Steve Clarke, Julian Savulescu, Tony Coady, Alberto Giubilini, and Sagar Sanyal: the Ethics of Human Enhancement: Understanding the Debate: Oxford University Press, 2016. Hardcover (IBSN: 0191816353, 9,780,191,816,352) €64,32. 320 pp. (original) (raw)
Related papers
What is morally salient about enhancement technologies?
Journal of Medical Ethics, 2011
The human enhancement debate typically centres on moral issues regarding changes in human nature, not on the means for these changes. We argue that one cannot grasp what is morally salient about human enhancement without understanding how technologies affect human action and practical reasoning. We present a minimalist conception of human agents as bounded practical reasoners. Then, we categorise different effects of technologies on our possibilities for action and our evaluation of these possibilities. For each, we discuss whether enhancement technologies have morally salient effects; which technologies show these effects; and whether these differ significantly from those of other, non-enhancement technologies. We conclude that enhancement technologies are morally salient in several respects, that not all enhancement technologies share all those morally salient respects, and that continuities with traditional technologies may be found in all morally salient respects.
Human Enhancement: A Philosophical Defense of Limits?
Global Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities, 2022
The biotechnological advances obtained in the last decades have configurated a particular scenario about the limits of what we can do with ourselves, especially by revealing that the human enhancement debate still is epistemologically confused and ethically naive. As we intend to discuss, that happens for two reasons: the first one is associated with the moral evaluation of enhancement concepts, in other words, whether or not we would be entitled to promote substantial changes that jeopardize the conservation of our own way of life; the second reason, intrinsically attached to the first one, is to neglect the evolutionary history of human beings and to claim, therefore, that human enhancement should be carefully evaluated because we would not be able to foresee the possible disastrous risks in our future. It is right into these arguments that the debate between bioconservatives and transhumanists becomes epistemologically confused and ethically weak.
The ethics of human enhancement
Philosophy Compass, 2014
Ethical debate surrounding human enhancement, especially by biotechnological means, has burgeoned since the turn of the century. Issues discussed include whether specific types of enhancement are permissible or even obligatory, whether they are likely to produce a net good for individuals and for society, and whether there is something intrinsically wrong in playing God with human nature.We characterize the main camps on the issue, identifying three main positions: permissive, restrictive and conservative positions. We present the major sub-debates and lines of argument from each camp. The review also gives a flavor of the general approach of key writers in the literature such as Julian Savulescu, Nick Bostrom, Michael Sandel, and Leon Kass.
Human Enhancement: Making the Debate More Productive
Erkenntnis, 2013
Human enhancement-the attempt to overcome all human cognitive, emotional, and physical limitations using current technological developments-has been said to pose the most fundamental social and political question facing the world in the twenty-first century. Yet, the public remains ill prepared to deal with it. Indeed, controversy continues to swirl around human enhancement even among the very best-informed experts in the most relevant fields, with no end in sight. Why the ongoing stalemate in the discussion? I attempt to explain the central features of the human enhancement debate and the empirical and normative shortcomings that help to keep it going. I argue that philosophers of science are especially well equipped to rectify these shortcomings, and I suggest that we may be deeply remiss if we don't do so. Section 1: "The Most Important Controversy in Science and Society" of the Twenty-First Century Human enhancement-the attempt to improve human cognitive, emotional, and physical capacities, especially through technological means-has been part of the human condition right from the beginning.
Against Unrestricted Human Enhancement
2008
Abstract The defining debate in this new century will be about technology and human enhancement, according to many across the political spectrum. Our ability to use science to enhance our bodies and minds���as opposed to its application for therapeutic purposes���is one of the most personal and therefore passionate issues in an era where emerging technologies seduce us with new and fantastic possibilities for our future. But in the process, we are forced to rethink what it means to be human or, essentially, our own identity.
Whatever we speak about enhancement as the, just, one array of the wide range of the bioethical fields, or as the kind of ideological and theoretical field, it is necessary to emphasize relevant ideological and theoretical distinctions between different approaches. Trying to give some fundamental shape to debate among them, as well within themselves, I specified three possible streams with more or less arbitrary boundaries. First one is transhumanistic stream, whose representatives openly promote the practice of genetic, prosthetic and cognitive enhancement of human kind -transition from human to a post human society; bioconservative, whose representatives perceive a threat in the violation of human dignity, meddling in "God's business" (playing God), and in changes to the nature of human beings; representatives of the "middle standpoint" consider that danger lies within the dialectic relation of "capitalism and medicine." I present the tree ideological standpoints trying to building consistency through different ethical arguments. Discussing the relevant theoretical/ideological distinction between standpoints and their claims, I will argue that ideological distinction among standpoints is less relevant than contingency within their arguments. Such mutual contingence creates some similarity regarding epistemological and social issues.
