AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast

Catholic Ethics, Transhumanism & Star Trek: A Conversation with Dr. Jason Eberl

Today’s topic is one straight out of science fiction. We’re talking about transhumanism—which, as you’ll soon learn, is very much a real thing with very real ethical implications. That’s why Dr. Jason Eberl, professor and director of the Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University, is here to share his insights and expertise. Transhumanism, at its core, is about modifying the human body. As Dr. Eberl will explain, that can be as simple as taking some sort of drug to help focus your mind during a late-night study session. But it can also imply something much more—think of a cyborg from Star Trek. And we do—think about Star Trek, I mean. Dr. Eberl is an expert fan, having written and edited countless essays, articles, book chapters and more investigating the philosophical side of some of our favorite pop culture franchises. It’s a helpful way to engage a tricky, complex topic like transhumanism. As Dr. Eberl says, it gives us distance to game out ethical scenarios that are both uncomfortable and necessary to making good decisions. We do that in today’s conversation, too. While we may arrive at few answers, Dr. Eberl lays out a variety of outcomes that transhumanism—in all its varied forms—might lead to. Some are good; some, less so. But as you’ll see, these aren’t just hypothetical issues for the next Star Trek series; these are issues that can have very tangible impacts in our daily lives and relationships. This conversation brings in insights from everyone from Mr. Spock to St. Thomas Aquinas, and helps us better understand what it means to be embodied. Ultimately, as Dr. Eberl lays out, it’s because of our limitations, our imperfections as humans, that we are able to find happiness. That sounds counterintuitive, but I think by the end of today’s episode, you might begin to see why. Want to check out some of Jason Eberl’s prolific works? SLU Faculty Page: https://www.slu.edu/arts-and-sciences/bioethics/faculty/eberl-jason.php "Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy:" https://www.amazon.com/Battlestar-Galactica-Philosophy-Knowledge-Begins/dp/1405178140/ "The Ultimate Star Wars and Philosophy:" https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Star-Wars-Philosophy-Blackwell/dp/1119038065/ "Star Trek and Philosophy:" https://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Philosophy-Popular-Culture-ebook/dp/B003S3RL8U

Duration:: 49m
Broadcast on:: 07 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

From the Jesuit Media Lab, this is AMDG, and I'm Eric Clayton. Today's topic is one straight out of science fiction. We're talking about trans-humanism, which as you'll soon learn is very much a real thing with very real ethical implications. That's why Dr. Jason Eberle, professor and director of the Albert Nagy Center for Healthcare Ethics at St. Louis University, is here to share his insights and his expertise. Trans-humanism at its core is about modifying the human body. As Dr. Eberle will explain, that can be as simple as taking some sort of drug to help focus your mind during a late-night study session, but it can also imply something much more. Think of a cyborg from Star Trek. And we do. Think about Star Trek, I mean. Dr. Eberle is an expert fan, having written and edited countless essays, articles, book chapters and more, investigating the philosophical side of some of our favorite pop culture franchises. It's a helpful way to engage a tricky, complex topic like trans-humanism. As Dr. Eberle says, it gives us distance to game out ethical scenarios that are both uncomfortable and necessary for making good decisions. We do that in today's conversation, too. While we may arrive at very few answers, Dr. Eberle lays out a variety of outcomes and frameworks that trans-humanism in all its varied forms might lead to. Some are good, some less so. But as you'll see, these aren't just hypothetical issues for the next Star Trek series. These are issues that can have very tangible impacts in our daily lives and relationships. This conversation brings in insights from everyone from Mr. Spock to St. Thomas Aquinas and helps us better understand what it means to be embodied. Ultimately, as Dr. Eberle lays out, it's because of our human limitations, our imperfections that we are able to find happiness. That might sound counterintuitive, but I think by the end of today's episode, you might begin to see why. Want to check out some of Jason Eberle's prolific work? Visit his Sloop faculty page and check out the links in the show description. And now, here's Dr. Jason Eberle. Dr. Jason Eberle, welcome to AMDG. We're excited as you're with us today. I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation. Yeah, of course. And we're talking about some really cool stuff. So you're going to have to really walk me through some of these concepts. But it's almost like we're really exploring science fiction in real life, which makes sense because you and I met in person for the first time at a Star Wars academic conference. We were both on a panel that aimed to use Star Wars as a way to unpack ethics and spirituality. So to get us started, my first question is, why do you think that pop culture is a useful tool for exploring all of these questions of ethics and theology and philosophy and spirituality? How do you come at that question? Yeah, I think it's helpful in a couple ways. First of all, as the saying goes, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. And sometimes with some of these really dense topics with all sorts of different sides and so on, reading about it or even writing about it, in my case, can be very dry. And it's the biggest cure for insomnia. So having these sort of issues or questions sprained in a pop culture context