Two tiers - human enhancement in Gattaca and Blade Runner

A common criticism of human enhancement technologies, such as human genetic engineering, is that it will lead to a two-tiered society, one genetically enhanced and the other natural. I’d like to compare two movies that feature such tiers, because the two show radically different outcomes of such division in the human race, with radically different directions of discrimination.

However, the two films are similar in the respect that both only became popular long after they were released at the cinema, and have been influential in discussions on bioethics.

Gattaca

The world of Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca features the genetically superior ‘valids’ and normal humans, known as ‘invalids’. The valids get all the high-paying jobs, and practically run the country, while the invalids are shown as janitors and other menial workers. In other words, the direction of discrimination runs against normal humans, and the two-tiers have normal humans as outcasts and valids as the dominant ones.

Blade Runner

The world of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner features bioengineered cyborgs (bioroids - android brain, but with human flesh), known as replicants, and normal humans. Unlike the Valids in Gattaca, the replicants are declared illegal on Earth (apparently out of fear, because they were banned after some replicants killed some humans somewhere). The replicants look and act almost exactly like humans (leading to the derogatory term for them, ’skin job’), so it is the job of hunters known as ‘Blade Runners’ to find and ‘retire’ (execute) any replicants found on Earth. Obviously, in this film the direction of prejudice is highly against the replicants, and as such the two-tiers feature humans are the dominant ones, and replicants as outcasts.

And don’t think you can excuse Blade Runner because the replicants aren’t humans. A very similar situation is common to many sci-fi films, and dated back to Frankenstein. The genetically engineered are monsters. Most recently, I noticed this was a key theme in the second season of the TV show Dark Angel, where the transgenic military humans are treated as outcasts and culled.

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I think it is possible that the genetic divide argument against transhumanism is the direct opposite to the dehumanisation argument. Could it be possible that the two will counter each other, resulting in no net discrimination for or against the genetically enhanced in society? One can only hope.

So, next time somebody says that human enhancement will lead to a Nazi-like scenario, ask them which Nazi scenario will occur. Will the enhanced humans be segregated and killed like the Jews in the Holocaust as portrayed in Blade Runner, or will the enhanced humans be a ‘Master race’ to rule over the normal humans? Or, will human compassion allow us to widen the circle of humanity enough to let both the modified and unmodified live in peace together?

Wednesday’s Words of Worry

Getting back to oft-used quotes in the human enhancement debate, this week it comes from Francis Fukuyama, in his book Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002). But in actuality it is a paraphrase so I must begin with another quote:

“The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.” - Thomas Jefferson, as quoted in Fukuyama (2002) Our Posthuman Future

Now, Fukuyama writes:

The political equality enshrined in the Deceleration of Independence rests on the empirical fact of natural human equality. We vary greatly as individuals and by culture, but we share a common humanity that allows every human being to potentially communicate with and enter into a moral relationship with every other human being on the planet. The ultimate question raised by biotechnology is, What will happen to political human rights once we are able to, in effect, breed some people with saddles on their backs, and others with boots and spurs?

Now, the answers to this are two-fold:

Firstly, Jefferson was attacking an argument based on the naturalistic fallacy - that what is natural (created by God, in this case) is good - by destroying the premise that some were naturally ‘born with saddles’. He could have easily argued that even if some humans were ‘born with saddles’, that doesn’t mean they should be treated any worse than everyone else. And we already have animal rights people telling us that eating animals is morally wrong, even though science has told us that we were born to do that. So I don’t see any sensible argument by which people would be able to argue that because they have been endowed with better genes (whether by God, luck or their parent’s choices as the fertility clinic), they are morally entitled to superior treatment.

Secondly, as Jonathan Glover points out on pages 83-85 of his book Choosing Children: The Ethical Dilemmas of Genetic Intervention (2006), Fukuyama hasn’t given us evidence that biotechnology would destroy the characteristics that define our ‘common humanity’. How are we to know that, after the biotechnology revolution has begun, we could not still say that all the ‘enhanced’ are still people and are born equal like the rest of us? After all, Fukuyama acknowledges that our current differences in genes don’t upset our political equality, so why would more genetics differences be worse? Just expand your criteria for ‘common humanity’ until you feel better.

GM Human Embryo? Nope, that doesn’t count!