On the (Non-)Rationality of Human Enhancement and Transhumanism
Science and Engineering Ethics, 2022
The human enhancement debate has over the last few decades been concerned with ethical issues in methods for improving the physical, cognitive, or emotive states of individual people, and of the human species as a whole. Arguments in favour of enhancement defend it as a paradigm of rationality, presenting it as a clear-eyed, logical defence of what we stand to gain from transcending the typical limits of our species. If these arguments are correct, it appears that adults should in principle be able to make rational and informed decisions about enhancing themselves. In this paper, however, we suggest that a rational and informed choice to enhance oneself may in some cases be impossible. Drawing on L. A. Paul's work on 'transformative experience', we argue that some enhancementssuch as certain moral or cognitive modificationsmay give rise to unbridgeable epistemic gaps in key domains. Importantly, such gaps could prove to be not merely contingently unbridgeable due to a lack of information at a given moment, but radically unbridgeable, making someone in a non-enhanced state inherently unable to conceive of what it would be like to be enhanced in a particular way. Where this experience is key to understanding what values are being pursued by the enhancement itself, it may prove impossible for a person to be sufficiently informed, and to make a rational decision about whether or not to enhance herself. This poses a challenge for human enhancement proponents in general, and for transhumanists in particular.
Visions and Ethics in Current Discourse on Human Enhancement
NanoEthics, 2012
Since it is now broadly acknowledged that ethics should receive early consideration in discourse on emerging technologies, ethical debates tend to flourish even while new fields of technology are still in their infancy. Such debates often liberally mix existing applications with technologies in the pipeline and far-reaching visions. This paper analyses the problems associated with this use of ethics as "preparatory" research, taking discourse on human enhancement in general and on pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement in particular as an example. The paper will outline and discuss the gap between the scientific and technological state of the art and the ethical debates, pointing out epistemic problems in this context. Furthermore, it will discuss the future role of genuine ethical reflection in discourse on human enhancement, arguing also that such discourse needs to include a technology assessment-in the broad sense of the term-which encompasses, inter alia, anthropological perspectives and aspects of social theory.
HUMAN ENHANCEMENT AND THE QUESTION OF HUMAN BEINGS
This article deals with the understanding of human beings in the project of human enhancement. It shows that, in the voices of some representatives of the latter, there is a naturalistic tendency to reduce human beings either to their environment or to virtual reality. In such cases, the resulting entity would lack interiority as well as the first-person perspective. In this paper, it is argued that the possibilities opened up by biomedical sciences cannot release us from employing a multi-dimensional and integral concept of human beings wherein interiority plays an important role. The human enhancement project is not only a matter of technical feasibility; it also fundamentally concerns the essence of humanness. Hence the question of the nature of human beings and their condition is an indispensable part of this enterprise. Keywords: Human enhancement – Human beings – Environment – First person perspective Introduction. In contemporary philosophy, discussions on human enhancement are well advanced. There is a huge body of literature on the topic with new subfields emerging. This debate is in tune with the constant longing of the human beings to improve their lives and wellbeing. Apart from appropriate personal efforts it has found expression in various educational and political programs and undertakings. Contemporary efforts to enhance the human being have the advantage of drawing on the latest discoveries in genetics , genetic engineering, pharmacology and even information technology. Although still at the beginning of their practical implementations and uncertain of how viable they are, relevant discussions between philosophers and futurologists are, by contrast, quite complex and nuanced. There are many aspects of these discussions which are worthy of examining. This paper however concentrates on one issue only, namely who or what is the subject of those enhancing procedures. In other words, what is the understanding of the essence of the human being which is the subject of improvement. This issue is complex and can be approached from many angles. In this paper, the attention is limited to current discussions between different representatives and adherents of human enhancement, and by default their implied understanding of the human being. Finally a critical assessment is offered together with postulates for further discussion. However, at the outset some light should be shed on why such discussions take place at all and how they can be structured in a relatively straightforward way.
Straining their brains: why the case against enhancement is not persuasive
Cerebrum : the Dana forum on brain science, 2004
Your kid’s schoolwork not up to par? Looking for Mr. or Ms. Right? Any other problems caused by a mind’s eye seemingly not quite on the ball? Answers might lie in a brain-enhancing pill. Some argue this is merely better living through chemistry and in line with humanity’s self-improving actions throughout history, but others suggest that quick-fix medications could well distort the very things that make us human. Here a leading bioethicist squares off with a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics on the controversy about pursuing better brains with a little help from biotechnology. Comments © 2004. Permission from Dana Press. Reprinted from Cerebrum, Volume 6, Issue 4, Fall 2004, pages 13-29. Publisher URL: http://www.dana.org/books/press/cerebrum/ This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/neuroethics\_pubs/29