This article was originally published in Vol. 5 No. 2 of our print edition.
Thoughts on the Need of the New—Techno-Orthodox—Humanism
The (Old) World Before Fukuyama
Before we discuss Fukuyama’s works within the context of humanism, as an introduction to the first part of this essay, we may begin by noting that even though few are aware of the fact, not only is it theoretically possible to modify the human genome—it is already practically achievable. International law, however, has still not arrived at a definition of the human species. This inevitably raises the question: what degree of genetic modification would, in the course of human evolution, constitute the emergence of a new species?1 Until 2008, there was a general scientific consensus that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were separate species. That year, however, a Swedish scientist, Svante Pääbo, succeeded in sequencing a Neanderthal genome by extracting DNA from ancient bones—a scientific breakthrough for which he was belatedly awarded the Nobel Prize in 2022. Perhaps even more significant than the technological achievement was the discovery that most of us (Homo sapiens) are to some small extent Neanderthal: the majority of people alive today have inherited approximately 2 per cent (ranging from 1 per cent to 4 per cent) of their DNA from Neanderthals. This suggests that the two human species were, in fact, able to produce children together some 50,000 years ago—reopening the debate about whether two separate species, as per the biological definition, can produce fertile offspring. After all, Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis are still officially classified as distinct species.2 According to the latest research, the genetic difference between modern humans and Neanderthals is now estimated at just 0.3 per cent.3 (For reference: the genetic difference between humans and chimpanzees is about 1.2 per cent.)4
‘Humanism cannot relinquish its anthropocentric worldview, nor can it surrender the principle of human autonomy’
From this perspective, science today is capable of far more than we previously imagined—even to the point of crossing ever-new boundaries, including those that separate clearly distinct species, potentially dismantling the human rights regime that has been built up over the past eight decades. In a recent study, geneticists created viable monkey–human chimeras in California—a project led by the same Spanish scientist who in 2017 ‘delighted’ the world with pig–human chimeras.5 The lead researcher, Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, has been studying chimeras for over a decade at the Salk Institute in California and is considered a pioneer in researching the early development of primate embryos. Belmonte claims that the findings of this research could also be applicable to human embryos. Indeed, it is here that he sees the greatest scientific value of the experiment, since, as he notes, scientists know almost nothing about the development that occurs in the two to three weeks following the fertilization of a human embryo.6
According to Thomas Foster, the advancement of science and technology alters natural selection to such an extent that a technologically modified or hybridized human could hardly still be called Homo sapiens.7 In other words, if we intervene in our own genome—especially in fundamental physiological processes such as ageing, or in developing certain cognitive or sensory (super)abilities—then it may well be justified to speak of a new species, one that could be identified across historical timescales. Just as Mauro Guillén refers to a new ‘Cambrian explosion’ in human history driven by technology, we might speak of an ‘enhanced human’8—a Homo sapiens conrectus, so to speak.9
‘The twenty-first century may witness the final collapse of humanism’
Staying with the topic of the close kinship between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, one inevitably arrives at the question: who—or what—is considered a human being in international law? First and foremost, it is important to note that international law does not endorse or even recognize the concept of a ‘human species’. It does, however, assign various designations and legal statuses—stemming from the legacy of Roman law—to individuals possessing human DNA—based on conditions that are, crucially, independent of that DNA. The most important legal instrument in this area is the so-called Oviedo Convention (Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, 1997), adopted under the auspices of the Council of Europe, based in London. This treaty is particularly significant because it addresses both human rights and bioethical and medical issues, making it central to the legal and ethical frameworks surrounding the use of human biology and medicine. What gives the Oviedo Convention its weight is that it emphasizes the primacy of the ‘human being’—regardless of scientific or technological advances. It covers a wide range of areas, including: questions related to insurance and genetic discrimination, the prohibition of profit from the human body and its parts, the so-called ‘right not to know’ genetic heritage, and the necessity of informed consent in experimental therapies. However, it is important to note a key limitation: the ratification of this international norm has been incomplete and uneven, as some of the world’s most advanced countries in the biotechnology field have not ratified the Oviedo Convention.10
International and human rights regulation is therefore (increasingly) contradictory—not only because the terminology and conceptual language of international law itself are inconsistent, but also due to discrepancies in translations, including in Hungarian, which raise doubts as to whether there is a meaningful distinction between a ‘person’ and a ‘human being’—a question that becomes particularly salient in the context of abortion rights (to be discussed later). At present, a distinction does exist: in the case of a foetus, it is clear that it is not yet considered a legal person, yet genetically and biologically (in terms of species), it qualifies as a human being (Homo sapiens sapiens). Pushing the issue further, we find that under certain legal circumstances—such as inheritance law—a foetus, while not legally a (natural) person, can still be a legal subject. In other contexts, however, the foetus is treated merely as part of the mother’s body.11
This development suggests that humanity has, in fact, entered a post-human era—or more precisely, a critical post-human era (i.e. one that dispenses not only with divine authority but also with the central place traditionally granted to the human being in our worldview). However, this shift has yet to be fully recognized by either the world of philosophy or broader public discourse. The first country to legalize abortion was the Soviet Union in 1920, followed by other socialist states—Hungary adopted its abortion law in 1956. Western countries generally followed this trend in the 1970s;12 in the United States, the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade13 legalized what became a liberal approach to abortion (though the term liberal here, as we shall explore later, is itself open to question). France has also moved in the same direction: in March 2024, the French state, often seen as the heir to the Enlightenment and—perhaps mistakenly, as we will see later in this paper—the birthplace of human and civil rights, became the first country in the world to enshrine a guaranteed right to abortion in its constitution.14 The rationale behind the widespread legalization of abortion has not been solely the idea that women should have autonomy over their own bodies. Rather, it has involved a broader philosophical and ethical shift—a relinquishing of not only the legal personhood but also, in effect, the human status of the foetus.
