There must be few philosophical projects more serious than Jürgen Habermas’s lifelong effort to realize the lofty universalist ambitions of the Enlightenment in his communicative theory of rational discourse and deliberative democracy.

In this article, I present what I believe to be the core of Jürgen Habermas’s views on the morality, ethics, and regulation of emerging genetic and reproductive technologies in his bookThe Future of Human Nature.

Abstract The only biologically respectable notion of human nature is an extremely permissive one that names the reliable dispositions of the human species as a whole. This conception offers no ethical guidance in debates over enhancement, and indeed it has the result that alterations to human nature have been commonplace in the history of our species. Aristotelian conceptions of species natures, which are currently fashionable in meta-ethics and applied ethics, have no basis in biological fact. Moreover, because our folk psychology (...) finds this misleading Aristotelian conception highly tempting, we are in fact better off if we refrain from mentioning human nature altogether in debates over enhancement. Content Type Journal Article Category Special Issue Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s13347-012-0063-x Authors Tim Lewens, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RH UK Journal Philosophy & Technology Online ISSN 2210-5441 Print ISSN 2210-5433. (shrink)

The future has become a problem for the present. Almost every critical issue is now understood and experienced through the prism of the future since this is the primary focus for the playing out of crises. Senses of the Future offers a wide-ranging discussion of theories of the future. It covers the main ideas of the future in modern thought and explores how we should view the future today in light of a plurality of very different and conflicting visions. The (...) key contribution of this book is to bring together the different approaches with an account that is grounded in sociological and philosophical analysis as opposed to visions of the future that are inspired by extreme visions of catastrophe or approaches that see the future as only the continuation of the present. Given a revival of apocalyptical visions of the ‘end times’ and dystopian views of the future of human societies, there is urgent need for a new approach on how we should imagine the future. The author explores the future as a field of tensions that is revealed in narratives, utopian desires, hope, imaginaries, and social struggles concerning the potential possibilities of the present: the future does not just arrive; it has to be fought for. This book is an important contribution to a critical sociology of the future. It is both a work of reconstruction and critique grounded in a historical and philosophical hermeneutics of the future. Table of Contents Chapter One Introduction: Conflicting Visions of the Future Contested Visions of the Future Today Return to the Future Outline of the Chapters References Chapter Two When is the Future? The Problem of Time and the Human Condition Time in the Physical World: Lessons from Physics Has the Future already Begun? Time and History Time, Life, and the Human Condition: Biology, Evolution, and Culture Conclusion References Chapter Three Lessons from the Past: What Does the Past Tell Us about the Future? The Future in the Past Failed Societies and Civilizational Collapse Catastrophes and History Conclusion References Chapter Four Modernity and the Concept of the Future: Utopia, Progress, and Prophecy The Future as Expectation The Future as an Imaginary and the Emergence of Utopianism The Future as Possibility The Future as Experience Conclusion References Chapter Five Ideas of the Future in the Twentieth Century: Futurism, Modernism, Sociology, and Political Theory New Political Ideas of the Future after 1945 Responses to the Future: From Fear of the Future to Futurology Sociological Theory and the Future Conclusion: The New Sociology of the Future References Chapter Six Critical Theory and the Future: The Sources of Transcendence The Intellectual Origins of Critical Theory: A Brief Outline The Idea of the Future in the Critical Theory of the Early Frankfurt School Habermas and the Communication Paradigm The Responsibility Paradigm and Cosmopolitanism: Jonas and Apel Critical Cosmopolitanism and the Idea of the Future Conclusion: Cultural Models and the Future as Possibility References Chapter Seven Conclusion: In The Shadow of the Future Do We Need a Theory of the Future? Are we already in a New Historical Era? AI and a Posthuman Future Struggles for the Future References Index. (shrink)

I am called herewith a collaborator-in-chief, mountain climber, and prophet. They all arise from the writers' largesse, not facts on the ground. But I will embrace them momentarily and then turn to...

Fan (2010) did a good job in applying his interpretation of Confucian ethics of giftedness to genetic enhancement. To him, it is God-like Heaven that gives lives to us and our ancestors as gifts th...

