philosophy of man and technology

7/28/2019 Philosophy of Man and Technology

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PrOf.Dr.ir. Peter-PAUL verBeek


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PhilosoPhy

of Man andTechnology

15 OCtOBer 2009

therMOCheMiCAL BiOMAss refininG

teChnOLOGy

the LiMits Of hUMAnity:On teChnOLOGy, ethiCs, AnD hUMAn nAtUre

LeCtUre PresenteD At the OCCAsiOn

Of the APPOintMent As PrOfessOr Of

PhiLOsOPhy Of MAn AnD teChnOLOGy

At the

fACULty Of BehAviOUrAL sCienCes

University Of twente

thUrsDAy 15 OCtOBer 2009

By

PrOf.Dr.ir. Peter-PAUL verBeek


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MACht en OnMACht Der GewOOnte 5

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regels, dit kan over bvoorbeeld over drie regels gaan 3

MACht enOnMAChtDer GewOOnte


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reCtOr MAGnifiCUs; DeAn Of the fACULty Of BehAviOUrAL sCienCes; fAMiLy AnD

frienDs, COLLeAGUes AnD stUDents.

All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be theebb of this great tide, and would rather return to the beasts than surpass man?

In 1883 Friedrich Nietzsche used these words to have Zarathustra announce the advent of anew kind of human (Nietzsche 1985, 27). For Zarathustra, the time was ripe for a successor

to the imperfect and submissive thing that mankind was. Man should no longer be seen as

an end in himself, but as a bridge to a higher being: the bermensch (ibid, p. 28).

Nietzsches image of the bermensch has since had a chequered history; at its deepest point

it became an icon for Hitlers eugenics programme to breed a purely Aryan race. But there isanother, more appropriate reading, in which the bermensch stands not for a Superman whowill replace us, but for a better way of being human: the bermensch as the highest form ofhumanity.

Nevertheless, many people are still uncomfortable with the idea that humanity might not be

a reference point, not an end in itself, but merely the bridge to something better. The image

of the bermensch seems to demand that we abandon that which best characterizes us andgives us dignity: our humanity. And to abandon that would be to abandon the foundations of

morality.

Recent technological developments have breathed new life into the image of the

bermensch, and also into the difcultethical questions it poses. The convergenceof nanotechnology, biotechnology,

information technology, and the cognitive

and neurosciences has given us more andmore ways of intervening in human

function. Numerous examples of this can

be found at this very university. Forinstance, Wim Ruttens group is working

hard on the development of neuro-

implants: tiny devices connected directly

to the brain or other parts of the nervous

PhiLOsOPhyOf MAn AnDteChnOLOGy

The Creation of Cyborg


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system, enabling deep brain stimulation which can, for example, reduce the effectsof Parkinsons disease. In a team led by Clemens van Blitterswijk, techniques are being

developed for cultivating human tissue from stem cells, for instance to repair bone damagecaused by cancer. And Albert van den Bergs colleagues are using nanotechnology

techniques to create chip-sized laboratories that can be swallowed, like a pill, to detect

intestinal cancer from within at an early stage.

So what is going to happen to us, now that technologies like this are invading deeper and

deeper into the body? With prosthetics, implants and articial tissues, and also with

advanced diagnostics and embryoselection, we seem to be able to interfere substantially withhuman nature. Making someone better used to mean curing their diseases; today it also

seems to mean enhancing them as human beings. In this way new technologies are givingnew shape to the image of the bermensch. We now seem to be capable of going beyondhumanity and some are already dreaming about improved versions of, or even a successor

to, Homo sapiens.

New technologies, then, have brought us to the limits of humanity. In practical terms: can

the hybrids we create still be called human? And in ethical terms: does humanity have a

borderline that should not be crossed? I should like to devote this address to these limitsof humanity.

The newest generation of technologies do indeed form a challenge to the philosophy of

technology. They demand a reconceptualization of the relationship between people and

technology, because they are creating human-technology relationships that are entirelyunprecedented. But most of all, as I shall argue, it is high time that the philosophy of

technology started playing a role in todays ethical discussions on human enhancement.

Let me make myself clear: this doesnotmean that I think there is something wrong withhumankind as it is, and that we ought to replace ourselves with a better version as quicklyas possible. I will argue, rather, that it is an inherently human characteristic that people

continually look for ways to reshape themselves. The most recent technologies offer new

ways of doing this, but at the same time they raise questions about the best way of goingabout it; and it is in this search for the best way of dealing with the technological possibilities

that we nd the higher man of which Nietzsche spoke.

In developing this idea in my address I shall take three steps. First of all, from the point ofview of the philosophy of technology, these new human-technology relationships need to

be further conceptualized. Secondly, from a philosophical-anthropological standpoint, I will

examine the implications of these new human-technology relationships for the way weshould try to understand human beings. Lastly, I will expand on the consequences of this

approach for the ethics of technology. In doing so I will also be sketching the outline of a

signicant part of my own research over the next few years.


