mild wheezing, or an itchy nose), though I of course function somewhat worse than I would without these things, should I forgo drugs that would stop these things on the grounds that I neither fight crime nor Nazis?
What’re ya, chicken?
I’ve heard snake tastes like chicken.
Sidestepping your thesis a bit I would remind you of a few remarks regarding heritability that I have noticed and found helpful when I had similar thoughts.
Midge, two assignments, both of which I’m convinced will be pleasurable:
I’m not going to explain why. You’ll see why.
An unspoken assumption when defining a substance as “performance enhancing” is that it enhances performance at the expense of another virtue.
Therefore, the substance is licit when it enhances performance without degrading another virtue that is required at the time.
For example, the allergy medicine is licit unless there are side-effects which degrade your ability to perform a critical task, such as by making you drowsy when you require all your concentration driving a load of nuclear waste through a residential neighbourhood during an ice storm.
In Sport, steroids are considered illicit because they enhance performance at the expense of health, which is considered a critical virtue for an athlete/role-model. However, they may be considered licit when “fighting Nazis” because that threat is so great that individual health becomes a lesser priority.
Not to mention that He exists on a cosmological time-scale, and extending life a few decades (or even a few centuries) is utterly negligible from that standpoint.
In Sport, steroids are considered illicit because it’s cheating. It gives the user an unfair advantage over the player who follows the rules. And the rules are there to protect the health of the athletes – especially young athletes.
“I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”
And who the dog was.
I’ve always wanted to challenge Dennis Prager on this one. Challenge: If your elderly mother left her beloved cat in your care, would you let the cat die and your mother be heartbroken, in order to save a complete stranger?
Of course, I know the answer. We all do, because something like this happens every time you buy food for your pet, even though you know that you could save a life by taking the same money and sending it to a children’s charity in Africa. Of course you don’t let your pet die. Because it is your pet and your moral obligation to care for it. That’s the obligation you undertake when you adopt a pet.
Again, this is not really true. It’s what we wish was true. It’s what we do to assuage often-irrational outrage that one has done better than another.
Here’s a fascinating article on what “natural” really means in sports, and what testing really means:
“First, I should tell you that I was the Anti-doping Commissioner of the International Triathlon Union (ITU) – a relatively new sport within the Olympic Family – for nearly 13 years. I had to act as “prosecutor” on many doping cases (doping = drugs in sport). Prior to that, I helped write the first set of “anti-doping” rules for triathlon in 1988. Before that, I was an elite marathoner (2:18) and triathlete (4th Place Ironman Hawaii) in the ’70s and ’80s, so I have accumulated a fair amount of “inside information” regarding drugs in sport at the Olympic level. I also own a supplement company and have done extensive research on performance enhancement in pursuit of natural, legal alternatives.
“There are three main points I want to make here: first, that it is impossible to fairly police and adjudicate drugs in sport; second, that the notion of a “level playing field” is a farce and, finally, that the performance requirements set by the federations at the elite level of sport almost demand access to certain “banned substances” in order to assure the health and vitality of the athlete throughout his or her career and – more importantly – into his or her life after competition….”
To keep it closely on-topic:
“In other cases, athletes who have been diagnosed with asthma (now nearing 25% of the elite athlete population – don’t get me started) and who have properly notified the IOC and have a “therapeutic use exemption” on file can use salbutamol, salmeterol and similar “anabolic-property” drugs which are otherwise banned. But god forbid you are an athlete from a developing nation with asthma whose team physician failed to properly file your papers. Same condition, but now you can be severely penalized for the ignorance of your coaches or doctors.”
An “‘anabolic-property’ drug” is, of course, a steroid.
I like your answer. But:
There’s definitely a conservative trope that we moderns are weaker, “softer” human beings because we haven’t suffered as much as our ancestors did. That suffering (categorical suffering: different forms of suffering and their costs and benefits are rarely distinguished from one another in this trope) is necessary for character formation.
According to this trope, we don’t suffer enough anymore, so we’re indolent cowards – we lack vital coping skills. In some sense this is plausible: suffering often presents us with the opportunity to develop better coping skills. Why pop a pill when you could just learn to suck it up?
Conservative rhetoric sometimes takes this to an extreme, as if the optimal solution to suffering and setbacks were always and everywhere to endure them bravely, that virtuous people should be expected to formulate coping skills equal to the suffering they endure without much (if any) artificial assistance.
On the other hand, is avoidable suffering necessarily the most productive use of your time? Is “natural” brave endurance always such a virtue?
It’s better than a trope: there’s excellent anthropological evidence that indicates this is exactly the case.
See all those kids wearing braces? They need to be chewing tougher foods and they wouldn’t need braces. We can read this effect in our bones: literally.
And yes, my wife hates it when I go on about this topic. I don’t see why: pounding the laundry against rocks would be excellent exercise.
That is circular logic. “The rules state that steroids are prohibited because steroids are against the rules.”
A better, but still incorrect IMHO, formulation would be “the rules state that steroids are prohibited because they create an unfair imbalance between the players”.
However, steroids are not expensive. If all the players used steroids, there would be no imbalance.
Therefore, I cannot accept that steroids are prohibited in order to prevent imbalance, and I must conclude that the reason for their prohibition lies elsewhere.
The most likely candidate is the negative effect on the athletes’ health, a possibility I see you agree with when you write, “And the rules are there to protect the health of the athletes – especially young athletes.”
I agree this is true about certain types of suffering. But is true for every kind of suffering?
For example, is an old man being “noble and tough” if he forgoes palliative drugs for his arthritis and spends his golden years irritable, whining and snapping at everyone? Or is it actually nobler for him to take a pill that reduces his irritation, thereby removing an (easily-removed) obstacle to becoming a less irritable person?
MFR,
Having had a couple of short conversations with you via comments on other posts, all I can say is “Thank God for asthma medication!”
Every life is sacred, even (or especially) those of people who wouldn’t have survived in the bad old days.