This essay explores a proper Confucian vision on genetic enhancement. It argues that while Confucians can accept a formal starting point that Michael Sandel proposes in his ethics of giftedness, namely, that children should be taken as gifts, Confucians cannot adopt his generalist strategy. The essay provides a Confucian full ethics of giftedness by addressing a series of relevant questions, such as what kind of gifts children are, where the gifts are from, in which way they are given, and for (...) what purpose they are given. It indicates that Confucians should sort out different types of enhancement and bring them to the test of the Confucian values in terms of both Confucian virtue principles and specific ritual rules. It concludes that Confucians can accept some types of enhancement but must reject others. (shrink)

The question of enhancement occupies a prominent place not only in current bioethical debates but also in wider public discussions about our human future. In all of these, the problem of enhancement is usually articulated via two sets of questions: moral questions over its permissibility, extent and direction; and technical questions over the feasibility of different forms of regenerative and synthetic alterations to human bodies and minds. This article argues that none of the dominant positions on enhancement within the field (...) of bioethics is entirely satisfactory due to the limited, monadic, pre-technological and non-cultural conception of the human that is adopted in these models. Critically engaging with both opponents of enhancement (Habermas) and its advocates (Harris, Agar, Bostrom, Dworkin), Zylinska also takes some steps towards outlining a nonnormative ethics of enhancement. The latter sees its human and non-human subjects as always already enhanced, and hence dependent, relational and coevolving with technology. (shrink)

Limitless is a movie (released in 2011) as well as a novel (published in 2001) about a tormented author who (plagued by a writer’s block) becomes an early user of an experimental designer drug. The wonder drug makes him highly productive overnight and even allows him to make a fortune on the stock market. At the height of his career, however, the detrimental side-effects become increasingly noticeable. In this article, Limitless is analysed from two perspectives. First of all, building on (...) the views of the French novelist Emile Zola, the novel is seen as the report of a closely monitored experiment. Subsequently, building on the phenomenology of Ludwig Binswanger, I will show how the cognitive enhancement drug not only boosts the protagonist’s information processing capacities, but also modifies his experience of space and time, his sense of spatiality, his way of being-in-the-world. On the basis of these (complementary) analyses I will indicate how genres of the imagination (such as movies and novels) may play a significant role in assessing the societal implications of emerging technological developments such as neuro-enhancement, especially during the preparatory or anticipatory stage. (shrink)

The biotech revolution profoundly changes and reconstructs the Foucaultian concept of biopolitics from different dimensions. It declares the coming of the Age of Biocapitalism, which opens a new pattern of modern power allocation of life governance and shows people two prospects simultaneously: utopian hopes and dystopian desperation. Biocapitalism has not only produced ethical degeneration and cultural shock, but more importantly, has opened new areas for political hegemony and economic aggression through the reconstruction of biopolitics, and the enhancement of capital’s comprehensive (...) dominance on nature and the human society. Therefore, it has become an area of serious, scholarly research in the biotech era to explore the implications of contemporary biopolitics, to take precautions against, and reduce the real risks of technocapitalism. This paper investigates the new biopolitics supported by the manipulation of modern biotechnology, especially genetic engineering, and unveils the possible hazards and deep contradictions inherent in this capital-controlled science, within the context of biocapitalism. It also seeks ways to prevent technological alienation and to reconstruct political rationality. It argues that entrepreneurs, scientists, companies and universities of developed countries must realize the limits of capital expansion and the self―regulatory capability of the market, and, then, assume ethical responsibilities as biocapital holders. (shrink)

New scientific advances have created previously unheard of possibilities for enhancing combatants' performance. Future war fighters may be smarter, stronger, and braver than ever before. If these technologies are safe, is there any reason to reject their use? In this article, I argue that the use of enhancements is constrained by the importance of maintaining the moral responsibility of military personnel. This is crucial for two reasons: the military's ethical commitments require military personnel to be morally responsible agents, and moral (...) responsibility is necessary for integrity and the moral emotions of guilt and remorse, both of which are important for moral growth and psychological well-being. Enhancements that undermined combatants' moral responsibility would therefore undermine the military's moral standing and would harm combatants' well-being. A genuine commitment to maintaining the military's ethical standards and the well-being of combatants therefore requires a careful analysis of performance-enhancing technologies before they are implemented. (shrink)