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1. HUMANS AND TECHNOLOGYnew relationShipS between people and technologyIn recent decades the philosophy of technology has devoted much attention to an analysisof the relationships between humans and technologies, with Don Ihdes work playing a central

role. Starting from the phenomenological idea that human existence can be understood only

in terms of our relationship to reality, Ihde has researched into the many ways in which thisrelationship is actually mediated by technology (Ihde, 1990). People canincorporatetechnologies, as when wearing a pair of glasses which one does not lookatbut looks through.Other technologies we have toread, in the way that a thermometer gives information ontemperature or an ultrasound machine gives a representation of an unborn child. People can

alsointeractwith technology, as when operating a DVD player or setting a central heatingthermostat. Finally, within the framework sketched by Ihde, technologies can also play a rolein thebackgroundof our experience. The fan noise made by a computer and the illuminationprovided by room lights are not experienced directly, but form a context within which people

experience reality. Ihdes work has comprehensively researched how techno-logy, mediatedby the different relationships that people can have with it, plays a role in the establishment of

interpretative frameworks, scientic knowledge, and cultural practices.

This framework has been of considerable value to the contemporary philosophy of

technology, but the technological developments just described which have been made

possible by the convergence of nano, bio, info, and cogno go beyond this framework.

The central focus of Ihdes schema is technology which gets used: glasses, telescopes,

hammers, and hearing aids. However, the newest technologies are increasingly responsiblefor man-machine relationships that can no longer be characterized as use congurations.

For instance, the development of intelligent environments, of which theAmbient Intelligenceprogramme initiated by Philips is a prime

example, leads to a conguration that onemight rather give the name ofimmersion:here, people are immersed in an environ-

ment that reacts intelligently to theirpresence and activities. These technologies

do not have what Ihde calls a background

relationship with people, because they

engage in interaction with them they aretherefore more than just a context.

An entirely opposite route is taken by theanthropotechnologies I mentioned earlier,

to use a term coined by Peter Sloterdijk

(1999): technologies which redesignhuman beings at the physical level. These

technologies are not of the exterior, the

environment, but of the interior within thehuman body. This relationship goes beyond

that ofincorporation; it might be said toNeuro-implant for Deep Brain Stimulation


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represent amerge, as it becomes difcult to draw a distinction between the human and thetechnological. When a deaf person is given a degree of hearing capability thanks to acochlear implant connected directly to their auditory nerve, then this hearing is a jointactivity of the human and the technological; it is the conguration as a whole that hears, and

not a human being whose hearing is restored thanks to technology (cf. Verbeek 2008).

autonomy: the limit of humanity?Both these technological trends outwards, towards the environment, and inwards, towards

the body are blurring the borderline between humans and technology. They are also

making technology increasingly invisible: it does its work without allowing us to adopt anexplicit relationship to it. And this is undoubtedly one of the reasons that some people see the

current convergence of technological domains as a potential threat. When our environments

start meddling with us of their own accord, and when technologies start merging with ourbodies, it feels as if we are losing our grip on what happens to us. Our frontiers appear to

evaporate: externally, in our environments, and internally, within our own bodies, it seems

that technologies are running the show. A living room that decides independently how

warm it should be, what colour the lighting should be, and whether the phone is allowedto ring is reducing our autonomy considerably; and the same is unquestionably true of

brain implants that mitigate the symptoms of Parkinsons disease but which also bring

about personality changes.

When the boundary between the human and the technological is blurred, we also appear to

have to give up that which makes us most human: our autonomy, the freedom to organize

our lives as we see t. After all, without this autonomy we are but slaves to technology.A world in which people are directed by devices which do their work invisibly, whether in the

environment or from within the body, perfectly embodies the Brave New Worlddystopiathat is so widely feared.

It is no exaggeration to say that the relationship between technological power and human

autonomy has been an obsession for the classic critique of technology. From LewisMumfords Megamachine to Charlie Chaplins Modern Times, the core theme has been:how are we to escape from the dominance of technology? How are we to prevent

technology from taking power over people and thereby alienating them from themselvesand their surroundings? The reality, however, is considerably more complex. In actual fact

we have never been autonomous with regard to technology, not even with regard to

technologies we simply use and which arenotconcealed in the environment or withinour bodies.