can really have to still look down. Of course, you run the risk that you simplify things too much that you oversimplify what is really complex. But science fiction and fantasy in particular, like Star Wars or Star Trek, I think is really a great way of thinking about some of these issues because they take us outside of our normal everyday context. They put these issues into a realm where our initial knee jerk emotional reactions aren't necessarily going to kick in. And we can really think about, oh, what if the heroes did something that maybe normally we might think, oh, that's morally wrong, you can't do that. But then you see your hero do it, and you're like, okay, maybe that is something one off to do. And I can give some examples, we want to do a deeper dive on some examples. But that's just one way which I think science fiction and pop culture more generally can just help us think about ethics, philosophy, theology, all those things, politics. Yeah, it gives us an interesting distance, but also a degree of intimacy because we're interested in the character. So I do want you to give us an example. But I want you to use a certain franchise. I know you've written a lot about, and you've edited several volumes, in fact, about Star Trek and ethics and philosophy. And Star Trek is just a great playground for ethical questions, right? So what about Star Trek and its many iterations? Do you think speaks to you and your own vocation, but also to these questions that you've begun to lay out for us that deserve to be kind of really grappled with in a deep way? Yeah, so with Star Trek in particular, famously, it gives this very positive vision of humanity's own future, right? Unlike Star Wars, it's not set in a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, right? It's supposed to be our future that hopefully we're socially, ethically, politically evolving into. And it's inspiring that way, right? A future of, you know, diversity and where, you know, people as Martin Luther King, as he said, are judged according to the content of their character, not the color of their skin, and things of that nature, or the bumpyness of their foreheads, in case someone had different aliens they encounter. So that's the Klingons. The Klingons yet or the pointyness of their ears of the Vulcan. And you know, when you think about different aliens on Star Trek, like Klingons, Vulcans, Varangi, and so on, they all represent different aspects of the human condition, sometimes amplified to the nth degree, right? Our capacity for violence or our our acquisitive nature, right? Our greeniness or our logical side, or our emotional side, in a case of like the betazoids or a pathic side. So there's all these different reflections on the human condition, which I think is fascinating. And then again, being in a science fictional context allows for exploring some, you know, issues that may at first seem purely science fictional, but often have real world analogues. So here's an example. There's an episode of the series Star Trek Enterprise, where the crew is on this mission that's necessary to save the planet Earth, and the chief engineer gets injured in an accident. And the doctor creates a clone of him. That's not only genetically, but also grows very rapidly into a psychological duplicate of the original engineer. And the whole point is that this clone is only going to live for like, you know, two weeks at most, like that's a natural lifespan. And before that two weeks though, the doctor is going to go in and excise neural tissue to save the engineer's life. So you grow this being, which seems to be their own independent person, but they've been created solely for the purpose of being used to help someone else. And so there's a lot of questions there about manipulating, you know, human, you know, biological, you know, you know, molecular DNA, creating clones, using not just clones, but just other people. And so we think about the embryonic stem cell research debate, we think about eugenics, right? All those things come up in the context of a story like that. Yeah, I like what you said, because I think it plays out in Star Trek in particular, but certainly in a lot of like these fantastical stories, you're able to really kind of put your thumb on the scale to accent a certain element of humanity or an ethical debate to such an extreme degree where where the questions become really obvious and less theoretical, right? And I think that's helpful. Again, thinking about these stories as helpful, like sandbox in which to explore aspects of humanity, I feel like people often dismiss science fiction fantasy as, oh, it's not real, we have to stay in the real world. But in fact, these are places where we can actually grapple with the real world in very important ways. And again, you know, not just the realm of biotechnology, I'll just give you one other example. One of my favorite sci-fi series is the, well, both the original when I was a kid and the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The fact I'll be going to a convention in November in Chicago for the 20th anniversary of Battlestar. Give me an academic talk on the biopolitical themes in the series. Oh, give us a preview. So tell us what, so what, give us, how does Battlestar Galactica then do some of these, these ethical question answering? Yeah, so one, one really key example. So Battlestar Galactica aired in from 2004 through 2008 or nine. And this was during the height of the quote unquote war on terror, right? You know, we're fighting Afghanistan and Iraq. And a very popular thing that was happening, part of the set that it was on the news all the time, was a Iraqi insurgents, you know, using IEDs and other things to attack US troops. And also to the point of engaging in suicide bomb. And so, you know, the typical Americans reaction is, oh, suicide bombing. Well, that's