Anders Sandberg former Chairman of the Swedish Transhumanist Association and research assistant for the Oxford group of the EU ENHANCE Project at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics coined the term morphological freedom (1). He describes morphological freedom as follows:
“What is morphological freedom? I would view it as an extension of one’s right to one’s body, not just self-ownership but also the right to modify oneself according to one’s desires. Morphological freedom is the right to modify oneself. Morphological freedom can of course be viewed as a subset of the right to one’s body. But it goes beyond the idea of merely passively maintaining the body as it is and exploiting its inherent potential. Instead it affirms that we can extend or change our potential through various means. It is strongly linked to ideas of self ownership and self direction . Morphological freedom is, like the others, a negative right. It is a right to be able to do certain things, but it does not in itself imply others are morally obliged to support exercise of it. It would after all be unreasonable to demand others to support changes in my body that they would not see as beneficial or even ethical according to their personal moral. If I want to have green skin, it is my own problem -- nobody has the moral right to prevent me, but they do not have to support my ambition. Of course, other ethical principles such as compassion would imply a moral obligation to help, but I will here mainly concentrate on the skeletal rights framework. “
Let me start with this part of Anders Sandberg description of what morphological freedom is:
“As a negative right, morphological freedom implies that nobody may force us to change in a way we do not desire or prevent our change. This maximizes personal autonomy.”
This statement covers two groups -- the people who want to change themselves and the people who do not want to change themselves. This concept is compatible with the transhumanist pespective. Transhumanism is a social movement that desires the fundamental improvement of the human condition especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities (2). One might expect that this concept would also be afirmed by the subgroups of disabled people who are at ease with their bodies and don’t want to adhere to a societal norm of the so called species typical people. The concept of morphological freedom is directly linked to the slogan “the right to be different” -- a slogan used by many disabled people who do not want to accept a negative image of their body and who resist any external force to have it normatized and demonized. Indeed one can make the argument that without the right to be different no morphological freedom can exist. The concept of morphological freedom could be a valuable tool in the arsenal of many disabled people in their quest to be accepted for who they are.
However, the way Anders Sandberg defines the the concept of morphological freedom is severely limited in its applicability for disabled people and for people who want to be enhanced. It might even be harmful.
One has to ask oneself whether the statement entails the social expectation that people with ‘normative’ bodies have to accept, respect and support the self-perception of people with ‘non normative’ (so called ‘subnormative’ and transhunmanized) bodies, even if that self-perception does not fit the agenda of the people with a ‘normative’ body. Do people with ‘normative’ bodies have to accommodate themselves to the difference in body functioning of the people with ‘non normative’ bodies? Can the concept of morphological freedom be used to demand a change in a playing field of public policy and governance of new and emerging science and technologies that often forces disabled people to accept a deficiency based medical identity and perception of self? Does the “nobody may force us to change in a way we do not desire” of the description of morphological freedom help to counter negative sentiments such as the one from UK bioethicist John Harris:
I do define disability as “a physical or mental condition we have a strong [rational] preference not to be in” and that it is more importantly a condition which is in some sense a “‘harmed condition’”. So for me the essential elements are that a disabling condition is harmful to the person in that condition and that consequently that person has a strong rational preference not to be in such a condition. (3)
Do the words “nobody may force us to change in a way we do not desire” mean that people who are in favour of morphological freedom have to defend others in their right to morphological freedom and the right to be morphologically different? Would transhumanists have to defend the ‘disabled’ who do not want to enhance themselves or do not want to be species typical? Do the transhumanists have to defend the species typical people who do not want to be enhanced against arguments such as the ones used by Harris in his 2007 book “Enhancing Evolution The Ethical Case for Making Better People”? There he he makes the case that it is moral to do enhancement if not immoral not to do it (4). Do the transhumanists have to oppose the effort to make a transhumanized body the new norm? Must they actively fight against a morphological judgment that ecnourages a negative assessment of the non enhanced body?
If one scrutinizes how Anders Sandberg describes morphological freedom, one has to answer the questions with No. Anders Sandberg states:
“Morphological freedom is, like the others, a negative right. It is a right to be able to do certain things, but it does not in itself imply others are morally obliged to support exercise of it. It would after all be unreasonable to demand others to support changes in my body that they would not see as beneficial or even ethical according to their personal moral. If I want to have green skin, it is my own problem -- nobody has the moral right to prevent me, but they do not have to support my ambition. Of course, other ethical principles such as compassion would imply a moral obligation to help, but I will here mainly concentrate on the skeletal rights framework.”
The statement
“that it is unreasonable to demand others to support changes in my body that they would not see as beneficial or even ethical according to their personal moral”
suggests that the ‘people with normative bodies’ do NOT have to accept, respect, and support the self-perception of ‘people with non-normative bodies’ and do NOT have to accommodate the difference in body functioning of ‘people with non normative bodies’. Transhumanist would NOT have to defend the disabled who do not want to enhance themselves or do not want to be species typical. And if a transhumanized body becomes the norm they do not have to defend the species typical people with their now non-normative body.
“It is a right to be able to do certain things, but it does not in itself imply others are morally obliged to support exercise of it,”
Anders Sandberg leaves the door open for a better vision when he states:
“Of course, other ethical principles such as compassion would imply a moral obligation to help, but I will here mainly concentrate on the skeletal rights framework. “
But at this point there appears to be a lack of concern on the one hand for the majority in the world who would not be able to afford the enhancements and on the other hand for the ones who do not want to be enhanced or species typical.
The Choice is Yours:
Morphological Freedom is an interesting concept but it needs to be expanded, clarified, and perhaps modified by marginalized groups to make sure that will not be not harmful to them.
References
1. Anders Sandberg. (2001). Morphological Freedom
2. World Transhumanist Association. (2005). The Transhumanist FAQ – A General Introduction – Version 2.1 .
3. Harris, J. Is there a coherent social conception of disability?,(2000) J Med Ethics, 26, 2, 95100.
4. Harris, J. (2007). Enhancing Evolution The Ethical Case for Making Better People . Princeton University Press.
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gwolbrin@ucalgary.ca
© Gregor Wolbring, All Rights Reserved,
2008. Please contact the author for permission to
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Gregor Wolbring is a biochemist, bioethicist,
disability/vari-ability/ability studies scholar, and health policy
and science and technology governance researcher at the University of
Calgary. He is a member of the Center for Nanotechnology and Society
at Arizona State University; Part Time Professor at Faculty of Law,
University of Ottawa, Canada; Member CAC/ISO - Canadian Advisory
Committees for the International Organization for Standardization
section TC229 Nanotechnologies; Member of the editorial team for the
Nanotechnology for Development portal of the Development Gateway
Foundation; Chair of the Bioethics Taskforce of Disabled
People's International; and
former Member of the
Executive of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (2003-2007 maximum
terms served). He publishes the Bioethics,
Culture and Disability
website and authors
a blog
on NBICS and its social implications.