One of the most important insights to have emerged from contemporary approaches to thephilosophy of technology is the realization that technology plays a fundamental mediating

role in human experience and activity. Our personal contacts are mediated by telephones and

computers; our opinions and ideas are mediated by newspapers, televisions and computerscreens; and our movements are mediated by cars, trains and aeroplanes. Technology has

even played a crucial role in the ethical domain, as I have elaborated in recent years. The

decision on whether a pregnancy should be terminated if the child has a genetic disorder,for instance, is not an autonomous choice; to an important degree it is prestructured by the

way a modern technology such as ultrasound scanning presents the unborn child (Verbeek,


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forthcoming, 2010). We must give up the idea that we exercise a sovereign authority overtechnology and that we employ technologies merely as neutral means towards ends that

have been autonomously determined. The truth is that we are profoundly technologicallymediated beings.

For modern people like ourselves, however, the product of the Enlightenment, this fact is

rather hard to swallow. After all, the modern self-image of the autonomous subject, freed bythe Enlightenment from dictatorship, ignorance and dependence, has already suffered some

serious dents, as FreudsA General Introduction to Psychoanalysis showed all too clearly.Copernicus evicted us from the centre of the universe by having the Earth rotate around thesun; then Darwin took away our unique position in Creation by linking humans to other

animals through evolution. Finally, Freud took responsibility for dealing the third blow to our

modern self-image by showing that the ego, far from being its own master, is itself theproduct of a complex interaction with the subconscious (Freud 1989).

Todays technological developments continue to unmask the modern autonomous subject,but by other means than has philosophy. Freuds list of unmaskers of the modern subject

was composed entirely of thinkers who showed that we should try to understandpeople in adifferent way; the list has since been expanded to include a series of scientists who havequestioned human autonomy in different ways again. These include Emile Aarts of Philips, for

instance, one of the brains behindAmbient Intelligence (Aarts & Marzano, 2003); but it alsoincludes many scientists working at this very university. The movie you are now looking at

was made in the team of Wim Rutten. When I saw it for the rst time it sent a shock right

through me. It shows a boundary being crossed in a way which elicits a certain astonishmentand awe much as did the rst pictures of the moon landing, the rst heart transplant

operation, or the rst test tube baby. This movie shows nerve bres attaching themselves toelectrodes. The pictures were taken here in Enschede, on the University of Twente campus.

They represent a potentially revolutionary development, because this technology makes it

possible to plug devices into our nervous system. The border between the human and thetechnological is being crossed here as easily as putting a plug into an electrical socket.

border blurringWhat good does it do to equate todays blurring of the border between humans and

technology with the unmasking of the autonomous subject? Does this approach leave us

no option than to simply accept that we are slaves to technology, free only to display the

Nerve bres grow into an electrode

This is a time-lapse recording of a nerve bre microchannel (10 micrometer wide), dividing and growing towards the electrodes of a neural prosthesis.

The speed of this growth is about 0.5 mm per day. The pictures were taken by Paul Wieringa MSc, a member of the Neurotechnology group at the

University of Twente which is led by Professor Wim Rutten.

Other declared opponents of human improvement include Leon Kass, erstwhile chairman of the Presidents Council on Bioethics in the

US, and Francis Fukuyama, a prominent neoconservative thinker in the US.


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occasional bout of subversive behaviour? Can we even talk about ethical limits to technologyif our minds and bodies are entirely mediated and directed by that technology? Must we

simply accept that the border between humans and technology is a ction, and deliverourselves to the machines?

No, of course not! Precisely that would mean the end of humanity. Precisely that is what

Nietzsche meant by a return to the beasts, instead of aiming for the highest in what ishuman. Do you want to be the ebb of this great tide, and would you rather return to the

beasts than surpass man?The diagnosis that humankind is controlled by technology, andthat no more than token subversive resistance can be offered, fails to appreciate how each isinterwoven with the other. There is an interplay between humans and technologies within

which neither technological development nor humans has autonomy. Humankind is a

product of technology, just as technology is a product of humankind.

This does not mean that we are the hapless victims of technology; neither does it mean that

we should try to escape from its inuence. In contrast to such a dialectic approach, whichsees the relationship between humans and technology in terms of oppression and liberation,

we need ahermeneutic approach. Within such an approach hermeneutics is the study ofmeaning and interpretation technology forms the tissue of meaning within which ourexistence takes shape. We are as autonomous with regard to technology as we are with

regard to language, oxygen, or gravity. It is absurd to think that we can rid ourselves of this

dependency, because we would remove ourselves in the process. Technology is part of thehuman condition. We must learn to live with it in every sense of the word. In other words,

we must shape our existencein relation to technology.

And this is where we encounter a metaphysical issue which in my view forms the crux ofthe philosophy of technology. At the source of the dialectical approach to the philosophy of

technology, and its narrative of oppression versus liberation, lies a very specic metaphysical

concept of the relationship between humankind and reality. As the French philosopherBruno Latour has argued, this concept, which has characterized all of post-Enlightenment

modernism, draws a fundamental distinction between subjects and objects. Subjects are

active, have intentionality and freedom; objects are lifeless, passive, and at best serve as theprojections or instruments of human intentions (Latour 1991). Such a metaphysics makes it

impossible to properly discern the interrelatedness and interconnectedness of subject and

object of humankind and technology. The moral load of technology, the technologically

mediated character of human freedoms, and all the ways that people express their humanitythrough relationships with technology all of this is rendered invisible by a modernistic

metaphysics which radically separates subjects and objects and diametrically opposes them.

