The Critique of Transhumanism in Magnifica Humanitas

“To think that new technologies will automatically benefit everyone is to ignore the evidence. […] We must lay aside an individualistic and technical view of humanity, as if reality were mere matter to be shaped according to selfish interests, whether individual or collective.”

Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (MH 161, 237)

Introduction

On May 25th 2026 Pope Leo XIV gave his first encyclical: Magnifica Humanitas. The main concern of that encyclical is to establish position of the Catholic Church in relation to changes that happen in the modern world. In this essay I will try to focus specifically on one of the themes that can be seen within that work: critique of transhumanism. I will try to strengthen the arguments made by the Pope and give them philosophical context. I will do so on purely secular ground.

Of course, this essay will not show the only possible form of interpreting the arguments from Magnifica Humanitas; the arguments used here are rather subjective and may diverge from the original intent of the Pope. Therefore, I advise any reader to also read Magnifica Humanitas, given that they want to grasp the exact reasoning of Leo XIV.

I. Should effectivity be the goal of human conduct?

Before exploring more popular ideas of transhumanism it is worth to start from the fundamentals. The question that has to be asked is “What should be the goal of human conduct?”

When it comes to transhumanism we can mostly gather that the answer to that question is happiness. This is somewhat of a paradigm in this topic and most non-transhumanist philosophers would agree with this answer. Even classical philosophers like Aristotle would agree with this answer. However, the notion of happiness in transhumanistic understanding differs from what other schools of thought would propose. Transhumanists mostly propose that eudaimonia is achieved not by virtue or by following the rule of carpe diem, but by productivity instead.

The transhumanist understanding could be summarized with a simple principle: “Man was not meant to be farmed; man was meant to be useful, to be productive, to be proud.” ^[1] In such worldview humans are somewhat destined to be productive and it is goal of their existence. Thus humans are valued based on how efficient they are and their worth is proportional to their efficiency. This creates “a society in which the value of the subject is measured in terms of performance, productivity, and efficiency.” ^[2] Every human is viewed in an instrumental way, as something which can be utilized. This leads to looking at human life as an interval of time which ought to be, as much as possible and even beyond the barrier of possibility, filled with work. For example, transhumanist Zoltan Istvan understands sleep as a problem solely due to the fact that it wastes time, time which could be spent by working and being productive. He has “a purely instrumental understanding of human life, because for Istvan, sleep prevents him from working more […] which, in his opinion, is a serious problem.” ^[3]

The proponents of this assertion would defend it by appealing to the fact that due to the increase in productivity, well-being of humans also increased. As Marc Andreessen puts it: “We believe markets also increase societal well being by generating work in which people can productively engage.” ^[4] Productivity is thus viewed as the remedy to most of the problems which humans may have, it becomes the perfect road to achieving ultimate happiness. To continue with Andreessen here: “Productivity growth causes prices to fall, supply to rise, and demand to expand, improving the material well being of the entire population. We believe this is the story of the material development of our civilization; this is why we are not still living in mud huts, eking out a meager survival and waiting for nature to kill us.” ^[5]

Of course, Leo XIV is heavily against such approach: “I consider particularly insidious the one that suggests that every person must earn or justify his or her own worth, to the point of attributing greater value to those who are more efficient or effective. From this perspective, persons end up being reduced to a means of achieving results, a resource to be used and exploited, and are no longer recognized as a proper end in themselves who should never be instrumentalized. The value of persons, however, does not depend on what they achieve or produce. There are rights that apply to everyone simply by virtue of being human, and no human power can legitimately deny or arbitrarily limit them.” ^[6] In his view it is not justifiable to look at humans through the lens of productivity. A person who is looked down on and feels inferior is not a happy person, even if they experience abundance. There is no way to achieve happiness if humans are not seen as inherently equal. Isothymia is the ultimate requirement of human happiness. Thus, setting efficiency as the purpose of human life wouldn’t make humans actually achieve goal of their lives (eudaimonia). It’s also true that it is not possible to guarantee well-being for humans if the goal is not their well-being, but productivity instead. In this way, the goal may be overshadowed by the means. If the focus is drawn to producing more and more, then it is pretty easy to forget about the actual reason for increasing effectiveness and creating abundance.

This sentiment is highly supported in modern philosophy. Great example of that support is the critique of society proposed by Byung-Chul Han. He notes that “today, we compete with each other to increase productivity. The neoliberal regime […] expresses itself as a permanent call for greater productivity.” ^[7] According to him focus on productivity leads to self-exploitation and self-exploitation leads to all kinds of dangerous conditions (e.g. depression, burnout). This supports the conclusion that mere productivity is not the road to happiness and cannot be such.