For the past two decades, philosophers of religion have paid close attention to the debates on public reason taking place within the context of political philosophy. Some thinkers claim that religious arguments should play a very limited role in political discourse, as this would amount to a politically sanctioned imposition of religious beliefs on people with different religious or non-religious worldviews. Others claim that excluding religious reasons would lead to an unfair exclusion of religious citizens from democratic processes. Underlying these (...) positions is a highly problematic idea of what it means to be a religious citizen. On the one hand, religious citizens are conceptualized as highly self-reflective theologians. Others instead imagine religious citizens to be wholly incapable of such self-reflection and of distinguishing between public and non-public spheres. In my article I attempt to criticize these underlying assumptions and point towards a more nuanced conception of the religious citizen. (shrink)

Who is recognised as a philosopher and what counts as philosophy influence both the content of a philosophical education and academic philosophy’s continuing demographic skew. The “philosophical who” and the “philosophical what” themselves are a partial function of matters that have been passed over in collective silence, even if that now feels to some like a silence belonging to the distant past. This paper discusses some philosophical silences regarding race, gender, and disability in the context of reflection on philosophical education (...) and on philosophical practice in the public sphere. It focuses on Charles Mills’ writings on race, Susan Babbitt’s on race and gender, and on more collaboratively-generated work on eugenics and disability. (shrink)

A debate has emerged in the bioethics literature about the use of biotechnology to modify human nature. A failure to define humanness has produced conceptual confusion in this debate. We draw upon recent social psychological work on folk concepts of humanness and dehumanization to analyse the understandings of humanness that underpin the rival positions. We argue that advocates and opponents of human nature modification employ distinct conceptions of humanness, and that their differing evaluations of modification make sense in light of (...) these conceptions. Advocates view modification as the enhancement of a non-essentialist sense of humanness that takes us further from animal nature. Opponents view it as the loss of an essentialist sense of humanness that takes us closer to a robotic state. Recognition that humanness has multiple senses implies that there is no mutually exclusive choice between seeing the outcome of modification as a quantitative gain in humanness or a fundamental, qualitative loss of it. (shrink)

The principal objective of this article is to develop an overtly theological interpretive lens for assessing the ethics of human germ line genetic modification (GGM). In constructing this lens, I draw upon four selected doctrinal or thematic strands: Incarnation, resurrection, procreative mandate, and sin. In turn, I derive four corresponding moral claims: there is no Christian essentialist understanding of the body, the body cannot be perfected, offspring remain a good of marriage, and sin is a universal human disability. In conclusion, (...) I contend that for Christians there are three possible broad options for assessing the ethics of GGM: refusal, endorsement, and ambivalence. In each, I assess the principal strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of the respective theological themes, moral claims, and options. In addition, for the sake of this inquiry I assume that the technologies at issue are safe, efficacious, and do not entail the destruction of embryos or fetuses. (shrink)

This paper provides both an overview of and a personal perspective on the field of ‘anti-ageing’. In the late 20th century, progress in the science of ageing re-invigorated activity designed to avoid biological ageing. For some the objective was to abolish the need to die of old age. This anti-ageing movement includes a diverse range of people: hard scientists working in well-funded and established university laboratories, slick corporate-marketing executives and new-age entrepreneurs selling herbal elixirs. The movement has attracted anti-anti-ageing critical (...) comment from three sources: moral critique located in philosophy and religion, scepticism from established scientists in the field of biology and gerontology, and challenge from critical social gerontology. Anti-ageing activists have labelled their critics as ‘conservative’ for opposing the inevitable progress of science. The paper argues that the alternative perspective, which sees the anti-ageing movement as a route by which a biologisation of old age inhibits people from achieving a culturally valued final part to life, is the progressive one. (shrink)

Imagine a world where everyone is healthy, intelligent, long living and happy. Intuitively this seems wonderful albeit unrealistic. However, recent scienti c breakthroughs in genetic engineering, namely CRISPR/Cas bring the question into public discourse, how the genetic enhancement of humans should be evaluated morally. In 2001, when preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and in vitro fertilisation (IVF), enabled parents to select between multiple embryos, Julian Savulescu introduced the principle of procreative bene cence (PPB), stating that parents have the obligations to choose (...) the child that is expected to have the best life. In this paper I argue that accepting the PPB and the consequentialist principle (CP) that two acts with the same consequences are morally on par, commits one to accepting the parental obligation of genetically enhancing one's children. (shrink)

In recent years, several factors have brought urgency to the pursuit of adequate measures for dealing with the consequences of climate change. On the one hand, it has become more widely recognized...

