So you think you're people are pretty special, huh? Well, that's not what PETA thinks. Or abortionists. Or a whole lot of the genetic engineers who want to re-make Man altogether. Here's a few observations from Wesley J. Smith, a fellow fighting to keep civilization -- and the divinely established exceptionalism of humanity upon which civilization exists -- alive.Human exceptionalism is the prime philosophical impediment to the acceptance of transhumanism. If, we are going to engage in Utopian manipulation and remaking of human biology and existential meaning, humans must be reduced in moral status to merely another animal in the forest. Once we morally demoted ourselves, the would-be redesigners would have a much freer hand since nothing of fundamental value would be at risk...
Smith then illustrates his point with an example of how animal rights activists are gathering speed in promoting "non-anthropocentric personhood."
Tearing asunder society’s grip on human exceptionalism opens the door to doing anything. I don’t worry about transhumanism actually achieving its technological goals. But I am concerned with the eugenics values it promotes on one hand, and the paradoxical degrading of human self worth on the other. Some will laugh and roll their eyes. But that would be a mistake.
