An evaluation of biotechnological enhancement in the light of an African perspective of personhood : the metaphysical aspects of botho and human nature

Abstract

Transhumanism is the view that human evolution should be actively enhanced by the human race through science and technology. Bio-technological enhancements are interventions designed to transform individual human capabilities to levels which surpass the current ones. However, the main objection is that transformations proposed by transhumanism would supposedly either result in a new species or otherwise degrade human nature, regardless of the degree to which they have been enhanced. Scholars who critique transhumanism, for example, Leon Kass, Jeremy Rifkin, Francis Fukuyama, and Bill McKibben insist that there are certain fundamental elements of personhood or humanity that should not be tampered with. This research evaluates biotechnological enhancement in the light of the Botho philosophy in general, but it focuses largely on the metaphysical aspects of Botho, particularly personhood and human nature. Botho is an indigenous philosophy prominent in Botswana that expresses the essence of being a person. A human person from the Setswana metaphysical point of view, namely Botho, includes the material and the immaterial aspects. After providing reasons to use Botho as a philosophical framework to evaluate transhumanism, the thesis explores both the radical and modest forms of enhancements in order to identify those that are consistent with the metaphysical aspect of the Botho perspective and those that are not. The study mainly applies the metaphysical aspect of the Botho perspective to the hypothetically enhanced human beings to show that transhumanism need not impair freewill, human nature, personhood, and personal identity. The study further shows where transhumanism and the metaphysical aspect of the Botho perspective converge and diverge. For example, in the case of freewill, some forms of biotechnological enhancement could in fact improve freewill, while other forms could limit it but not eliminate it. Another example is the case of mind uploads, where, from the metaphysical aspect of the Botho perspective, minds could still exist as persons or selves, even if not as humans, which would be analogous to the way ancestors are often conceptualised. This thesis adds new knowledge to the literature in that it is the first systematic application of the metaphysical dimensions of Botho, and more generally Afro-communitarian worldviews, to transhumanism.