In season three, episode six of The Mandalorian (“Guns for hire”), there is a touching scene in which two human characters enter a bar that only serves droids to find out about a droid who attends the bar regularly. They quickly find out that the droids, many of which have been repurposed to serve a different function than the one they were initially created for, are worried that they will be decommissioned and made obsolete. All of a sudden, what the human characters thought was a sinister cover up of droid violence turns out to really just be old and retrained droids who are trying their best to have a role in society and are simply asking for a second chance. To put it simply, they want to be treated like people.
From the start, one of the charming elements of the Star Wars universe is just how human some of the droids and other creatures seem. C-3PO, though being a rigid golden robot, has the deference and politeness of an old–fashioned butler. His counterpart, R2-D2, is a cheeky and determined little Astromech who time and time again saves his masters, and displays unwavering loyalty across the films. So, viewers are used to rooting for the droids, and for wanting the droids to win, and to be happy, just the way they would for the human (and non–human, e.g. Chewbacca) characters.
However, this scene in The Mandalorian reveals something deeper that has entered into the consciousness and ‘the discussion’ of society at this time, and that is the relationship between the subject of human rights and transhumanism. We’ll get back to those two terms in a moment, but firstly let’s think about sex dolls.
Well, not like that. In Douglas Wilson’s excellent book, ‘Ride Sally, Ride’, a twisted neighbour lures a young man called Asahel into his bedroom, where the man’s sex doll (called Sally) is set up in a sexually inviting position on his bed. The narrative shows that the man wants Asahel to compromise on his Christian virtues by engaging sexually with the doll. Well, the righteous Asahel does nothing of the kind, but actually takes the doll with him to a car wreck yard where he destroys the doll. Is that theft, and destruction of property? Yes, it is. However, the man accuses him of murder.
The book unfolds the legal drama of the alleged ‘murder’ of Sally, and does an excellent job of saying explicitly the lies and half-truths that many in our culture are pushing, and in doing so both refutes them, and shows their refutation as blindingly obvious.
So, human rights and transhumanism? The subject of human rights has many angles that are super highly charged at the moment. For instance, those arguing that the murder of children in the womb (abortion) should be legal and accessible argue that position under the guise of it being ‘reproductive rights’, which is posited as a subset of human rights. Those arguing that two individuals of the same sex could be married, though impossible by definition, argue in terms of wanting ‘equal rights’ to marriage (though they already have the same right everyone else has, which is to marry one member of the opposite sex, the way God designed it). Without tiring the patient reader by abundant examples, let us take it as established that a lot is riding on what things can be called human rights.
The simple fact of the matter is that there is no basis for human rights other than a Christian worldview, rooted in the 66 books of God-breathed Scripture (acknowledging that practitioners of Judaism stand in a more complicated position). Only Scripture shows that the One True God created mankind in his image, and that he created them to be only male or female, permanently. His image, irrevocably implanted upon mankind, is the reason that taking a human life is a grave moral evil that requires the shedding of blood (Genesis 9:6 and other places). This is uniquely true of the human species, and as a result human rights are categorically inappropriate to be vested upon robots, dogs, cars, sex dolls, or repurposed droids.
The observant reader, especially if such a reader has any moderate access to the news or to current events in the outside world, will be aware that western societies are currently untethered from their Christian foundations, and are at various stages along a rollercoaster hurtling towards total societal decomposition. So many around us are utterly without Christ in this world, and so in their worldview it makes perfect sense to ask whether or not robots and AI and droids and dogs should be given equal rights to us.
Perhaps this author will dedicate another post to what happens after that, which most reasonably is the Gaia worship that is elicited by those who go the step further and place non-human rights above human rights, especially if that non-human entity is ‘the planet’, or ‘mother Earth’, or as this author has more specifically named her, Gaia, since she is the Pagan god we are truly speaking of.
In broadly simple terms, transhumanism is the word often used when speaking about a recognisable and distinct humankind, but one which allows for deep modification through technology. Posthumanism, on the other hand, can refer to a broad variety of drivel, but is usually used when discussing the concept (within a non-Christian worldview) that we have advanced so far that we are ‘past’ thinking of the world in terms of humans and their place here, and likewise past the idea of thinking of humans as being a fixed and definable subject, but rather something like raw play-dough, merely building blocks that we can use, edit and manipulate to bring whatever we like to pass. Do we hear the reader’s retort, ‘you said you’d put it simply’? Let’s try again. Transhumanism has definable humans mixed with tech. Posthumanism has given up the idea that humans really exist.
Some may argue for AI/robot rights on the basis of intelligence, or their ability to be compassionate and feeling, or on the idea that AI are affected by the world also, so they should have a say also.The arguments could sound sophisticated, but they are all ultimately unimportant, because the deciding factor for the recognition of human rights is whether or not the entity is human, i.e., made in the image of God. This author implores the reader to be ready for this subject, since this generation will have to answer (and likely legislate) questions and laws that no generation before us has had to. Stand firm on the Bible, and you will be fine. This is the way.
Distilled Orthopraxy 