The Task of Theological Humanism
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The accent falls on what we ought to do in order to further what we value in life. This ethical position affirms the technological imperative in the service of greater control of life. The aim is to fashion a better, stronger form of human life; it is to free us from pain and suffering. The ethics for
the enhancement of life (as we call it) is found among secular and religious thinkers and movements. In terms of theory, it is rigorously utilitarian: the right thing to do is defined by the consequence of action measured by some idea of utility. This ethics too often fails to question technology as
itself a moral worldview, a way of seeing life and value. In this view, the primary ethical task is to minimize suffering through the development of medicine and technology, and also ending moral qualms about end of life issues (say, abortion or euthanasia). For this outlook, anyone who wants
limits to experimentation and discovery rooted in claims about human life’s sanctity or dignity seems cruel. One needs to focus on the good con-sequences that can follow from procedures. This is overhumanization within the realm of human and non-human life.
procedure relieve suffering and serve the interests of those involved? Are scientific procedures and results undertaken, attained, and distributed in a fair manner? Is the cost of life and other public goods – including economic On the plane of human existence, practical questions arise. Will the
ones – acceptable with respect to the utility, i.e., the promotion of interests and relieving suffering? If space allowed, we could go through these specific issues surrounding ethical analysis. For our purpose the most crucial thing to see is that this ethic requires the denial of the sanctity of life. Some, like Singer,
insist that ideas about the sanctity of life are specifically religious and thus have no place in multicultural and religiously neutral nations. Others argue that ideas like the sanctity of life are fictions, since there is nothing called “human nature.” Human beings are plastic creatures, shaped by their cul-
tures. The only task is to avoid suffering and respect cultural differences.And still other thinkers argue that ideas about the sanctity of human life are anthropocentric because they falsely place human life at the center of what we value.^22
analysis to what will “enhance” life through means that relieve suffering and promote interests. If we can use some forms of life, from stem cells to fetuses and newborns, to that end, it is ethically warranted. This moral outlook, if By denying the inviolability of life, this ethics shifts the weight of moral
not the precise ethical position, is one of the dominant voices heard in the discussion of the Human Genome Project, stem cell research, and also debates about ecological holism where whole ecologies, not human beings, are morally central. 23