Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2003, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp.

131150

0360-5310/03/2802-131$16.00 # Swets & Zeitlinger

Human Nature: How Normative Might it Be?

Kurt Bayertz
Department of Philosophy, University of Mnster, Germany u
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ABSTRACT
The question of the moral status of human nature is today being posed above all under the inuence of medical and biotechnological aspects. These facilitate not only an increasing number of, but also increasingly far-reaching interventions and manipulations in humans, so that the perspective of a gradual technologization of his physical constitution can no longer be regarded as merely utopian. Some authors are convinced that this disturbing development can only be halted when an inherent value is (once again) ascribed to human nature. After a short description of this situation (I), the following paper rst examines the difculties that arise as regards an adequately precise descriptive denition of human nature (II) and, in a second step, the problems posed by the necessity to dene the normative status of human nature (III). It hereby comes to the conclusion that a precise denition of human nature is not possible for fundamental reasons, and that only a weak normativity can be warranted. Keywords: human body, human nature, natural vs. articial, posthuman body

that the duty of man is the same in respect to his own nature as in respect to the nature of all other things, namely not to follow but to amend it. (Mill, 1874, p. 397)

I. THE TECHNOLOGICAL CONTINGENCY OF HUMAN NATURE In the more recent past, nature has become technologically controllable to an unprecedented degree in human history. This applies to the nature around us,

Address correspondence to: Prof. Dr. Kurt Bayertz, Department of Philosophy, University of Mnster, Domplatz 23, 48143 Mnster, Germany. E-mail: bayertz@uni-muenster.de u u

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in which we live, and ever-increasingly to our own, human nature. Millions of people (in richer countries) undergo smaller or larger operations, inuence their bodily functions by chemical means, possess articial implants, or compensate organic malfunctions with prostheses. A dramatic increase in this tendency must be reckoned with in the future; in the literature there is already reference to posthuman bodies. The idea of reconstructing humanity is no longer wholly utopian. One can imagine such a reconstruction in two (by no means alternative) ways: On the one hand through genetic manipulation, and on the other through the gradual replacement of organs by technical modules. The rst method would be the more conservative because it retains the human being as a being of esh and blood; the second would sever the tie to organic material and lead to a denaturalization of the human being, as Stanislaw Lem already described in the 1960s (cf. Bayertz, 1994, pp. 70ff). Whether this will actually become possible is doubtful. But this much is indisputable: What a human being is, what he can do and how he looks, will in the future become ever less dependant on default biological facts and ever more on the progress of medicine and biotechnology. In short: human nature will become technologically contingent. Many people are observing this process with considerable discontent. Although serious interventions are considered by most to be legitimate if they serve the conservation of life and health, they consider the whole perspective of a growing technologization of human nature with the reconstruction of the human being as its vanishing point as alarming and threatening. So it is not surprising that this has led to the consideration of whether human nature should be awarded a specic moral status, in order to counteract ethically the trend towards technologization and articiality at least to some extent. Jrgen u Habermas is concerned about this in his new book about Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur (The Future of Human Nature) and pleads (cautiously) for its moralization. Similar to the way the threat to external nature has led to the demand for a return to a pre-modern understanding of nature as being something inherently valuable (cf. Jonas, 1984), human nature should also (once again) be attributed an inherent value. This idea of a specic moral status of human nature has roots deep in the history of European philosophy, and reaching back into antiquity (I shall be returning to this later). And although modern times are characterized by a strong trend towards neutralization, disenchantment and demoralization of external nature, the unique moral status of human nature, though not left entirely untouched by this trend, has only rarely been questioned head-on and

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fundamentally: it has to a great extent retained its inherent value (cf. Bayertz, 1994, pp. 116ff). This not only applies to philosophical thinking but also to everyday moral consciousness. In deance of all the anti-naturalistic trends of modern philosophy, naturalness is intuitively regarded as a value by most people. Many who are prepared to surrender external nature to change and manipulation, would not with the same degree of generosity wish to allow this in human nature. This unique moral status of human nature is also expressed in law. Thus, German law leaves it to the individual to decide what should happen to his body and accepts, for example, the refusal to have a life-saving operation; thereby it grants the person the right of disposal of his own body. On the other hand, the penal code, in x228 (formerly x226a), regards interventions in bodily intactness as punishable bodily harm if they offend public decency,1 even if the person concerned freely agrees. Other European legal systems (including those of France, Spain, the UK and the Netherlands) do not recognize the individual as the owner of his own body, with which he can do whatever he likes, especially as regards commercial objectives.2 The idea of an independent moral status of human nature is therefore linked as much to a philosophical tradition as it is to widespread and in part legally institutionalized moral intuitions. Nature is thereby seen as a given fact and in this way it is hoped to achieve an objective point of reference for normative restrictions as regards the admissibility of biotechnological interventions on human beings. At a time when (a) everything seems to be manipulable and technically unrestricted, and in which (b) individual volition and intent no longer seem to acknowledge any limits, a nonarbitrary limit to self-manipulation for its own sake is to be established at this juncture.

