White House Commission on Bioethics Forum
January 16, 2004

It is an honor to be here, and a pleasure to address this group on such an important topic. You began your discussions two years ago not with an assessment of the latest technology, a list of medical possibilities, or a survey of the policy landscape, but rather, with a story.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, The Birth Mark, illustrates the both the timelessness, and the dangers, of the pursuit of human perfection and the revolt against limitations. More than that, it shows how the stories, poems, philosophy, and thought of the past have something to say about our future dilemmas.

I think it also shows the unique and thoughtful approach of this commission, headed by my friend and colleague, Leon Kass. I want to thank Leon for inviting me here today, and for the opportunity to speak to issues I believe are inextricably linked with the humanities. I'd also like to thank Dean Clancy and the commission staff for their work in making this meeting possible. And I'd like to congratulate all the members of the White House Bioethics commission on the release of your book Being Human.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has sponsored numerous projects seeking to broaden understanding of these issues. In the past four years, NEH has spent over a million dollars on projects to extend bioethics research, establish endowments for bioethics study, create fellowships, and underwrite documentary films, studies, and even textbooks. NEH funded the Baylor College of Medicine's work A History of Medical Ethics, a one-volume history of medical ethics from antiquity to the 20th century, as well as providing special support for the Encyclopedia of Bioethics, the standard reference work for the field.

But today, we're here to celebrate this commission's new book. Being Human accomplishes something important--it sheds light on bioethics through the lens of the humanities.

To quote one insightful passage in the introduction: ". . . We need to focus not only on the astonishing new technologies but also on those . . . aspects of 'being human' on which the technologies impinge. . . . For bioethical dilemmas, though generated by novel developments in biomedical science and technology, are not themselves scientific or technological matters. They are human dilemmas--individual, familial, social, political and spiritual--confronted by human beings at various stages in the human lifespan, embedded in networks of meaning and relations, and informed by varying opinions and beliefs about better and worse, right and wrong, and how we are to live."

Over the last several years, the argument that the realm of bioethics is the province of the medical field and technology industry appears to be gaining ground--not because it has been persuasive, but because it has been assumed.

The advent of new technologies has been almost universally celebrated. And questions about where those technologies may lead us have often been written off as the irrational fears of Luddites or practitioners of an exotic faith.

Of course, advances in human knowledge are grounds for excitement. But such excitement only increases the need for a dispassionate consideration of where the application of such knowledge takes us. A purely technical or medical response is not a complete one.

It is all too easy to disregard the categorical imperative and assume a technological one. I think it is fair to say that the allure of the technological imperative is particularly strong in our time--and as a result, the dangers of dehumanization more stark than ever.

New technologies are tools, which can be used to help or harm, edify or demean, protect or destroy. A knife can be used to perform life-saving surgery or murder.

New bio-technologies have the potential to do far more than merely save or end a life. Cloning creates a new life in the form of a carbon copy. Genetic advances hold out of the hope of designing our offspring according to our wishes. Germ-line manipulation promises to re-define what it means to be human.

The new discoveries and knowledge undergirding these technologies hold out promise and hope--of curing disease, overcoming disability, and extending life. But they also contain great dangers--the commodification of people, the reduction of human life to a disposable resource. Nor is this a distant danger, repellant as it is. It requires that we take stock before taking action. As Leon has said, there is often wisdom in repugnance.

President George W. Bush charged this council to "conduct fundamental inquiry into the human and moral significance of developments in biomedical and behavioral science and technology." His instructions assumed that the ultimate significance of bio-technology was broader and deeper than its utility, and that such inquiry must include those outside the technology industry. Without such inquiry, we stand in danger of ambling blithely but blindly into a brave new world.

Ultimately, this inquiry is incomplete without the humanities.

The humanities are quite simply, the study of what it means to be human: the legacy of our past, the ideas and principles that motivate us, and the eternal questions that we still ponder. The classics and archeology show us from whence our civilization came. The study of literature and art shape our sense of beauty. The knowledge of philosophy and religion give meaning to our sense of justice and goodness.

At their core, issues of life and death, identity and connectedness, aspirations and limits, healing and death--all pertain to what it means to be human, and thus, are questions for the humanities.

Not only do the humanities have profound implications for bioethics, but the reverse is true as well. Many of the new technologies you discuss have the potential to fundamentally redefine what it means to be human. Germ-line manipulations, genetic engineering, and other procedures would alter human DNA and human character. And it hardly an exaggeration to say that the future of humanity has some implications for the future of the humanities. We are all in this together.

I'd like to make one last point. As many of you know, I am an art historian by background and training. And thus, I hope you'll forgive me a plug for including great works of art in the survey of sources you consult in your studies here. Before we had evidence of the written word, we had cave paintings. There are millennia's worth of evidence that the instinct and drive to make art is a human universal, transcending time, place, culture, religion, language, and ethnicity. And many of the great masterpieces in the history of art deal directly with issues you grapple with here--human origins, dignity, death, limitations, and desire for perfection.

One of the great advantages of art is that it concretizes the abstract, and gives it physical shape. It provides a new and powerful way of looking at and learning from the wisdom of the ages.

This commission has a difficult task; I commend and congratulate it for its exceptional work and readiness to draw deeply from the humanities in delving into the perplexing dilemmas of bio-technology. In a time when many are tempted--or pressured--to resolve bioethics questions by reference to market pressures or interest groups, it is essential for thoughtful citizens to consider the full implications of new technologies and knowledge. Both the arts and the humanities give us a way to approach these great issues. No inquiry worth the name is complete without them.