horrible. That's bad. No one should ever do that. Well, in Battlestar Galactica, there's a storyline in season three where the colonials, the humans, the people, you know, we're identifying with as the heroes, they're now the insurgents in an occupied area by the psilons who are these artificially intelligent beings that they themselves had created and then turned on them. And some of the humans start turning the suicide bomb in order to attack the psilons or and attack other humans who are collaborating with the psilons. So they just took, you know, well, we're familiar with on the news every night and up ended it on its head. And not so much to say, oh, this is actually a good thing. I need suicide bombing. The show is not putting out a message. It's more or less provoking the question, right? If push comes the shove, if we were to find ourselves under certain, you know, conditions, what to what links would we go? And it helps us to understand what's motivating, you know, those who we would consider are enemies, and what they're doing, what's motivating them, all with the goal that we should all understand each other better. And maybe we can, you know, dissolve some of these conflicts that we have. Yeah, yeah, and I'm thinking too, with, especially with the example of, you know, that kind of era and American history or world history, you know, I think like the West Wing, right, the West Wing being a very, not like if it's fiction, right, but it's pretty, it's grounded and limited by, by certain parameters on what real life dictates, right? So it's certainly a cheerful look at politics. You know, in the West Wing, certainly in that era also took on some of these storylines and themes, but couldn't do as you're describing these, you know, like, you know, flip completely, flip the script or completely, you know, turn up one aspect of humanity so we can really see what it looks like under under the light. So again, like it's just different stories can do different things. And I think that's really important. I'm wondering if you have you seen Lower Decks, Star Trek Lower Decks? So what happens when you introduce humor? Because I like, again, I'm not like a huge Star Trek, not super knowledgeable about old things Star Trek, but I enjoy Star Trek. And what I really appreciate about Lower Decks is that it's both very reverent towards canon, right? It deals seriously with Star Trek stories, but it does so in a very irreverent way. And I think that adding humor into these, because like Battle Stark, Alaska, Star Trek, pretty serious, as far as the tone goes. So what happens when we add this, this humorous kind of overlay to these questions? Do we go deeper? Do we ask, I think it gets to kind of get at something different? Yeah, it's a great question. I really thought about, you know, what specifically humor adds, certainly humor, you can do a lot. That's philosophically interesting, or Thea Washington with humor. I'm thinking of, so in the series of books that you mentioned, I've edited various volumes for a Star Wars, Star Trek, Battle Stark, Alaska, there are volumes, and I wasn't involved with these particular ones, but like those ones on like The Daily Show, or The Colbert Report, or Saturday Night Live, right? And, and yeah, you know, taking, you know, showing the ironic twist of things, you know, putting things in a humorous context. Often, I think one of the best things it does is shows the inherent ill logic and irrationality in a lot of viewpoints that us or others may hold, you know, very dear, or not question. Of course, you know, philosophers, you know, and others are sort of trained to kind of find the, you know, logical or illogical connections between things, but, you know, we all still fall victim, say, to advertising, right? And the little manipulative tricks that are used to, you know, trick us into buying things. And so I think humor, you know, really good, smart, you know, communic writers, like I said, they kind of point out the ill watcher that a lot of times we buy into, and, and when we're laughing, we're not only laughing because we find it funny, but we're kind of, we're laughing out of a little bit of embarrassment, like we're laughing at ourselves like, oh, yeah, that's right. I thought that. And that's like, no, that's really logical. Yeah. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. So we'll turn to a serious topic now, but no, no, no transition. But, you know, one of the topics you've written a lot about is, is transhumanism, right, which, which you've already given us an example of kind of how aspects of transhumanism kind of play out in Star Trek. So, you know, there are obviously a lot of ethical questions concerning transhumanism that need to be wrestled with in our very real world. So I'm wondering if you can briefly describe what we mean by transhumanism, and then lay out why why it's an issue that needs to be talked about now. Yeah, so we can talk about transhumanism sort of with a big T as an ideological movement. They actually have a website called humanity plus dot work. They used to be knows the World Transhumanist Association. And there's a specific set of tenets that these big T transhumanists believe that is a quasi religion, where the idea is that human beings are fundamentally material beings, where, you know, brains stuck inside meat sacks, more or less, you know, putting that that crew away. But that's basically the upshot of what it is. And there's, we, and we should have the, what they call morphological freedom. That is the freedom to change ourselves, change our bodies, change our brains. In any way, that suits our interests, that suits our preferences, to make ourselves a better human being, to the point where even we transcend hence the term transhumanism, our current human nature to become what's referred to as the post human, right, a whole new species of