This article examines soldier performance optimisation, enhancement, and augmentation across the three dimensions of physical performance, cognitive performance, and socio-cultural understanding. Optimisation refers to combatants attaining their maximum biological potential. Enhancement refers to combatants achieving a level of performance beyond their biological potential through drugs, surgical procedures, or even gene editing. Augmentation refers to a blending of organic and biomechatronic body parts such as electronic or mechanical implants, prosthetics, and brain–machine interfaces. This article identifies that soldier optimisation is a necessity (...) to protect individual combatants and to give them the ability to make legal and morally justifiable decisions in battle. While enhancement and augmentation of military personnel can lead to accelerated and more destructive warfare, it can also be argued that there is an ethical and moral responsibility to provide combatants the best opportunity for survivability, and that better functioning, less fatigued, and better informed military personnel can make better decisions in battle. There is also a moral responsibility of the state for the combatants themselves, and short-term military success must be balanced against the short- and long-term health and wellbeing of the personnel. This article concludes that it is both the intent and the degree that decide the acceptability. (shrink)

Research on hybrid bionic systems (HBSs) is still in its infancy but promising results have already been achieved in laboratories. Experiments on humans and animals show that artificial devices can be controlled by neural signals. These results suggest that HBS technologies can be employed to restore sensorimotor functionalities in disabled and elderly people. At the same time, HBS research raises ethical concerns related to possible exogenous and endogenous limitations to human autonomy and freedom. The analysis of these concerns requires reflecting (...) on the availability of scientific models accounting for key aspects of sensorimotor coordination and plastic adaptation mechanisms in the brain. (shrink)

The military is a major driver of technological, world-changing innovations which, like the Internet, often have unpredictable dual uses and widespread civilian impact (?blowback?). Ethical and policy concerns arising from such technologies, therefore, are not limited to military affairs, but can have great implications for society at large as well. This paper will focus on two technology areas making headlines at present: human enhancement technologies and robotics, representing both biological and technological upgrades to the military. The concerns we will raise (...) are about (1) the unintended effects that these technologies could have on society and (2) the possibly self-defeating nature of these military programs in making war itself more, rather than less likely to occur. Given that society also can influence military programs (e.g., through civil protests) it is important for the military to attend to such concerns. (shrink)

La neuroética nace oficialmente a comienzos del siglo XXI, gracias al avance de las neurociencias, como ética aplicada vinculada a la bioética, pero también como neuroética autónoma. Como ética aplicada, aborda cuestiones cercanas a la bioética. Como neuroética autónoma, se enfrenta a problemas clásicos de la filosofía desde una perspectiva neurocientífica en sentido amplio. Dos cuestiones serán centrales en ella: diseñar un marco para seleccionar, interpretar e integrar los datos de las neurociencias acerca de la moralidad, y trazar el método (...) -o métodos- adecuados para el nuevo saber. Curiosamente, en ambos casos la mayor parte de los neuroéticos dice inscribirse en posiciones naturalistas, pero realmente procede de forma no-naturalista. El artículo se propone analizar los distintos lados de la neuroética y sacar a la luz el método que realmente siguen los neuroéticos, que desmiente al naturalismo. (shrink)

Brain-Computer Interface is a set of technologies that are of increasing interest to researchers. BCI has been proposed as assistive technology for individuals who are non-communicative or paralyzed, such as those with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or spinal cord injury. The technology has also been suggested for enhancement and entertainment uses, and there are companies currently marketing BCI devices for those purposes as well as health-related purposes. The unprecedented direct connection created by BCI between human brains and computer hardware raises various (...) ethical, social, and legal challenges that merit further examination and discussion. To identify and characterize the key issues associated with BCI use, we performed a scoping review of biomedical ethics literature, analyzing the ethics concerns cited across multiple disciplines, including philosophy and medicine. Based on this investigation, we report that BCI research and its potential translation to therapeutic intervention generate significant ethical, legal, and social concerns, notably with regards to personhood, stigma, autonomy, privacy, research ethics, safety, responsibility, and justice. Our review of the literature determined, furthermore, that while these issues have been enumerated extensively, few concrete recommendations have been expressed. We conclude that future research should focus on remedying a lack of practical solutions to the ethical challenges of BCI, alongside the collection of empirical data on the perspectives of the public, BCI users, and BCI researchers. (shrink)

Over the past decade, interest in human enhancement has waxed and waned. The initial surge of interest and funding, driven by the US Army’s desire for a ‘Future Force Warrior’ has partly given way to the challenges of meeting operational demands abroad. However the ethical opportunities provided by soldier enhancement demand that investigation of its possibilities continue. Benefits include enhanced decision-making, improved force capability, reduced force size and lower casualty rates. These benefits — and enhancement itself — carry concomitant risks, (...) including morale issues due to tension between enhanced and unenhanced soldiers, the issues of enhanced veterans and ownership of enhanced bodies, challenges to the army’s core values and personal identity issues. A range of measures should be designed to highlight the opportunities offered by enhancement while also minimising the potential risks. This includes providing advice on which areas the army ought to demonstrate restraint in research for ethical reasons. (shrink)