II. How should humans progress?

So far I’ve explored the fundamental question of human purpose. Now I should focus on the process of achieving that goal: progress.

In the transhumanist view the main motor of progress is, obviously, technology. It is not surprising that “the transhumanist literature is awash with views of a kind of technology-driven progress, one ‘ultimately leading to a posthuman future populated by superintelligent AI systems and biotechnological hybrids.’” ^[8] How such technological progress should look like is not a question with consistent answer among all transhumanists. However, the opinion which is shared by the most influential transhumanists is that money and free market should be the driving factors in the development of technology. Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI) said that in the future intelligence may become utility, like electricity or water, which people would buy on a meter. ^[9] Similar approach can be seen by an already aforementioned Marc Andreessen: “people only do things for other people for three reasons – love, money, or force. Love doesn’t scale, so the economy can only run on money or force. The force experiment has been run and found wanting. Let’s stick with money.” ^[10] This position is also held by Dario Amodei (CEO of Anthropic): “The basic development of AI technology […] seems inevitable (unless the risks derail everything) and is fundamentally driven by powerful market forces.” ^[11]

The idea that technology ought to be the absolute force of progress is, of course, denied by Pope Leo XIV. He does recognize the role of technology in improving human condition and doesn’t condemn technological advancement altogether. However, he is largely skeptical of the belief that technology should be the absolute objective of development. In his view technology is not superior since it is only a tool and as such needs extra guiding to become beneficial for humanity. “When it [technology] becomes the standard by which everything is judged, it begins to dictate what matters and what can be discarded, reducing creation to an object of exploitation and human beings to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency. […] For this reason, technological progress — valuable in itself — requires careful discernment of the anthropological vision that guides it and the ends it pursues. If technological development advances without a corresponding ethical and social progress, the result may be an increase in means without a growth in humanity: ‘having more’ without ‘being more.’” ^[12] According to Leo XIV, technological progress which does not include ethical and societal progress is destined to end in instrumentalization of humans. His argument is that technology is only a part of human existence and thus humans cannot progress through technology alone. Sole technological advancement is found lacking.

Further criticism is targeted at the economical aspect of transhumanist outlook on progress. Contrary to the hope that many influential transhumanists place in capitalism, Pope Leo XIV notices that free market isn’t reliable when it comes to modern progress: “More than ever, in the age of AI and robotics, it is no longer possible to rely solely on the ‘invisible hand’ of the market.” ^[13] While money can pretty successfully enhance development of technology, it cannot stimulate progress of human well-being. Contrary to popular belief money does not guarantee happiness: “Development is truly human when it places people at the center instead of the accumulation of wealth, and when it concerns peoples as well as individuals.” ^[14] Furthermore, such progress may bring even more inequality into the world: “Development is not truly human if it increases consumption for some while shifting costs and burdens onto others, or relegates entire regions to subordinate roles, preventing them from realizing their full potential.” ^[15] As was pointed out before, a person that feels inferior will inherently be unhappy about their condition. Additionally, humans cannot be reduced to merely economic sphere so any progress which does not account for other aspects of human life cannot be inherently positive, beneficial and it cannot induce guaranteed happiness: “Development is integral when it is not limited to the economic sphere, but promotes quality of life in its spiritual, cultural, moral and relational dimensions, while respecting our common home, the diversity of peoples and their ways of life.” ^[16]

Aspect that is often missed by transhumanists is the relation between freedom and technology. Many of them assume that technology necessarily implies more freedom due to the fact that technology enables us to escape the constraints that nature places upon us. But it is not a self-evident truth. Furthermore, it may even be demonstrably false. Perhaps the most popular critique of that assumption belongs to Ted Kaczyński who in his manifesto placed technology as a force contradictory to freedom: “It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises.” ^[17] Less radical but still negative correlation is noted by Herbert Marcuse: “Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves. Free choice among a wide variety of goods and services does not signify freedom if these goods and services sustain social controls over a life of toil and fear that is, if they sustain alienation.” ^[18] Pope Leo XIV of course also sees the possibility that technology may not increase freedom but diminish it. He calls for active fight against anything which may support such slavery: “we are called to cooperate in the work of creation, rather than be disinterested observers of technological processes that limit our freedom and responsibility.” ^[19]

III. Should humans enhance themselves?

Now, finally, the final question that transhumanism sets out to answer can be asked: Should humans enhance themselves?