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II. DIFFICULTIES WITH HUMAN NATURE The rst step towards such a normative concept of human nature must consist of as accurate as possible a denition of what we are to understand by this denition. Even if no absolute precision can be expected, it is obvious that the denition can only full its practical function to deliver a criterion for the differentiation between legitimate and illegitimate biotechnological interventions if it allows an adequately distinct demarcation between what is humanly natural and what is unnatural.

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A. What Does Nature Mean? Before we turn to this problem, we should remind ourselves that the difculties in formulating the general concept of nature are notorious in philosophy. Although we all believe we know intuitively what is natural and what is not, closer scrutiny causes considerable difculties. (1) These start with our tendency to regard nature as constant and unchanging, although the sciences have long since taught us that this impression is merely the result of an observational perspective that is limited in time; for instance, ecological balances are when observed within evolutionary time periods a rather eeting phenomenon. (2) We also encounter difculties on the semantic level. Various theorists have pointed out the ambiguity of the concept of nature, e.g., John Stuart Mill (1874, pp. 374f, 401). More than a century earlier, David Hume had already stressed that the content of the concept of nature changes depending on the opposite concept proposed respectively. Nature means something different when the concept is used as the opposite of miracle, to what is unusual or to what is articial (1739, p. 475). Further opposite concepts can easily be found and each time the meaning of nature changes; we will encounter further examples in this paper. (3) Finally, the demarcation between that which is natural and that, which is articial is also problematic on the ontological level. Jacques Monod has made it clear in clear-cut considerations that no distinction can be made between natural and articial objects on the basis of their characteristics, in particular their structural or functional features (Monod, 1970, Chapter 1). Only when we know the history of an object can we classify it as either natural or articial. We have to know whether or not it is man-made. One might believe that both difculties as regards human nature can be solved easily. On the semantic level we will here take natural as the opposite concept of articial, and human nature as therefore being the entirety of characteristics the human being possesses without his own contribution. So it is natural for him to have skin, whereas skin colourings (through cosmetics or tattoos) are articial; it is part of our nature for us to have a heart, but pacemakers are not natural. In a word: the nature of the human being is identical with his body, i.e., with the outer gure and the inner functions of the biological species homo sapiens.3 This interpretation seems adequate for several reasons: (a) it corresponds to our intuition, since we associate a physical being with the concept human. When we ask ourselves what unites all human beings with one another, the physical body is a much greater possibility than their way of thinking or life form, which can

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differ considerably both historically and culturally. (b) The human body is part of nature in its entirety: historically it is the product of evolution, is subject to the laws of nature and is bound to external nature as regards the fullment of its needs. (c) And nally, in the present context, it is about the ethical evaluation and limitation of biotechnological actions; these directly target the human body (even where they indirectly target the mind). Starting from this denition, the second difculty appears to be easy to solve, since we already know which changes we make to ourselves or undergo. And that means: Since we know how our body is made without our contribution, we know our nature. B. Natura Naturata or Natura Naturans? However, this last point is not as straightforward as it might seem. Let us rst consider specic individuals. We do not have to reect for long to recognize that the existence of each of those individuals did not, of course, come about without (human) contribution; sexual intercourse is a human action and without this action nobody would exist. Let us further reect on the human species as a whole. If we do not restrict ourselves to a specic point in time, but instead consider longer development phases of the species, then the characteristics of the human being turn out to be the product of human activity at least in part. Thus, the permutation of the gene pool is inuenced by manifold actions (migration, war, segregation, love, marriage, prison or death sentence, celibacy, etc.). It would be hard to imagine any kind of social behaviour or legal verdict that had no genetic consequences (cf. Medawar, 1959, Chapter 4). Here, a central problem in the distinction between the natural and the articial is being addressed, that Monod had also overlooked. When we classify external objects as natural or articial on the basis of knowing their history, we do so on condition that we are not considering the human being and his behaviour as a part of nature. Only when we make a rm distinction between the human being and nature can we say: that which happens without human contribution is natural, (whereas) that which happens with human contribution is articial! But exactly this distinction is by no means absolute; it arises out of a particular perspective and disappears when we take up a different one. Let us look more closely at this: (a) From the parochial viewpoint of a determinate individual or a determinate generation, the human body is regarded as a predetermined (matter of)