Although the philosophical literature on the ethics of human prenatal genetic alteration purports to inform us about how to act, it rarely explicitly recognizes the perspective of those who will be making the PGA decision in practice. Here I approach the ethics of PGA from a distinctly virtue-based perspective, taking seriously what it means to be a good parent making this decision for one’s child. From this perspective, I generate a sound verdict on the moral standing of human PGA : (...) given the current state of the art, good parents have compelling reason not to consent to PGA for their child, especially as part of the first wave of PGA research participants and especially for non-medically oriented purposes. This is because doing otherwise is inconsistent with a plausible and defensible understanding of virtuous parenting and parental virtues, founded on a genuine concern for promoting the overall flourishing of the eventual child. In essence, given the current and foreseeable state of the art, parents who allow prenatal genetic alteration of their children are less-than-virtuous parents to those children, even in cases where they have a right to do so and even if PGA turns out to be beneficial to the eventual child. (shrink)

This paper critically explores the path of some of the controversies over public reason and religion through four distinct steps. The first part of this article considers the engagement of John Finnis and Robert P. George with John Rawls over the nature of public reason. The second part moves to the question of religion by looking at the engagement of Nicholas Wolterstorff with Rawls, Robert Audi, and others. Here the question turns specifically to religious reasons, and their permissible use by (...) citizens in public debate and discourse. The third part engages Jürgen Habermas's argument that while citizens must be free to make religious arguments, still, there is an obligation of translation, and a motivational constraint on lawmakers. The final section argues that even though Habermas's proposal fails, nevertheless he recognizes a key difficulty for religious citizens in contemporary liberal polities. Restoration of a full role for religiously grounded justificatory reasons in public debate is one part of an adequate solution to this problem, but a second plank must be added to the solution: recognition that religious reasons can enter into public deliberation not just as first-order justifications of particular policies, but as second-order reasons, to be considered by any polity that respects its religious citizens and, more broadly, the good of religion. (shrink)

In the second half of the twentieth century, humanism— namely, the worldview that underpinned Western thought for several centuries—has been severely critiqued by philosophers who highlighted its theoretical and ethical limitations. Inspired by the emergence of cybernetics and new technologies such as robotics, prosthetics, communications, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology, there has been a desire to articulate a new worldview that will fit the posthuman condition. Posthumanism is a description of a new form of human existence in which the (...) boundaries between humans and nature and humans and machines are blurred, as well as a prescription for an ideal situation in which the limitations of human biology are transcended, replaced by machines. The transition from the human condition to the posthuman condition will be facilitated by transhumanism, the project of human enhancement that will ultimately yield the transformation of the human species from the human to the posthuman. As an intellectual movement, transhumanism is still very small, but transhumanist ideas exert deep and broad influence on contemporary culture and society. This essay highlights the religious dimension of transhumanism and argues that it should be seen as a secularist faith: transhumanism secularizes traditional religious themes, concerns, and goals, while endowing technology with religious significance. Science‐Religion Studies is the most appropriate context to explore the cultural significance of transhumanism. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the underlying tendencies and attitudes toward reproductive medicine borrowing the Nietzschean concepts of nihilism: “death of God” with secularization; “will to power” with reproductive liberty and technological power; and the race of “supermen” with transhumanism. Medical science has advanced in leaps and bounds. In some way, technical innovations have given us unprecedented power to manipulate the way we reproduce. The indiscriminant use of medical technology is backed by a warped notion of human freedom. With secularization in the (...) West, freedom has taken on greater significance in society, but with a heavy emphasis on individual choices and rights. As technology joins forces with sexual liberty, it is not difficult to understand why the public accepts the latest novelty from the reproductive industry. As a result, many find Catholic teaching behind the times and incomprehensible, if not downright anti-scientific. In fact, this coupling of reproductive liberty (will) with reproductive technology (power) echoes the famous dictum “will to power” Nietzsche predicted would characterize post-modern societies. When liberty becomes absolute and technology unchecked, transhumanism is the logical outcome. As a response to these nihilistic tendencies, the paper will end with a critique drawing from theological insights. (shrink)

