Abstract
Philosophers, scientists, and other researchers have increasingly characterized humanity as having reached an epistemic and technical stage at which “we can control our own evolution.” Moral–philosophical analysis of this outlook reveals some problems, beginning with the vagueness of “we.” At least four glosses on “we” in the proposition “we, humanity, control our evolution” can be made: “we” is the bundle of all living humans, a leader guiding the combined species, each individual acting severally, or some mixture of these three involving a market interpretation of future evolutionary processes. While all of these glosses have difficulties under philosophical analysis, how we as a species handle our fate via technical developments is all-important. I propose our role herein should be understood as other than controllers of our evolution.
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Notes
“Volitional evolution” as used in this paper will follow Wilson’s usage, referring to the concept that humans can willfully, by deliberate decisions, guide the evolution of species, from Homo sapiens to a new species, just as Homo sapiens was derived by natural selection from earlier species, such as Homo erectus. That is, this concept is contrasted with that of inadvertent evolution, whereby humans, for example, may—even partly due to their great influence upon the physical world—evolve into another species, but through the actions of natural and sexual selection rather than through their own directed actions toward such an end.
Commentators, such as Wilson, commonly speak in this context of simply “we,” not “we, humanity.” I add “humanity” here, rather than simply stating “we” in the proposition, for particular reasons crucial to the paper—even though below, in Gloss 3, there is discussion of members of the species severally and individually. In all the relevant contexts, commentators appear to be implying “humanity” in stating “we”—that is, the entire species, and nota proper subset of the species composed, say, exclusively of the author’s coterie. Thus, one problem the paper is attempting to address is just what is comprised in “humanity.” To leave this word out of Proposition A would then seem to regress a further step and require answering, preliminarily to providing glosses of the proposition, just who constitutes “we.” Insofar as commentators who speak of “we are now in control of our evolution” do mean “humanity” by “we,” there is then something of an affront to species members by these authors in assuming that they can so readily be the spokespersons for what appears to be each and every individual of the species, alive now or in the future. Bringing out this “humanity” in the proposition helps, I believe, bring out the grandiosity of the common proposition of this sort. However, “humanity” itself has the sort of ambiguity that, in this context, is then game for the sort of glosses that I presently provide. “Humanity” may refer, for example, to the entire species as a group, as Gloss 1 covers, much as we may speak of “the whale” as a group. Or “humanity” may refer to the set of individual members of the species, as Gloss 3 covers, much as we speak of “whales.” In speaking of an action carried out, the entities referred to by either of these senses of “humanity” may be said to undertake an action under a leader, as if unified. Similarly, we speak of how “the Germans invaded Poland,” although not all Germans undertook the action. Such a sense arises in Gloss 2. Gloss 4, of course, mixes these senses of “humanity.”
By “self-ordained leaders,” I refer to those persons who put themselves into highly influential positions of power whether or not elected to those positions democratically. Thus, an industrialist or a coterie of industrialists could, merely through accumulating sufficient wealth and deploying a powerful technique, gain sufficient power to influence all peoples’ existences. For example, an industrialist could manufacture a self-replicating supercomputer that amassed such size as to affect humans’ existences; or could introduce nanoscale machines (Drexler 2007) that self-replicated and invaded persons’ bodies beyond their will and effected internal changes or that simply turned the entire biosphere in a lifeless “gray goo” (Joy 2007). Although these examples may seem fantastic, they at least illustrate the possibility of “self-ordained leaders” who could wreak as great changes on the human population as any government might but without being democratically elected.
For example, there may be some concern that the “we” (as humanity) is not necessarily the same as the human species. The latter, considered a biological species, is determined by a set of biological parameters, whereas the former might be a social construction. In this regard there could be concern about how and who decides just who is the “we,” which fact would be crucial as to how the future of the species will be handled. Considering this important concern, I believe that Glosses 2 and 4 do assume some degree of social construction. The examination of both of these glosses in the sections to follow brings out the very problem of who decides who constitutes the “we” in these cases.