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fact; it is nature in the sense of natura naturata. The distinction between the natural and the articial is certainly plausible and meaningful in this context: that which is found is natural, (whereas) that which has been changed is articial. (b) On the other hand, if we regard nature from the perspective of a distant observer, then it appears to be an evolving system and the human being is a particularly active part of this system; he inuences many elements of this system, including his own body, with his behaviour. So there is no reason to view the changes he makes to this body as less natural than the changes which, for example, birds make to their environment through nest-building. If one proceeds from a (holistic) picture of nature as a system embracing human beings and developing historically, then we are taking the classical concept of nature as a natura naturans as our starting point. Within this concept, a differentiation between natural and articial is clearly pointless. This consideration shows that the difference between natural and articial is dependent on the perspective. Herein lies the decisive cause of the inevitable failure of every principal and universal differentiation between them (this does not rule out that selective and specic differences between them can be possible and meaningful). Although I consider this to be a central argument, the friends of human nature will not give way to it. They will argue that it is based on the ambiguity of the concepts contribution, action and product of action used by me. Undeniably, every individual is the product of the (sexual) action of his parents, but not in the same sense as a house is the product of the builders actions. Whereas the subjects in the latter case inuence every stage of the house-building by their actions, in the former they merely initiate a development which then ensues independently: the growth of an embryo into a child and adult is not manufacturing and does not depend upon the wishes and intentions of the parents. This is similar to exerting inuence on the gene pool. Here, we may not be dealing with organic growth, but the result of the action is nevertheless not induced intentionally, but results from activities pursued by participants with totally different aims. Therefore, changes to the gene pool are, although anthropogenic, nevertheless in a special sense natural: as side-effects, they do not result from human intentions but from natural causal laws.

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Two points must be asserted against this reply. I only wish to mention the rst one, without going into detail. Namely, that the reply imputes a distinct difference between the manufacture or production (e.g., of a house) on the one hand, and the simple kick-off of a process which then continues spontaneously (e.g., the procreation of a child) on the other. But in fact we are concerned here again only with a difference in degree. On the one hand, we have processes that can be steered closely by the human being (and have to be, if they are to have the desired success); on the other, we have processes that proceed relatively autonomously when they have once been initiated. In both cases we are concerned with the gradual blending of elements of human intention, planning and steering on the one hand, and true to nature, spontaneous, autonomous mechanisms on the other. Natural and articial are therefore not divided by a barrier, but united through a spectrum. C. Articial by Nature The second point is more important. The reply reduces the pair of terms, natural articial to the pair of terms spontaneous intentional. Apart from the fact that this conrms the ambiguous, alluring character of the concept of nature, this shift in meaning is not implausible. At least it solves one problem: On this basis we can regard as nature or natural the unintentional repercussions that human action has on human nature, and conne the predicate articial to those changes made intentionally by human beings to their nature. For instance, the changes to the human gene pool which occur as side-effects in social institutions would then change nothing of the naturalness of the gene pool, whereas targeted interventions on the germline would. But this gain would not be very far-reaching, as the following considerations will show. To simplify, we can distinguish between two different kinds of human characteristics or capabilities. One kind is those the human being shares with other parts of nature or with other living creatures; the other is those characteristics and capabilities which only the human being possesses and which therefore distinguish him as a specic creature. The latter includes above all human beings capacity for reason and speech and the capacities for intentional action, responsibility, etc., which arise from it. It is precisely because the capabilities belonging to the second group are, as a whole, those which dene the human being as a specic creature, that they have frequently been identied with human nature in the history of philosophy. David Hume discusses in his Treatise of Human Nature exactly these characteristics