This article argues that certain philosophically devised quality control parameters should guide approaches to interdisciplinary education. We sketch the kind of reflections we think are necessary in order to produce epistemologically responsible curricula. We suggest that the two overarching epistemic dimensions of levels of analysis and basic viewpoints go a long way towards clarifying the structure of interdisciplinary validity claims. Through a discussion of how best to teach basic ideas about numeracy in Mind, Brain, and Education, we discuss what it (...) means for an interdisciplinary curriculum to respect both the minds of students and the complexity of the subject matter. (shrink)

In this article we frame a set of important issues in the emerging field of Mind, Brain, and Education in terms of three broad headings: methods, models, and morality. Under the heading of methods we suggest that the need for synthesis across scientific and practical disciplines entails the pursuit of usable knowledge via a catalytic symbiosis between theory, research, and practice. Under the heading of models the goal of producing usable knowledge should shape the construction of theories that provide comprehensive (...) accounts of human learning and development spanning multiple levels of analysis. Under the heading of morality usable knowledge must be put to good use: Its application and dissemination ought to be infused with moral considerations gleaned from dialogue among all those potentially affected. Generally, the field should be shaped not only by its constituent scientific disciplines but also by its applications to education and learning. Thus we argue for the adoption of a kind of pragmatism that would be best actualized by building research-school collaborations between researchers and practitioners. (shrink)

Despite the advent of CRISPR, safe and effective gene editing for human enhancement remains well beyond our current technological capabilities. For the discussion about enhancing human beings to be worth having, then, we must assume that gene-editing technology will improve rapidly. However, rapid progress in the development and application of any technology comes at a price: obsolescence. If the genetic enhancements we can provide children get better and better each year, then the enhancements granted to children born in any given (...) year will rapidly go out of date. Sooner or later, every modified child will find him- or herself to be “yesterday’s child.” The impacts of such obsolescence on our individual, social, and philosophical self-understanding constitute an underexplored set of considerations relevant to the ethics of genome editing. (shrink)

Since the first sex reassignment operations were performed, individual sex has come to be, to some extent at least, a technological artifact. The existence of sperm sorting technology, and of prenatal determination of fetal sex via ultrasound along with the option of termination, means that we now have the power to choose the sex of our children. An influential contemporary line of thought about medical ethics suggests that we should use technology to serve the welfare of individuals and to remove (...) limitations on the opportunities available to them. I argue that, if these are our goals, we may do well to move towards a “post sex” humanity. Until we have the technology to produce genuine hermaphrodites, the most efficient way to do this is to use sex selection technology to ensure that only girl children are born. There are significant restrictions on the opportunities available to men, around gestation, childbirth, and breast-feeding, which will be extremely difficult to overcome via social or technological mechanisms for the foreseeable future. Women also have longer life expectancies than men. Girl babies therefore have a significantly more “open” future than boy babies. Resisting the conclusion that we should ensure that all children are born the same sex will require insisting that sexual difference is natural to human beings and that we should not use technology to reshape humanity beyond certain natural limits. The real concern of my paper, then, is the moral significance of the idea of a normal human body in modern medicine. (shrink)

Disability activists influenced by queer theory and advocates of “human enhancement” have each disputed the idea that what is “normal” is normatively significant, which currently plays a key role in the regulation of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Previously, I have argued that the only way to avoid the implication that parents have strong reasons to select children of one sex (most plausibly, female) over the other is to affirm the moral significance of sexually dimorphic human biological norms. After outlining the (...) logic that generates this conclusion, I investigate the extent to which it might also facilitate an alternative, progressive, opening up of the notion of the normal and of the criteria against which we should evaluate the relative merits of different forms of embodiment. This paper therefore investigates the implications of ideas derived from queer theory for the future of PGD and of PGD for the future of queerness. (shrink)