However, what has hitherto remained absent in a non-modernistic or amodernistic

perspective of the type proposed by Latour is a more detailed concept of humanity as

interwoven with technology in this way, and an ethics to replace the unilateral rejection thatis characteristic of the classic critique of technology. We must develop a concept of

humankind which goes beyond the autonomous subject that wants to be purged of all

outside inuence, and we must develop an ethics that goes beyond safeguarding thispurging and which looks further than the risks, the violations of privacy, and the other

threats that technology poses to humanity.


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2. ANTHROPOLOGYhuman nature aS the limit?Surprisingly enough, technology has always played a large role in the philosophy ofanthropology the domain of philosophy that occupies itself with knowledge of mankind.

A core concept here is that we come into the world as imperfect beings, and have to cope as

best as we can by means of technology. We are Mngelwesen, as Gehlen (1940) put it, with anod to Herder. Because humans have no specialized organs or instincts, they cannot survive

long in a natural environment. We have to supplement ourselves in order to continue to exist;

and for this reason the relationship between the human organism and technology always hasan important role in the philosophy of anthropology.

Ernst Kapps Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik (1877) was the rst study to subjectthis relationship to closer scrutiny. His central thesis was that of organ projection: consciously

or unconsciously, technologies were the projections of human organs. A hammer was the

material projection of what a st is to the organic domain; a saw was a projection of humanteeth. The telegraphy network that was being constructed in Kapps day was the projection of

the nervous system. Kapps position amounts to an inverted Cartesianism: where Descartes

had sought to understand the organic in terms of the mechanical, Kapp does exactly theopposite, explaining the mechanical world in terms of the organic, and technology in terms of

nature. We create a material world of technology by externalizing aspects of ourselves and

in using this technology discover more and more about ourselves.

The relationship between the organic and the technological was subsequently elaborated inmore detail by Hermann Schmidt. He distinguished three stages in the development of

technology (Schmidt 1954). Kapps analysis was concerned with the rst stage: that of thetool. The motive power required is derived from human work, and human intelligence is

required to use the tool for a given purpose. The second stage is that of themachine. Thispowers itself, but still needs to be operatedby humans in order to be put to use.

The third and nal stage is that of the

automaton. This derives both its motivepower and its purposeful deployment from

technology itself. In a sense, human beings

are superuous in the third stage; the

automaton is physically and intellectuallyself-reliant.

Gehlen then built on Schmidts work byasking again how these technologies related

to people as organic beings. He also

distinguished three types of human-technological relationship: organ replace-

ment, as a hammer substitutes for a st:organ strengthening, as a microscopeexpands on the capabilities of the human

eye; and organ facilitation, as the inventionThe technological character of human existence


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part and parcel of human nature, and recent technological developments have simply giventhis theme a new and more radical interpretation. We are shaping our lives not just in an

existential way, but also a biological one something we had always done without realizing it,in Stieglers view, but which is becoming more and more explicit because of the current pace

of technological developments.

the human conditionThe fundamental interconnectedness of humans and technology means that the human

condition is not a constant factor to which we could ethically appeal. What makes us

human, both in the existential sense and in the biological sense, ishistoric. It has becomewhat it is now, and it will continue to develop. This historic, rather than essentialist character

of the human condition has profound consequences. It means that none of the central

dimensions of our human existence our natality, mortality, freedom and intentionality,but also our appearance and gender will remain the same forever.

Pre-implantation diagnostics, for instance, makes it possible to prevent the development of

embryos with certain genetic properties. Quite apart from the ethical question of whether theapplication of this technology is desirable, it is clear that human natality is changed by the

availability of this technology. To bring a child into the world who carries certain hereditary

traits suddenly becomes something for which people can take personal responsibility. In fact,in extreme cases people could even beheld responsible for it, as in the so-called wrongfullife lawsuits in which children sue their doctors, or even their parents, for the fact that they

were born at all.

The same applies to our mortality. New technological developments in the areas of palliative

care, euthanasia, and intensive care mean that mortality today is not what it was for previousgenerations. The end of our life is no longer something that we simply undergo, but

something we have to make choices about. This is independent of any moral judgement

about the desirability of technological intervention at the end of life; the simple fact of the

availability of these technologies means that we become responsible.

Even human freedom and intentionality seen so often as the crown jewels of humanity, in

comparison to (some) animals and plants are subject to continuous technological change,as is demonstrated by the deep brain

stimulation example. This technology uses

a neuro-implant to impart electrical signalsdirectly to someones brain, and thereby

inuence their intentionality.

