Caldwell 1

Jeff Caldwell

26 March 2010

Enhancement and Narrative Identity

1. Introduction

In this paper I will argue that the Narrative Criterion of Personal Identity can allow

for human enhancement without failing to adhere to the constraints of coherency, reality

and articulation. This approach will also be able to address challenges to authenticity.

What seems to be the accepted view of narrative identity requires that individuals live

within the bounds of a narrow sense of what one’s narrative could contain. Instead I

propose that enhancement will allow for those whose narrative is not fully harmonious

with reality to bring their narrative in line with what they know to be their truly authentic

selves. The interpretation of narrative identity as it stands is too strict. If we allow others

to ascribe individual requirements to our narrative, or to limit what our narrative can be

because of laws against enhancement, our narrative, and hence our identity, is no

longer limited by ourselves but by others. Enhancement as well can allow for the

prevention and improvement of a possible incoherent identity. First I will address how

enhancement and Narrative Identity, as laid out by Schectman, can strengthen the

positions of each other. This paper will then address the challenges to enhancement of

authenticity and humanness.

2. Enhancement Defined
 Caldwell 2

DeGrazia considers enhancement; “interventions to improve human form or

function that do not respond to genuine medical needs” (DeGrazia 2005 263).

DeGrazia’s definition stumbles on the word ‘genuine’. It seems an arbitrary term that

cannot be applied cross-culturally. Something considered a treatment in a developed

part of the world may be considered enhancement in a region with a lower standard of

health care.

For the purposes of this paper I propose a more intuitive approach to what

enhancement is:

Enhancement: Any intervention, medical or mechanical, that takes an unimpeded

person beyond what would be the limits of their natural physical and

psychological abilities, including temporal considerations.1

Thus laser eye surgery is not enhancement if it corrects to an accepted level of

twenty-twenty vision. Gene therapy that aims to prevent or cure some genetic defect

that falls outside of the norm is not enhancement. Enhancements that slow or reverse

the loss of abilities due to age would be considered enhancement.

3. Narrative Identity (NI)

We must accept as DeGrazia does that “the original intuition is correct: major

changes in capacities or other traits can affect narrative identity” (DeGrazia 230). This

does not mean that those changes are not compatible with the idea of NI. It is my

1
I use the word unimpeded to mean those born without any type of birth defect, or genetic
predisposition to diseases. Temporal consideration is of the fact that we all age and in so
doing are capacities diminish.
 Caldwell 3

position that NI and Enhancement can strengthen the case for each other. To

understand how this is possible it will be useful to examine the main sections of NI.

3.1 Coherence Restraint (CR)

Can enhancement adhere to CR of NI? The President’s Council On Bioethics

(The Council) does not believe so; They state that “the decision to take anabolic

steroids to enhance athletic performance can be said to be, in one sense of the term, a

rational choice, it is a choice to alter oneself by submitting oneself to means that are

unintelligible to one’s own self understanding” (Council 147). On the contrary CR can

demand enhancement. Consider the example of an aging baseball player who sees

himself as someone who always hits 40 homeruns in a season. When his abilities start

to fail him, due to age, enhancement has the potential to realign his abilities with his

narrative. As opposed to being unintelligible, a small degree of enhancement can help

maintain a coherent narrative and avoid a crisis of identity.

Schechtman herself believes that CR admits of degrees, first the “degree of

cohesiveness of his narrative as a whole....second... the more a particular action,

experience or characteristic coheres with the rest of a person’s narrative, the greater the

degree to which it is attributable to him” (Schechtman 98). Clearly then for someone

such as an aging athlete the amount of enhancement needed will increase with age,

until the point that his narrative ceases to be coherent, and further enhancement would

be unacceptable.
 Caldwell 4

3.2 The Articulation Constraint (AC)

A further requirement of NI is that a “narrative be capable of local articulation.

This means that the narrator should be able to explain why he does what he does,

believes what he believes, and feels what he feels” (Schechtman 114).

Exposed drug users like Alex Rodriguez are asked questions such as, “Why did

you do it?”, “What made you believe it was ok?” and “Why did you feel you had to?” If

their answers seem genuine, fans tend to forgive. But more importantly, they accept the

narrative and envelope those actions into who they believe that person to be. The

viewer changes their assumptions about whom the person is, the player does not

change his own assumptions.

Persons “permit a general set of background assumptions about themselves and

their lives to guide the unfolding of experience” (Schechtman 116). These assumptions

are what can allow for enhancement. For many, the abilities that they are enhancing

are considered required, deserved even, within the scope of what they posit their

narrative to be. Most when interviewed can fulfill the AC.