Turning to the EU, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which forms part of EU primary law, declares that ‘Everyone has the right to life’. Article 2(2) goes further, stating that ‘No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed.’ If we begin with a literal interpretation using the everyday senses of the terms, the term ‘no one’ raises a fundamental question: could a foetus also be considered a ‘no one’ in this context? Article 3(1) goes even further, declaring that ‘Everyone has the right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity’. The Charter also includes provisions on eugenics and organ trafficking (Article 3[2]), referring to the ‘concerned person’, and the cloning of humans, using the term ‘human beings’. Thus, within a single article, we encounter three different legal terms or statuses referring to human life—‘everyone’, ‘concerned person’, and ‘human beings’—without any clear definition of their boundaries. This becomes particularly problematic given Article 21 of the Charter, which prohibits discrimination, including on the basis of birth.15
The rapid pace of technological development becomes especially salient in the context of embryos, particularly as their cognitive abilities and thoughts—thanks to recent breakthroughs in neuroscience and brain research, as well as rehabilitation technologies (see, for example, the work of David Eagleman16)—may not only become detectable and measurable, but could even open the possibility of direct communication with them. This raises fundamental questions about the definition of an embryo—especially as we enter the legal and technological grey zone where traditional boundaries blur. Increasingly, it is not biology but society—through legislation, and at times through courts (such as supreme courts)—that passes judgment on biological ‘categories’ (e.g. sex) and legal statuses (e.g. embryo). In this context, it becomes essential to also examine trans (or transsexual) rights, as they carry significant bioethical and human rights implications. In this context, politics has thus taken over science, neglecting reality and the laws of nature and could lead to unforeseeable consequences and impairments to the moral order. As Katalin Szoboszlai-Kiss puts it, ‘Societies are complex systems, consisting of higher and lower systems, and within this, law and morality form social subsystems; it is important that there is a strong relationship between them, however, they have different functions. The relationship between law and morality is strong as they are related social phenomenon, they spring from the same root.’17 Moreover, even lawyers are not fully aware of their philosophical foundations, as Szoboszlai-Kiss and Gábor Andrási found: ‘U.S. legal practitioners mostly mean the formal rules of lawyering when they refer to legal ethics.’18 This is why it is extremely perilous when a scientific truth and the laws of nature can be overridden in the name of democracy by the majority opinion of laypeople—as we shall see in the following specific examples. In 1990, in the case of Cossey v. the United Kingdom,19 the Strasbourg court firmly upheld its earlier jurisprudence, ruling that gender reassignment surgery does not confer all the attributes of the new gender, and that the traditional family model provides a basis for regulating marriage on biological grounds. In 1997, in X, Y, and Z v. the United Kingdom,20 the court still rejected the request of a transgender man (a post-transition father) who sought to adopt the child of his female partner—born via donor-assisted artificial insemination. However, the court did recognize that a de facto family relationship existed between the parties, signalling a subtle shift. Then came the major turning point in 2002, with the case of Christine Goodwin v. the United Kingdom,21 in which the court declared that there was a ‘clear and ongoing international trend’ toward the recognition of transgender identity, and that there was ‘no significant public interest harm’ in affirming the complainant’s rights. The slogan often invoked in abortion debates—‘my body, my choice’—found its parallel in this emerging recognition of bodily autonomy and gender identity.
Twenty-two years later, however, the tide appeared to shift again. In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) delivered a ruling in O. H. and G. H. v. Germany22 that may mark a sharp reversal of the past four decades of evolving case law. The court determined that: ‘The person who gives birth to a child is a woman (the mother), and the person who fathers a child is a man (the father).’23 The court added that establishing family relationships in any other way would undermine legal certainty and the fundamental rights of the child. This latest decision highlights the fact that a consistent legal interpretive practice no longer exists in the field of human rights. It has become, unmistakably, a political issue.24
In this broader context of legal development, the issue of trans rights extends far beyond the frequently emphasized themes of sexual and individual identity or bodily autonomy. De jure, it raises fundamental questions about the very nature of the human species. If a person can legally change their sex, then—with increasingly available technologies—it follows logically that they may also claim the right to undergo what is currently prohibited genetic modification. This could mark the final major step toward the emergence of an ‘enhanced human being’. With the advent of CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technologies, the creation of so-called ‘designer babies’ is no longer a matter of science fiction, and the path to modifying the human genome is already de facto open.25 Yet—as we already have seen—there is no definition of the human species in international law—not in any major UN treaty or convention.