A famous case described in the Dutchmedical journal Tijdschrift voor Ge-

neeskunde recounts how the condition of apatient suffering from Parkinsons diseaseimproved markedly after DBS (Leentjens et

al., 2004). But while the symptoms ofParkinsons disease were ameliorated, hisbehaviour also changed, and in uninhibited

ways that were completely unfamiliar to hisPre-implantation diagnostics: towards a new human condition?


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family and friends. He took up with a married woman, bought her a second house and aholiday house abroad, bought several cars, was involved in a number of trafc accidents, and

eventually had his driving licence taken away. The man had no idea that his own behaviourhad changed until the DBS was switched off. But at that moment his Parkinsons symp-

toms returned with such severity that he became entirely bedridden and dependent. There

appeared to be no middle way; he would have to choose between a life with Parkinsonsdisease, bedridden or a life without the symptoms, but so uninhibited that he would get

himself into continual trouble. Eventually he chose with the DBS switched off! to be

admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he could switch the DBS on and suffer fewersymptoms of the disease, but where he would also be protected against himself.

This case raises all sorts of issues about freedom and responsibility, issues which push the

envelope of what it is to be human. This man lived as two parallel personalities and was onlyaware of the fact while in one of them; moreover, he made the explicit choice to go on living

in the one which wasnotaware of it. In circumstances like this it is difcult to judge whethera free choice was possible, or for that matter who the authentic person was who was doingthe choosing.

In short technology alters the human condition, and it shows, in a radical way, how historicalwe are. This does not mean that humankind is subordinate to technology in the way that

classical philosophy of technology feared; it means that we must continue to nd new ways

of shaping our technologically mediated existence. Even as cyborgs, we are still thrown(geworfen) into existence, and the challenge of our lives is how shape this existence

(ent-werfen). The question is: how? This brings us to the domain of the last part of myaddress: ethics.

3. ETHICS

towardS a non-humaniStic ethicSThe analysis I have given so far, of an increasingly blurred borderline between humans and

technology, might give the impression of being entirely ethically nihilistic. After all, if no realborderline can be drawn between humans and technology, and if we never were as

autonomous and authentic as we thought, then whats the use of ethics? If technology

mediates our whole existence, from birth to death and everything in between, then why

would we trouble to look at technology through the lens of ethics?

If this was your impression, then I am happy to say that I can reassure you. In my view, theanalysis I have presented so far, framed as it is by the philosophy of technology and

philosophical anthropology, only really comes into its own as a contribution to the ethics of

technology. Putting the borderline between people and technology into perspective certainly

does not mean that from now on anything goes. On the contrary: it means that the aim ofthe ethics of technology must be to give shape, in a sound and responsible way, to the

relationship between people and technology.

This is going to be no simple matter, however; todays ethics of technology leaves much to be

desired. It is dominated by what I have called an externalistic approach towards technology


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(Verbeek, forthcoming 2010). The basic model is that there are two spheres, one of humanityand one of technology, and that it is the task of ethics to ensure that technology does not

transgress too far into the human sphere. To stay within the paradigm of the limits ofhumanity, in this model ethics is a border guard whose job it is to prevent an unwanted

invasion. However, in the light of the analysis I have presented here of the relationship between

humans and technology, this model is inadequate; it draws a distinction between a humandomain and a technological domain which is ultimately untenable. And while brain implants,

tissue engineering, and embryoselection have already begun their advance, this ethics is

painting itself into a corner by only being willing to consider the question of whether suchtechnological developments are morally acceptable or not.

So in ethics, too, we must cross the boundary between subject and object. We must no longer

see ethics as a matter concerning the subject alone, but as a coproduction of subject andobject. Over recent years I have elaborated one possible direction for such an amodern ethics

by researching into the moral dimensions of technology. The example I just gave, of the moral

signicance of ultrasound technologies, has formed a guiding example; the ethical decisionssurrounding abortion cannot be seen as an autonomous moral human choice, because they

are formed, to an important degree, by the way that technologies like ultrasound present the

unborn child.

However, as I have explained, the technological developments at the heart of this address have

regard to another conguration than that of the use of technology, and in so doing depict anew form of the interrelatedness of human subjects and technological objects. In theblending

conguration, not only our existential but also ourbiologicallife is shaped in interaction withtechnology. And the ethical questions here are considerably more delicate.