Those at the London Times are conveniently twisting the truth to claim that scientists have created the first genetically engineered human embryo. What did they do? Insert the gene for green-fluorescent protein. Big deal, that’s not what I want to hear when I see the words ‘GM embryo’!

Lots of hype over nothing. This was done last year, and now we finally hear about it. That alone should have you wondering if it had been a blow-up about nothing. If it was an amazing work, the scientists involved would have been calling press conferences and everything.

The embryo wasn’t even viable (it had ‘abnormal chromosomes’ according to the London Times. I think they mean it was triploid), and wasn’t even going to be implanted into a woman. Just a bunch of fluorescent green cells in a dish, destroyed after five days of growth. BORING! There have been stem cell experiments more exciting than this.

It’s only being brought up because the current HFEA bill in the UK actually expresses permission for this research, though it does ban implantation of such embryos.

Reading the comments on the London Times site, and on the other news sites that picked up the story, is fun at least:

“Read your bible people. We are living and acting out every word of revelation’s. , Next thing you know like one comment was made the rich would have perfect babies and the poor , would get thrown to the side like trash .” - Lola of the United States of America (of course)

“These mad scientists are totally out of control, They will completely destroy life on this Planet but before they do this, monsters will be created as in days of old. Which is why that old technology advanced civilisation were destroyed, you cannot mess with nature without being punished.” - Arthur of England

Oh noes, the sky is falling. A bit more sensible, but still wrong, is the commentary from New Scientist:

No-one is contemplating King’s “nightmare” scenario: the creation of genetically-engineered babies.

Actually, I’m contemplating it. So are many others. It’s not a nightmare, it’s a dream!

However, I think I prefer the words of Annalee Newitz over at io9.com, who said:

[Q]uit your whining and learn some science, bitches. This isn’t a designer baby.

Steven Pinker says ‘dignity’ is a stupid concept!

The evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker has a wondrous piece in The New Republic titled “The Stupidity of Dignity“. I think this is a must read for anyone who is interested in bioethics. It’s right up there with Leon Kass and his ‘Wisdom of Repugnance’ (which was also published in The New Republic in 2001).

Here is an excerpt, although I could have chosen many more paragraphs to use because they are all good.

“The sickness in theocon bioethics goes beyond imposing a Catholic agenda on a secular democracy and using “dignity” to condemn anything that gives someone the creeps. Ever since the cloning of Dolly the sheep a decade ago, the panic sown by conservative bioethicists, amplified by a sensationalist press, has turned the public discussion of bioethics into a miasma of scientific illiteracy. Brave New World, a work of fiction, is treated as inerrant prophesy. Cloning is confused with resurrecting the dead or mass-producing babies. Longevity becomes “immortality,” improvement becomes “perfection,” the screening for disease genes becomes “designer babies” or even “reshaping the species.” The reality is that biomedical research is a Sisyphean struggle to eke small increments in health from a staggeringly complex, entropy-beset human body. It is not, and probably never will be, a runaway train.”

Read the full article here. Better yet, print it out and read it every night before bed.

Effort and satisfaction of the enhanced

Today I received marks for an essay I wrote for my Developmental Neurobiology subject, and was actually disappointed to get 80%. Many people would have loved to get such a result in such a subject. Now, I believe there is a key message here.

Bill McKibben, in his book Enough, writes of how terrible it would be if people were enhanced to be faster/stronger/smarter, because they would receive less satisfaction for the same result (running a marathon, climbing a cliff-face). But, as I experienced firsthand today, some people are already far less satisfied with results that would make other people ecstatic. People like myself, who are used to greater results, are unsatisfied when they only run the 100m in 14 seconds, or only bench 60kg, or only get 80% on a university paper. However, those same people are still happy when they achieve beyond what they thought they could. Some people may experience joy from testing their body to the limit by completing a marathon, whereas others would need to run three times as far to experience the same joy.

Which brings me to my point. The key to satisfaction is effort. The reason I am upset about my result is that I know I could have done better, and I feel like I did not put in the effort required. But if somebody else had put in more effort than I did, and achieved the same result, they would have been immensely proud of themselves. And so they should be, for they have tested their body and brains to the limits, and to realise this is the key to satisfaction, not the numerical result.