An argument could be made that the articulation constraint could licence any

form of enhancement. As long as one can explain why they want Enhancement A they

can have it. This though is not the case. Schechtman states: “When a person is unable

to explicate part of her narrative, some set of her actions and experiences are

incomprehensible to her and, hence, not properly under her control” (Schechtman 118).

An individual asking that a plastic surgeon make them look like Mikhail Gorbachev

would invariably, under questioning, be unable to articulate their story satisfactorily.

 Caldwell 5

3.3 The Reality Constraint2

The second constraint of NI is that a narrative must “fundamentally cohere with

reality” (Schechtman 118). A narrative out of touch with reality cannot be accepted. This

constraint seems strict but it “cannot be taken as an absolute demand” (Schechtman

120). Many people make errors about past as well as future events, without losing their

identities. A professional athlete who uses enhancement for an ever so slight gain

cannot be compared to someone who has no athletic abilities or potential who attempts

to fulfill a dream of participating in professional sports completely through the use of

enhancement technologies. Clearly one is realistic, the other not.3

NI is strong enough to incorporate events that occur beyond one’s lifespan, while

flexible enough to withstand events or abilities that extend beyond the narrowness of

the technological limits into which we were born. Does this lead to a future where our

narratives are only restrained by what is possible? I suggest that this is the way it is

now. An event that is impossible cannot become part of your narrative. But as soon as it

is possible, it can. To say that some enhancement that exists is unrealistic is

contradictory.

4. Authenticity

A question of undermining authenticity has been raised in relation to the use of

health technologies as enhancement. There may be some merit to this claim and should

not be dismissed without examination. If the requirement of having a coherent and

realistic narrative could be considered as authentic, “then the possibility arises to live an
2
Schechtman expands on the Reality Constraint with two sub sections dealing with Errors of
Fact and Errors of interpretation.
3
The idea that NI admits of degrees helps this argument.
 Caldwell 6

inauthentic life. (Elliott Tyranny of Happiness 182)” Much of the traction for the

argument against enhancement via authenticity stems from a belief that “such change is

morally objectionable for being inauthentic” (DeGrazia 2005 269).

Elliot does raise a valid point with regard to the acceptance and normalization of

pharmapsychological treatments. “In this way happiness is not just your right; it’s your

duty. This kind of thinking amounts to a kind of tyranny of happiness, which I think is

especially pronounced in American life. (Elliott Tyranny of Happiness 187)” This is

something that the NI can defend, in that it does demand an autonomous narrative.

DeGrazia echoes this sentiment: “I suggest that any self-creation project that is

autonomous and honest is ipso facto authentic. (DeGrazia 112)” Counter to Elliott’s

criticism is that enhancements in fact “can help users to become who they really are

and thus strengthen their identity and authenticity.” (Bolt 286).

The demands of authenticity can also be taken as “depriving one of an identity”

(Elliott 2003 31). Enhancement can allow for the creation/correction of an elusive

missing identity. Not fulfilling your internal desires, or narrative, could also be

considered fraudulent. Consider the transgendered person who is forced to live their life

physically in a way that is not representative of whom they truly are. Enhancement does

not undermine authenticity; instead I suggest that living fraudulently does. Authenticity,

when viewed in this way is an argument for enhancement.

5. Posthumanism
 Caldwell 7

In “Beyond Therapy” The Council lays out a definition of enhancement but

abandons it in favour of the term ‘Beyond Therapy’. The Council states that “one needs

to see the topic less in relation to medicine and its purposes, and more in relation to

human beings and their purposes” (Council 13). This distinction still points to an issue of

enhancement, namely that of a human’s purpose.

Schechtman addresses the question of body, probably in response to possible

fission arguments against NI. “Despite the strong connection between persons and

human beings drawn by this requirement, however, the narrative self-constitution view

does not completely rule out the possibility that a person’s history could involve more

than one body. If someone did tell a story involving more than one body in such a way

that it indicated a grasp of the intimate connection that usually holds between persons

and human beings, the narrative self-constitution view could allow it as an identity-

constituting narrative”(Schechtman 132). This argument can cover the concerns of the

Council in regards to bodily changes of any type.

The main objection to enhancement in the Council’s report can be summed up in

the following passage: “The runner on steroids or with genetically enhanced muscles is

still, of course, a human being who runs. But the doer of the deed is, arguably, less

obviously himself and less obviously human than his unaltered counterpart. He may be

faster, but he may also be on the way to becoming “more cheetah” than man, or more

like the horses we breed for the racetrack than a self willing, self-directing, human

agent” (Council 144). The Council believes that with enhancement inevitably come

changes in what fundamentally makes someone human. In this case, by changing our
 Caldwell 8

physical abilities we will change or destroy our humanity. This is a serious charge and

requires examination.