being. And so that's kind of the transhumanist aim. We can also talk more broadly just about human enhancement technology, where there may be more, you know, less radical changes than what the transhumanists aren't envisioning to improve ourselves, right, to make us healthier, to live longer, to, you know, be able to think better, more faster, whatever. And so that's kind of the two different positions there. And you're exactly right that this is straight out of Star Trek. You know, a lot of people, even if they're just casual Trekkies, have seen or heard what is without question, the best Star Trek film ever, Star Trek to the wrath of Khan. Oh, yes, absolutely. Agreed. And Khan, the main villain, the antagonist in the story, is himself a genetically enhanced human being actually created way back in Star Trek lore in the 1990s. And ended up like conquering three-fourths of the world, and then he and his followers all augmented, you know, they got exiled and sent out in the space. And so that's kind of the, you know, the idea of Star Trek is always wrestled this question that as Spock says, not in that film in the earlier episode where Khan's first introduced, that superior ability breeds superior ambition. And so there's already this sort of moral question of what types of moral beings would these enhanced or even post-humans be? Yeah, and we even see, I think in like the Marvel cinematic universe, right? Everybody seems to be dealing with superhumans in some way, right? Like this is a plot line that is more and more in all of our pop culture, at least the ones that the things I'm consuming. You know, I want to kind of jump to what you were getting at the end there, that super human ambition is this, you know, greater than others kind of mentality. As kind of one of the key ethical concerns that you've highlighted in a lot of your writing, and how it would would exacerbate divides that already exist kind of within the socioeconomic realm. So that obvious creation of superhumans kind of presents that in a very clear way. I think it's less obvious with some of these more micro enhancements, right? You've already kind of laid out some of this spectrum of what kind of transhumanism can involve. So can you walk us through some of the ways to think about these issues for our own daily life, right? It's obvious if like Superman shows up and we're like, oh, like that guy's way better than me. It's probably less obvious in these smaller methods. Yeah, I think, so one of the things fascinating about studying transhumanism and human enhancement more generally is that I think the logic of it and the moral impetus on the part of those who want to do it is very much an extension of a mindset, a set of beliefs and values that I think a lot of people, a lot of us hold both secular and religious. They're actually self-evolved Christian transhumanists and some have drawn on the writings of the Catholic writer Pierre Taylor de Chanaan to ground a sort of idea of our being co-creators with God in a way in which we're called to use our intellect, to use the technology we develop to improve ourselves, right? We think of the parable, the talents, right? We're not supposed to hide it under, you know, bury our treasure in the grammar, we're supposed to invest it and take the risks to generate more and to be better, right? So at least that's the interpretation that the religious transhumanists would give out, the Christian transhumanists. But so there is this, you know, drive for wanting to improve ourselves for perfection. And, you know, we don't just sit passively by and allow, you know, God to do everything for us, even though if we want to avoid the Plagian here, seeing that to understand that everything we do is through God's grapes, right? Everything that good that we do. So I say that to say that, yeah, while some of these examples in science fiction that I've talked about, or some of the aims that transhumanists have, like uploading our consciousness into a computerized mainframe. So we just completely shed these bodies that, you know, will kill us one day. That even if that sounds fantastical, the desire to do that is very much prevalent, I think, in human society. And then, you know, if you think about some of the available technologies, again, some of these are still very far to the future if they happen at all. But, you know, there's various ways in which we already, like, use the term sort of micro-enhancement. So, for example, take something that, you know, you see with college kids all the time, right? Off-label use of drugs like Adderall and Ritalin, right? So, you know, just stimulate focus and, and, you know, even, you know, when I was in college, I didn't take any of those drugs they went really around them. But, or they were, but not college-enhancement release. But I'd be in these roommates. And if I had to pull an old nighter and write a term paper, I'd have one of my roommates make me be in these coughing, because it's like the strongest was caffeinated, like, it was just keeping me up all night. And so, I'd get that paper done, right? That's a micro-enhancement. And some bioethicists has even talked about using some forms of what we call cognitive enhancements. Not simply drugs like, like I've been talking about, but actual manipulation of, of our neuro-architecture to help, for example, school children in disadvantaged communities, right, who don't have access, right, to the best forms of education. So, maybe we can give them an edge by giving them these cognitive enhancements. But then the pushback on that is, well, why are we focusing on changing the kids? Let's change the school system, right? Let's, either wasn't a required investment or resources. So, why don't we invest our resources in making the environment better, the educational environment, instead of changing the, the, the, the kids. So, again, people