This returns us, once again, to the question raised in the context of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals: how much alteration would constitute the emergence of a new species? Most of the countries with the most advanced biotechnology sectors—the US, China, the UK, and others—have not ratified key international bioethical agreements such as the Oviedo Convention. This creates a growing divide between Western and East Central European countries, with the latter facing a competitive disadvantage as well as the risk of being caught in a legal vacuum and a latent human rights crisis. If countries like the US, China, and Russia take the decisive step of deploying biotechnologies either without restrictions or in non-transparent ways, the consequences may begin to closely resemble aspects of the eugenics movement popular in English-speaking countries in the 1910s—a movement that ultimately laid the intellectual groundwork for Nazi racial theory. The promise of a ‘modern eugenics’—via semi-legal or illegal biotechnologies—may prove just as illusory and tragic as its twentieth-century predecessor. History has already demonstrated the devastating consequences of uncontrolled human interventions in the natural and social order. Moreover, we must now begin to reckon with the unresolved legal status of hybrid creatures, such as human–animal chimeras or animal–animal hybrids. In theory, future biotechnology could enable the creation of a conscious being with human-level awareness trapped in a body as unlike its ‘natural’ form as that of a bulldog.26 In such a case, regardless of how this being came into existence, we would be forced to ask: Would this being qualify as a person with a disability? After all, even the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) does not define what constitutes a ‘person’ or a ‘human being’.27
As various gene-editing technologies continue to become more affordable, not only will preserving and restoring health become more accessible, but so too will the (arbitrary) modification of human abilities. This development raises profound questions about the socio-political consequences of the ‘normalization’ or ‘democratization’ of eugenics.28 One of the most critical lessons we can draw today is that we must now confront questions that were once theoretical, but are quickly becoming urgent realities: What is a human being? What is the definition—and who gets to define it? Who should have access to their own genome? And at what cost? What is a family? What constitutes its fundamental unit? What do international agreements regulate—or fail to regulate—and why?29
Abortion, which has been legally recognized since 1920, can in many ways be understood as a post-human concept—one that denies the foetus’s centrality as a human being, considering only the interests of another legally recognized human subject (i.e. the mother). It also denies the foetus’s status as a subject and, by extension, as a being with potential autonomy. In post-humanist thought, this shift is part of a broader philosophical current. For instance, movements such as animal studies explicitly challenge the anthropocentric worldview, placing humans on the same moral level as animals. According to Tom Regan, the attribution of rights to animals stems from the normative principle of personhood—in a moral rather than a legal sense. That is, beings who possess inherent moral value must be protected.30 We see this reflected in the increasingly strict prohibitions against animal cruelty and the criminal penalties imposed for harming animals,31 which in many countries is even more punishable than the illegal abortion of human babies. This leads to an unsettling question: If we are truly entering a post-human era, what place—if any—remains for the human being? If we consider humanity’s two closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos (Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus, together forming the Panina clade)—then from their viewpoint, humanity has built a ‘post-Panina’ society. In this light, the post-human world we are now approaching—a world that may soon include artificial intelligences, humanoid robots, and genetically engineered ‘perfect’ beings—is evolving into a post-Hominina society. In such a future, these new entities may be farther removed from Homo sapiens in biological, moral, and legal terms than Homo sapiens is from Panina today.
In the realm of biotechnology, it is particularly thought provoking to recall the prediction made in 1999 by Robert Edwards, the Nobel Prize-winning geneticist and pioneer of in vitro fertilization. He foresaw a future in which people would no longer worry about having children per se, but rather about the quality of those children—specifically, their genetic imperfections. According to Edwards, children born with disabilities or impairments would increasingly be seen as devalued, and their birth would come to be regarded as the personal responsibility—even the ‘fault’—of the parents. In his stark words, the future might view such cases in terms of ‘defective’ human beings.32 This issue carries considerable weight because it signals a societal shift: eugenics may now re-emerge not through state control or public authority, as the Nazis once did, but through individual—and eventually socially enforced—decision-making—and become increasingly socially accepted. Just as abortion became normalized in the developed world during the final third of the twentieth century, we may now be witnessing the ‘democratization’ or privatization of eugenics.33
‘Without Christianity, there are no human rights, nor any democracy’
On the left-liberal side, thinkers including John Rawls, in A Theory of Justice,34 have argued that the unequal distribution of natural talents is itself unjust. Thus, interventions to equalize life prospects for the disadvantaged may be morally justified. Similarly, Ronald Dworkin defends genetic interventions on the grounds of parental autonomy, supporting a parent’s right to choose enhancement for their children.35 In stark contrast stands Jürgen Habermas, one of the leading critical theorists of our time, who takes a firm stand against the genetic enhancement of human beings. In The Future of Human Nature, Habermas rejects even the prenatal application of genetic technologies.36 Habermas fundamentally rejects the enhancement of humans for two principal reasons: the violation of ethical freedom and the danger of creating asymmetrical relationships, highlighting the tension between science and religion.
