Human Enhancement, Bioethics, and Moral Diversity: An International Philosophical Endeavor

Abstract

Abstract Human enhancement raises a host of important conceptual and moral questions drawn from ethics and metaphysics, social/political theory, and philosophy of medicine. What does it mean to be human? Is it permissible fundamentally to alter our basic humanity? What would that mean? Critics argue, for example, that it is morally permissible to engage in medical therapy to address disease and disability, but not biotechnology to enhance human capacities. Other detractors raise concerns that genetic enhancement would dehumanize persons, involve morally impermissible research, or serve objectionable social/political goals, violating basic human rights or human dignity. Supporters, however, have been known to contend that enhancement may be morally required to level the playing field, given an unequal natural distribution of genetic advantages, physical talents, and cognitive abilities. Others seek to rewire human freedom, biotechnologically engineering “morally improved” human choices or, perhaps, implanting computer chips in the brain, to avoid criminal behavior or international catastrophe. On whose account of morality would enhancements be objectionable or permissible? More generally, which bioethical norms should guide public law on such matters? This number of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy brings together an international group of scholars from Hong Kong, Macao, Mainland China, the United States, and Texas, to explore critically such concerns regarding forms of human biotechnology, reasons for and objections to pursing various forms of enhancement, and the centrality of such philosophical questions to bioethics and public policy. Together, these authors present a conceptual geography of the possible meanings, creative realities, and likely limits of human bioenhancement.