When we all were asked what we wanted to be when we grow up, I bet not one of us replied “Enlightened.” Now that we are in school, we consider this word to be vital to our future progress. I say that Kant would not approve of our college experience, but we can learn from him nonetheless. Taking Kant’s ideas of self-improvement and adding this to Silver’s view of the human race, and I must conclude that Humans will one day be inevitably in favor of bioengineering.
The definition of Enlightenment is a person that creates their own ideas. “Perhaps a revolution can overthrow autocratic despotism and profiteering or power-grabbing oppression, but it can never truly reform a matter of thinking; instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones they replace, will serve as a leach for the great unthinking mass.” (Kant pg1) Any prejudice towards an idea is bad, any idea that is not conceived of by the self. Even if new ideas are Enlightened ideas, those who are not enlightened will be unable to recognize the brilliance of these new ideas, and simply cannot comprehend these ideas until they themselves have met the precondition of Enlightenment. The student must not get caught up in details when trying to learn. “Rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural gifts, are the shackles of a permanent immaturity.”(Kant pg1) We learn not for the facts, but to improve ourselves. Even if there was a perfect way to conduct ourselves, reading it would not help. Even if a sacred book with absolute truth really could be written, this still would slow down the enlightenment of the masses. In fact, the people behind this book would be acting with the “…intention to preclude forever all further enlightenment of the human race.”
To deny the myth of human infallibility, Christianities big sticking point- that we are born in the image of god…Surely this is heresy. A large part of Silvers book is designed to convince us of mankind’s inherent weakness when compared to many other organisms in nature. God’s chosen creation is physically weaker than many other species. Even with all our logic-born bug killers and fly-nets, “humans are not exempt from becoming jungle prey” (Silver pg 197) Humans are just another race trying to get by, admittedly with a huge advantage.
So combine these ideas. We have a need to constantly self evaluate our ideas in order to better ourselves-the drive to throw off old ideas and conquer the new. It is up to the individual to decide what is best for their own children. If you believe in your religion and do not want me to disturb it, then you must leave me be in the private sphere of my own life. But first ask yourself; Is your heart sacred if a pig can be engineered to grow 4 hearts, all interchangeable with your own? Disgusting as it may seem, we must accept that the only unique characteristic you have is your thought process, and the only valuable action that you may undertake is to broadcast that unique thought process to society as a whole. Your religious prayers mean nothing because they have been repeated until they were ground to dust. It is time for new ideas, new thoughts, and most importantly, new limbs.
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I'd like to hear more about why Kant would disapprove of college as it is... Anyway, your argument is clear, with no filler, although I wonder if it might have been a little more ambitious.
In the second paragraph, you have some fascinating things to say about Kant & pedagogy, that is, about how we learn and how we teach. I begin to feel that this is the real subject of the paper, not biotechnology.
In the last couple paragraphs, you're pulling in too many directions, without really making a clear argument. You want us to accept both a Kantian vision of eternal human progress (which *is* very Kantian) driven by the will of the enlightened individual, and yet you focus on human impurity and imperfection (if we are relatively debased beings, then can we even realistically seek enlightenment at all? Inquiring minds want to know!
Your call at the end for the desacralization of the body is stirring, but you haven't challenged yourself at any point that I can see - are we just so much meat, or are we semi-divine, self-perfecting, Kantian beings?
I think this paper would have worked if you could have shown how you can reconcile these ideas - of enlightened Kantian learning and the decralized body - but as it stands, the thread of argument through here just isn't very strong.
You can revise this if you want.
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