Nature and human person

critical bases of the transhumanist claim

Abstract

It is necessary to defend the integral development of the human person, regardless of how much progress there is in biomedical technologies. To do this, it is necessary to understand what the human person is and how is its nature; only then will we know how to treat the person. The person, as the philosophical current of personalism has highlighted, is characterized by his subsistence and relationship, this implies his ability to be by himself and to open himself to others through love. Being for oneself means that one is unique, responsible, free, with a freedom that is not only the ability to do things but, above all, to choose, to self-determine from oneself towards the goal that perfects oneself as a person. Relational being implies the ability to give oneself in love and, in this way, transcend oneself. All of this confers on the person a special dignity or infinite value, highlighted above all by Christianity. Human nature consists of a substantial unity of body and soul, so that the body is vivified by the soul, being an expression of it. This human nature is intended to be overcome through technology by transhumanism, a movement that considers this claim as a moral duty.  Behind its apparent goodness lies a serious danger of attacking the person in these dimensions that we have pointed out. The Vatican has called on everyone to work for an ethics that controls the action of Artificial Intelligence so that man does not submit to the technique, but rather controls it, a call that has had many responses from religious, political, academic and business entities.