The (New) World According to Fukuyama
According to Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History and the Last Man (1992), the protection of human nature is a fundamental element and safeguard of political order and the triumph of liberal democracy. In his view, the transhumanist project of ‘enhancing’ the human being is not just a speculative fantasy—it represents a serious threat to the future of liberal society. By attempting to redesign human nature, it risks restarting history rather than bringing it to its envisioned end. This is in part because the once clear connection between human rights and human nature is now being challenged: we increasingly encounter denials that human nature even exists, and arguments that our understanding of good and evil is entirely detached from any inherent essence. As Fukuyama writes in his other seminal work, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2003): ‘This is important, I will argue, because human nature exists, is a meaningful concept, and has provided a stable continuity to our experience as a species. It is, conjointly with religion, what defines our most basic values. Human nature shapes and constrains the possible kinds of political regimes, so a technology powerful enough to reshape what we are will have possibly malign consequences for liberal democracy and the nature of politics itself.’37
This is why—for Fukuyama and others—there appears to be only one viable solution: the strict regulation and oversight of biotechnologies. Despite its limitations, this vision has become central within the movement of bioconservatism, as noted by Pierre Bourgois.38 Fukuyama emphasizes that the strongest objections to genetic manipulation typically come from religious circles, since ‘Christian doctrine emphatically asserts that all human beings possess an equal dignity, regardless of their outward social status, and are therefore entitled to an equality of respect.’ He also acknowledges the limits of this line of reasoning: ‘While religion provides the most clear-cut grounds for opposing certain types of biotechnology, religious arguments will not be persuasive to many who do not accept religion’s starting premises. We thus need to examine other, more secular, types of arguments.’39 If—hypothetically—the entire human genome could be modified to accommodate the right to change one’s sex, then where should we draw the line? Could we eventually reach a point where beings that were not originally human might claim equal human dignity? His concern is not just theoretical. He invokes Nietzsche, observing: ‘Nietzsche had the great insight to see that, on the one hand, once the clear red line around the whole of humanity could no longer be drawn, the way would be paved for a return to a much more hierarchical ordering of society.’40 This could pave the way for a new aristocracy of birth: a society where genetically modified superiority is used to justify privilege, and where the very idea of equality is undermined in the name of a (modified) human nature.
Fukuyama thus concludes that transhumanism is the most dangerous idea in the world because, in his view, only the human being can—and indeed must—stand at the centre of society. According to Fukuyama, the developed world has given rise to a ‘strange’ new liberation movement, transhumanism, whose goal is to transcend the biological boundaries of the human species. What makes this so dangerous is not just its speculative ambition, but its potential to fundamentally undermine the principle of equality before the law. In the United States, the last two centuries of political struggle—from the Declaration of Independence with its claim that ‘all men are created equal’—have been shaped by ongoing battles over who counts as fully human, and whether race, gender, or sexual orientation should limit one’s recognition as a full human being and citizen. Fukuyama argues that the equality we have fought for rests on a shared belief in a human essence—a core of human dignity that is inherently valuable and forms the moral foundation of political liberalism. The project of transhumanism, however, aims to alter that very essence. He warns: ‘If we begin to remake humans into something superior, what rights will these enhanced beings demand? And what rights will remain for those left behind?’41 In this vision, transhumanism does not erase inequality—it creates new and potentially deeper inequalities.42
Nick Bostrom, in his article ‘In Defense of Posthuman Dignity’,43 directly challenges Fukuyama. He argues that transhumanism will not strip humanity of its right to respect, because—he claims—there is no empirical evidence that such dignity is endangered. However, Bostrom relies almost exclusively on Western liberal democracies as his examples. Yet the first legal step into posthumanism arguably occurred not in the West but in the Soviet Union, as we saw earlier, with its legalization of abortion in 1920. Moreover, critical posthumanism goes even further. It challenges not only the notion of a divine creator but removes the human from the centre of the natural and moral order, reimagining the world not as human-centric but as a network of relations between beings—human, nonhuman, artificial, and environmental. Thinkers like Yuval Noah Harari and Ray Kurzweil take this vision to its radical conclusion. For them, death itself is a ‘technical problem’ to be solved. The final goal of humanity, they argue, is to overcome death and take the next evolutionary step toward a new kind of existence.44 Kurzweil famously envisions a future in which the human brain—or at least the neocortex—will be connected to the ‘cloud’.45
In this context, states bear a heightened responsibility when it comes to the irresponsible, self-serving, or uncontrolled promises of genetic modification in the pursuit of the so-called ‘enhanced human’. At present, we simply do not know the full consequences of such modifications—not biologically, ethically, socially, or politically. Fukuyama argued in 2004 that any attempt to alter even a single key human trait will inevitably impact an entire interconnected ‘bundle of characteristics’—and we will never be able to fully foresee the ultimate outcome. This is why he advocates for an attitude modelled on the humility of environmental movements, which have taught us to respect the integrity of non-human nature.46 He suggests that a similar humility and restraint is urgently needed to protect human dignity as well.
