NEW YORK, November 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The meaning of human nature itself is under threat from a new philosophy of “soul-less scientism” that will undermine “our own self-understanding as human beings” and reduces the aspirations of mankind to the purely material realm. This new philosophy outstrips the danger posed by the actual techniques and technologies of modern biomedical science, said Dr. Leon Kass, speaking to a New York audience in October.
“Scientific ideas and discoveries” he said, “are being enlisted to do battle against our traditional religious and moral teachings, and even our self-understanding as creatures with freedom and dignity.”
In a speech to the Manhattan Institute last month, Dr. Kass, one of the most prominent public intellectuals dealing with bioethical issues, also pointed out that in many cases, these technical achievements are being used “for purposes beyond therapy, and may soon be used to transform human nature itself.”
“The Pill. In vitro fertilization. Surrogate wombs. Cloning. Genetic engineering. Organ swapping. Mechanical spare parts. Performance--enhancing drugs. Computer implants into brains. Ritalin for the young, Viagra for the old, Prozac for everyone. Virtually unnoticed, the train to Huxley's dehumanized Brave New World has already left the station,” Kass said.
But even these dehumanizing technological instruments are not as great a threat as the philosophy driving most of the biomedical research community. Dire as some of these issues are, he said, they point to a deeper, underlying “philosophical challenge: one that threatens how we think about who and what we are.”
Dr. Kass researches bioethics, ethics, philosophy, marriage, family, and social mores. He is a former chairman and member of the President's Council on Bioethics, and was instrumental in helping President Bush develop his policies restricting embryonic research and cloning. On October 18, he gave the annual Wriston Lecture, sponsored by the Manhattan Institute, a public policy think tank that hosts forums in New York City and Washington, DC for policy makers, business people, researchers and journalists on prominent contemporary issues.
He identifies a “quasi-religious faith” that he calls “soul-less scientism” a materialist philosophy that that “believes that our new biology, eliminating all mystery, can give a complete account of human life.”
Kass clearly identifies this philosophy as a “threat to our humanity”, saying it proposes to provide a “purely scientific” explanation of “human thought, love, creativity, moral judgment, and even why we believe in God.”
The stakes, Kass warned, are high. “All friends of human freedom and dignity—including even the atheists among us — must understand that their own humanity is on the line.”
To counter this threat, Kass recommends the view of humanity found in the Bible, particularly its account of creation that he says, “offers a profound teaching on human nature” and “nourish[es] the soul's deep longings for answers” to humanity’s great questions. He notes that the biblical account of creation that “locates that teaching in relation to the deepest human longings and concerns” is unsurprisingly the “chief target” of the proponents of the anti-human soul-less scientism.
Kass has defended the Bible’s version of creation, in a way similar to the teaching of the Catholic Church, saying that it in no way conflicts with the findings of modern science. He says it presents not a “freestanding, historical or scientific account” of how life began, areas that are properly the purview of the natural sciences, but an “awe-inspiring prelude to a lengthy and comprehensive teaching about how we are to live”. The creation account provides us with a starting point to help human beings “make sense of their world and their task within it.”
While not entirely pro-life, Kass’ work discussing and developing a humanistic answer to modernity’s nihilistic philosophies has been praised by pro-life advocates as a genuine and much needed contribution to the issues. And he has not hesitated to criticise the intellectual vacuity of most modern secular bioethics.
Kass warned that the result of the new philosophy of “soul-less scientism” that seeks to reduce all questions of human life to the material, is “more dehumanizing” than any of the actual technologies. It presents “the erosion, perhaps the final erosion, of the idea of man as noble, dignified, precious, or godlike, and its replacement with a view of man, no less than of nature, as mere raw material for manipulation and homogenization.”
Read the entire lecture:
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/wl2007.htm Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Dr. Leon Kass An Exceptionally Principled Scientist
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2001/aug/01081605.html AEI Interview With Bush's Bioethics Council Head Leon Kass
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06061310.html
Sorry for the delay, my friend. Great new tagline, by the way. Thank you.
Jo, you may want to follow the above link, if you're still interested in the whole Ayn Rand thing.