are already kind of talking about employing some of these enhancements in these ways. So, I mean, I hear you talking a lot about intent, or at least correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like there's, there's, you know, obviously key to the ethical decision-making is our intent. Also, you write about, obviously, agency, you know, are people having this done to them? Or are they, you know, kind of the, the protagonist in the story? Can you talk about the importance there of intent and agency in these ethical frameworks? Yeah, it's essentially important in a couple ways. So, one is the simple biological fact that if we are to, say, do CRISPR-style gene editing, or, or other types of biotechnological changes to the human being, the younger you do it the better. So, the most effective way, and I say it's the most moral way, if it isn't moral, but the most effective way is to do it on embryos, or with fetuses while they're still in utero, or with very young children. And, and so these are obviously, we're dealing with, you know, not only having to maybe reproduce entities outside of the natural pro-creative process, but also making changes to individuals who cannot consent to them. And maybe, you know, once they're born and once they reach an age of consent and we say, oh, hey, we did this to you, we cognitively enhanced you, or we gave you an immune system such that you're going to be the healthiest human being, they might say, oh, good, thank you, I'm glad you did that for me. Or, depending on what the change is, they might be abhorred that this change was done to them. And I do think a lot of it does play into the intention. I wrote one article in a book on pediatric ethics about enhancement on children and parents making these choices. And, you know, a, making some of these changes, this might not be morally listed at all. But if any of them are listed, I think they can only be, you know, morally done with parents having the right intentions, that we don't want parents having the attitude of trying to create the quote unquote perfect child, or a child that meets their expectations. That's the treat procreation as creating a product. And that's what we want to avoid. On the other hand, you can also understand parents who simply want the best for their child. And it, you know, it's not for their own benefit, but it's out of love for their expected future child to have the best start in life to not be held back by any condition that might be disabling for them, which of course brings up a whole other host of issues of how this push for human enhancement intersects with the disability critique. And that's kind of there. I've been working on lately with some colleagues who are disability scholars. You say a little bit more about that. And kind of again, I think what's so helpful about this conversation is hopefully listeners are taking away kind of questions to ask themselves as they're going through these kind of ethical questions and conundrum. So say a little bit about about that. Yeah, so I published an article last year called Disability Enhancement and Flourishing. And the basic question I was exploring that paper was if we valorize the enhancement of certain human capacities. And again, we can do this not being transhumanists, right? Again, as a parent, you want to send your child to the best school that you can to get the best education that they can receive. Or you want to make sure that, you know, they, you'll get, you know, the toys that they want. So they're happy in that they have good friends who care about them and some, right? So we want all these things for our children to enhance their well-being and enhance their, you know, abilities to live a fruitful life. But then of course, you have children who are born or who later acquire as children or adults various physical or cognitive impairments. And some of these impairments can become disabling in the sense that they're not going to be able to thrive in the society we've created, right? And again, it's not like they're intrinsically don't have well-being, but we kind of create situations which don't foster their well-being as an individual is such an impairment. So the question I was wrestling with is if we valorize the enhancement of certain human capacities, can we square that with, with not devaluing the lives and the lived experiences of persons with various types of disabilities? And I approached this and I did all my writings through the lens of Thomas Aquinas, who say Thomas, among other things, you know, affirms the value of our embodied condition, even with its limitations, its vulnerabilities, its disabilities, you know, you know, we're all kind of disabled in various ways, right, in relation to others. We're all imperfect. And yet we're called to blessing this, the holiness to happiness, not despite all those things. But in fact, the argument I'm teasing out is that it's because of our limitations, because of our vulnerabilities, because of our imperfections that actually help us to be happy and holy and so on. Yeah, I was really struck by that in your, in your writing that this idea, and you can correct me if I go astray here, but like, like it's hard to name kind of what is quote unquote normal, like what's the normal state that we're trying to either, you know, build from or get to, right? Because once you get into the nitty gritty, like, you know, everybody has their stuff, everybody's different, everyone's coming at things from different experiences and just bodily abilities. And so this idea of being embodied, and this idea of being vulnerable, and finite, right? Those are the two, I think those are the two, two areas you land on really spoke to me as, you know, that inherent human experience, because it brings us together in some, in many ways, it necessitates community. So can you can speak to speak to that, that