According to Fukuyama, ‘Many assume that the posthuman world will look pretty much like our own—free, equal, prosperous, caring, compassionate—only with better health care, longer lives, and perhaps more intelligence than today. But the posthuman world could be one that is far more hierarchical and competitive than the one that currently exists, and full of social conflict as a result. It could be one in which any notion of ‘shared humanity’ is lost, because we have mixed human genes with those of so many other species that we no longer have a clear idea of what a human being is. It could be one in which the median person is living well into his or her second century, sitting in a nursing home, hoping for an unattainable death. Or it could be the kind of soft tyranny envisioned in [Aldous Huxley’s] Brave New World, in which everyone is healthy and happy but has forgotten the meaning of hope, fear, or struggle.’47
The foremost proponents of transhumanism—Bostrom, Harari, and even Kurzweil—are mistaken in believing that transhumanism can be constructed as a philosophy on humanist foundations. Transhumanism seeks to transcend the human condition not by deepening humanist values but by surpassing the traditional essence of humanism itself, namely, its foundation in reason and rationality. In doing so, it proposes a form of human transcendence that ultimately amounts to human annihilation. Humanism cannot relinquish its anthropocentric worldview, nor can it surrender the principle of human autonomy. For example, if the pursuit of eternal life leads to uploading the individual consciousness into a collective mind connected through artificial intelligence, this would not only dissolve the boundary between human and non-human, but also erase subjectivity itself. And once subjectivity is gone—no matter how long a once-human consciousness might persist in digital form in the cloud—we can no longer speak of a human being. This is the red line: the core of human dignity and the final boundary of what it means to be human. Within this boundary, a person remains a person. This is precisely what Hungary’s Constitutional Court ruling 64/1991 (XII. 17.) AB—concerning regulations on abortion—articulated when it stated:
‘The right to human dignity means that the individual possesses a core of autonomy and self-determination beyond the reach of all others, whereby according to the classical formulation, the human being remains a subject, not amenable to transformation into an instrument or object. This concept of the right to dignity distinguishes human beings from legal entities, having legal capacity, the latter being amenable to total regulation, lacking an untouchable essence. Dignity is a quality coterminous with human existence, a quality which is indivisible and cannot be limited, hence belonging equally to every human being.’48
In parallel with all of this—partly through the treatment and (re)habilitation of disabilities and injuries—an increasing number of scientific breakthroughs have occurred in recent times, through which even ‘healthy’ individuals can now be enhanced, and more troublingly, further developed, which may lead to the uncontrolled emergence of the ‘enhanced human’ within a foreseeable timeframe, raising numerous human rights dilemmas, as well as social policy and (bio)ethical questions. It is no coincidence that Harari writes in Homo Deus that over the past 300 years, ‘humanism—the worship of humankind—has conquered the world. Yet the rise of humanism also contains the seeds of its downfall.’49 Harari expands twentieth-century humanism, explaining that ‘it sprouted two very different offshoots: socialist humanism, which encompassed a plethora of socialist and communist movements, and evolutionary humanism, whose most famous advocates were the Nazis. Both offshoots agreed with liberalism that human experience is the ultimate source of meaning and authority. Neither believed in any transcendental power or divine law book.’50
As a first step, this must involve the correction of the iconic act of the post-human revolution in the area universally rejected by all religions and denominations: abortion. Revisiting the issue of abortion could be the means by which we restore both the equal dignity of all human beings and legal equality, together with their autonomy. This is because the ongoing technological revolution, along with scientific research and development, may offer a new future in this field—one that could overcome the current practical dilemma of abortion, which is presently obscured by legal reasoning.51 Humanity is already very close to creating an artificial womb, according to a report published in Nature in the summer of 2023, and experts believe that within a decade this could become part of everyday reality.52 Based on current technological progress, as I published in 2003, ‘I personally believe that the artificial womb, a technology still under development, will also modify the procedure of as well as the general attitude to abortion: instead of abortion, a medical operation will be provided in order to transfer the foetus to an artificial womb, and the unintended healthy babies will be offered for adoption to the growing number of infertile couples.’53
Thus, what is needed is a (new) form of humanism that takes into account technological advancement, the existing—undeniably European—legacy of humanism, including Judeo-Christian theological values, and also the rejection of eugenics (scientism), which led to the horrors representing the aberrant offshoots of twentieth-century humanism. This form of humanism could be termed (technological) orthodox humanism, or techno-orthodox humanism, which may offer a chance to return to the legacy of Erasmus of Rotterdam.