And so, genetic enhancement will not reduce satisfaction. If you change the limits of your body and brain, you will still have to put in the same amount of effort to achieve the same state of satisfaction. An individual with enhanced endurance may need to run across the country to feel the same joy that another person may experience after running a few blocks, but that joy is still attainable with the a very similar amount of effort. An individual with enhanced intelligence may need to ace all their subjects to experience the same joy another person would when they pass all their subjects, but that feeling is a product of hard work and effort. So human enhancement will not rob us of any satisfaction, and nor will we have to try harder to get the same joy. Rather, we will try exactly the same as before, and push our bodies and brains to the limits - and get the same feeling when we get there, regardless of the results.

Does this mean that enhancement is a zero-sum game, with no benefits at all? Not at all. While self-satisfaction is one thing, it is not the only thing that makes us happy. Moving faster may make us happy regardless of the effort involved (perhaps explaining why some people enjoy driving more than running). Solving a difficult problem may make us feel happy by itself, regardless of whether we worked it out ourselves or were shown the required method (perhaps explaining, in part, why people are driven to cheat in exams). Therefore, genetic enhancement could give us the same self-satisfaction, but then more of other feelings of happiness that come with experiencing new limits of our bodies and brains. It still might not, but don’t knock it ’til you try it (in order words: without evidence, all you have is an opinion).

Bad News from West Oz

The Western Australian parliament has rejected a bill that would allow therapeutic cloning. This would have brought W.A. into line with most of Australia, but it now looks like researchers will have to head east for work in this area. The Human Reproductive Technology Amendment Bill was defeated in the Upper House of the W.A. state parliament, in a close vote of 18-15, yesterday.

The bill was silly anyway. Allowing therapeutic cloning but not the creation of human embryos through fertilisation for research purposes. That’s the wrong order to go in if you want to convince people. You have to hit embryo research first, then transition into alternative ways of creating embryos.

Anyway, the hansards will be available by Friday night, so I’ll edit this post with my comments on those when I look at them on the Weekend.

Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom

This weeks wisdom, though limited, is nonetheless refreshing. It comes from the May 5 issue of ESPN magazine, from an article titled “Let ‘Em Play“. It about prosthetics and bionics in sport, and the author, Eric Adelson, makes a good point for regulatory acceptance of these technologies:

The bottom line is this: Sports do not need knee-jerk segregation, they need rational and fair regulation. Every organized sport begins the same way, with the creation of rules. We then establish technological limits, as with horsepower in auto racing, stick curvature in hockey, bike weight in cycling. As sports progress, those rules are sometimes altered. The USGA, for instance, responded to advances in club technology by legalizing metal heads in the early ’80s. In Chariots of Fire, the hero comes under heavy scrutiny for using his era’s version of steroids: a coach, at a time when the sport frowned upon outside assistance. So if we can adjust rules of sports to the time, why not for prosthetics?

Very good. A nice first step, and it is good that a magazine like ESPN is getting some bioethics in amongst their pages. The article does come off a little too much in favour of restorative bionics rather than enhancement bionics, but nonetheless the day will come when Paralympians will run faster, throw farther and shoot more accurately than Olympians, thanks to their prosthetic legs, cyborg arms and bionic eyes.

Re-engineering the phototransduction pathway

I’m sure many have looked at the phototransduction pathway and just gone “there has to be a better way!”. If so, then I agree with you. Evolution had to work with what it was given, and it’s no surprise it has made many compromises. But surely, you must agree, we intelligent humans could optimise what blind evolution stumbled upon. And why shouldn’t we - we could enhance our vision!

For those who don’t know, the phototransduction pathway is the process that happens between a photon of light hitting your retinal cells and the change in firing activity of that retinal cell. In a sense, it is the processing time. Now, it takes a long time to occur many milliseconds. Probably not as long as it takes for the signal from that photoreceptor to pass through across the synapse to the bipolar cell, along the bipolar cell, from the bipolar cells to the retinal ganglion cell and along that ganglion to the lateral geniculate nucleus of the brain, but I’m sure it is nonetheless too much time to be wasting on needless reactions.