that sense of, of we are bodies that are vulnerable and finite, and thus, mirror God in important ways. Yeah, so one of the really interesting things that I've been looking at lately, that I find fascinating, is really delving into Aquinas's theology of creation. And if you look at Pope Francis's encyclical in the environmental adaptive sea, he draws on Aquinas and talking about how, in creating, God creates diversity. Because of course, no other being can perfectly image God, that would be another God, and logically, you can't have two perfect beings. We get that from Saint Ansel back a thousand years ago. But the idea is that God creates, and all creation, is in various ways, a manifestation of God's being, God's goodness, God's beauty. And so human beings, as a particular creation in the image and likeness of God, are called to recognize that beauty, that goodness, and so on, in, in all of creation, and to respect that. But then also with respect to ourselves, to understand diversity in our own bodies. So Jason, you note in your writing how, and even in this conversation so far, how transhumanists and Christians share something foundational in common. You say something to the effect of, we all see ourselves quote unquote trapped in the state from which we need saving. But from there, obviously, these ideologies diverge pretty dramatically. And in so doing, they reveal how we understand the human condition, and also how we understand God. So I'm wondering if you if you might speak to the Christian anthropology that helps us best grapple with or think about transhumanism. Yeah, so, you know, the first most fundamental part of the Christian anthropology is at least falling in the tradition, the Catholic tradition stemming from Aquinas, is the fact that we are rational animals, right? Our animality is as essential to who we are as is our consciousness, our mind. And transhumanists, you know, completely eschew that. And again, with their idea of morphological freedom, some even aspire to the possibility of uploading our consciousness into, you know, some sort of cybernetic mainframe, you know, but instead of, you know, the clouds of heaven, we are in the digital cloud. And we'll be perpetually there freed from the limitations of our bodies. But for Christians, our, our animality, our embodiment is essential to who we are, which is why Christians don't just believe that when we die our souls, you know, again, ascend to the heavens and exist in some sort of purely ethereal realm. But Christians believe in the resurrection of the body, right? And the gospel stories, right? Jesus appeared in the flesh to the disciples. His wounds were visible. He cooked and ate fish with them. He walked with them on the road to Emmaus. So as a pre-figurement of our own, you know, eternal life and the Christian understanding, it is supposed to be an embodied life, now a perfected embodied life. And so in some sense, that doesn't match on with the transhumanist idea that, you know, our current condition is not our final condition. But as opposed to transhumanists trying to create their vision of our final condition through technology, and as an operation of our own, you know, human will, for the Christian, it is God through His grace bringing us into this perfected state. So again, we all seek perfection, but different visions of what that perfection looks like and how we get there. Yeah, I'm always haunted by that. Was that quote in the gospel be perfect like your father in heaven is perfect? But I always think of it in terms of like, I'm not good enough, you know, and I, but I don't usually think of it in terms of, you know, I, I need to like, you know, improve my physical body in some sort of uploaded kind of a situation. But, you know, we are called to be co creators with God, right? You've already mentioned that in our conversation. And, and God has given us, you know, the ability to create, to be creative and imaginative. But there also seems to be, I don't want to say like a necessary limitation, but there is, you know, we're having a conversation about ethics, right? So there's, there's guardrails and parameters. So how do you, how do you balance that, that call to be co creating with God, while also accepting that we are not God, and we are in fact, the creature? How do you, how do you help people to keep those two ideas in their mind simultaneously? Yeah, you know, it's, it's one of these examples of what I like to call a creative tension, where on the one hand, as I mentioned before, referencing the parable, the talents, right, that God does give us this gift of intellect and, and humans, you know, you know, biologists call us homo sapiens, but we could also be called homotechnicus, right? We are the technical, uh, creature beings who, um, you know, the, the, one of the earliest things we, you know, we learned to do is to, you know, use the make tools. And, um, and so I think doing that is, is good, right? I don't think we should, you know, at all, avert to, to loatism in any sort of sense. On the other hand, um, I, I think of what, I put, I put, I put Francis makes in Laudato Sea, again, his encyclical on the environment. Um, he references the story of the book of Genesis and the common translation, uh, that, uh, that having, uh, established, you know, humanity, uh, in the garden, God commands them to have dominion over the, the animals and the plants and so on. And Pope Francis says, you know, dominion has this idea of, again, of, of exerting power over nature, of exercising the lordship. Um, whereas we should more think of it as stewardship. And I would say that applies to our own bodies. Again, it's very common in, you know, the Western secular mindset, especially in bioethics, we talk so much about autonomy and respect for autonomy and my having autonomous control over my body and over my mind. And, and again, autonomy, freedom