This was well illustrated by the furore that arose ten years ago after Peter Sloterdijk gave his

renowned speech Rules for the Human Zoo (Sloterdijk 1999). In this speech, Sloterdijk arguedthat the latest technologies offer entirely different media by which we could give shape to ourhumanity, media other than those of the word. While texts had always been used to tamepeople, new technologies were making it possible tobreedthem, and according to Sloterdijkit was high time to start pointing these new possibilities in the right direction. But while

philosophers racked their brains about the

texts and ideas that formed people, the

actual material re-creation of humanity was

proceeding apace. In a provocativeformulation, Sloterdijk proposed that rules

for the human zoo were needed; people didnot live merely as conscious minds in a

universe of ideas, but also as organic beings

in a biotope a zoo and it was thisorganic dimension of our existence which

now needed our full attention.

The German academic world was in uproarafter this speech. Sloterdijks plea that rules

should be developed for human cultivation

Humanity: outdated and in the sale?

Photograph Jan Verberne, Enschedec


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was immediately associated with Nazi eugenics programmes. Simply posing the question ofhow best to shape the interrelatedness of humans and technology, then, had turned out to be

rather too much of a good thing. But while intellectuals struggled to outdo each others politicalcorrectness and proclamations on the evils of eugenics, the ethical questions stood, and

remained unanswered. This was a clear instance of the failure of the modernistic perspective on

ethics; while in the real world humans and technologies are becoming ever more intertwined,ethics stands on the sidelines, hawking a division of the estate.

Jrgen Habermas, for instance, who according to reports was active behind the scenes in the

attack on Sloterdijk, has since published a book in which he explicitly states that geneticintervention should be allowed only for therapeutic purposes: all interventions aimed at humanenhancement, such as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and genetic enhancements, aremorally unacceptable, because these technologies mean that we take decisions on behalf ofothers about what kind of life is worth living (Habermas 2003). By erasing the differencebetween the grown and the made, these technologies attack the autonomous authorship

of existence and the moral self-understanding of the person so programmed (idem, 52).Todays anthropotechnologies treat people not as self-actualizing subjects, but as the

instruments of our preferences and this Habermas nds utterly unacceptable.

I naturally share the belief that we should respect the rights of others as far as possible, and

that we should treat people as ends in themselves and not as means to an end. There must

be very few people in this society who do not share this view. But it is a ction to supposethat a society is imaginable in which people can take entirely autonomous decisions on

what kind of life is worth living. The remarkable thing about technology is that it contributescontinuouslyto the way we answer questions about the good life. Genetic intervention andpre-implantation diagnostics have added new components to an existing repertoire. Thesenew technologies do indeed cross the border between growing and making, between

physis and techn, as Habermas states; but this does not mean that we are incapable ofdealing responsibly with them.

Instead of making ethics a border guard who decides the extent to which technological objects

may be allowed to enter the world of human subjects, ethics should be directed towards the

quality of the interaction between humans and technology. This does not mean that every formof such interaction is desirable, nor that we are entitled to tinker with ourselves at random.

I agree with Habermas that we should not passively accept every genetic enhancement of

human beings, and that respect for individual freedom and for human dignity must play animportant role in this matter. But the distinction between therapy and enhancement fails to

provide an appropriate vantage point. We cannot employ the criterion that we must stop at thepoint where the restoration of an original situation gives way to the creation of a new human

being; after all, the original situation does not exist, and we have always used technology to

create ourselves anew.

So the question is not so much where we have to draw the line for humans, or for

technologies but how we are best to shape the interrelatedness between humans and

technology that has always been a hallmark of the human condition. We need an ethics thatdoes not stare blindly at the issue of whether a given technology is morally acceptable or not,

but which looks at the quality of life as lived with technology. I should like to close myaddress with a proposal for just such an ethics.


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the good lifeIn elaborating a non-modernistic ethics it is useful to follow the approach that was adoptedin classical antiquity, which was obviously, by denition, non-modernistic. At the core ofclassical ethics is the concept of the good life. This had not so much to do with the question

of how I should behave, as a moral subject in a world of objects, but with the question of

how to live. The good life was directed byaret a term frequently translated as virtue, butwhich is better rendered by the word excellence. Ethics, then, was about mastering the art

of living.

Michel Foucault has shown that the ethics of the good life revolved around the shaping ofones own subjectivity. Foucaults research was directed specically towards the ethics of

sexuality, and he demonstrated that the ethics of sexuality in classical times did not boil

down to adherence to commandments and prohibitions but to nding the best way ofdealing with lust and passion. Passions impose themselves on us, so to speak, and ethics

was about choosing not to follow these passions blindly but to establish an open relationship

with them: nding anappropriate use for these passions.

Steven Dorrestijn has argued that an ethics of technology could look similar. When

technological means force themselves upon us incessantly, then the art of living in atechnological culture is the art of shaping our own mediated subjectivity. This ethics of

self-constitution offers not only in the use of technology, but also in the conguration of itsmerging with us a fruitful alternative to existing ethical positions. This approach also givesthe ethics of self-constitution a very concrete meaning. Its central question becomes: what

do we want to make of human beings?

For some, this question appears to be an expression of pure hubris: the overweening prideand recklessness to think that we should be allowed to tinker as we like with human nature.

