James J. Hughes Ph.D.

1. How Do We Care for Future People?Implications of Buddhist and Jain concepts for Reproductive Ethics James J. Hughes Ph.D. Executive Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging TechnologiesPublic Policy Studies, Trinity Collegedirector@ieet.orgieet.org Jain Conference on Bioethics - Aug 24-25, 2012 Claremont Lincoln University

2. Bioethics and Personhood • Bioethics has attempted to define what a being of moral significance is by defining “personhood” Personhood debates in Bioethics • Abortion, embryonic stem cell research, reproductive technology, prenatal screening • Brain death, anencephaly • Animal rights • Neurodiversity, cognitive enhancement

3. Ensoulment Views “The Soul of Trans-Humanism” By Ted Peters (2005) Varieties of Western Soul Views: • Substance Dualism • Trichotomy • Emergent Dualism • Non-reductive Physicalism • Theological Materialism • Atheistic Materialism Ted Peters

4. Spirit Dualisms • Substance Dualism • Hindu atman, Jain jiva and the soul for most lay Christians • Unchanging supernatural essence that exists before birth and after death • Trichotomy • Body, soul (mind/brain), spirit (supra-physical) • Baptism replaces human spirit with divine spirit • Emergent Dualism • Soul emergent from the brain, but supraphysical • Before the body, no soul

5. Materialist Ideas of the Soul • Non-reductive Physicalism • Soul/Mind are physical but cannot be reduced to the brain • No body, no soul • Resurrection of the body necessary • Theological Materialism • Soul is a conscious, physical brain’s spiritual capacity • Atheistic Materialism • “Soul” is meaningless: there is only consciousness and self-identity

6. Locke on Personal Identity • Bridge to atheist materialism • God made thinking matter • Theological materialist, but resurrected body will be of different matter • Memory is bridge from life to resurrected body • Subjective identity necessary for Judgment, accountability

7. Self is Thinking, Memory, Identity • …to find wherein personal Identity consists, we must consider what Person stands for; which, I think, is a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places… (Locke, 1689)

8. Hume’s Empiricist Skepticism • All cause-effects are perceptual illusions • The continuity of the self is a perceptual illusion • "…a bundle or collection of different perceptions which succeed one another with an inconceivable rapidity and are in perpetual flux and movement" (Hume, 1739)

9. Neuroscience and the Self • No localization in the brain • Many processes: Senses, Proprioception, Awareness, Cognition • Split brain • Memory is narrative fiction • Kahneman: experiencing self vs. remembered self • Thomas Metzinger • Self-identity is fluid, selective

10. Buddhist No Self • Embracing the reality of the constantly changing and illusory nature of self is liberating • We can, and must, use self concept while recognizing its emptiness But Buddhists, like Jains, believe in reincarnation, hence some kind of supernatural dualism

11. Do Animals Have Soul Stuff? • For Abrahamic faith only humans have souls • Like modern secular ethics, Buddhists and Jains see a moral continuity between animals and humans

12. Karma and Analog Ensoulment • The materialist move: Equating ensoulment with neurology • If jiva/ajiva is analog instead of binary so also is the karma of harming If Buddhists and Jains equate ensoulment with neurodevelopment they could adopt various stances parallel to secular bioethics

13. Personhood Debates Psychological characteristics that accumulate moral relevance • Sentience, the capacity for pain (Gary Francione) • Self-awareness, volition Wise’s Drawing the Line • (1) desire • (2) intentionally try to fulfill its own desires • (3) possess a sense of self-sufficiency which includes self-awareness. • The capacity for moral agency and autonomy (Kant, Engelhardt)

14. Buddhist Fetal Personhood The five skandhas necessary for self illusion: • A body (rupa) • Feeling (vedana) • Cognition (samjñā) • Volition (samskāra) • Consciousness (vijñāna) Clearly a fetus does not possess all these traits until late in pregnancy, or perhaps even after birth

15. Transcending Humanness • Abrahamic faiths: static humanity, enhancement is sinful • South Asian faiths: humanity is a temporary stage on our evolution into the posthuman • European Enlightenment: humanity is a happy evolutionary accident which can be improved on science until we become more godlike

16. Genetic Enhancement • Obligations to one’s own children to ensure their widest possible life options • Procreative beneficence • Buddhist and Jain obligation to use genetics to morally enhance our children

17. Moral Enhancement • The use of drugs, devices and gene therapy to suppress vices and addictions, and enhance capacities for self-control, compassion, spiritual experience, and rational discernment

18. Obligation to Future Generations • We are obliged to ensure future persons are more than merely sentient, but have the best chance at spiritual progress • Nirvana, moksha, siddhas, arhats • Virtue consequentialism

19. Uplift Ethic • For Abrahamic faiths human and animal nature are separate and fixed • For non-anthropocentric bioethics we have obligations to animals, possibly even to improving their cognition • For Buddhists and Jains we have obligations to animals, even to their spiritual well-being • Duty to ensure better liberation chances for all future life? • Duty to enhance existing animals? If ensoulment is analog, this obligation may only apply to higher mammals

20. Posthuman Eschatology • Jains and Buddhists shared the Hindu model of an beginningless and endless timeline, with cyclical multi-billion year universe life courses (kalachakras) • We are in the era of declining dharma (Dusama) leading up to a future utopian era (Susama) • Waiting for the next Mahapurusha • Cakravartins, Tirthankaras and Buddhas

21. Lakshanas of the MahaPurushas The major laksanas include: • Large bump on top of skull • Golden skin • Body covered in tight curled hair • A tuft of hair between the eyebrows. • A large, long tongue and forty teeth • Long arms that reach to the knees • Webbed fingers and toes • A thousand-spoked wheel on the sole of each foot • A glowing aura Mahapurushas are clearly posthuman

22. Summary • Buddhism and Jainism connect with and illuminate contemporary bioethics around animal-human-posthuman evolutionary trajectory and moral continuity • Buddhism and Jainism differ radically in how they connect with bioethical debates on personhood • Liberal Buddhists and Jains could set aside literal interpretations of ensoulment and adopt a materialist, neuroscientific view that permits some abortion and distinguishes between animals

23. Summary cont. • Some secular bioethicists believe it is permissible to genetically enhance humans and animals, while Abrahamic faiths generally oppose it • Jains and Buddhists would use virtue consequentialism to judge whether genetic enhancements give future generations maximal opportunity for spiritual growth, meaning not only that enhancement for health and cognitive ability might be obligatory, but also enhancement for moral and spiritual traits • Jains and Buddhists are more open to the radical optimism of the Enlightenment that we may transcend our humanness

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