Enhancement Technologies and the Politics of Life

The use of diverse (bio-)technological methods and practices to overcome the “nature of the (human) being” appears to be emerging as a societal trend and may lead to a new kind of enhancement culture [7]. Following this trend, not only humans can be improved by non-human beings or artifacts, discussed as “human enhancement” in the literature, but also animals can be too, discussed as “animal enhancement” in the literature. Views and visions that humans as “deficient beings” [8] must make use of various technologies to eliminate their “deficiencies” and improve their performance are not new. Visionary universalistic conceptions of a profound transformation of the human being as well as the substantial transformation of human nature, which we already encountered to a large extent in the first half of the twentieth century [9], mostly remained rather vague with regard to their scientific-technical preconditions. Living beings, on the other hand, appear to be increasingly apt to be modeled, configured, and constructed in actual terms as a result of scientific-technological developments and future breakthroughs within the twenty-first century, also in response to current social challenges. “Visions of modifying animals or of creating new entities to respond to environmental challenges such as climate change, the example of Enviropigs and the in vitro meat show, are slowly gaining importance” [10] (p. 7). Human enhancement technologies are categorized into existing, emerging, and speculative technologies (such as “mind uploading”). However, the separation of existing from emergent technologies becomes increasingly blurred with technological advances. Existing technologies include, for example, reproductive (in vitro fertilization, preimplantation genetic diagnosis,), physical (doping, pacemaker, bionic lenses), and mental enhancement (cognitive enhancers such as smart drugs). Emerging technologies are mostly on the way or being tested, such as advanced genetic engineering, neurotechnological implants, nanomedicine, and 3D bioprinting.

Nevertheless, the term “enhancement” has been separated from therapeutic/medical enhancement in numerous papers. Often, the functionality and ability of the body as normal was taken as a reference:

At first glance, the relationship might seem simple: enhancement is the gain of function, disability is the loss of function. One relates to something above normal functioning and the other below, like mirror images with the level of normality as their axis of reflection [11] (p. 2).

And Rehmann-Sutter and colleagues continue:

[E]nhancement is what brings the human body beyond normal functioning, whereas repair and therapy bring it back to normal. In this sense, prostheses or disability aids should imitate a normal embodied function, replacing the natural limb or sense with an artificial device. Even though they may enhance the shape and function of an individual’s impaired body, they are therefore not enhancements (ibid. p. 5).

Enhancement technologies are almost inextricably linked to the functional status of the living being, and, as such, the health status and medical innovation. Research in disability studies has shown that the distinction between normal and disabled, for example, leads to confusion. Of importance here is the historical examination of the development of modern medicine and its institutionalization as well as the distinction between “healthy” and “sick.” Other historical works that describe being healthy as both a normal and normative state [12] are also relevant to the sociology of medicine. So are approaches at the intersections of medicine, normalization, and mechanization, which emphasize that the mechanizations of medical action, as well as techno-medical innovations that are intimately intertwined with the human body, make the state of health socially desirable and socially acceptable by helping to bring the “normal state” to a new level through preventive or performance-enhancing measures [7, 13]. It is even stated with regard to prosthesis developments from 3D-printed prostheses to bionic prostheses that “normality” is not aimed at and becomes obsolete for various reasons and that the addressing of “normality” is replaced by addressing “human enhancement.” The cyborg body becoming a habit would eventually lead to the loss of meaning of current normality and favor human enhancement [14]. This argument makes sense if one looks into recent discussions within disability posthuman studies [15] or crip technoscience [16]. People with disabilities are called upon to make and hack themselves, a kind of self-empowerment via assistive technologies. Hamraie and Fritsch [16] underline the power of activism and active technology modification as “hacking and tinkering practices” in order to transform assistive technologies into “politics of interdependence”:

While the movement was critical of rehabilitation as a field of expert knowledge, it did not refuse the language or tools of rehabilitation outright. In addition to appropriating the term Independent Living to promote a disability politics of interdependence, the movement understood technoscience as a site of politicized resistance and regularly used hacking and tinkering practices as the basis of disability organizing (ibid. 2019, p. 12).