And how does all of this relate to Fukuyama’s vision of liberalism, which, in his view, must ultimately triumph at the end of history? It is very important to pause here for a moment: Fukuyama’s ‘Last Man’ is a man who thinks only of his own needs and comfort, who is no longer guided by any higher goals or values than his own, and especially not by the goals and values of his family, community, or even nation. As Fukuyama puts it, if this type of man becomes commonplace, it will truly bring about the end of history.54 As for Fukuyama’s view of liberalism as the ultimate and triumphant political establishment, it is worth first turning to a self-declared atheist philosopher to put Fukuyama’s ideas into a broader context. John Gray, professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, offers a sharp and revealing perspective: ‘[T]he triumph of Christianity was a rupture in Western civilisation. There is nothing at all self-evident about the equal intrinsic worth of all human beings or the inherent preciousness of individual persons. These values—which secular thinkers nowadays take for granted—were placed at the heart of the Western world by Christianity. […] In the final analysis, liberal humanism is a footnote to the Bible. […] Secular modernity is not the negation of Christendom but its continuation in another form. Bien-pensant atheists who bang on about how much more civilised we would be if only Christianity had not existed have not asked where their conception of civilisation came from. Nietzsche was closer to the truth. If you regret the rise of Christianity, you must regret the rise of liberalism, human rights and belief in progress as well.’55
One of the most remarkable developments of 2024—arguably the most remarkable in the fields of philosophy and intellectual history—was the public shift in stance by Richard Dawkins, the world-famous British ethologist and outspoken atheist who authored The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene. In April 2024, Dawkins declared in an interview with LBC that he now considers himself a ‘cultural Christian’, saying he prefers Christianity to Islam ‘every single time’. Although he made it clear in the same interview that he ‘doesn’t believe a single word’ of Christian doctrine,56 Dawkins—together with other prominent atheist thinkers like Steven Pinker—left the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) in late December 2024, protesting what they see as the increasingly political and anti-Christian direction of certain movements advocating for transgender rights.57
Dawkins may be only the first—albeit undeniably significant and influential—harbinger in the world of science and philosophy. The question now is: who else will follow, and can we change the world together? Has the moment arrived for (technological) orthodox humanism—a renewed moral and philosophical vision that embraces modern scientific progress while also returning to the foundational insights of the humanist tradition? If so, it might ultimately vindicate Fukuyama’s core conviction: that there is no more advanced or human-rights-protecting form of social organization than the liberal order grounded in classical humanism—a system whose roots and moral architecture ultimately trace back to Christianity. This means that even so-called liberal democracy cannot do without living values stemming from Christianity, as Fukuyama noted as early as 1992: ‘The modern liberal democratic state that came into being in the aftermath of the French Revolution was, simply, the realization of the Christian ideal of freedom and universal human equality in the here-and-now.’58 He goes on to argue that ‘if man is defined by his desire to struggle for recognition, and by his work in dominating nature, and if at the end of history he achieves both recognition of his humanity and material abundance, then “Man properly so-called” will cease to exist because he will have ceased to work and struggle.’59 Consequently, according to Fukuyama, within this context humans should eventually be relegated to the status of pets, like dogs bred by humans now.60
Finally, according to Joel Kotkin, we may not have much time left. In The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class, he writes: ‘Our future is coming to look like the “high-tech middle age” that the Japanese futurist Taichi Sakaiya predicted more than three decades ago.’61 It is possible that, despite Fukuyama’s warning, the twenty-first century may witness the final collapse of humanism, and with it the liberal social order rooted in European and Christian traditions, the very system that has most effectively guaranteed civil liberties. In doing so, it might ironically fulfil Fukuyama’s famous prophecy: that the end of history truly will coincide with the end of the liberal order. This is why, according to Kotkin, ‘resistance to neo-feudalism’ now depends on those individuals who possess private property that offers greater security, often including their own businesses, and who build communities centred around the needs of their families. In Kotkin’s view, ‘Regaining a sense of pride in Western culture and its achievements—while remaining open to newcomers and influences from elsewhere—is essential to recovering the ambition and self-confidence that drove the West’s ascent, from the Age of Exploration to the Space Age.’62
And this can only be imagined by returning to Christian and technologically based, orthodox humanism. And this is fully in accordance with what Fukuyama—though entirely misunderstood by others—pointed out in his first groundbreaking work: without Christianity, there are no human rights, nor any democracy. Therefore, Fukuyama’s ‘Last Man’ is not the triumph of human history at all, but quite the opposite: as he puts, that will indeed be the ‘End of History’ for humanity. So, will Fukuyama be proved right in terms of humanism and the fallible fate of the ‘Last Man’? He has always been right.
Translated by Thomas Sneddon
NOTES
1 László (Gábor) Lovászy, ‘Homo sapiens conrectus – íme, a fejlesztett ember!’ (Homo sapiens conrectus: Behold, the Developed Person!). In: Petra Aczél, János Csák, and Zoltán Oszkár Szántó, eds., Társadalmi Jövőképesség – Egy új tudományterület bemutatkozása (Social Futures: The Introduction of a New Field of Science) (Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem Társadalmi Jövőképesség Kutatóközpont, 2018), 490, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/187145556.pdf.
2 ‘Lehet, hogy át kell írni a történelemkönyveket: úgy néz ki, ugyanahhoz a fajhoz tartozhat a neandervölgyi ember és a homo sapiens’ (We May Need to Rewrite the History Books: It Appears that the Neanderthal and Homo sapiens Might Belong to the Same Species), HVG.hu (2024), https://hvg.hu/ tudomany/20240113_neandervolgyi_ember_homo_ sapiens_evolucio_tortenelem_asatas_genetika_ dns_oroklodes; Mónika Landy-Gyebnár, ‘Sosem volt még ennyi neandervölgyi gén a világon’ (There Have Never Been So Many Neanderthal Genes on the Planet), National Geographic (2022), https://ng.24. hu/tudomany/2022/09/24/sosem-volt-meg-ennyi- neandervolgyi-gen-a-vilagon/.