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and capabilities: knowledge, passions such as pride and humility, and morals; the human body is at most mentioned in passing.4 We are talking here about another new concept of human nature, and so as not to fall into total conceptual confusion, we should perhaps speak here of human essence rather than human nature. This distinction is meaningful above all, because with its help it will become possible to express conceptually the dialectic tension that is typical for human beings: On the one hand, the human being is indissolubly bound up with his body, but on the other hand he is not identical with his body, but is different from it.5 Whereas we can say of an animal that it is his body, we have to say of the human being that he has a body. This is demonstrated by the fact that human beings can, under certain circumstances, disassociate themselves from their bodies. A Platonist can look upon his body as the prison of his soul, a transsexual can have the feeling that he is in the wrong body, and an old man can be disgusted by the frailty and inrmity of his body. In the history of philosophical and religious thinking, but also in everyday life, there are countless examples that human nature is not only the precondition of all human subjectivity, but also its boundary (cf. Bayertz, 1994, pp. 204ff). Because human nature lags not just on the odd occasion behind the needs and ideals surfacing in the human being, and because it also imposes painful limits on the likewise growing hopes and ideals that is of course the reason why human nature is again and again degraded to mere esh, and is regarded as something that has to be surmounted, oppressed or at the very least put in its place. With this, we now face a decisive question. If we distinguish between human nature on the one hand and the human essence (as being the epitome of all humanly specic characteristics and capabilities) on the other, then we have to face the quandary as to whether we should regard the human essence as part of his nature or not. Let us now consider the two possible answers to this question: Either: We separate the human essence from his nature. In the history of philosophical thinking, reason, language and morals counted and count as that which distinguishes the human being from the animal and from nature; and as such they cannot themselves be natural. However, as rational as this interpretation is in some respects, in others it has disagreeable consequences. We then have to say that reasonable deliberation and behaviour, or linguistic communication are articial and unnatural; this is not only linguistically irritating, but also factually problematic. The upshot is a temptation to ascribe

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these characteristics and capabilities to a higher, transcendental world and to regard their association with human nature as delement which must be got rid off as soon as possible: Only when we have freed ourselves of our body can we become identical with our essence. No particular acumen is needed to recognize that such a way of looking at things offers no good basis for granting human nature a moral status. Exactly the opposite is the case. The anthropological dualism of which European philosophical and religious thinking is so readily accused, has its origins in just this way of looking at things. Or: We see the human essence as part of human nature; rational thinking, intentional behaviour and morals are then exactly what denotes human nature. Nature, by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity has determind us to judge as well as to breathe and feel. . ., writes Hume appropriately (1739, p. 183). If one starts out from this premise, it will not be possible to label as unnatural the results of rational thinking and intentional behaviour. The inuence of human beings on both external and their own nature would thus have to be regarded as the consequence of their very nature. In fact, we can observe that people do not leave their bodies untouched, but work on, change and cultivate them. Decisive for this were and are aesthetic motives (hair-cutting, tattooing), religious laws (circumcision) and medical needs (medicines, amputations). It can be deduced from the fact that such interventions did and do not count as morally illegitimate, but partly even as laws, that the human body is perceived not just as nature, but invariably also as culture. The distinction between nature and culture seems as regards the human being and his body to be not only pragmatically difcult to dene, but fundamentally vague. This insight is, of course, not new. Various representatives of 18th century Scottish philosophy had, in a completely different context, already pointed out the hopelessness of all attempts to identify a natural state of the human being.6 And in the last century, Hellmuth Plessner characterized the Law of natural articiality as the rst of three basic anthropological laws (Plessner, 1928, pp. 383ff).

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III. JUSTIFYING THE MORAL STATUS OF HUMAN NATURE In the results of these deliberations it should not be denied that to speak of a nature of the human being is meaningful in some respects and under certain conditions. But one cannot completely brush aside the realization that it is

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misleading on a basic philosophical level. It is a characteristic of the nature of a human being that he is not only (as are animals) subject to evolutionary change, but changes himself; in this respect he is by nature articial. Nevertheless I will suspend these ndings in the following part of the paper and assume that we have found an adequately precise denition of the term. But we would not have then reached our target, since this was not of a theoretical, but of a practical kind. It was about the question as to whether a normative status can (or even must) be ascribed to human nature. We therefore have to ask with which arguments such a status can be justied. A. Human Nature as Basis of Personality An initial possibility is to derive the normative status of human nature from its close connection with the human person. Immanuel Kants argumentation took this line, for example. Because the body not only belongs to human life by chance, its condition is sine qua non, and because we cannot imagine life without a body, and the use of freedom is only possible through the body, and the body is part of our self Kant deduced from this that our body is not subject to our free will and that we do not own it, and therefore we have no right to do what we want with it (1775, pp. 160f, 170ff, 178ff). Similarly, Hegel derives the moral status of the human body from its inseparable connection with the human person (1821, x48). The value of human nature is here an indirect or derivative value, which ensues from two assumptions: (1) The human person has an inherent value; (2) the human person has his basis in human nature. Habermas considerations are evidently along these lines when he speaks of the insignicant, normative interplay between the morally necessary and legally guaranteed inviolability of the individual and the inaccessibility of the natural modus of his bodily personication (2001, p. 41). It is not human nature as such which, according to Habermas, must be protected he is explicitly against its re-sacralization but human nature as the basis of a specic self-image of the human species as a whole. He fears that genetically manipulated individuals will not see themselves as people with, above all, equal rights compared with their fellow human beings, and (fears) that they have also forfeited the chance to see themselves as autonomous authors of their own lives. With that, foundations would be weakened, upon which the idea of the human being as a free and responsible being rests as much as the ideals of legal equality and political liberty. The realization of eugenic strategies (even if they were of a liberal rather than an authoritative kind)