Rethinking assistive technologies undoubtedly lead to understanding these technologies not from a technologically fixed narrative developed from the outside, by third parties, but rather one that actively shapes a concerned person in all its cultural, political, and self-empowering individual dimensions.

The idea of a manifesto advocating self-empowerment is not a recent one. With technologies such as RFID, a bio- and body hacking movement emerged [17‐19]. At the same time, discussions started about the differences between post- and transhumanism. About 10 years ago, two special issues of the Journal of Evolution and Technology (2009, 2010) dealt with this topic. Transhumanism was understood as a sub-category, a specification, of the much more general and vast topic of posthumanism. Whereas posthumanism questions the modern belief that “homo sapiens” is categorically different and as such superior to any other living being, and thus disputes the border between life and death (and the inherent hierarchy between them), transhumanism focuses on such developments as cyborgism, the linkage between technology (in its mere materiality) and humans, designed to overcome (natural) shortcomings, and, in doing so, surpassing biological “restrictions.” Transhumanism can be discussed in a critical, reflexive manner—yet, in the literature one often comes across a somewhat naïve understanding of nature (as the pure biological outcomes) and technology (as a form of culture); the combination of the two leads humanity somewhere different, and, hopefully, to a better future. Even if it is sometimes hard to draw a clear line between the two, posthumanism is first and foremost a reconstructive critical perspective on (predominantly) modern Western culture that particularly highlights hierarchies (between humans, humans and animals, living beings and inorganic matter, etc., pp.).

In the special section, some articles address the benefits of combining humans and technology—as if they were really two distinctly different matters, contrary to the notion that humans living in modern societies already are cyborgs, or, in Haraway’s words, that “the cyborg is our ontology” [20]. On the other hand, you will find contributions questioning this distinction as a socially created version of reality and discussing how this distinction is deepened, reconstructed, and sometimes weakened through socio-technological arrangements, as well as the possible consequences of these dynamics for contemporary or future societies.

Existing and emerging technologies for (social) life already influence and shape science and society [21]. Manufacturing life by means of science and technology raises questions about nature and technology, as well as about, for example, the “normal,” “standard,” “truth,” or “real.” It produces everyday problems such as drug resistance, renaturalized organisms, chimera, bionic body parts, and designer babies, causing specific vulnerabilities [22] that create the need for specific socio-bio-technical care [23]. With that, also the opposites appear, for example the “enhanced,” “artificial,” “monstrous,” and “faked.” In the end, we wonder what we are dealing with: nature or culture [24]. However, this dichotomous way of thinking has become obsolete since the first cyborg studies. We now understand that the social relation to nature is not determined by an opposition between culture and technology or society and nature. Its constitution results from an interrelation.

The special section gathers research results and insights about the (re-)constructions of living beings through practices in life sciences and technology, with a focus on cultural, ethical, and social issues related to nano-, bio-, information, and cognitive sciences and technologies. One reason for focusing on these topics is the assumption that the convergence of these fields will lead to a substantial transformation of the corporeality of living beings, their relations with one another, technology, and society. Human pathways not only are bound up with other species, such as microbes, plants, and animals, but they are also bound up with technology. However, in Western contemporary civilization, technology is construed as something “opposite” of human beings who are designated as “natural” entities. Relying on nature and culture as extreme, opposing reference points is a necessary premise for most inequality-related oppositions (e.g., relying on nature often legitimizes discrimination as a “given fact”). However, enhancement practices (including “plant enhancement,” “animal enhancement,” or “human enhancement” through, e.g., brain-machine interfaces, genome editing, and prosthetics) are already manufacturing life in various ways, using different enhancement technologies, combining them (both living beings and technologies) in different environments, creating new entities, such as organic–inorganic and human-nonhuman entanglements, similar to cyborgs or human-animal chimera, and (other) new socio-technical systems. Some guiding questions of this special section are as follows: How will these practices affect the abovementioned human-technology opposition? What will be the consequences for contemporary Western culture that is built on the pillars of humanism and a dualistic, Cartesian approach? What other intersections and practices without this dualistic view can be observed and to what extent are they undermining regimes of injustice that are relying on the social construction of nature and culture as distinct, separate areas of knowledge and influence?