3 Mateja Hajdinjak et al., ‘Initial Upper Palaeolithic Humans in Europe Had Recent Neanderthal Ancestry’, Nature, 592 (7 April 2021), 253–257, www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03335-3.
4 Benjamin Taub, ‘Human and Chimp DNA Is 98.8 Percent Identical – So How Are We So Different?’, IFLScience (28 May 2024), www.iflscience.com/human-and-chimp-dna-is-988-percent-identical- so-how-are-we-so-different-74406.
5 Jun Wu et al., ‘Interspecies Chimerism with Mammalian Pluripotent Stem Cells’, Cell, 168/3 (26 January 2017), www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(16)31752-4.
6 Alice Park, ‘Scientists Report Creating the First Embryo with Human and Non-Human Primate Cells’, Time (15 April 2021), https://time.com/5954818/ first-human-monkey-chimera-embryo.
7 Thomas Foster, The Souls of Cyberfolk. Posthumanism as Vernacular Theory, (University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 1.
8 Mauro Guillén, 2030: How Today’s Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything, St. Martin’s Press, 2022, 156.
9 Lovászy, ‘Homo sapiens conrectus – íme, a fejlesztett ember!’, 502.
10 The countries of the East Central European region that newly joined the EU ratified the Oviedo Convention in the lead-up to accession, in order to demonstrate their commitment to human rights and democratic values. In contrast, countries such as the Benelux states, Germany, Sweden, and, among the major powers, Russia and the United Kingdom, have not done so. (The United States, as a non- member state, is also in principle eligible to ratify the convention, but so far it has likewise chosen not to take advantage of this opportunity.)
11 László Lovászy, ‘Rövid elmélkedés a modern abortusz-paradoxonról a magyar alkotmányozás fényében az állam életvédelmi kötelezettsége szempontjából’, (A Brief Reflection on the Modern Abortion Paradox in Light of the Hungarian Constitution from the Perspective of the State’s Obligation to Protect Life), Európai Jog, 5 (2010), 3–12, https://szakcikkadatbazis.hu/doc/6508476.
12 Azzurra Tafuro, ‘Sin, Crime, Law: A History of Abortion in Europe’, Encyclopédie d’histoire numérique de l’Europe, Sorbonne University (11 October 2021), https://ehne.fr/en/node/21497.
13 US Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/113/, accessed 29 March 2025.
14 Mariama Darame, ‘France, First to Protect Abortion in Constitution, Sends Message to “Women of the World”’, Le Monde (5 March 2024), www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/03/05/france-protecting-abortion-in-its-constitution-sends- message-to-women-of-the-world_6586538_5.html.
15 ‘Prohibition of Discrimination: (1) All discrimination is prohibited, in particular discrimination based on sex, race, color, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age, or sexual orientation.’
16 David Eagleman, ‘Can We Create New Senses for Humans?’, Ted.com (March 2015), www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_senses_ for_humans.
17 Katalin Szoboszlai-Kiss, ‘Law and Morality’, Jog – Állam – Politika, 3 (2017), 169–172, https://szakcikkadatbazis.hu/doc/1430336.
18 Katalin Szoboszlai-Kiss, and Gábor Andrási, ‘The Best of Two Worlds: Multidisciplinary Co-Teaching of Legal Ethics’, Hungarian Journal of Legal Studies, 64/2 (2023), 310.
19 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Application no. 10843/84, https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/ ukr#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-57641%22]}.
20 ECHR Application no. 21830. https://hudoc.echr. coe.int/fre#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-58032%22]}.
21 ECHR Application no. 28957/95. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press#{%22item id%22:[%22003-585597-589247%22]}.
22 ECHR Application no. 53568/18 and 54741/18. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/ eng#{%22itemid%22:[%22002-14047%22]}.
23 ECHR Application no. 53568/18 and 54741/18.
24 László Lovászy, ‘Transzmozgalom és bírói aktivizmus (The Trans Movement and Judicial Activism), Magyar Nemzet (2020), https://magyarnemzet.hu/velemeny/2020/09/ transzmozgalom-es-biroi-aktivizmus.
25 Antonio Regalado, ‘The Scientist Who Co-Created CRISPR Isn’t Ruling out Engineered Babies Someday’, MIT Technology Review (26 April 2022), www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/26/1048917/crispr-gene-editing-scientist/.
26 László Lovászy, ‘Svédcsavarok az emberi jogoknál?’ (Swedish Twists in Human Rights?), Szociálpolitikai Szemle, 2/4–5 (2016), 19–21, https://szemlearchivum. szociologia.hu/szamok_2011_tol.
27 Lovászy, ‘Homo sapiens conrectus – íme, a fejlesztett ember!’, 494.
28 László Lovászy, and Máté Gerzson Szalay, ‘Genetikailag háromszülős gyermekektől az eugenika polgári jogiasításáig’ (From Genetically Three-Parent Children to the Civil Legalization of Eugenics), Európai Jog, 5 (2015), https://szakcikkadatbazis.hu/doc/7763551.