is a good thing. On the other hand, it's, but one of many values, um, that, that we should take into account in, in bioethical reasoning. And again, I'm called to be a steward of my body. So yes, I have, um, a right to autonomous control over my body against everyone else, but not against what, you know, morality or God's law requires on me. So I, we need to view our bodies and the Christian understanding as a gift to us that we are called to be good stewards of as with the rest of creation and not simply to use them in any way that we choose. You make me think of kind of great Ignatian principles, you know, I think foundational to the Ignatian exercises is a sense of gratitude, but also this downward trajectory that ultimately puts us in a place of humility, right? Constantly cultivating humility. How, how do you think about humility as a virtue factoring into these, these questions? It is centrally important in every respect, not only humility about, you know, um, one's own power or one's own knowledge, um, one's own sense of what's right or wrong. Um, you know, there's a requirement to, you know, defer to the wisdom of revelation, the wisdom of authorities, particularly church authorities, um, the wisdom of, of our parents and, uh, close friends who, you know, if they're truly your friend, will call you to the mat, right? If you are doing something wrong or, or, or, or something stupid. Um, and, uh, and again, in our very individualistic, autonomy-centered culture, we often want to resist authority and resist, um, advice, you know, don't, you know, don't overstep your bounds, don't interfere, don't tell me how to live my life and so on. Um, but for those who truly care about this, they should be invested in how we're living, uh, our lives well. And the humility then also applies to, again, our use of technology, um, understanding that sometimes, you know, the big discussion about AI right now is that sort of once unleashed, it's very difficult to exert control over it afterwards. And so we had to have this humility before the potential of our own creations to get away from us. Um, same thing with, um, you know, gene editing, particularly if we talk about germline gene editing, which is where the changes you make are passed on to future generations. And if we screw something up there, if we introduce an actual harmful change, it might be very difficult, not impossible to reverse that change in future generations. So yeah, I think humility is a, is a central virtue. And one that we, we are naturally called to cultivate out of an acknowledgement of our limitations, of our vulnerability, of our dependency. Um, Alistair McIntyre, um, philosopher at Notre Dame, uh, wrote this, uh, wonderful little book in 1999. It's a collection of lectures he gave. Uh, and the book is called dependent rational animals. So again, taking that definition, uh, uh, that domestic air-sattuning definition of human beings and adding this further dimension that's sort of built into the concept, but not made explicit by Aristotle or Aquinas that we are fundamentally vulnerable, dependent beings and that there are particular virtues that we are called to cultivate to flourish as dependent rational animals. Yeah. Uh, you make me think too of obviously the common good, right? Like we, we are, um, your dependency, again, brings us into community with others. And, and so we have to care about, you know, how, how these things affect other people and not just ourselves. And I think that's also, uh, kind of been in the background of everything you've been, you've been sharing here. How, how are we kind of building up a shared world, right? And not just in it for our, for our own good. Precisely. I wonder as, as you look out at the world today, um, uh, perhaps as you look through like your Netflix or Disney plus, um, your listings there, what are the, the sci-fi or speculative fiction stories, um, that you're reading or watching kind of with this, this aim of expanding your own ethical imagination. Um, and do you have a particular way that you approach these stories, uh, so as to, uh, be really kind of getting those ethical insights that you can then kind of bring into the classroom, bring into your writing, bring into conversation. Yeah. So I'm, I'm always keeping up a course on the latest Star Wars and Star Trek, uh, productions. Correct answer. Yes. Exactly. Uh, Star Trek Discovery, um, just concluded its five season run and, um, did an amazing job of, of forwarding, uh, that, uh, that saga into a sort of, uh, new, uh, epic, um, by, by fast forwarding the crew to the 32nd century, most of the rest of Star Trek set in the 23rd, 24th centuries. And seeing how, um, the ability, uh, to again, bring diverse talents and abilities together, um, Discovery actually has had the most diverse cast of any Star Trek series, uh, which is wonderful. Uh, Star Trek's always been good at promoting diversity from back in 1960s. Um, Star Wars, um, I'm catching up on the last season of the Bad Batch, which is a very interesting animated series, um, uh, a sequel to the Clone Wars series that follows a group of, of clones, um, who, uh, you know, for those who know the story, after Order 66 and the clones turn on the Jedi, uh, these clones do not. They're, they're, they're more independent. And you see this transition from, again, how, uh, first the Republican, now the Empire basically, you know, created and used soldiers for their own purpose, right? Um, denying them their humanity, uh, you know, basically just, uh, forming them in order to be killers and how the clones, you see this throughout both the Clone Wars and now the Bad Batch, how they come to assert their own individuality, their own identity. Um, you, you, and the less I draw from that is, you can't deny someone's personhood, someone's dignity as a person, and their autonomy as a person. Um, one other