Those who adhere to the Libertarian view of free will, by which the will need not be caused and any act of the will may be said to be caused only by the will but by no physical force, may find no problem here, as it may be that human agents can will to evolve without the process of evolution’s having caused human agents to will to do so. In this paper I cannot take on the general underlying metaphysical dispute. However, in the context of evolution by natural selection as discussed in this paper, if a Libertarian is to acknowledge that humans were a result of evolution—that is, caused by evolution—then that free will, as a part of human beings, would likewise have been derived by this process of natural selection. If this will means the agent is entirely “in the driver’s seat,” without being further caused to undertake an action, nonetheless it remains the fact that evolution put human agents into that driver’s seat and evolution could then be said to be accountable for having done so, thus whatever agents choose to do—uncaused by any other force but their will, is nonetheless evolution’s “fault” for having put humans into such a position. (If I were to put a limp drunk into a car and hand over the keys, that drunk may freely chose to do whatever on the road; but that drunk required my putting him or her in the car to freely chose to do whatever on the road.) One way out of this problem of evolution for the Libertarian is to assert that it was not natural selection that put humans in the driver seat of their own evolution but some other phenomenon, such as a giant genius. But if this move means dismissing the role of evolution in forming humans, or even denying evolution tout court, it is hard to say just what would be the model for humans’ purportedly self-willed “evolution.” I can presently proceed no further in this metaphysical issue.
This criticism of Gloss 2 for its potential tyranny could seem to apply to all four glosses; that is, their realizations may all be susceptible to tyranny, thus undercutting the implied uniqueness of potential tyranny in Gloss 2. In reply, I grant that tyranny is always a threat under any circumstances, whether under any of these glosses or otherwise. The concern about Gloss 2 is that tyranny could be especially insuperable in cases of the self-ordained leadership discussed, over which there would be no governmental or other recourse for overcoming the tyranny.
It may be said that there is a problem of agency in Gloss 2 (say, who is the agent acting here—the leader, or all humans?), just as the discussion of Gloss 1 had revealed a problem of agency in that “humanity” is not an agent. A similar point could be made about the two glosses to follow as well—they all involve a problem of determining who constitutes the agent. This fact would then seem to undercut the point about Gloss 1’s having a particular problem of agency, which problem was given as one reason for rejecting Gloss 1, whereas agency problems are not provided for dismissing the other Glosses. What then is particularly problematic about agency in Gloss 1? In response, I note that the agency problem of Gloss 1 concerns the (asserted) fact that a species as a whole cannot be an agent. This type of agency problem does not pertain to Glosses 2 and 3, and probably not to 4: By Gloss 3, each and every person is acting as an agent, but not necessarily in the same direction. It is not inconceivable for each and every member of the species to so happen to act independently that the species as a whole would seem to act as a whole (say everyone were to decide to look precisely north at some moment)—but it is still not that whole as some kind of entity that is acting, but individual agents, so this case would not be subject to the agency problem of Gloss 1. In Gloss 2, individual species members are still agents, but in their agency, at time X, say, they give their agency over to a leader so that after time X, their leader is handling their agency. This case is still not one of the group’s acting as one entity. In Gloss 4, as well, agents are still independent, but binding their agency to the whims of the market; again, there is not the issue of a species itself as agent. As for who “us” is in these cases—such as Western societies, who in their decisions may be exerting hegemony over the rest of the world—this problem brings in the moral issue raised in the examination of Gloss 2 and possibly could be a moral hindrance for Gloss 4 as well.