But though this might look like overcondence, in fact what it amounts to is an assumption

of responsibility. In fact, it is the very refusal to take these technologies seriously theircategorical rejection which marginalizes an ethics from the outset. The technological

developments themselves continue to move on, and while squeaky-clean ethicists grumble

on the sidelines, they are missing the opportunity of contributing towards the responsibledevelopment and the responsible use of these technologies. The world is already full of

antidepressants, Ritalin, amniocentesis, prostheses and deep brain stimulation; it is high time

that ethics moved on from considering simply whether or not these are acceptable and

started addressing the issue of the best way to embed such technologies in our society.

The principal question in the ethics of self-constitution is this: what is a good human life?

When we allow technology to beaccompaniedby this ethical question, instead of setting itatodds with ethics, it becomes possible to pose explicit questions about those aspects ofhuman existence that are affected by technology, and to decide which considerations might

therefore be relevant. Pre-implantation diagnostics, for instance, can help to alleviatesuffering, because serious disease can be detected long before the further development of an

embryo. At the same time, the existence of this technology can affect social norms, in that

people become increasingly responsible for the birth of a child with a serious disease as isalready the case with parents of babies having Downs syndrome. Deep brain stimulation,

as we have seen, can have far-reaching effects on personality, effects which can even lead topeople having different views and making different choices than would have been the case

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in the absence of this technology. These are more than just side effects; the use of DBS canmean that a person consciously elects to become a different person, thereby intervening

materially into their own freedom and intentionality.

By directing attention towards the quality of these human-technology congurations, it

immediately becomes clear why the ethics of technology needs to be closely connected to

philosophical anthropology. A good ethical discussion of contemporary technology has to beclosely knit with a philosophical-anthropological analysis of the relationships between

humans and technology, and of the impact of technology on human subjectivity. Thinking

about the question of what we want to make of ourselves thereby becomes a way of takingresponsibility for the technology currently under development; responsibility for our own

existence, but also that of others. Responsibility for the design of life with technology.

Responsibility for a good way of being human. A more detailed investigation of theseresponsibilities will form an important part of my own research in the years to come.

the bermenSchLastly, these considerations throw some new light onto the image of Nietzsches

bermensch. Nietzsches position that we must create something above ourselves is nota plea for the creation of some sort of Superman that will sneer at todays humans as if they

were no more than pathetic creatures. The bermensch is the person who takes fullresponsibility for his or her own existence an existence that is formed in relation to otherpeople, to social structures, and to technological developments. With respect to

anthropotechnology this means that we must move beyond the current debate between

supporters and opponents of human enhancement, and have ethics address the questionof how we can use this technological conguration to best give form to ourselves.

It is exactly this openness towards the interwoven nature of humans and technology,and a continuous readiness to embrace it in all its forms, which will form the foundation

of ethics. An ethics that is closely interlaced with anthropology. An ethics that equips

designers to ask the right questions when developing new technologies whether these are

anthropotechnologies, or technologies that show familiar use congurations. An ethics thatalso equips people to interact with technologies in new ways to give form to their existence

and to their lives with others. It is the very fact that we can shape ourselves which makes us

human. The bermensch is the human who has learned to deal wisely with that power.This is exactly what is being asked of us now, in the technological culture in which we live.

ethicS aS guidance for technologyRector, ladies and gentlemen, these are the considerations which outline the space within

which my research will take place over the coming years. In the research projects in whichI am currently engaged, I intend to study the relationship between humans and technology

in more detail, and to give clearer form to the guiding role for ethics which I have in mind.

In doing so, incidentally, I will not limit myself to the anthropotechnologies which blur thephysical borderline between humans and technology, but will continue all my existing

research into human-technological relationships and the moral signicance of technology.

For instance, I am currently working, with great pleasure and inspiration, together with PhD

student Steven Dorrestijn on the IOP project Design for Usability, in which we arecollaborating with Industrial Design colleagues in Twente, Delft and Eindhoven to study the


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relations between products and users. Steven and I have been looking in particular at theimpact of products on user behaviour and its ethical aspects. How can designers best

anticipate this impact? What is the wisest way to shape the behavioural inuence that aproduct invariably wields? What kind of subjects emerge from the impact of these products,

and what do the most desirable human-technology congurations look like?

On the 1st of October the new MVI project Telecare at Home was launched, in which NellyOudshoorn, Val Jones and myself will work together in the area of telemonitoring in care

settings, and within which Asle Kiran will be doing postdoctoral research. The project is

aimed at understanding the impact of telemonitoring on the nature and quality of careprovision and on patient experience of this care, with a view to giving the design, application

and use of these technologies the benet of a richer ethical dimension.

