I will take a famous paragraph from J S. Mill as a starting point for defending the idea that moral philosophy has to take charge definitively of those who have been less fortunate in the natural lottery. This means that we must to take seriously the possibility of increasing the capacity for the well-being of nonhuman animals. The aim of the text is to show the relevance of the current ethical debate on enhancement also in the context of reflection on (...) our obligations towards sensitive non-human animals. (shrink)

What role should sentient animals play in the current debate on enhancement? The question covers several different philosophical fronts that demand urgent global ethical analysis. This touches issues that go from prohibition, permissivity or obligation that should characterize the new biotechnologies oriented to the enhancement of individuals, to the debate surrounding the moral rights of animals. Furthermore, the difficulty arises not only from the controversial moral categories involved, but also from the very extent of the objective proposed. However, this also (...) gives rise to the pertinence of the above-mentioned question posed at the outset: on the one hand, the need for consistency in an eminently biased debate, and on the other the need to justify the proposal in which all sentient individuals are legitimate protagonists without this necessarily leading to implausible scenarios. (shrink)

Probablemente la mayor responsabilidad actual de la ética aplicada es hacerse cargo de las grandes dificultades teórico-prácticas generadas con el incipiente desarrollo de las nuevas tecnologías de biomejora. Dificultades más allá de las preferencias individuales, viéndose involucradas cuestiones en torno a nuestra comprensión de la justicia distributiva. La identificación de dos hechos importantes nos da la clave para orientar el debate. Por un lado, las situaciones de partida tan arbitrarias que proporciona la lotería natual con relación a las oportunidades de (...) bienestar individual. Por otro, la posibilidad de realizar una mejora cognitiva, de aquellos más desafortunados en su configuración genética, que incidirá en la amplificación de tales oportunidades. (shrink)