The phototransduction pathway happening in the eyes of people reading this first involves photons hitting the 11-cis-retinal molecule of opsin molecules, which are G-protein coupled receptors (seven transmembrane domain proteins) sitting in the membranes of your photoreceptor cells. The photon is absorbed by the 11-cis-retinal, causing it to form all-trans-retinal. This structural change causes the opsin molecule to change shape, which bends a G-protein attached to the opsin called transducin. The change in transducin shape causes it to release its attached guanine-diphosphate (GDP) molecule and bind instead to a guanine-triphosphate (GTP). The GTP binding causes the alpha-subunit of the transducin to translocate to an enzyme called phosphodiesterase (PDE) located on the membrane, where it binds to the inhibitory gamma subunit of PDE. The binding event decreases the inhibitory effect of the gamma PDE subunit, causing the PDE to start actively hydrolyse (split open) cyclic guanine-monophosphate (cGMP). There are channels in the membrane that open and let sodium ions (Na⁺) and calcium ions (Ca²⁺) into the cell when cGMP binds to them. The loss of cGMP caused by active PDE causes closure of channels. And this causes the whole cell to hyperpolarise (get more negative), which stops it from releasing glutamate. Essentially, light turns off the photoreceptor, dark turns it on again.

If you didn’t get it, read it again and look at this wonderful diagram by Jason J. Corneveaux over at Wikipedia:

So, the main point is that there is a lot of stuff to happen between light hitting the cell and a response. This isn’t all bad - there is a lot of amplification there. One opsin can activate 100s of transducins, two of which are required to fully activate PDE. So one opsin can activate ~50 PDEs, each of which can hydrolyse thousands of molecules of cGMP (at a rate of ~100,000cGMP/second). This loss of cGDP causes the closure of 100s of cation channels (of the tens of thousands that are open in each cell during darkness). So there is a lot of amplification going on during this waste of time, so it’s not a total waste - one photon can lead to the closure of a hundred channels. Pity it takes so long.

Of course, evolution often finds multiple ways to get to the same solution, some of them effective and some of them not so much. One such molecule is the channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), found in a species of green algae called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. It looks a lot like our opsins, so it likely a distant relative, but while our opsins go like this:

Opsin activation → Transducin activation → PDE activation → cGMP decrease → closed channel

the channelrhodopsin-2, because it actually is a channel itself, goes like this:

channelrhodopsin activation → open channelrhodopsin

Here is a picture, to compare with the above (from Zhang, F. et al. Circuit-breakers: optical technologies for probing neural signals and systems. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 8, 577-581 (August 2007). Used without permission, so reproduce at your own risk):

You may notice the diagram indicates blue light. This is because the ChR2 protein has a peak absorbance at 460nm, which is a bit on the blue side. For comparison, our blue photopsin absorbs maximally at around 420nm, our green photopsin at 534nm, our red photopsin at 564 and our grey rhodopsin at 498nm. So, we’d need to mutate the ChR2 protein for use in humans, if we were to replace our photopsins with similar proteins.

Next question you should be asking is - what about the amplification? Well, I think the answer lies in voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSCs) and voltage-dependant calcium channels (VDCCs). If the ChR2 protein lets in some cations, that will make the inside of the cell membrane near that ChR2 more positive. Conveniently, VGSCs and VDCCs will open when the membrane gets more positive! So having these together - ChR2 and VGSCs/VDCCs - should allow for rapid amplification of photon binding into channel activation. (Anyone who knows voltage-gated sodium channels may remember they have a refractory period, but that only lasts for a millisecond and you can probably mutate the beta subunit or site 3 of the alpha subunit to get accelerate that). The upside of this design is that one photon could potentially activate all ion channels on the photoreceptor as the depolarisation spreads, rather than just a few hundred of the nearby ones.

That said, you don’t want it to be too sensitive. Ion channels are known to spontaneous open, and you don’t really want flickers of light appearing in your vision because one channel opened and was amplified across the whole receptor. The current system is resistant to this, because channel activity doesn’t affect the amplification part. But I’m fairly sure there will be enough sensitivity available that once the amplification is turned down to eliminate ‘noise’, perhaps by ensuring that more than one photoreceptor is required to activate (via bipolar cells) a ganglion cell, you will still be able to see better in the dark than before.

An additional issue, however, is the structure of the rod photoreceptor cells. The membrane infoldings of the cones are not closed off, meaning they exposed to the extracellular fluid (creating the membrane potential used by channels). The rods, however, have free-floating membrane discs fully enclosed by cell membrane. So, if ChR2 was placed on these, the light-activated opening would be unlikely to result in a net ionic movement, because neither side of the channel would be exposed to the extracellular environment. So, either this development will be restricted to cones, or that developmental aspect could be changed somehow to prevent the photoreceptor discs from detaching from the cell membrane.