This paper, taking cues from both Wilson et al. (1978) and Savage (1977), considers: (1) species to be a population in long-term reproductive isolation from other populations, this reproductive isolation arising primarily because either physiology prevents mating or offspring are reproductively non-viable (although in rare cases naturalists allow geographical isolation to define a species); (2) evolution to be a long-term adaptation of a population involving the change in the heritable characteristics of that population and “the change in allele frequency of two or more alleles occupying the same chromosome locus within a given population” (Wilson et al. 1978, 637), which change comes about through natural (as well as sexual) selection, gene flow, and genetic drift (as well as interesting cases of biased molecular mutations) and leads to speciation, or the formation of new species; and 3) speciation to require some form of reproductive isolation among populations, occurring either allopatrically or sympatricaly. While biologists and philosophers continue to debate over what precise processes are involved in the complex mega-process called “evolution” and the understandings of these terms given herein are far from universally accepted, for the purposes of this paper, that of species and speciation are most important in many ways, particularly because much of the discussion in the context of “we control our evolution” is in terms of humans’ creating new species specifically derived from humans.
In another scenario that apparently falls under Gloss 3, researchers offer to individuals the opportunity to add genes to their offspring on an ad hoc basis. What may result from this kind of process—repeated over many laboratories world-wide—is the emergence of new human variants. Bearing in mind that this program is modulated as a result of those agents' living in present-day human societies, natural selection will then provide the test which either promotes the enhanced reproductivity of the variant or finally prevents it from expressing its reproductive potential. Such a process may then happen hundreds of times in hundreds of locations and in hundreds of ways, and there would be an exposure to a wide variety of selective conditions. What emerges from this process could not be specifically controlled, but as experience as shown so far, agents could emphasize, promote, and encourage the emergence of those variants that, as the agents may consider, are an advance on what is currently available.
This scenario, though, while plausibly feasible by even the current level of genetic engineering, again needs to be considered in terms of what biological evolution, and particularly speciation, is considered to consist in. Even more potently than in the seasteading and space-colony scenarios, which at least involved deliberate attempts of reproductive isolation, this present scenario does not (at least overtly) involve such attempts. Hundreds of sets of humans worldwide may seek to modify their offspring by such a program; however, if human society remains free and humans remain free agents, these offspring will interact with, have sex with, and reproduce with others, offsetting the program’s special effects and then eventually blending these into the general genetic mill of the human species. There may be some effect on the worldwide human gene pool, if some of the introduced genes do, despite the strong countering effects of genetic drift, persist over long periods of time, perhaps thousands of years. Again, though, as the scenario describes, these programs would not consist in controlling or guiding evolution—which is the concern of the paper—so much as provide a way to affect the gene pool much like mutation and genetic drift do. It becomes another way that human activity affects the gene pool, as the factory soot did on peppered moth melanism (Wilson et al. 1978, 650) or other anthropogenic chemical and physical agents do on species. Although the program-users may believe what they are doing establishes an advance upon what evolution had provided to that point, their thought pales to ineffectuality before the continuing powers of natural selection, genetic drift, and gene flow.
(Moreover, considering this scenario brings up a further issue: While the genus Homo has undergone speciation many times in the past two million years, human society in general, and especially now with increasing globalization, has established across the species a rigidification that may well work against evolutionary mechanisms, such as reproductive isolation, making speciation less likely than before such widespread globalization and rigidification, rather than more likely as is sometimes speculated. This possibility should at least not be overlooked in discussions of volitional evolution).
By some lights, it may seem that Gloss 4 is the path presented in many scenarios currently discussed in terms of engineering our future. However, by declaring the scenario “unlikely,” I did not intend to imply that few aspirants to controlling evolution embrace Gloss 4. Rather, given the unclear nature of that gloss, along with its seeming need to rely upon Glosses 1 and 2 holding as well, its problems are thereby compounded and render it even less tenable than those other glosses, even if some commentators do assume something like Gloss 4.
One may say that a further challenge for humans’ controlling their own evolution, if this process were somehow possible, would be the length of time that evolution has proven to take: hundreds of thousands of years. It is hard, though, to say if evolution necessarily needs such a long time, or whether things have just so happened to be that way. Perhaps, if it did make sense for humans to undertake volitional evolution, it could proceed more rapidly. Or, evolution inadvertently induced by human affect upon the physical environment may speed up (inadvertent) evolution.
That is, in the traditional understanding of truth value, only propositions have truth value; and precaution, when voiced as an imperative (like a warning), is not a proposition, so it cannot have truth value.