Transhumanist answer is, of course, radically positive. After all, the main point of transhumanism is the enhancement of humanity and going beyond the limits that “being human” may place. The ways in which humanity could be upgraded and which transhumanists are considering are: “radical extension of human health-span, eradication of disease, elimination of unnecessary suffering, and augmentation of human intellectual, physical, and emotional capacities.” ^[20] They also include “space colonization and the possibility of creating superintelligent machines, along with other potential developments that could profoundly alter the human condition.” ^[21] Generally, those desires could be boiled down to three categories: immortality, eliminating suffering, and increasing human capabilities.

The most striking example of a transhumanist chasing immortality is probably the case of Bryan Johnson. He tries, with every method available, fight the process of aging. His persona in the internet garners much attention, people online seem to be genuinely interested by his efforts. Another example of this yearning could be the existence of Alcor Life Extension Foundation, organization that mostly focuses, as its name suggests, on extending life. They freeze people who are pronounced dead and keep them in that state until medicine finds how to cure them.

There has been much success when it comes to eliminating suffering. In the last 300 years medicine developed profound ways of elevating pain and curing disease. The amount of pain that humans experience nowadays is a lot smaller than the one they did a few centuries ago. Yet, there is a lot suffering right now, especially in the underprivileged parts of the world. That’s why many of the transhumanists are focused to take this recent improvement to its radical end and do away with suffering altogether. For example: “Utilitarian transhumanist philosopher David Pearce notes in his book The Hedonistic Imperative (1995) that his main objective is to defend the ‘moral urgency’ of ‘the abolitionist project’, ‘a project devoted to eradicating suffering ‘in all sentient life’ and ushering in a future of ‘sublime and all-pervasive’ happiness or what Pearce refers to as a ‘heaven’ or ‘paradise on earth’’ (Huberman 2021, 71).” ^[22]

Many things which would be unthinkable in the past are rapidly becoming reality in modern times. For example, going to the moon was beyond comprehension for an average person even a few centuries ago but humanity managed to do it over 5 decades ago. We also managed to do unthinkable in areas like neurobiology or computer science. Transhumanists try to push those disciplines even further. Elon Musk is investing billions in conquering Mars, developing Neuralink or improving Grok. Recently Neuralink successfully implanted the first brain-computer interface. Others do not fall behind, people like Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates are continuously investing in companies which try to produce similar devices.

So far those transhumanist goals sound a bit too optimistic but at the same time pretty desirable. However, such aims still undergo a lot of criticism both from the Pope and non-transhumanist thinkers.

Immortality seems like something that everyone would want. Yet, the case is not that simple. As we established before, majority of thinkers, and people in general, view happiness as the ultimate goal of their actions. But does immortality guarantee happiness? There is a group of people that would say no. For example, Saint Ambrose of Milan taught that death was given by God as a good remedy to prevent Adam from eternal misery: “But that which is natural is not also penal, for the Lord did not inflict death as a penalty, but as a remedy. […] Death is given for a remedy, because it is the end of evils. […] So, then, death is not only not an evil, but is even a good thing. […] We see, then, that this death is a gain and life a penalty.” ^[23]

Furthermore, while chasing immortality one may lose the happiness in the current moment. This is especially demonstrated by the aforementioned example of Bryan Johnson. A lot of people point out that his life, although possibly really long, seems rather undesirable. Maybe he will go onto live many years but those years will mostly consist of trying to beat biology of his own body, not really living. Constant focus on the future easily leads to lack of enjoyment in the present and thus often unhappiness. As Blaise Pascal noted: “We never stay in the present. We look ahead to the slowly approaching future, as though wanting to speed it up […] We’re so imprudent that we wander around in times that are not ours, giving no thought to the only one that does belong to us; and so empty-headed that we dream of times that don’t now exist and allow the only time that does exist to slip away unexamined. […] Thus, we never live; we only hope to live; and because we are always preparing to be happy, there’s no chance of our ever actually being so.” ^[24] This is consistent with what Pope Leo XIV says: “building for the common good means accepting the limits and weakness of humanity without considering them an error to be corrected.” ^[25]

Ending all suffering is a goal that strikes as even more commonsensically and obviously good than immortality. Still, it is not a vision entirely devoid of critique. We often think of any pain as inherently evil, yet sometimes suffering may bring about some greater good, good which couldn’t have been brought by other means. Experiencing discomfort may motivate humans more than other means, thus leading to better results. It is also often a condition for many desirable things. As the Pope says: “To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well.” ^[26] Here the necessity of suffering for the existence of hope is also something noteworthy. As Byung-Chul Han observes: “The star of hope is adjacent to the non-star (Latin: des-astrum) of catastrophe. Without the negativity of catastrophe and resistance despite it, there is only the banality of optimism.” ^[27]

