Habermas and Zhuangzi against Liberal Eugenics

Abstract

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in English; abstract also in Chinese.

是否有一種道家的基因增強倫理學？考慮到時間差異，道家思想能容納這樣一種提問嗎？就生命科技的持續進展而言，我們所面臨的存在論威脅是無比真實的。圍繞著自然與人造的爭論曾經牢固地樹立在神學家與哲學家的頭腦之中；然而最近在自由優生學的喧囂中上述爭論已然消失殆盡。這一運動激起了幾位傑出人士的反對，包括哲學家尤爾根．哈貝馬斯。他們反對的立足點就是基因操控抹煞了人性本質與人造物之間的差別。道家原則上贊同這一反對，但卻是出於不同的理由。本文將表明道家可以提供一種存在－宇宙論辯護——如莊子在關於疾病與畸形的故事中所表明的——以加強哈貝馬斯從社會－政治視角出發的對自由優生學的批評。雖然沒有直接提到自由優生學本身，但與哈貝馬斯一樣，這些故事表明人類生命的開端根本說來是超出人類控制的，而改變這一根基就意味著重塑自我與自由的涵義。

What would a Daoist ethics of human enhancement look like? Can Daoism even entertain such a question given the temporal disparity? In light of the ongoing advancement of biotechnology, the ontological threat awaiting us is all too real. Indeed, the debate surrounding natural versus artificial has long been entrenched in the minds of theologians and philosophers alike; in recent years, however, it has been swept up in the commotion over liberal eugenics. This movement has prompted several prominent figures, such as the philosopher Jurgen Habermas, to interject on the grounds that genetic manipulation erases the distinction between the human and the manufactured. Daoism, in principle, would agree, but for different reasons. This paper shows how Daoism can contribute to Habermas’s social-political opposition to liberal eugenics by offering an onto-cosmological line of defense, as seen in the stories on illness and malformation in the Zhuangzi. While not referring to liberal eugenics per se, these stories argue, as does Habermas, that humans have a beginning to life that is ultimately beyond their control, and to alter this origin is to recast the meaning of selfhood and freedom.

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