Редактирование: Criticism of transhumanism (раздел)

== The view that humanity has already reached a final, desirable state ==

Some critics - including writers who are favourable to traditional religious viewpoints - assert that humanity has been created in what is already a perfect state, and cannot be meaningfully improved by means proposed by transhumanism (including science and technology).

For example, consider these [http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/ageless-bodies-happy-souls remarks by Leon Kass, 2003]:

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Most of the given bestowals of nature have their given species-specified natures: they are each and all of a given ''sort''. Cockroaches and humans are equally bestowed but differently natured. To turn a man into a cockroach — as we don’t need Kafka to show us — would be dehumanizing. To try to turn a man into more than a man might be so as well. We need more than generalized appreciation for nature’s gifts. We need a particular regard and respect for the special gift that is our own given nature.
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This view is rebutted by the following [http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/dignity.html response from Nick Bostrom, 2005]:

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Transhumanists counter that nature’s gifts are sometimes poisoned and should not always be accepted. Cancer, malaria, dementia, aging, starvation, unnecessary suffering, cognitive shortcomings are all among the presents that we wisely refuse. Our own species-specified natures are a rich source of much of the thoroughly unrespectable and unacceptable – susceptibility for disease, murder, rape, genocide, cheating, torture, racism. The horrors of nature in general and of our own nature in particular are so well documented that it is astonishing that somebody as distinguished as Leon Kass should still in this day and age be tempted to rely on the natural as a guide to what is desirable or normatively right. We should be grateful that our ancestors were not swept away by the Kassian sentiment, or we would still be picking lice off each other’s backs. Rather than deferring to the natural order, transhumanists maintain that we can legitimately reform ourselves and our natures in accordance with humane values and personal aspirations.
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Transhumanists seek to extend a trajectory that has already taken place in history, as increasing numbers of shortcomings of human life have been addressed via medicine, other technologies, and by social reform. Transhumanists assert that:

* This trajectory still has a long way to continue
* This trajectory should not be curtailed just because someone claims, at any given time, that an aspect of human society (such as slavery, poverty, or aging) is a core part of human nature.

This argument is also made in [http://strategicphilosophy.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/its-about-ten-years-since-i-wrote.html "A letter to Mother Nature" by Max More, 1999]:

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Dear Mother Nature:

Sorry to disturb you, but we humans—your offspring—come to you with some things to say. (Perhaps you could pass this on to Father, since we never seem to see him around.) We want to thank you for the many wonderful qualities you have bestowed on us with your slow but massive, distributed intelligence. You have raised us from simple self-replicating chemicals to trillion-celled mammals. You have given us free rein of the planet. You have given us a life span longer than that of almost any other animal. You have endowed us with a complex brain giving us the capacity for language, reason, foresight, curiosity, and creativity. You have given us the capacity for self-understanding as well as empathy for others.

Mother Nature, truly we are grateful for what you have made us. No doubt you did the best you could. However, with all due respect, we must say that you have in many ways done a poor job with the human constitution. You have made us vulnerable to disease and damage. You compel us to age and die—just as we’re beginning to attain wisdom. You were miserly in the extent to which you gave us awareness of our somatic, cognitive, and emotional processes. You held out on us by giving the sharpest senses to other animals. You made us functional only under narrow environmental conditions. You gave us limited memory, poor impulse control, and tribalistic, xenophobic urges. And, you forgot to give us the operating manual for ourselves!

What you have made us is glorious, yet deeply flawed. You seem to have lost interest in our further evolution some 100,000 years ago. Or perhaps you have been biding your time, waiting for us to take the next step ourselves. Either way, we have reached our childhood’s end.

We have decided that it is time to amend the human constitution...
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