Another example of a value which could be lost with achieving absolute lack of suffering is the very idea of human dignity. As Pope Leo XIV writes: “Finitude, when truly accepted, does not diminish us but opens us to recognizing the face of God and others. Indeed, precisely because we experience limits — vulnerability, suffering and failure — we can recognize the inviolable dignity of every person, both our own and that of others.” ^[28] It is doubtful whether transformed humans would respect other humans. Lack of finitude can easily evolve into having a sense of being limitless, limitless to the point of destroying the limits that stem from human dignity.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight suffering at all. Rather, we should do it carefully enough to not destroy things such as love, desire, hope or human dignity. If we keep that rule in mind then the lack of suffering is worth the fight for it. Leo XIV put it into such rule: “We can embrace the technological progress that alleviates suffering and unlocks new possibilities, provided that we do not abandon the very essence of our humanity, namely the capacity for relationship and love.” ^[29]

As the two previous ways of enhancing humanity, the third also seems initially appealing. After all, it seems obviously desirable to use technology and science in order to go beyond our own limits. Yet, it also brings some negative consequences. Namely, if we modify ourselves we can stop being human, as the Pope says: “To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human.” ^[30] Of course, this is the ultimate goal for some transhumanists. They would agree it is no longer human but that not being human may, in some circumstances, be a positive thing.

On the contrary, it is doubtful whether anyone can reach true happiness while being no longer human. But even if they may, it still leads to stepping into a realm which is yet undiscovered and thus potentially lethal. If we were to depend on technology too much then there is a possibility that the technology will cause our downfall, for example, due to unexpected malfunction which could lead to destruction of fragile, since dependent on technology, human race. We already experience that angst with the nuclear weapons. However, as the Pope notes, we are getting less aware of that risk: “In the past, recognition of the threat posed by weapons capable of destroying all of humanity had promoted paths toward détente and disarmament negotiations. Unfortunately, this approach has been left behind, and the evolution of nuclear arsenals — including the prospect of its ‘tactical’ use — makes the use of such weapons seem less improbable.” ^[31] Many more even more dangerous technologies may appear as the blind progress of transhumanist ambition to go beyond what’s human continues. Whatever comes after human beings will no longer be natural and thus the consequences may go beyond any consequences we would suffer naturally. After all, when one is dealing with something unknown then the consequences are also unknown and thus possibly radically negative.

A different critique of this desire for enhancement is offered by Martin Heidegger. As Qikai Zhang describes: “He argued that the essence of modern technology is not ‘instrumentality’ but ‘Gestell.’ The term ‘Gestell’ refers to the ‘challenging stance’ adopted by modern technology, which no longer functions in the traditional sense of ‘use’ or ‘assistance,’ but instead forces nature and beings into a state of optimization, mobilization, and storage. In this process, the earth becomes a ‘resource,’ and humans are transformed into ‘mobilized reserve energy.’ ‘Gestell is not merely humanity’s demand on the world; it is the historical unveiling of the mode of being’ (Huang, 2022). Under the dominance of the framework, the world no longer presents itself as ‘thingness’ but as ‘resourcefulness.’ For example, a tree is no longer a living entity in its own right but ‘usable timber’” ^[32]

This critique is somewhat similar to the argumentation against instrumentalization of humanity that was offered already in previous chapters. Yet, it introduces a new aspect. The thing instrumentalized is not only the human being but the whole world. If someone sets as their objective becoming something more than human then objects around them will no longer be actually valuable things but resources necessary for achieving progress instead. In this they lose both the sense of themselves and of the things around them. Technology which was meant to aid humanity and the whole universe would now need humanity and the whole universe to aid itself. As Pope Leo XIV writes: “In that [anti-human] vision, the fullness of life is equated with having more, reducing weakness, eliminating uncertainty and exerting total control. When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion.” ^[33]

Conclusion

In this essay I tried to prove that Magnifica Humanitas presents extensive critique of transhumanism. I showed that the Pope argues against equating happiness with productivity and that he views technological development as only one of many elements that true development needs, given that it wants to make humanity actually better. The desire for immortality, lack of suffering, and increasing human capabilities are also presented as falsely utopian ideas that may not turn out so great as they initially seem, at least according to Leo XIV. I attempted to show possible argumentation behind those points and add additional philosophical context so that the ideas presented by the Pope may seem well-grounded even from solely secular perspective.