Another question you may have is “hey, our opsins cause hyperpolarisation of receptors in response to light, but ChR2 would cause depolarisation”. There are two options here. We could alter the ChR2 so that it is only permeable to potassium ions (K⁺), which, because K⁺ is more plentiful inside the cell, cause cations to flow out of the cell, causing hyperpolarisation. Or, the channel could be altered to close in response to light. These could be amplified by voltage-gated potassium channels instead.

Regardless of this, researchers are trying. Yes, researchers have inserted ChR2 into the retinal neurons of a photoreceptor deficient mouse (Bi, Chui et al, 2006). Although it doesn’t look like they were able to restore sight to the mouse, they were able to get the retina to function (but others have - see Tomita et al, 2007). Now, they were trying to get the ganglion cells to work as photoreceptors, which isn’t going to be very effecient due to their low membrane area in comparison to photoreceptor cells. They also didn’t use any amplification like I mentioned above, nor could multiple photoreceptors cooperatively activate a single ganglion cell like normal. Unsurprisingly, they found it took 50-100% more photons to elicit a response.

So, why does all this belong on a human enhancement blog? Well, the clunky natural system has a poor temporal resolution. Put simply, it takes too darn long to work. So, if we replaced our foveal cone photoreceptors with a ChR2-based system, we could possibly see a much greater amount happening every second (as I said at the beginning, this depends how much time we save), which could possibly lead to greater reflexes. However, amplification is key in achieving this affect. While it doesn’t matter so much in the cones, which aren’t very sensitive anyway, it will be very important for the rod cells used in peripheral and night vision. These cells are temporally the slowest (which is one reason why driving is more dangerous at night), but are very sensitive. So, if we wanted fast reflexes for objects on our peripheral vision or at night, we’d need some amplification.

So, bring on my super-vision! At least until the bionic eyes arrive.

What pro-lifers don’t realise about induced pluripotent stem cells

It is often claimed by the pro-lifer crowd that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are a great way to sidestep the nasty ethical issues of embryo-derived stem cells. Because, as you all surely are aware, an embryo is a unique human being. But clearly they either don’t understand the science behind iPSCs or don’t think about their pro-life arguments for the protection of the human embryo.

iPSCs are human life

It is often claimed that conception marks the beginning of a new life. But all human cells are alive, just as bacteria are alive. You can kill your own cells, such as killing brain cells by drinking alcohol. These are human cells, as they contain human DNA and would be classified as such. To be strictly true, life began four billion years ago, and hasn’t stopped since. Sperm are alive, and so are ova. There is a continuum of life stretching back to a single point for all creatures (just as all your siblings could be traced back to the zygotes that formed your mother and father, all creatures can be traced back to few cells billions of years ago)

Therefore, as induced pluripotent stem cells are created with the same DNA as would be found in living human skin cells, they are also human life - both human and life. Therefore, if we are supposed to be protecting human life, then we can’t use iPSCs.

iPSCs have a unique human genome

It is often claimed that because the embryo has cells which are distinct from the cells of the mother, they represent a new human being. But if a woman was to receive treatment with iPSCs, they would also be cells that are genetically distinct from the mother, and indeed anyone else on the planet. iPSCs are genetically engineered cells: genetically-modified into becoming pluripotent. A retrovirus is used to insert genes essential for pluripotency, and these can insert in random locations on the genome. Therefore, they contain a unique human genome that would not be found in any other organism. So, if cells with unique human genomes represent humans worthy of protection, then iPSCs are in the same category as embryos.

iPSCs are potentially human beings

I’ve often heard it argued that we should treat embryos as full persons because they have the potential to become full persons (or, because they have ‘inherent capacity’ to become persons). Even if we ignore the the most obvious failure of this argument (young children are potential adults, but it doesn’t follow that we should give them the right to vote. Adults are potential seniors, but they won’t get a senior’s discount. Seniors have the inherent capacity to be dead, but we should not treat them like they are corpses), and assume that something with potential to become a fully functional human being should be treated as such, we are still left with the inability to use iPSCs.