Katinka Waelbers doctoral degree project on the technological mediation of responsibility,

which I am supervising together with Tsjalling Swierstra, is another project I would like to

mention here along with those of Nynke Tromp at TU Delft on Design for Society, and ofHanneke Miedema at Wageningen University on the design of sustainable animal production

systems. The relationship between humans and technology lies at the heart of all these

projects, and they all give special attention to the ways in which good design practices cananticipate this relationship.

My own research into the limits of humanity is concentrated in the VIDI project I am

currently working on together with PhD student Lucie Dalibert. This project is a study of the

philosophical-anthropological and ethical aspects of human enhancement technologies.We are focusing our attention on philosophical theorization on the one hand, and on

contributing to the identication and answering of ethical questions during the design ofsuch technologies on the other. How are we to better understand and conceptualize the

increasing merging of humans and technology? And how do we ensure that this merging

takes the best possible form?

In all these projects I intend to bring about a connection between the philosophy of

anthropology and ethics. The central questions are always: what congurations of humansand technologies are at stake here? Which would be desirable forms this technology could

adopt? And what would good practices of design and use look like? Linking insights into the

nature and structure of human-technology relationships with ethical reection is of crucial

importance in those investigations. In this way I hope to further articulate what thephilosophical accompaniment and guidance of technological developments could entail

both here, at the University of Twente, and elsewhere.

acknowledgementSI should like to close with a word of thanks, rst and foremost to those without whom I would

not be standing here today, and who have shaped me as a person and an academic. My PhD

tutor and teacher Hans Achterhuis, to whose warm personality and inspiring, stimulating

presence I owe so much. I can only hope that I may play a comparable role to others in thefuture. I also want to thank Pieter Tijmes and Petran Kockelkoren, who introduced me to

philosophy as a student, and who lit the philosophical re within me. From them I learned of the

rigour of philosophical writing, but also of the importance of making philosophy a public activity.c


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I should like to thank the Board of Governors of the University of Twente for the condencethey have invested in me. Rest assured that I shall continue to exercise my profession with

enthusiasm. I am proud to be able to work at a university that has always stood for theimportance of seeing technology in its social context. I shall make every effort to contribute to

this prole, by continuing to link my work with the many fascinating developments taking

place in the universitys technical faculties.

I thank the Dean of the Behavioural Sciences faculty for the trust he has placed in me, and for

the fruitful way in which, for many years, I have been able to collaborate with him as the

director of the Philosophy of Science,Technology and Societyprogramme. Hubert: the goodlife regularly predominates in our conversations, but in a less abstract sense than I have just

described, and it is in this sense that I look forward to our future collaboration as well.

I would like to thank Philip Brey, chairman of the Department of Philosophy, and all my

departmental colleagues for our inspiring collaboration. I consider it a privilege to be part of

such a large group of people all concerned with the philosophy of technology, and with a realinterest in each others work. I should like to make particular mention of our research group,

Philosophical Anthropology and Human-Technology Relations. Petra Bruulsema, a rock-steadydepartmental member for as long as anyone can remember, has already dubbed the groupThe Black Hand Gang. Steven, Petran and Ren, and now also Ciano, Asle and Lucie: I hope

we continue to break new ground in the philosophy of technology, and to get our hands dirty

doing so!

The many other colleagues with whom I am delighted to work are too numerous to namehere, but I would like to thank them all the same: my colleagues in the Behavioural Sciences

faculty and in the Centre for Telematics and Information Technology; everyone working withme in the Philosophy of Science, Technology, and Societymaster programme; my colleaguesin the IOP project Design for Usabilityand in the MVI project Telecare at Home; and last butnot least, everyone at the 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology, under the inspirationalleadership of Jeroen van den Hoven.

A special word of thanks is due to my parents, who set me so lovingly on the road of life andwho are now so close to the end of that road. Mother: when the news of my appointment

arrived, it seemed impossible that you would live to see my inauguration but again and

again you have found the strength to stay one up on the disease, with the zest for life and

carefulness you have always had. Father: your disease prevents you from being here today inperson, but youare here, not just because a video camera is recording this, but because myphilosophical disposition comes from you and was carefully fed and encouraged by you.

Dear Levi, Domien and Micha, it is wonderful to have your cheerfulness and warmth around

me every day, and to be shown the world through your eyes. Take today: Micha thinks I look

most like a penguin, and when my toga was delivered Domien ran upstairs to put on hisZorro cape and pose next to me. At the same moment Levi called out Now I know what the

letters Prof. Dr. Ir. stand for Professor Dokter in zijn jurk (Professor Doctor in a dress)!All ofyou continually put my life into the right perspective, and Im very happy you do.


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My dearest Annette, how special it is that I can give this address in the very same place thatwe were married eight years ago. If I have learned anything about the limits of humanity, then

I have done so at your side; for life together with you is limitless glory.

Quod dixi dixi.

.


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