29 László Lovászy, ‘A bioetika útvesztői’ (The Labyrinths of Bioethics), Mandiner, 1/7 (22 October 2019), 42–44, https://mandiner.hu/ belfold/2019/10/a-bioetika-utvesztoi.
30 Márk Horváth, Ádám Lovász, and Z. Márió Nemes, A poszthumanizmus változatai – Ember, embertelen és ember utáni (Variants of Posthumanism – Human, Inhuman and Posthuman) (Prae Kiadó, 2019), 99–106.
31 László Lovászy, ‘A jövő kihívásai, új jogi, jogfilozófiai problémákról és a “demográfforradalmárok” feladatairól, avagy több joga van-e egy csimpánznak, mint egy sclerosis multiplexes embernek?’ (The Challenges of the Future, New Legal and Philosophical Problems and the Tasks of “Demographic Revolutionaries”, or Does a Chimpanzee Have More Rights than a Person with Multiple Sclerosis?), Európai Jog, 9/3 (2009), 42–45, https:// szakcikkadatbazis.hu/doc/7792584.
32 Osagie K. Obasogie, ‘Commentary: The Eugenics Legacy of the Nobelist Who Fathered IVF’, Scientific American (4 October 2013), www.scientificamerican. com/article/eugenic-legacy-nobel-ivf/.
33 Lovászy and Szalay, ‘Genetikailag háromszülős gyermekektől az eugenika polgári jogiasításáig’.
34 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition (Harvard University Press, 1999), 87.
35 Ronald M. Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Harvard University Press, 2000), 452.
36 Jurgen Habermas, The Future of Human Nature, trans. William Rehg, Max Pensky, and Hella Beister (Polity Press, 2003), 20.
37 Francis Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 7.
38 Pierre Bourgois, ‘A Political Criticism of Transhumanism: The Bioconservatism of Francis Fukuyama’, Raisons politiques, 74/2 (2019), 119–132, https://shs.cairn.info/journal-raisons-politiques- 2019-2-page-119?lang=en.
39 Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future, 89, 91.
40 Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future, 155.
41 Fukuyama, ‘Transhumanism’, Foreign Policy, 144 (September–October 2004), 42–43, https://doi.org/10.2307/4152980.
42 Fukuyama, ‘Transhumanism’.
43 Nick Bostrom, ‘In Defense of Posthuman Dignity’, Bioethics, 19/3 (1 June 2005), 202–214, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2005.00437.x.
44 Yuval Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Harper Perennial, 2018), 28, 30.
45 Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (The Bodley Head, 2006), 69–73.
46 Fukuyama, ‘Transhumanism’.
47 Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future, 218.
48 Decision 64/1991. (XII. 17) AB, published in the Hungarian Gazette, 139 (1991), www.globalhealthrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ Decision-64_1991.-XII.17-AB.pdf.
49 Harari, Homo Deus, 64.
50 Harari, Homo Deus, 215–216.
51 László Lovászy, ‘Abortusz-paradoxon a jog halójában – mit hozhat a technológiai fejlődés? (The Abortion Paradox in the Legal Network: What Can Technological Progress Bring?), Mandiner (12 September 2018), https://mandiner.hu/kulfold/2018/09/abortusz-paradoxon-a-jog-halojaban-mit-hozhat-a-technologiai-fejlodes.
52 Max Kozlov, ‘Human Trials of Artificial Wombs Could Start Soon. Here’s What You Need to Know’, Nature (14 September 2023), www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02901-1.
53 László Lovászy, ‘Is Abortion Indeed a Human Right?’, Hungarian Conservative, 1/4 (19 January 2022), 54–61, www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/culture_society/is-abortion-indeed-a-human-right/.
54 ‘The typical citizen of a liberal democracy was a “last man” who, schooled by the founders of modern liberalism, gave up prideful belief in his or her own superior worth in favor of comfortable self-preservation. Liberal democracy produced “men without chests”, composed of desire and reason but lacking thymos, clever at finding new ways to satisfy a host of petty wants through the calculation of long- term self-interest. The last man had no desire to be recognized as greater than others, and without such desire no excellence or achievement was possible. Content with his happiness and unable to feel any sense of shame for being unable to rise above those wants, the last man ceased to be human.’ Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (Penguin, 1992), xxii.
55 John Gray, ‘Why the Liberal West Is a Christian Creation’, The New Statesman (18 September 2019), www.newstatesman.com/culture/2019/09/why-the-liberal-west-is-a-christian-creation.
56 ‘LBC News, Interview with Richard Dawkins, 31 March 2024’, YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=COHgEFUFWyg, accessed 29 March 2025.
57 Cameron Henderson, ‘Richard Dawkins Quits Atheism Foundation for Backing Transgender “Religion”’, The Telegraph (30 December 2024), www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/30/richard-dawkins-quits-atheism-foundation-over-trans-rights/.
58 Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, 199.
59 Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, 310.
60 Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, 311.
61 Joel Kotkin, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class (Encounter Books, 2023), 47.
62 Kotkin, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, 226.
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