A zygote has the potential to become a human child, but is it not also true that sperm and ova have the potential to become a zygote? And, embryonic cells, and embryonic-like iPSCs, have the potential to form sperm and ova (even though nobody has done that yet). So it clearly follows that if potential is just as good as the real thing, then iPSCs are just as good as you and I. And because any (diploid) adult cell has the potential to become an iPSC, then all human cells are equal to human beings. Unless, of course, potentiality is irrelevant.

In addition, though slightly outside the scope of this blog entry, it may soon prove possible to created induced totipotent cells (iTCs)- that is, to insert genes that would turn a stem cell into a cell identical to a cell found in a zygote. An iTC would have the capacity not only to form sperm which could form a zygote which could form a full human being, but it would also already be a zygote: a clone of person who gave the cells from which the iTCs were derived. So, clearly conception cannot be a significant event, because it is possible to bypass it and end up with a person like you or I.

Conclusion

I don’t actually think iPSCs are worthy of protection. I do, however, think all of these pro-life arguments I’ve heard are useless, as I hope I’ve shown by the reductio ad absurdum above. I think that the right to life is only applicable to a lifeform that is ultimately valuable - that is, valuable to that lifeform itself. To quote British ethicist John Harris

I suggest there is only one thing wrong with dying and that is doing it when you don’t want to. (Harris J, 2003)

A necessary requirement for some organism to value its own life is self-awareness, which is a feature found only in a few brainy creatures (chimps, gorillas, elephants, dolphins etc), and only appears in humans at around 18 months of age. So I tend to agree with those people who say consciousness is a requirement for a right to life, although I would argue that technically it requires at a minimum only one characteristic of higher consciousness - the capacity for self-awareness.

This seems to me to help clear up a common argument put forth against the consciousness view - the protection of humans in subconscious states, such as sleep. Consider an analogous situation. The answer to the question “Does he speak English?” remains the same even though the boy/man may not be English at the time, or may not be speaking at all if he is asleep. If the answer is yes, then this person does have the ability to speak English but isn’t currently doing so. This is not relying on a potential ability to speak English - he is able to speak English. On the other hand, if he has never learned English, it could only be said that he has the potential to acquire the ability to speak English - he is not yet able to speak English, but potentially could be able in the future.

Likewise, you could ask ‘Does he value his life?’ and the answer should not change whether the person is asleep or not currently thinking about their death. On the other hand, an embryo or brain-dead person is not able to value their life, because they have lost that ability or not yet acquired it, but could potentially acquire(or re-acquire) that ability. Consciousness is a state of being, whereas to value oneself is an ability. This is why ultimate value is better than consciousness as an indicator of how much you should respect a person’s life - you can be said to a person even if you are not conscious and therefore not presently doing valuing your life, just as you can be said to be an ‘English-speaker’ even if you are not presently speaking English.

Anyway, the key point here is that iPSCs, and embryos, are not ultimately valuable - they do not yet have a capacity for valuing their own lives, and there is no way to assume they think such an unconscious state as valuable because they have as yet never been able to even have such a thought. And yes, I know that later in life when those cells have turned into you or I they will value their embryonic state in retrospect because it led to their existence, but such people would also value the state when they were comprised of an ovum and sperm, or when they were comprised of iPSCs that were stimulated into making that ovum and sperm - all necessary for their existence (you could even go back 4 billion years). But the important thing is that they have not as yet had the ability to make such value judgements, and as such do not need to be respected. After all, we don’t respect bacteria just because they have the potential to evolve into sentient beings that could, in billions of years, value their prior existence as bacteria.

Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom

Today’s Words are in Latin, truly the wisest-sounding language of them all. These words are attributed to the the Roman philosopher Seneca (the Younger)

“Nemo liber est qui corpori servit” (No one is free who is a slave to his body)

Although it is likely Seneca was using these words to admonish those hedonists who let their bodily urges control them, these words are nonetheless a strong statement for bodily autonomy/morphological freedom.

Our rights to freedom and autonomy should extend to our own bodies and DNA. If a person wants to go for a run, we let them because they have the right to freely do that. So, if a person wants to have cyborg legs in order to allow them to run faster or wants to insert a few genes into their muscles so that they can run faster, they should be allowed to do that too.

It’s my body, my brain and my genome. To forbid me from changing those characteristics is violating my right to liberty.