The genetic revolution gave rise, roughly speaking, to two kinds of ethical responses in philosophy. Bioethicists have focused on the required sort of regulation of medical practices based on the new genetic science. Speculative philosophy (like the cinema and science fiction literature) has focused its attention on the more general metaphysical issue of the nature of human nature and on the normative problem of manipulating it. Due to the present limits of genetic technologies, it is natural that bioethics is at this stage mostly concerned with genetic screening and the regulation of research on genetic engineering. The possibility of creating a “designer baby” or the genetic enhancement of the human species as a whole is still seen as belonging to the more distant future. But for philosophers, the new horizons of mastering the evolution of humanity capture the imagination and serve as a tool for reflecting on the traditional issues of the essence of humanity and the questions of values implied by them. In religious thought, these speculative questions relate to the interpretation of the idea of the image of God as well as to the moral question of theodicy.
The introduction of genetic technologies in modern medicine created an urgent call for religious authorities to provide guidance to their respective communities. The Jewish religion, so strictly based on the regulation of daily practice, quickly responded by rich discussion and verdicts in particular cases, such as pre-conceptive and post-conceptive genetic screening, as well as research on early embryos. Almost all contemporary rabbinical discourse on the subject concerns therapeutic genetic intervention and avoids the issue of human enhancement, treating it as “out of bounds.” It is widely agreed by Jewish religious authorities of our day that the use of genetic technologies for preventing the birth of children with serious diseases or defects is legitimate, even welcome.1 Indeed, ancient biblical and post-biblical thought was highly suspicious of human medical intervention (leaving the role of healing to God alone); but gradually, since Talmudic times to the middle ages, the practice of medicine has become not only permitted but strictly obligatory.2 So although the distinction between therapy and enhancement remains controversial, there is little Jewish opposition to genetic therapy by screening, cloning (although not of full human beings) or even the manipulation of gametes.
On this background, the halakhic sources brought by Jonathan Crane are indeed striking. They refer to fantasies about the radical improvement of human capacities almost two millennia before such improvement has become even remotely possible. It is not very common in the practically oriented Talmudic thought to find purely speculative thought experiments about human beings having three eyes or three legs. Counterfactuals of this sort have little practical implication. Yet they definitely have a powerful theoretical role in the discussion of theological issues, such as the power of God, the limitations of human understanding and the logical limits of fantasies about human beings being other than they actually are.
The enhancement debate in classical Judaism, as described by Crane, revolves around the principles of “do not touch” (what is natural) or “do not wonder” (about God’s ways), which ultimately boil down to the same idea of the absolute creative authority of God. I wish to expand on Crane’s analysis in a three-step argument: (1) One may wonder about God’s moral ways, despite God’s righteousness. (2) One may wonder about the natural world, despite its divine complexity, and even manipulate this world for human needs. (3) However, one may not, or rather it is absurd to, wonder about human beings having a different nature, let alone try to actually transform it. The discussion of these three counterfactual reflections serves the mainstream of Jewish thought to expose the uniqueness of the natural and moral uniqueness of humanity’s status in the world: Can the moral order be other than it is? Can nature operate in a different way than it does? Can human beings be of a different nature?
Take the first, moral counterfactual. It is important to note that the context of the debate in the Sifre Devarim source is typically moral. The entire paragraph following the quotation brought by Crane about the thought experiment of having three eyes and three feet declares such an idea to be absurd, “Because He is just in all his ways”; he sits in court with every single one and allocates to him/her what they deserve. The whole section is a standard theodicy, an appeal to God’s righteousness (Sifre Devarim, on Deuteronomy 32:4). However, I would like to reflect on the first sentence of the paragraph, that which immediately precedes the one quoted by Crane, though ignored by him:
’The rock (hatzur), perfect is His work”: “hatzur” – “hatzayar” (the artist). He formed the world and formed the man in it, viz. (Gen 2:7) “And the L-rd G-d formed the man.”
“Perfect is His work”: His work is whole with all creatures, and His ways are not to be brought into question. The slightest variation is not to be entertained regarding them – “If I had three eyes,” “If I had three hands” “If I had three feet,” “If I could walk on my head,” “If my face faced backwards” – “how wonderful it would be!” This is the intent of “Perfect is His work.”