Artykuł traktuje o relacjach ateizmu i sekularyzmu. Podstawowym problemem rozważanym w tekście jest pytanie o to, czy trzeba być ateistą, żeby być sekularystą. Pojęcia sekularyzmu i ateizmu przedstawiamy na tle historycznym, a następnie analizujemy w taki sposób, by uzyskać możliwie pełną odpowiedź na nasze pytanie. Analizie poddane zostały teoretyczne możliwości kształtowania relacji religii i państwa, a także konsekwencje, jakie wypływają z poszczególnych form kształtowania tych relacji. Sądzimy, że o ile rozumieć ateizm jako niewiarę w Boga/bogów, a sekularyzm jako nieużywanie teologicznych (...) uzasadnień w decyzjach politycznych, o tyle nie trzeba być ateistą, by być sekularystą, z drugiej zaś strony warto być sekularystą będąc człowiekiem religijnym, bo to sekularyzm jako zasada polityczna gwarantuje prawo do wyznawania i praktykowania religii. (shrink)

In ethical reflections on new technologies, a specific type of argument often pops up, which criticizes scientists for “playing God” with these new technological possibilities. The first part of this article is an examination of how these arguments have been interpreted in the literature. Subsequently, this article aims to reinterpret these arguments as symbolic arguments: they are grounded not so much in a set of ontological or empirical claims, but concern symbolic classificatory schemes that ground our value judgments in the (...) first place. Invoking symbolic arguments thus refers to how certain new technologies risk undermining our fundamental symbolic distinctions by which we organize and evaluate our interactions with the world and in society. Such symbolic distinctions, moreover, tend to be resilient against logical argumentation, mainly because they themselves form the basis on which we argue in the cultural and ethical sphere in the first place. Therefore, effective strategies to evaluate and counter these arguments require another approach, showing that these technologies either do not challenge these classifications or, if they do, how they can be accompanied by the proper actions to integrate these technologies into our society. (shrink)

This paper examines a specific appeal to philosophical anthropology—Andy Clark's—and the role it plays in shaping his account of our fundamental cyborg humanity." By focusing on the theme of embodiment, we also inquire into how phenomenology might benefit from Clark's account as well as how Clark's account might benefit from further engagement with phenomenology. Throughout, we explore inter- and intra-disciplinary questions that highlight the contribution the philosophy of technology can make to our understanding of embodiment and philosophical anthropology.

BackgroundClustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats-associated technology may allow for efficient and highly targeted gene editing in single-cell embryos. This possibility brings human germline editing into the focus of ethical and legal debates again.Main bodyAgainst this background, we explore essential ethical and legal questions of interventions into the human germline by means of CRISPR-Cas: How should issues of risk and uncertainty be handled? What responsibilities arise regarding future generations? Under which conditions can germline editing measures be therapeutically legitimized? For this (...) purpose, we refer to a scenario anticipating potential further development in CRISPR-Cas technology implying improved accuracy and exclusion of germline transmission to future generations. We show that, if certain concepts regarding germline editing are clarified, under such conditions a categorical prohibition of one-generation germline editing of single-cell embryos appears not to be ethically or legally justifiable.ConclusionThese findings are important prerequisites for the international debate on the ethical and legal justification of germline interventions in the human embryo as well as for the harmonization of international legal standards. (shrink)

Some have objected to human enhancement on the grounds that it violates the autonomy of the enhanced. These objections, however, overlook the interesting possibility that autonomy itself could be enhanced. How, exactly, to enhance autonomy is a difficult problem due to the numerous and diverse accounts of autonomy in the literature. Existing accounts of autonomy enhancement rely on narrow and controversial conceptions of autonomy. However, we identify one feature of autonomy common to many mainstream accounts: reasoning ability. Autonomy can then (...) be enhanced by improving people’s reasoning ability, in particular through cognitive enhancement; given how valuable autonomy is usually taken to be, this gives us extra reason to pursue such cognitive enhancements. Moreover, autonomy-based objections will be especially weak against such enhancements. As we will argue, those who are worried that enhancements will inhibit people’s autonomy should actually embrace those enhancements that will improve autonomy. (shrink)

This essay introduces a collection of articles gathered under the theme of “law, science, and constitutions of life.” Together, they explore how revolutions in notions of what biological life is are eliciting correspondingly revolutionary imaginations of how life should be governed. The central theoretical contribution of the collection is to further elaborate the concept of bioconstitutionalism, which draws attention to especially consequential forms of coproduction at the law–life nexus. This introduction offers a theoretical discussion of bioconstitutionalism. It explores the constitutional (...) significance of interplay between scientific and technological power over life and a given political community’s shared imaginary of what modes of reasoning, judgment, and rule are proper and legitimate in a well-ordered state. It argues that knowing what life is for purposes of governance does not follow from scientific knowledge alone. Rather, such knowledge is refracted through culturally distinctive imaginaries that commit societies to particular understandings of what life means and what should be done to encourage its flourishing. (shrink)