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could therefore change the entire structure of our moral experience (2001, p. 54), so that in consequence we could no longer see ourselves as ethically free and morally equal living beings oriented to norms and reasons (2001, p. 74). Without going into details of Habermas considerations here, I will conne myself to two short remarks. Firstly, these considerations are based on empirical assumptions about the consequences of technical genetic manipulations, which could be accurate, but are not necessarily so. It is at the very least undecided whether these consequences will actually materialize, and a number of things could be said which could cast doubt upon them. Secondly, Habermas shifts the question from an individual to a collective level which he calls genus-ethical (gattungsethisch). This is certainly plausible on the analytical level, since it would be like a miracle of the possibility of genetic self-change of the human species were without effects on the collective selfimage. On the normative level, however, this shift is problematical, because it implies a subordination of specic individuals and their wishes and interests to abstract ideas and theories which, moreover, will never be accepted uniformly by all individuals. What would be the consequences of attributing construed moral value to human nature? In answering this question we should observe two different cases. The rst concerns the manipulation of the nature of other persons. It is surely indisputable that such a construed value sufces to protect the bodily integrity of individuals from the interventions of others. Violence inicted on my body by others is violence inicted on me as Hegel (ibid.) remarked briey and to the point. This applies not only to direct and intended harm, but also to the risks e.g., from medical or biotechnological interventions to which we are exposed. Higher safety standards must of necessity be applied to such interventions on human beings than to other interventions on nature. All manipulations which harm an individual or expose him to the risk of such harm are therefore inadmissible. However, what would be the case in (future perhaps possible) manipulations that are risk-free and do not inict such harm on the manipulated individual? Here one should include improvements on human nature, for example through interventions on the germline. Since such interventions have to be carried out without the informed consent of the respective individuals, they are legitimate only when they are indubitably in the interests of these individuals, so that subsequent consent to them can be taken as forthcoming. The only interventions for which that can be assumed with certainty are those with therapeutic (or preventive) targets (cf. Bayertz, 1994, pp. 311ff; Habermas, 2001, pp. 109, 119). But this means that inasmuch

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the autonomy of the manipulated individuals is not restricted or rendered impossible by the respective interventions, a construed value would not speak against changes to human nature. A construed value of human nature would, while drastically restricting the legitimate scope of eugenic strategies, not prohibit all eugenic strategies. The second case concerns the self-manipulation of individuals, i.e., manipulations of human nature which are carried out with the permission or on the instructions of the respective person. Kant took this for granted: no one has the right to do what he pleases with his body (cf. 1797, xx 5ff). Today we are much more reticent as regards duties to ones self. A certain paternalism can possibly be justied by the (derivative) value of human nature as regards risky medical interventions, especially when the respective risks are entered into lightly and without adequate information. Such paternalism should, however, remain closely limited for two reasons. Firstly, it would be contradictory to allow risky action generally, but to make restrictions where it is claimed in a medical context: Whoever risks his life by smoking or riding a motor-bike, must also be allowed to do it by having operations, amputations or transplantations.7 The second reason arises from the fact that we have attributed only a derivative value to human nature. Its value arises from its connection to the person concerned. But it would not be consistent to defend the value of the human nature against exactly that person from whom this value emanated in the rst place. If persons are themselves valuable, then the needs and wishes of these persons are also fundamentally valuable and must be respected. The body is a precondition both of the life of a person and also of his good life. Aristotle had already pointed out that not only external goods such as nourishment and clothing belong to a good life, but also various bodily attributes such as beauty or health (NE 1098b, 1099b). In point of fact, the quality of individual life is to a considerable extent determined by factors which depend directly or indirectly from the natural constitution of the respective individual. And it follows from this that, on the one hand, this constitution possesses an evaluative dimension for the respective person, but on the other hand, this constitution can, as we saw earlier, become the cause of the persons discontentedness and unhappiness in not just a few situations. We must regard as legitimate for these situations any efforts by the person concerned to adapt his nature to his needs and wishes. If somebody nowadays tries to improve his well-being through piercing or tattooing, he might in future try transplantations or implantations. In short:

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If any restrictions at all for the behaviour of the person involved can be deduced from the derivative value of human nature, then they are probably very weak ones. B. Inherent Value? Whoever is not happy with this result and wishes to put tight restrictions on control over human nature will thus not be satised with a derivative value, but will attempt to prove an inherent value of human nature. Such a value would be characterized in that it is inherent to human nature in itself, independent of what any individual or all humans accept as valuable. It is obvious that with this postulation one takes on a considerable onus of proof: not only because such postulations need to be justied, but also because this value is supposed to enable the individuals freedom of action with respect to his own body to be restricted. In the following I will briey differentiate and discuss ve possible arguments in favour of an inherent value of human nature, whereby these ve arguments should not be seen as being mutually incompatible; as a rule several of them may be used jointly. (1) The religious argument. A rst possibility consists of seeing human nature as being created by God and deriving its inherent value from this. One could also speak of the sanctity of human nature. This argument meets with several difculties, of which I would here like to mention only one. It rests on preconditions which are not generally recognized in pluralistic societies and while indeed being able to form the basis of private or group morals, it is not suitable as a basis for public, generally binding morals. (2) The realistic argument. One can start out from an inherent value of human nature as a given fact which needs or can be awarded no further justication: Whoever sees human nature with the right eyes will recognize this value. This approach is certainly familiar from the history of ethical thinking. Samuel Clarke, Richard Price and Ralph Cudworth represented it in the 17th and 18th centuries (however not especially with regards to human nature), as well as British intuitionists and German representatives of Wertethik like Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann in the 20th. As Christine Koorsgaard has shown, this position is based on the attempt to end a possible regression of the ethical question to ever more and ever deeper reasoning by at: Having discovered that he needs an unconditional answer, the realist straightaway concludes that he has found one (Korsgaard, 1996,

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p. 33). In a word: This is not about an argument, it is only about an assertion. (3) The intuitive argument. Since such an assertion is insufcient, one can try to support it by reference to widely disseminated intuitions. It was pointed out at the beginning that in the moral common sense, human nature does not count as normatively neutral in the same way as external nature does. Specic physical characteristics above all health and beauty have always been regarded as independent values. The problem with intuitions, however, is that they diverge strongly. Some want to preserve human nature as it is, others may be fascinated by the idea of reconstructing it and do not see any value in its present structure. They dream of posthuman bodies and are eager to go ahead with producing them. It is not clear whether this intuition lays the foundation for a derivative or an inherent value. There is much to support the rst variant; health and beauty are seen as values because they increase the chances of a good life for the respective individual; this is also how physical attributes were understood by Aristotle. But even if we presume that the inherent value of human nature is founded upon the reference to its intuitive value, that would not amount to much as far as the normative power of this value is concerned. Moral common sense considered human nature to be valuable, but in no way to be sacrosanct and inviolable. We regard very far-reaching interventions into human nature amputations, heart transplants, brain surgery, sex changes as morally legitimate insofar as they serve the mitigation of human suffering. That means: Even when we are prepared to award human nature (inherent?) value, this does not imply that this value is the only one we accept. There are situations in which we consider it justiable to subordinate the value of the integrity of human nature to the value of the alleviation of suffering. Even an inherent value of human nature could not justify an absolute blockade of legitimate medical action, since it could be outdone by other values at any time. (4) The metaphysical argument. The idea of an inherent value of nature is not a new invention. It was recognized in many pre-modern world views, including ancient philosophy. Nearly all of the more recent concepts of a revaluation of nature whether external or human is oriented on the model of antiquity, even when it concedes that a clear-cut revival is not possible. Let us therefore take a brief look at the antique understanding of nature, insofar as it is relevant in the present context.

