Humans as no more than sophisticated animals.

For Fukuyama, humans as a species possess an inner essence or nature, which he defines as 'the sum total of the behaviour and characteristics that are typical of the human species, arising from genetic rather than environmental factors.' From this perspective, humans seem little more than sophisticated animals. 'Many of the attributes that were once held to be unique to human beings - including language, culture, reason, consciousness, and the like - are', Fukuyama believes, 'characteristic of a wide variety of nonhuman animals'

'If the artificial is not better than that natural', John Stuart Mill once asked, 'to what end are all the arts of life?' 'It's unnatural' has always been the cry of those who seek to obstruct progress and restrain 'the arts of life'. It's an argument no more valid in response to biotechnology than it was in response to vaccination, heart transplants or IVF treatment. The 'duty of man', as Mill put it, 'is the same in respect to his own nature as in respect to the nature of other things, namely not to follow but to amend it.'