Is there a human right to be superhuman?
Special powers aren't just for comic-book characters, some ethicists argue
Duane Hoffmann / MSNBC

While America was rushing to see sharp metal blades jut from Wolverine’s fists during the opening of the third "X-Men" movie last weekend, an academic conference was being held at Stanford University to discuss what might happen if people with special powers really existed.

The coincidence was too remarkable to ignore.

In the movie, the plot is driven by the government’s attempt to “cure” the mutants so they’ll be “normal,” the very sort of issue the conference, called “Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights,” addressed.

The meeting, sponsored by Stanford University’s Center for Law and the Biosciences, the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, was remarkable for several reasons.

First, leaders of the latter two organizations are “transhumanists” who believe better days are ahead if we take advantage of new technologies to magnify normal human abilities with a full menu of add-ons. Transhumanism has a long history, but in modern times, it has been dismissed by most as a fringe element of comic-book-reading, sci-fi aficionados. No more.

Second, the question of enhancement and human rights is surprisingly topical rather than futuristic, and not just because of the "X-Men" movie.

Finally, the conference was surprising for how far some bioethicists, who were once largely silent on the issue, have come towards not only accepting the concept of human alteration, but asserting that it’s a right.

Coming in from the fringe
Transhumanism is being taken seriously by an increasing number of scholars. The fact that Stanford’s respected legal bioethics program hosted the 150 or so attendees from Europe, Asia, New Zealand and North America to discuss issues raised by human enhancement is testimony to how far transhumanism has come in from the fringe.

Even the government has taken a position — against — in the second report out of President Bush’s bioethics council. Titled “Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness,” the 2003 report suggested the need for regulations to prevent the use of biotech to give people powers they did not have naturally.

But the fact is, human enhancement has already arrived. The drug modafinal, for example, was approved for the treatment of narcolepsy. But it is often used by people who just want to stay awake and alert without the side effects of amphetamines. The military is already enhancing pilots with it so they can fly long missions.

The response of bioethics to such new technologies is hardly uniform. Some conservative and religiously based bioethicists oppose enhancement, often basing that opposition on appeals to God, Nature or social equity.

But as San Francisco State University professor of bioethics Anita Silvers pointed out in her presentation, there is a strong case to be made for “enhancement” as a human rights issue. Silvers bases this argument not on the idea of making the healthy stronger and smarter, but from the rights of the disabled.

fact file Era of human enhancement

5 ways we’re already bettering ourselves through science
• Cosmetic surgery
• Super strength
• Sharper minds
• Measuring up
• Laser vision


Cosmetic surgery
Americans underwent nearly 11.5 million cosmetic surgery procedures in 2005, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.


Consider Oscar Pistorius, a South African who won bronze and gold in the 100 and 200 meter sprints respectively at the Athens Paralympics, and swept the events in last month’s Visa Paralympic World Cup in Manchester, UK. Pistorius, 19, who is missing both legs below the knee, wears carbon fiber prosthetic devices.

Faster than flesh
Those devices can be adjusted to enable a longer stride, an advantage in a running race. What would happen, Silvers asked, if Pistorius qualified for the able-bodied Olympics, a goal he is pursuing and one he might attain given his remarkable times?

“There are those who would deny them what any other runner would earn by running this fast time just because their feet are metal rather than flesh…” Silvers said. “Without the right to opportunity free of penalties for being biologically different, amputees may be denied participation with the old prosthetics for not being competitive enough, and then denied participation with the new prosthetics for being too competitive. This is undemocratic whiplash exclusion.”

Silvers argues that the right not to be normal, is, in fact, the essence of freedom. Human beings, she argues, have always modified themselves, usually because we see the modifications as some kind of advantage. Banning it, as some have argued for, means forcing people to adhere to a government-imposed standard of normal.

The instinct to prevent people from making alterations to themselves worries British philosopher Andy Miah, a lecturer in media, bioethics and cyber culture at the University of Paisley in Scotland. “I explain it as a contempt for ‘Otherness.’ We seek to suppress people whom we feel are abnormal, mutants or monsters. Historically, societies have done this a lot. They continue to do it and I find it embarrassing.”

Silvers argues that fears expressed by many opponents of human enhancement, that modification itself will lead to a standardized human being so we’ll all try to look like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, are unfounded. In fact, she takes issue with transhumanists and their use of the word “enhancement,” arguing that an enhancement in one arena may be a handicap in another. Instead, she prefers “biological contingency.”

Eye of the beholder
Biological qualities “are not intrinsic strengths nor weaknesses, nor is any biological property essentially functional nor dysfunctional.” It all depends on context. In other words, Cyclops of the X-Men can shoot energy beams out his eyes, which is great for fighting bad guys, but he can never look in his girlfriend’s face without his visor.

Some people might think that’s a fair trade. Most won’t.

Still, the idea of modifying people does have a great many ethical implications, as keynote speaker Walter Truett Anderson pointed out. Anderson, president of the World Academy of Art and Science, a consultant, and an author of books about the human future, asked his audience to consider the health of the planet when they thought about what rights people should have to change our biology. There is more at stake, he said, than just ourselves. We are part of something bigger.

“We will have to think about it in a global context,” he told me. “A new population problem looms, which has to do, not with birth rates, but death rates and the question of whether we can begin to increase life spans for large numbers of people,” a prospect that could tax global resources.