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The starting point for antiquity was the idea of a cosmos, i.e., the concept of a nite, self-contained and orderly world in which every process had its predetermined goal and every thing its predetermined place. In Platos late dialogue Timaeus, for example, the whole world is viewed as a single, uniform living being with a meaningful soul. In such a world organism the individual parts do not live unrelated along side each other, but form a functional, hierarchical system. The term cosmos therefore denes a meaningful organization, in which it was not possible to stringently separate facts and values from each other: Every part inuences the whole and therefore is valuable. This also applies to human beings. The human being, just like any other being, has a special place in the cosmos and from this place ensues his lifes goal. The models of successful human life designed in the various ancient ethics all have their support in metaphysical anthropology, which in its turn was part of cosmology (cf. Korsgaard, 1996, pp. 15). In the classical theories of Plato and Aristotle, the connection was drawn between anthropology and ethics by means of the famous ergon argument (Plato, Rep. 352; Aristotle, NE 1097b), according to which a human being can only lead a good life if he realizes and cultivates his own specic potentials his rationality in the best possible way. The insight into his own nature that the human being gains, and its place in the whole of nature, therefore has the same signicance as the insight into how one should live. The modern interpretation of the human, as it has been shaped since the Renaissance, vastly distinguishes itself from this picture. This interpretation states on a cosmic level that nature is not an organized cosmos but an interminable aggregate of facts and processes without inherent meaning; and on the anthropological level, that the human being is not a part of nature in an ethically relevant way: whereas the behaviour of all other living creatures is dened by exterior facts and inner determinants, the human being is not rigid. In Pico della Mirandolas famous speech about the dignity of the human being (1496), this is expressed unequivocally and almost the entire subsequent anthropology followed him in this. Various ideas and ideals, which can be regarded as constitutive for modern consciousness, have developed on this anthropological basis. But the central idea is freedom. Insofar as the human being is not tied by nature to a particular place in the world or to a particular life form, he can (and must) decide these for himself. The emphatic concept of freedom of modern times is expressed in the conviction that the human being himself

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can decide who and what he is. This notion of the human beings selfcreation relates to two levels: (a) Firstly, to the individual level. Not only humans in general, but basically every individual has the possibility of choosing various alternatives. And this possibility is a value perhaps the highest of all and as such earns not only respect but also protection. (b) Secondly, it relates to the generic level. If the human being can make something of himself as a species, then that means he is involved (or at least has the possibility of thus being) in a process of progress and perfection. This involves the human being as the creator of his morals. In a world in which a human being has no stipulated place or plan, he can and must give himself the moral laws of his action. As everybody knows, it was Kant who made this idea of autonomy the basis of his ethics. We can see from this brief sketch that the key terms of modern times named, and likewise the ensuing concepts of individuality and human dignity have their basis in an understanding of external nature as a merely factual, not meaningfully and valuably structured connection, and human nature as something open and normatively noncommittal. To put it more bluntly: without a materialistic world view no freedom, no selfcreation, no autonomy, no individuality and no human dignity. It is difcult to see how these ideas and not just as regards the technical manipulation of the physical body can be maintained if the underlying conception of nature is surrendered. The return to a strict normativity of human nature would involve drastic restrictions to the human beings scope of behaviour in every area of activity. If the highest life targets can be foreseen from the natural order, then they are no longer available for rational choice. He who does not follow these objective targets, behaves irrationally and (morally) wrongly. This then leaves only the choice between one right life form and many wrong ones; we would no longer have a choice between different right life forms. That was also Platos view (Rep. 445 und 544). In a word: A strong concept of freedom and individuality is not compatible with a strong concept of a nature of the human being. (5) The functional argument. An important argument which, incidentally, is repeatedly brought forward as regards the moral status of external nature consists of the suggestion that only the recognition of such an inherent value and the categorical behavioural limits resulting from it can offer adequately safe protection of the integrity of human nature and of persons.

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That is to say, if (according to the argument) this integrity is repeatedly treated as a problem of selective weighing up of attributes, then this must lead to gradual, progressive attrition; for in each individual case some or other selective, plausible reasons can be found to replace or improve this or that part of human nature by technical means. In the end this would, by way of a sequence of individual justiable interventions, lead to an effect that possibly nobody intended: the abolition of human nature. The description underlying this argument could in the long run actually prove to be empirically accurate. However, is it for that reason already valid as an ethical argument? Firstly, it is noticeable that this argument assumes what it wants to prove: That this abolition of human nature is morally wrong. Only when the inherent value of this nature has already been recognized or intuitively presumed, will a morally negative judgement on the gradual replacement of nature through technology be reached. This should already be enough to invalidate this argument. But secondly, in addition, this argument contains a curious deduction from the should to the is. From the dictum that human nature should be conserved the deduction is made that it has an inherent value. Here the naturalistic fallacy is being drawn in reverse.

