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Taking the “Human” Out of Human Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2010

Extract

Human rights are universally acknowledged to be important, although they are, of course, by no means universally respected. This universality has helped to combat racism and sexism and other arbitrary and vicious forms of discrimination. Unfortunately, as we shall see, the universality of human rights is both too universal and not universal enough. It is time to take the “human” out of human rights. Indeed, it is very probable that in the future there will be no more humans as we know them now, because the further evolution of our species, either Darwinian or more likely determined by human choices, will, we must hope, result in the emergence of new sorts of beings better able to cope with the intellectual and physical challenges of the future. One example of the ways in which this is already happening is the sorts of cognitive enhancement that are already coming on stream. Another is signaled by stem cell research and the birth of regenerative medicine.

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Special Section: Open Forum
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1. Too universal because there are many humans to which it cannot and does not apply (see Harris, J.The Value of Life. Routledge: London; 1985)Google Scholar and not universal enough for reasons also examined in that book and, inter alia, in my Enhancing Evolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 2007).Google Scholar

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9. Although Raz's account is consistent with the one developed in this paper.

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11. The idea of species barriers I have criticized in Harris, J. Transhumanity: A moral vision of the twenty-first century. In: Davis, NA, Keshen, R, McMahan, J, eds. Ethics and Humanity: Themes from the Philosophy of Jonathan Glover. New York: Oxford University Press; 2009.Google Scholar

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14. See note 13, Academy of Medical Sciences 2007:3, 33.

15. See note 13, Academy of Medical Sciences 2007:3, 33.

16. See note 13, Academy of Medical Sciences 2007:34.

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19. In this section I have, with his permission, borrowed extensively from the work of my friend and colleague Giuseppe Testa. We have worked together on the ethics of humanimals, but this section on context belongs to Giuseppe. I do not quote him verbatim because I draw these sections from an unpublished paper we authored together.

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21. It is true that humans are less sanguine about being eaten by other organic creatures than they are about eating them, but either way we end up with humanimals.

22. See note 20, Hyun et al. 2007:159.

23. See note 20, Hyun et al. 2007:159.

24. See note 20, Hyun et al. 2007:160.

25. See note 20, Hyun et al. 2007:160.

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32. In describing synthetic biology, I draw heavily on the ideas and research of my colleague John McCarthy, Director of the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre, University of Manchester.

33. To lightly adapt The Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights published by UNESCO as a pamphlet December 3, 1997, which absurdly endorses “[t]he preservation of the human genome as common heritage of humanity.”

34. For a detailed defense see note 1, Harris 2007, on which book I draw in this section. See also note 4, Greely et al. 2008.

35. It is perhaps another irony that unsocial hours are parasitic upon the concept of social hours, themselves the by-product of the leisure that technology has facilitated.

36. Statistics from Eurotransplant seem to suggest that waiting lists do still exist in Belgium and Austria (Eurotransplant does not extend to Spain), although they may be greatly reduced.

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