While the idea of a serious academic conference on these issues might seem to verge on kooky, Anderson thinks the dialogue has to begin now. “There are a lot of issues that are going to begin to surface. People will have to confront them.”

We might not be ready to give people X-Men style options like the wings of Angel, or the fur and agility of Beast, but, he said, it is not too early to begin thinking about what happens when we can.

Brian Alexander is a California-based writer who covers sex, relationships and health. He is a contributing editor at Glamour and the author of "Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion" (Basic Books).

© 2006 MSNBC Interactive
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they raise a good question... do we have the right?

Not sure if it's our 'right', but advancement in say prosthetic surgery wll probably result some day in artificial limbs exceeding the dexterity and power of the limbs they are intended to replace. I think some of those early science fiction series like star trek and the six million dollar man do go someway in influencing the direction of our technology .

'bionic' muscles

The discussion was an ethical debate rather than disclosure. Paranoia is your friend...

Personally, I'm still hoping to be able to download information like they did in the Matrix. I just don't have time to read everything I need to...

But seriously, the problem I do see arising is the fairness of it. It's hard enough for the poor to get adequate medical care or to be able to go to college. Enhancements like these will undoubtably be the playground of those who can afford it (again, medical care and education) so it stands to reason that those that can afford enhancements will leave the rest in the dust. I think that would create an even bigger (and worse) economic gap than we already have.

Though I'd really love Superman's powers. I'll even take the kryptonite weakness.

Interesting questions raised there! Im not sure it is our 'right', but its an inevitability.....man will always stride to become more advanced than what we are now its natural instinct. There will always be fear of what we do not understand as Highlighted in the much publicised X-Men movies. (which i love by the way)

And i agre with Ivys point about being able to afford these enhancements (whenever they apperar), it will widen the class gap, thus creating resentment and ultimatly ridicule.

Let people do what they will, but give them the choice.

It is our right to do what one wills. BUT! The ignoriant no not, witch is the problem with our society today, i believe we should have the choice, but people should be warned, any type of f***ing with the human dna is tottally wacked, however many years it takes nature to make it perfect, f***ing with it wouldnt be smart, just as f***ing with the dna of plants isnt smart.

Now! as i said, nature made our bodys perfect, and our bodys just happen to have higher conciousness attached to them, heh, go with your technology, although people already have super human powers, they just dont know the old ways. x men was about natural mutation, people have fallen from their higher being potentials, we are fallen beings, with the potential to be higher beings, even then, we are here to experiance all that is needed for us to ascend, do what though wilt under love. as the free will of creation was givin to us. we already posses the ability to enhance all of the 5 senses, not to mention we can develop a 6ths, witch is still part of the lower conciousness, now STOP thinking, and be, develpp the higher.

The debate in and of itself is irrelevant. Accelerated/Anomalous Evolution is a process dictated by NATURE (read NOT by the Bush Administration) that has been taking place since before science as we know it came into existence. Creating a bunch of Six Million Dollar Men will look cool on the SciFi Channel, but nature's already chosen who will represent the "New Human", and they'll appear long before the mass-production of Lee Majors becomes the norm.

I could see a real life Captain America or Iron-Man being created by a military lol.

For the record a lot of mutants don't have super powers like the X-Men. Some of their mutations just give them a different skin color or worse mutate their body so it can't function proporly. A lot of mutants at best have useless powers, for example a third arm. Although any mutant is able to go to Xavier's school he only chooses the ones with real super powers to be part of the X-Men.

If the real world becomes anything like the real world we would be so screwed, New York would be destroyed every other hour, an Alien Invasion every thursday, evil scientists on friday, etc. But if we die atleast we will know that we can come back to life after a couple of issues.

I think if we should only achieve the "super human" rank if we develop the abilities ourselves. I feel that using science is cheating.

Technically we are developing these abilities for ourselves. I have always stated for years that things like genetic engineering and technologies like nanobots and cybernetics etc will be how we as a species acheive such abilities. It is the most logical next evolution of any intellegent species and still technically natural. By that logic a technological and biological evolution is the natural course we will take. We will eventually accomplish things like telepathy with a headband or implant in the brain and genetic engineering and modification to cure all illnesses that plague us and accomplish physical immortality.

We as a species are simply using our intellegence to better ourselves to become more efficient and survive. This has always been and always will be we have always tried to further ourselves and push the envolope.

In 100 to 150 years human beings as we know them will no longer exist, we have already begun to change our selves in ways that for the time being seems infathomable to people now. To those of us who understand where we can go with our current progression of technology we will become not only technologically and physically advanced but benevolent as well.

Whether people like it or not it, at this point it is an inevitability.

Humans will become a great species capable of many more feats then today. Using the tools we have created for ourselves is not cheating and completely natural. There of course will be resistors but they will parish like all of humanities ancestors have parished seemingly overnight.

There are only now 2 paths humans will take.

A: We keep progressing self evolve and leave earth.
or
B: We destroy ourselves and A never happens.

While B seems more likely I remain optimistic that the human race will eventually get it's priorities straight and become a noble benevolent species. A species that no longer needs war to settle differences and that we as a whole will all fight for common causes like our survival. Humans have great potential it is as good of time as any we began to utilize what we have to acheive greatness and ensure our survival.