This proposition is not derived arbitrarily but implicitly from the argument so far. However, for space I have not offered that derivation in the text, so a note about that derivation is warranted. Proposition B is offered after the examination of the four glosses of Proposition A. This examination reveals that, as one can safely infer, the problem appears to lie in assuming that evolution is the sort of phenomenon that humans can somehow control independently of this phenomenon. In brief, the problem lies in “control” in this context. An alternative proposition would do well to eliminate aspiration to commensurate control, so control itself is to be replaced by an alternative. The derivation then may be:
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“We, humanity, now control our evolution”
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”We, humanity, now XXX our evolution.”
What is XXX? If it is not control that we exert, we nonetheless may—insofar as the species itself has considerable influence on the Earth—in our several actions be said to affect significantly the physical environment which itself affects evolution, although it may be insurmountably hard to consolidate these several actions in such a way as to guide that evolution volitionally. However, humans (like other species) have always themselves affected the physical environment in such a way as to affect their own evolution. What seems to be different for humans, more and more, is not only their exponentially increasing numbers and the markedly greater influence they can have on the physical (and, for them, social) environment, but with the increasing complexity of their technology, they have an increasing effect. Further, their several actions, being unconsolidated but nonetheless powerful, may increasingly effect evolution of further species arising from them, that is, cause such evolution to happen, although inadvertently (as this paper argues because of the problems in volitional control of evolution).
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It may be objected that Proposition B does not really solve the problem of what phenomenon we would now have in our control. Matters are left too open: We clearly affect our future, according to Proposition B, but it remains unclear how any control we do have relates to the overall discussion of the anticipated engineering revolution. In response, I note that the primary point of Proposition B is that biological—and likely social evolution as well (although pursing this further matter of social evolution would take the paper beyond its scope)—evolution is not a phenomenon that is plausibly in the control of our species, however “humanity” is glossed, or at best that morally such control is not a salubrious option. As for what exactly humans do have in their control in this context, Proposition B implies that they have control over their individual decisions. These severally and collectively could leave harmful effects upon species members if these effects altered (inadvertently) their own current environments or affected natural and sexual selection in such a way as to leave whatever entities, if any, emerge, as well as remaining Homo sapiens, in a morally compromised state. Thus, in pursuing the anticipated revolution with its purported “evolution,” inadequate attention to the developments’ possible deleterious outcomes and insufficient regard for the place of individual decisions in attempting to effect this revolution would signal disregard for the control that we do have in our individual decisions.
I acknowledge that some adamant utilitarians may take the position that the evil of a tyranny, which Proposition A under Gloss 2 could abet, may be outweighed by the projected goods that the engineering feats could materialize, and these utilitarians would say that the primary (moral) objection to Gloss 2 is overruled. However, this approach to the moral issue could quickly lead to value-balancing for values that we currently lack the wherewithal to assess. A glance at an extreme case brings out this epistemic problem. If, by some scenarios, humans were to be transformed into extremely large supercomputers (Chalmers 2009), self-repairing and self-replicating and expanding into the far ends of the universe, for example, but existing nonetheless under an absolute tyranny, at this point it would be hard for us to assess whatever good such entities are enjoying so that, by our current (known) standards, we can plausibly aver that those goods are outweighed by the tyranny.
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Acknowledgments
I want to thank Philip Kitcher for not only leading me to examine evolutionary theories philosophically but also for inspiring me to examine them for moral ramifications. I also want to extend thanks to my anonymous reviewers, as well as Editor Ray Spier, at Journal of Science and Engineering Ethics for giving the paper some deep thought and providing insights I could never have seen on my own and recommendations that strengthened the argument. Of course, no blame should be leveled upon any of these parties for shortcomings in the presentation.
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Miller, L.F. “We Now Control Our Evolution”: Circumventing Ethical and Logical Cul-de-Sacs of an Anticipated Engineering Revolution. Sci Eng Ethics 20, 1011–1025 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-013-9493-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-013-9493-9