being human reinventing humanity
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by Justin Barnard - Professor at UnionTRANSCRIPT
JUSTIN D. BARNARD, PH.D.A S S O C I AT E D E A N, I N S T I T U T E F O R I N T E L L E C T UA L
D I S C I P L E S H I PA S S O C I AT E P R O F E S S O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
U N I O N U N I V E R S I T Y
SEPTEMBER 21 , 2013
The New Adam:Toward a Theology of Imago Dei
Ray KurzweilAuthor of The Singularity is Near
(2005)
The Future of Humanity1. Slow
down/reverse aging and disease process
2. Reprogram human biology (through both genetics and nanotechnology)
3. Perfect digital-brain interface capacities for virtually limitless possibilities
Being Human: Post-Enlightenment
Being Human = nothing more than a materially-instantiated center of consciousness.‘Consciousness’ is understood entirely
in functional terms – i.e., instrumental rationality (means/end reasoning) to satisfy the will (where ‘will’ is primarily identified with appetites, wants, desires)
Instrumental
Rationality
Will(wants, desires)
Conscious Self
Post-Enlightenment Consequences
1. The solitary, individual ‘self’ becomes the central metaphysical unit of reality.
2. Autonomy becomes the chief value.3. All relationships among selves
become structured networks of power grounded in ‘rational self-interest’.
4. Human beings are ‘persons’ only for as long as their consciousness exists/persists.
Consequences for Bioethics
• Articulates the powers of the selfAutonomy
• Protects the self and its powers
Non-maleficenc
e• Concerns exchange of goods
owedJustice
• Concerns transfer/dispersal of goods not owed
Beneficence
Ethical Robot
Do Good
Prevent Harm
Be Fair
Michael Anderson and Susan Leigh Anderson, “Robot Be Good,” Scientific American (October 2010): 72-77
C.S. Lewis: Abolition of Man “Men Without Chests”
“The head rules the belly through the chest– stable sentiments– these are the indispensable liaison offers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man . . .”
Critique: Post-Enlightenment View
Limitations Imago Dei
Unexplained conversation stopper
Explained in functional terms Ex: rationality,
creativity, capacity for ‘dominion’
Typical Christian Response
An Alternative Christian Reflection
Trinity
Eschatology
Incarnation
Being Human: Eschatology
Thinking eschatologically . . . 1. Chastens reflection on what it
means to be human2. Disabuses us of foolish, myopic
quests (e.g., immortality, unleashing human potential)
3. Clarifies a Christian outlook on death
Being Human: Incarnation
Thinking incarnationally . . .1. Means more than mere physicality2. Takes the organismal unity of the
human body as central to being human3. Rejects any view that reduces being
human to mere possession of a transferable consciousness (where the ‘material’ upon which it operates is a matter of indifference)
Being Human: Trinity
Thinking in Trinitarian terms . . .1. Removes the error of treating the
solitary self as the as the central unity of reality
2. Relativizes the significance of autonomy
3. Signals the primacy of the loving relationships in which we are embedded as vital to being human
Conclusions
Being made Imago Dei means being a creature whose intrinsic communion with/for love of God and neighbor and organismal unity make it a candidate for an eschatological existence in (partial) continuity with its present one.
Conclusions
Proposals to “reinvent humanity” in ways that deny either . . .1. The primacy of our intrinsic loving
communion, or2. The significance of organismal unity,
or3. The necessity of our eschatological
existence
. . . should be regarded as sub-human