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IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 1. The question of the moral status of human nature is being posed today under the inuence of the progress in modern medicine and biotechnology. This facilitates not only an increasing number of, but also increasingly farreaching interventions and manipulations in the human, so that the perspective of a gradual technologization of his physical constitution can no longer be regarded as merely utopian. Some authors are convinced that this disturbing development can only be halted when an inherent value is (once again) ascribed to human nature. 2. However, this idea is burdened by considerable problems. Firstly, attempts at a descriptively precise distinction between natural and articial meet with difculties. These difculties are not merely semantic or epistemic, but of an ontological nature: they are inherent to the object. However, an adequately precise demarcation is essential, if the term human nature is to carry out a normative orienting function. If that

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which belongs or does not belong to human nature remains vague, then the legitimacy of certain biotechnological manipulations will also remain vague. The more precisely we try to dene and delineate human nature, the more hopelessly do we get entangled in paradoxes and dilemmas. The difference is therefore only useful on the intuitive everyday level, but not for ethical judgement. 3. A second complex of difculties is to be found as regards the scope and rationale of the normative content of human nature. This is certainly relevant if one claims an inherent value of human nature and represents a kind of moral realism. Such a strong interpretation is above all attractive to those who stipulate absolute limitations to human behaviour and seek to protect the inviolability of human nature even from the respective individual. On closer scrutiny, however, it becomes apparent that for the justication of this interpretation preconditions must be set, which are not compatible with other basic values above all with freedom and autonomy: The stronger we make the normativity of human nature, the narrower the limits to self-determination become. The price we would have to pay for a normatively strong denition of human nature is therefore very high. 4. One can also support the idea of a normative status of human nature in a weak variant. Human nature has here a prima facie value, which derives from its close association to the respective person. Such an interpretation would lead to the possibilities of modern biotechnology being dealt with in a careful and cautious manner and perhaps even justify mild paternalism towards the respective individuals. Beyond this, it would show certain intuitive, well-founded ideals of naturalness to be elements of a good life and a prerequisite of human ourishing. It is conceivable that under the inuence of increasing articiality a growing number of individuals convert to a normatively profound view of human nature and are guided by it in the medical decision-making pertaining to themselves. It is, however, questionable whether such a change in values (a) can be rationally compelled by philosophical arguments and (b) legitimately be made binding for everybody. In any case, this weak variant does not establish an absolute limit to biotechnological activity. Therefore it cannot be ruled out that diverging forms of handling biotechnology develop, which in the long term, lead to a new type of human being, one that is only a distant reminder of the current homo sapiens. It is not evident which moral arguments could be brought against this.

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5. Nevertheless, such moral limits do arise where the nature of other humans is manipulated. This is unavoidably the case in all types of technical interventions in human reproduction. The moral problem here does not consist of the nature of these future humans being changed, but of these changes being difcult to reconcile with their autonomy. The idea of a selfmade change in humanity by genetic means therefore meets with much narrower moral limits as, for instance, the production of man-machinehybrids (insofar as this production complies with the autonomous wish of a competent person).

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NOTES
1. This curious paragraph is in practice only rarely applied; it is criticised in some commentaries and considered unconstitutional. 2. Also cf. in this context the more recent publications of Ten Have and Welie (1998), and Cherry (1999). 3. I will not deal specically with the possibility that would seem rather obvious under current conditions, i.e., identifying human nature with the genome or germline. The same considerations as are developed in following would basically apply. 4. Human nature being composd of two principal parts, which are requisite in all its actions, the affections and understanding. . . (Hume, 1739, p. 493). Similarly, Arthur Lovejoy in his Reections on Human Nature (1961) gives an historical account of the conceptions held chiey in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of the desires which motivate human behavior. Human nature, therefore is not dened as human body, but as motivating desires, etc. 5. Hellmuth Plessner made this difference between the human being and his body to a central point of his anthropology under the notion eccentricity (1928, pp. 36065). 6. To quote only two appropriate passages: We speak of art as distinguished from nature; but art itself is natural to man. He is in some measure the articer of his own frame, as well as of his fortune, and is destined, from the rst age of his being, to invent and contrive (Ferguson, 1767, p. 10) . . .and if we rightly consider the matter, we shall nd, that our nature is chiey constituted of acquired habits, and that we are much more creatures of custom and art than of nature. It is a common saying, that habit (meaning custom) is a second nature. I add, that it is more powerful than the rst, and in a great measure destroys and absorbs the original nature: for it is the capital and distinguishing characteristic of our species, that we can make ourselves, as it were, over again, so that the original nature in us can hardly be seen; and it is with the greatest difculty that we can distinguish it from the acquired (Burnet, 1773, p. 25). 7. I will not here go into the argument that risky, but not therapeutically prescribed interventions are not ethically acceptable because they offend the spirit or essence of medicine. The essentialist interpretation of medicine on which it is based itself needs justication, and I cannot see what form such a justication could take if it does not in some way refer to human nature and its value. But that would entail taking on board the essentialist argument which would have to be proven.

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