Allen Buchanan outlines the concerns of the Council: “The first is that

enhancement may alter or destroy human nature. The second is that if enhancement

alters or destroys human nature, this will undercut our ability to ascertain the good

because, for us, the good is determined by our nature” (Buchanan 1). This argument

hinges on the belief that we have characteristics that are in fact essential, rather than

contingent. To lose any of these characteristics would be to lose what makes us human.

The Council’s argument gets traction because it appeals to our fear of the sci-fi post

-human4.

DeGrazia lists seven traits (internal psychological style, personality, general

intelligence, sleep requirements, aging, gender, being Homo Sapiens) that would seem

to be inviolable but he manages to argue against them well. (DeGrazia 2005)

Even if there are characteristics that make us essentially human it is hard to

accept that appearance or ability could be cited in this list. Surely at best the maximum

degree of enhancement that narrative identity would allow would “not threaten

someone’s core” (DeGrazia 2005 269).

Buchanan calls the Council’s view “normative essentialism: they believe it is

possible to derive substantive moral rules from reflection on human nature” (Buchanan

145). Any change then would be seen as a threat not just to our humanity but more

importantly to the moral rules that we live by. This implies that we could not, upon

4
Being turned into something not fully human, a zombie, a vampire, Darth Vader.
 Caldwell 9

reflection, even if that reflection be enhanced by drugs, decide whether or not

something is morally good or bad. There is a deeper problem with the correlation that

the Council makes between being human and being moral. “Normative essentialist

claims confuse two quite different kinds of moral judgement: what is best for human

beings and judgements about what is compatible with human beings’ fundamental

moral status or dignity” (Buchanan 146). The contradiction of the Council’s stance is

considered by Buchanan: “That what is part of our nature is impossible to change, in

which case the appeal to human nature is nothing more than the admonition not to try to

do what cannot be done” (Buchanan 150).

Any appeal to a list of what constitutes inviolable human characteristics as

DeGrazia does, will simply be arbitrary and non-exhaustive at best. The argument does

not necessarily need to address specific characteristics. Instead the question should be

whether characteristics should be changed at all? If they should, as I argue, then

enhancement is acceptable.

6. Conclusion

The concerns raised by critics of enhancement are related to fears of loss of our

humanity, that we will lose our authenticity. Instead the concern should be the degree to

which our humanity, our identity, can absorb those enhancements. NI as I have

described it allows for enhancement and provides a test against those enhancements

that may indeed threaten our identities.

Nietzsche’s suggestion to “become what you are” (GS 270) might more

realistically embody how we should reflect on the limits of enhancement and personal
 Caldwell 10

identity. As humans, we are unique in that we desire to become more than what we are.

We reward those who endeavour to overcome those limitations. We wish to be better, to

strive and overcome the limitations our limited bodies place on our limitless

imaginations.

Works Cited
Buchanan, Allen. Human Nature and Enhancement. Bioethics Volume 23 Number 3
2009 pp.141-150
Bolt, L.L.E. True to Oneself? Broad and Narrow Ideas On Authenticity In The
Enhancement Debate, Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, Issue 28, 2008
DeGrazia, David. Human Identity and Bioethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005.
DeGrazia, David. Enhancement Technologies and Human Identity Journal of Medicine
and Philosophy,2005.
 Caldwell 11

Elliott, Carl. Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream. New
York: W.W. Norton, 2003.
Elliott C. The Tyranny of Happiness: The Ethics of Cosmetic Psychopharmacology.
Enhancing Human Traits: Ethical and Social Implications, ed. Erik Parens
(Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1998), 177-188.
Guignon, Charles B. On Being Authentic. Thinking in action. London: Routledge, 2004.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, and Walter Arnold Kaufmann. The Gay Science; With a
Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs. New York: Vintage Books, 1974.
President's Council on Bioethics (U.S.), and Leon Kass.Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology
and the Pursuit of Happiness. Washington, D.C.: President's Council on
Bioethics, 2003.
Sandel The Case Against Perfection: What’s Wrong with Designer Children, Bionic
Atheletes, and Genetic Enginerring? in Human Enhancement by JuliaSavulescu,
Nick Bostrom
Schechtman, Marya. The Constitution of Selves. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1996.
Schermer, M On The Argument That Enhancement is Cheating, Journal of Medical
Ethics Issue 24, 2008