Pre-natal genetic enhancement affords us unprecedented capacity to shape our skills, talents, appearance and perhaps subsequently the quality of our lives in terms of overall happiness, success and wellbeing. Despite its powerful appeal, some have raised important and equally persuasive concerns against genetic enhancement. Sandel has argued that compassion and humility, themselves grounded in the unpredictability of talents and skills, would be lost. Habermas has argued that genetically altered individuals will see their lives as dictated by their parents’ design and (...) therefore will not acquire an appropriate self-understanding. How should we view enhancement efforts in light of these concerns? I propose that we begin by adopting a defeasibility stance. That is, I ask whether our belief that genetic enhancements serve in the best interests of the child is reason to genetically enhance, underscoring a sort of epistemic vulnerability. I utilize the epistemological notions of defeasible reasons, undercutting and overriding defeaters in order to better understand and systematically evaluate the force of such concerns. I argue that close examination of both objections using this framework shows that we have reason to enhance, a reason that is defeasible but as yet, undefeated. (shrink)

The ongoing revolution in molecular genetics has led many to speculate that one day we will be able to change the expression or phenotype of numerous complex traits to improve ourselves in many different ways. The prospect of genetic enhancements has generated heated controversy, with proponents advocating research and implementation, with caution advised for concerns about justice, and critics tending to see the prospect of genetic enhancements as an assault on human freedom and human nature. Both camps base their arguments (...) on the unquestioned assumption that the science will realize either their dreams or nightmares. In this paper, I show that their beliefs are based upon two fundamental mistakes. First, they are based upon an unwarranted reliance in a genetic determinism that takes for granted that the traits that we might most want to enhance, like intelligence, aggression, shyness, and even athletic ability, can be causally directed by specific genes. In so doing, character descriptions are reified to be concrete and discrete entities, in this case, genes. Second, they have accepted on faith that there is, or will be, a science to translate their hopes or worries into reality when, in fact, that is unlikely to occur because of the irreducible complexity of phenotypic expression. (shrink)

In this article I consider some central aspects of the naturalist philosophy of science and science and technology studies in dealing with the contested status of technoscience in medicine. Focusing on the concepts of realism and representation, I argue that theories of science-as-practice in naturalist philosophy of science should expand their scope so as to reflect more thoroughly on the social and political context of technoscience. I develop a hermeneutic of technomedical objects in order to highlight the internal connectedness between (...) social action, material agency, and the actions of scientific communities. The framework thus developed is used to re-consider the genomic turn in medicine. Pointing to the discrepancies between socially dominant representations of genomic technology and the actual interventions brought about through those technologies, I raise the question of how and where to address problems of theory and policy. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 30-32.

Both, bioconservatives and bioliberals, should seek a discussion about ideas of human perfection, making explicit their underlying assumptions about what makes for a good human life. This is relevant, because these basic, and often implicit ideas, inform and influence judgements and choices about human enhancement interventions. Both neglect, and polemical but inconsistent use of the complex ideas of perfection are leading to confusion within the ethical debate about human enhancement interventions, that can be avoided by tackling the notion of perfection (...) directly. In the recent debates, bioconservatives have prominently argued against the ‘pursuit of perfection’ by biotechnological means. In the first part of this paper, we show that—paradoxically—bioconservatives themselves explicitly embrace specific conceptions of human perfection and perfectionist assumptions about the good human life in order to argue against the use of enhancement technologies. Yet, we argue that the bioconservative position contains an untenable ambiguity between criticising and endorsing ideas of human perfection. Hence, they stand in need of clarifying their stance on human perfection. In the second part of the paper, we ask whether bioliberals in fact (implicitly) advocate a particular conception of perfection, or whether they are right in holding that they do not, and that discussing perfection is obsolete anyway. We show that bioliberals also rely on a specific idea of human perfection, based on the idea of autonomy. Hence, their denial of the relevance of perfection in the debate is unconvincing and has to be revised. (shrink)