(Sifre Devarim, on Deut 32:4)3
The text points to a non-moral explanation of the absurdity of the counterfactual of humans having three feet, hands or eyes. It does not deal with the just and righteous way with which God deals with human beings after their creation but with the natural perfection in which they are created ab initio. Their being what they are is not a matter of desert but divine perfection. As I shall suggest in the third part of my argument, there is a conceptual difference between the constraints on God’s moral treatment of already existing human beings (the test of the desert) and the constraints on the way God designs human beings in the act of creation. Accordingly, the Sifre Devarim text appeals in the context of the creation of the human body to the metaphor of the artist, who designs or shapes the natural world and the human species in a perfect way. Creation is not a matter of justice but formal or aesthetic perfection. He compares the world to a work of art which – if perfect – does not tolerate even the slightest change in any of its elements. The synonym of the term God used here is zur, which correctly translates as “rock” (in the English version also used by Crane), but the Midrashic interpreters make use of three pertinent linguistic connotations of this Hebrew word for rock: “giving form” or shaping (zar), painting (ziyyer) and creating (yazar or yizzer).4 The justification of God in creating humans with two rather than three eyes is not that this is what is just or what they deserve, but that it is the only way human beings can be because of their special role in the overall design of the world. Their identity is not contingent and hence fantasizing about its possible alteration subverts essential human nature.
But I want to emphasize that theodicy is a legitimate project and to side with Crane’s second group of halakhic interpreters. It is neither immoral nor absurd to wonder, to raise the question or to try to understand what at least seems to be a morally defective world. Abraham, the founding father of the Jewish people, is engaged in a bold and determined moral debate with God’s decision to kill the people of Sodom and even wins that debate (Gen 18:20–33). And although there were many questions as to the ways of God in the times of the Holocaust, they were never treated as either silly or heretical. Moral counterfactuals often make sense. They are even encouraged as part of the human project of making the world a better place.5 Thought experiments in theology are no less useful than their counterparts in science. In both cases, they serve to ultimately uncover the possible explanation for why the world (or the ways of God) are what they are, even if they seem to be defective or deviating from some idealized law-like behavior. In bioethical thinking about intervention in the human genome, it is, for instance, a way to test the distinction between human enhancement and the creation of a completely new, trans-human species. To put it in Leibnizian language: the fact that the world is “the best possible world” does not mean that every particular part constituting it does not look in itself and independently of its place in the whole as lacking. Reflecting on possible “improvements” of particular properties or individuals in the world might show us how these would destroy the value of other properties or individuals. Contemporary genetic and environmental sciences are very much aware of this possible risk involved in genetic engineering or modification.
As to the second counterfactual on my list – that of making the natural world better in some sense: indeed, as the passage from Genesis Raba quoted by Crane shows, we cannot understand the overall structure and order of the natural world and can see only “parts of the ways of God”; yet this does not hinder us from using or manipulating the natural world for our own good. The epistemic limitation does not block the possibility of researching nature and gaining practical and theoretical insights into God’s creation by deploying human intelligence and ingenuity. Furthermore, there is nothing heretical about the human presumption to understand and control nature (which is necessary for medical science but equally to agriculture and engineering). Thus, says R. Nahman,
This [the complexity of the natural world] may be compared to a thicket of reeds which no man could enter, for whoever entered therein lost his way. What did a certain clever man do? He cut down [some reeds] and entered … through the clearing and went out. Then all began to enter through his clearing.
(Freedman & Simon, 1939, p. 87)6
Thus, in the same way as it is not forbidden to question the moral ways of God (since human beings were created with the capacity to distinguish between good and evil and with free choice), it is not forbidden to use human intelligence (also conferred by God on human beings) to mold the natural surrounding even though we cannot fully grasp its essential structure. Again, counterfactual thinking is extremely useful as a scientific method, for example in imagining movement without friction or a world in which the axis of our planet is not tilted. But if that is the case, why should human beings not try their luck in entering the genetic “thicket of reeds”? That is to say, should research into the possible transformation of human beings themselves lie beyond the pale? Why not entertain the idea of a world with post-humans who can never sin or err, and maybe also work toward manipulating the genome so as to enhance human beings to become such creatures?