thing that's not Star Wars or Star Trek that I have, um, uh, done a recent deep dive into, I think along with a lot of people is Dune. Um, of course, with the, the Denis Vanuys films, which are fantastic, I've read Dune, you know, um, you know, a long, long time ago, but recently reread the book and then read the two sequels written by Frank Herbert, um, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. Um, and, and although he wrote other Dune books and others have written additional Dune books, those three together form kind of like the, you know, the foundational trilogy. And of course, the main lesson from Dune, and you see this very much in the second, the new film and I'll, you know, try not to give any spoilers here, but it's the danger of mixing religion and politics. Um, and, and of course, as a person of faith, um, I looked back on the history of when, you know, Christendom was established in, you know, Western Europe. Um, and we all know the bloody histories that resulted, the corruption that came from that, even to the church. Um, and of course, you know, we see theocratic regimes today and so on and calls by, you know, some, um, you know, this notion of integralism of, of bringing church and state back together. And why I think that, you know, the church and, and people of faith should always have a voice in the democratic political process in the public square. Um, I, I do think there's a wisdom to the separation of church and state, right, in our, in, in our constitution, because I think we're text to church as much as it protects the state. Um, I think it can be mutually corruptive, uh, when either gains too much power mixed with the other. Um, so that's been really thought provoking for me. In general, when I, you know, I approach watching pop culture, I mean, I always do, you know, try to, um, you know, use my limited time on this earth to, uh, uh, uh, uh, to indulge in things that I think will be both entertaining and thought provoking. That's not to say I don't watch, you know, things just for pure entertainment. Um, but sometimes even things that you, one might think are, again, just pure entertainment will often have something thought provoking in them. Um, you know, ever since I was young, I was a huge fan of the Simpsons. And you know, that's some of the most intelligent, you know, comedy, um, you know, ever, ever developed. And, uh, there, in fact, there's a whole book on the Simpsons and philosophy. Um, and, uh, so yeah, I mean, I would counsel anyone, you know, always just to be open to, you know, what is it that, that, that may have some interesting lessons. And then since I do teach, teach classes on, uh, philosophy and pop culture, bioethics and pop culture, again, I, uh, sort of need to do some work sometimes and sit and watch certain films or movies. Um, uh, actually, uh, uh, a couple of my graduate students, uh, just put together lists for me of, of things that I could potentially use in my course the next time I teach it. And it includes not only, uh, films and TV shows that so much I was aware of, others I wasn't, but YouTube videos, TED Talks, um, you know, young people today are consuming media in all sorts of ways and just going to the movies or watching television shows. So, um, you know, those of us who are going to use pop culture, uh, to, you know, to teach them, to reach out to them, you'll need to be mindful of all these various other ways, um, that, that, uh, the young people today are consuming and sharing and creating media content. Yeah. Well said. Well, Jason, I really appreciate your, uh, your reflections showing your reflections with us today. And, um, and I love talking about pop culture. So this has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for being with us. And if folks want to, uh, learn more about your work, uh, and, and kind of read some of the stuff you've written, where should they go? Um, so the books that I've done on like Star Wars and Philosophy, Star Trek and Philosophy and so on, um, they're, uh, published by Wiley Blackwell and also widely available on Amazon or wherever, you know, you buy, uh, books, um, uh, and, um, I also have a list of, excuse me, on my faculty website. So if you just go to, uh, www.slu.edu for St. Louis University and type in my name, I'll take there are a lot of emeralds, uh, there on the faculty. Uh, you can find me and find a list of, uh, my publications. Awesome. And we'll include a link, uh, in this podcast. Awesome. All right. Well, I really appreciate it. And we hope you'll, you'll come back and chat with us again sometime. Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks for the invitation. And yeah, I'm looking forward to future conversations. AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States in Washington, D.C. This episode was edited by me, Eric Clayton. Our theme music is by Kevin Lasky. The Jesuit conference communications team is Marcus Bleech, Michael Lasky, Megan Leepch, Becky Sindelar, and me, Eric Clayton. Connect with the Jesuits online at Jesuits.org, on X at, at Jesuit news, on Instagram at, at we're the Jesuits and on Facebook at Facebook.com slash Jesuits. You can also sign up for our weekly email series. Now to discern this by visiting Jesuits dot org slash weekly. The Jesuit Media Lab offers courses and resources at the intersection of Ignatian spirituality and creativity. If you're a writer, podcaster, filmmaker, visual artist or other creator, check out our offerings at Jesuit Media Lab dot org. If you or someone you know might be called to discern a vocation to the Jesuits, connect with a Jesuit vocation promoter at be a Jesuit dot org. Drop us an email with questions or comments at media at Jesuits dot org. You can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And as St. Ignatius of Luella, may or may not have said go and set the world on fire. [BLANK_AUDIO]