Rationality and the Genetic Challenge by Matti Häyry is a well-written and thoughtful book about important issues in the contemporary ethical discussion of genetics. The book is well structured around seven practical themes that the author takes to exemplify “the genetic challenge.” He also refers to them as “seven ways of making people better,” which the subtitle of the book already puts into question form: Making People Better? In the first chapter of the book, Häyry introduces these seven themes and (...) he discusses each of them in Chapters 3–9. In the remaining two chapters, 2 and 10, he describes the main normative positions analyzed in the book and clarifies his own methodology and position. He chooses six authors, or three pairs of authors, whom he takes to “represent the three normative doctrines of Western Moral philosophy” in order to demonstrate six “divergent rationalities” or “methods of genethics.” In this way, Häyry both summarizes the main prescriptive positions in contemporary bioethical debate and contrasts them with his own “nonconfrontational notion of rationality,” which aims to show that there is a variety of divergent, not mutually exclusive normative views, the justification of which “depends ultimately on the choice of worldviews, attitudes, and ideas about the foundation of moral worth”. (shrink)

Ethics, Policy & Environment, Volume 15, Issue 2, Page 248-251, June 2012.

There is no consensus about the ethical ideal of genetic counselling and decision making. This paper reviews and discusses some of the most prominent ethical arguments that have been brought forward against the non-directiveness principle (NDP), which has been the ethical gold standard for a long time. These arguments can be classed in four categories: (i) NDP can be against the best interests of the individuals concerned; (ii) NDP has ideological elements that do not adequately represent the counselling ethos; (iii) (...) NDP was historically a defensive tool that protected the interests of geneticists against social criticism and against litigation; (iv) NDP falsely assumes individual responsibility and hides the shared responsibility of other social actors. The paper argues that a serious understanding of moral space, which people need in order to make ‘their own’ decisions, leads to a necessarily relational concept of agency. The positive counterpart of NDP is to allow a space for agency. Allowing agency implies offering the kind of support that the decision-making person really needs. To make a good decision about personal genetics implies being empowered to act as a contextually sensitive person who is aware of relationships and corresponding responsibilities. (shrink)

To explore how cultural beliefs are reflected in different popular views of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for human leukocyte antigen match (popularly known as “savior siblings”), we compare the reception and interpretations, in Germany and Israel, of the novel/film My Sister’s Keeper. Qualitative analysis of reviews, commentaries and posts is used to classify and compare normative assessments of PGD for HLA and how they reproduce, negotiate or oppose the national policy and its underlying cultural and ethical premises. Four major themes emanated (...) from the comparison: loss of self-determination and autonomy; loss of dignity through instrumentalization; eugenics and euthanasia; and saving life. In both countries, most commentaries represented a dominant position, with a few negotiated positions. We also highlight the decoding of a relatively less explored bioethical aspect of My Sister’s Keeper’s narrative, namely the meaning of euthanasia. We conclude by discussing how the findings relate to attempts of providing cultural explanations for the regulation of HLA-PGD. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2019, Page 45-47.

Today, the frequency and the rate of success resulting from advances in medicine have made organ transplantations an everyday occurrence. Still, organ transplantations and donations modify the subjective experience of human beings as regards the image they have of themselves, of body, of life and of death. If the concern of the quality of life and the survival of the patients is a completely human phenomenon, the fact remains that the possibility of organ transplantation and its justification depend a great (...) deal on the culture in which we live. The exploration of the philosophical tradition allows for a reconsideration of organ transplantation. If we listen to people who have experienced the decline of one of their organs and their own rebirth through the organ of someone else, we arrive at the conclusion that they went through an extreme experience in which nothing appeared as before. All those experiences intensify philosophical questionings on the meaning of life with respect to self fulfilment. The concept of nature as the experience of others can be an authentic source from which to nourish our thoughts about organ transplantation. However, and this is our hypothesis, we need something more if we are to decide something about our own life. We need a hermeneutical stance in relation to ourselves and to our world. Philosophical counselling, as a long established tradition originating with Pythagoras and later reframed by the German philosopher Achenbach could be useful in inspiring a reflection on the good life, chiefly as it takes the form of a Socratic dialogue. (shrink)