This brings us to the third stage, which is the crux of the whole argument. Can we imagine ourselves (in contrast to non-human nature) as different from what we actually are? And even if we can – can we aspire to become such beings? And if such a fantasy of having three eyes or three legs ever becomes a realistic option (to which we are getting closer) – would that be ethically permitted? Here, I believe, the classical Jewish texts realize that we reach the limits imposed both by meaning and faith. There is something both ridiculous and heretical in such a scenario. Ridiculous or absurd – because one cannot really desire to be something completely different, namely losing one’s essential identity; heretical or rebellious – because human beings were created not merely as part of nature but also as non-natural beings who have a special position – indeed, a telos – in the creation scheme, that of a direct manifestation of Divinity.
This telos is articulated clearly already in the first chapter of Genesis. Human beings are said to have been created in the image of God. There is much debate about the specific meaning or content of this “image” (Lorberboim, 2015). But the uniqueness of humanity’s status is not contested. As R. Akiva says in the often-quoted verse,
Beloved is man for he was created in the image; a greater love was bestowed on him, [that] he was created in the image, for it is written, “in the image of God made he man (Gen 9:6).”
(Mishna, Avot, 3:18)
This privileged position is ascribed to humans both as exhibiting divine form in the Platonic sense and as having an elevated moral status which distinguishes them from the rest of creation and even makes them the end of creation. If we accept this interpretation of the idea of God’s image, we can use the attributes earlier ascribed to God in terms of the triple meaning of the Hebrew root “zayar,” “ziyyer”/“yazar”: like God, although in a limited way, humans are the only beings in the world who can be both artists, designers and creators. By either relinquishing this position (e.g., becoming robotic entities) or extending it to a degree of the usurpation of God’s power (what we refer to as “playing God”) we are undermining the divine plan of creation and the ultimate source of value of the very act of creation.
Whatever this image is, it has to do with some sort of presence of God in the world, a presence of a different kind than that which God manifests in the natural world. Unlike his presence in nature, the divine image ought to be spread all over the world and throughout time (Heyd, 1997). This image is accordingly linked with the creative and procreative powers of humans.7 It involves a far-reaching measure of freedom to human beings – both as choice makers of good and evil and as users of the natural world. But this being their place in the world, there is at least one limit on the exercise of that extensive liberty, and that is their own nature! Human nature becomes sacrosanct precisely in the sense of the “do-not-touch” principle. Human nature, being divine in this particularly direct sense, cannot be an object of manipulation. We may engineer every part of nature, except for our own genome, our species identity. Or to put it in the language of the story of the reeds we just quoted, we are getting close to being able to cut into the labyrinth of our genetic structure, but although we might manage to do so, it won’t be us anymore who will come out of it. The risks of germline genetic engineering or the creation of a new post-human species are – from that Jewish point of view we are discussing – metaphysical, not merely empirical.8
This of course leaves open the specific question about the essence of human nature or the source of human identity as a species, and hence the actual limits of the manipulation of our genes and their legitimate enhancement. A third eye, like an enhanced musical skill, does not necessarily undermine the position of humans as reflecting God’s image. We should take the thought experiment of having an extra leg or mouth as a mere metaphor (although the sages explain the fact that we do not have one mouth for eating and another one for praying as having to do with the deep essence of our humanity and our non-contingent immersion in the material reality). But the lesson of the original story is that there is some such limit. However, the whole discussion leaves open the metaphysical issue whether human beings have any unique position in the natural world or whether they are just a natural product of slow evolution, which would leave them with no restrictions on the way they design themselves or transform themselves into post-human creatures.
Barilan, Y. M. (2014). Jewish bioethics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Freedman, H., & Simon, M. (Trans.). (1939). Midrash rabbah (Genesis). London, England: Soncino Press.
Heyd, D. (1997). Divine creation and human procreation: Reflections on Genesis in the light of Genesis. In N. Fotion & J. C. Heller (Eds.), Contingent future persons: On the ethics of deciding who will live, or not, in the future (pp. 57–70). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.
Lorberboim, Y. (2015). In God’s image: Myth, theology, and law in classical Judaism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Zohar, N. (1997). Alternatives in Jewish bioethics. Albany, NY: State University Press of New York.