BMC Medical Ethics 18 (1):56 (2017)
Abstract |
New technologies facilitate the enhancement of a wide range of human dispositions, capacities, or abilities. While it is argued that we need to set limits to human enhancement, it is unclear where we should find resources to set such limits. Traditional routes for setting limits, such as referring to nature, the therapy-enhancement distinction, and the health-disease distinction, turn out to have some shortcomings. However, upon closer scrutiny the concept of enhancement is based on vague conceptions of what is to be enhanced. Explaining why it is better to become older, stronger, and more intelligent presupposes a clear conception of goodness, which is seldom provided. In particular, the qualitative better is frequently confused with the quantitative more. We may therefore not need “external” measures for setting its limits – they are available in the concept of enhancement itself. While there may be shortcomings in traditional sources of limit setting to human enhancement, such as nature, therapy, and disease, such approaches may not be necessary. The specification-of-betterment problem inherent in the conception of human enhancement itself provides means to restrict its unwarranted proliferation. We only need to demand clear, sustainable, obtainable goals for enhancement that are based on evidence, and not on lofty speculations, hypes, analogies, or weak associations. Human enhancements that specify what will become better, and provide adequate evidence, are good and should be pursued. Others should not be accepted.
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DOI | 10.1186/s12910-017-0215-8 |
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References found in this work BETA
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Citations of this work BETA
Human Enhancement: Enhancing Health or Harnessing Happiness?Bjørn Hofmann - 2019 - Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 16 (1):87-98.
Evaluating Facts and Facting Evaluations: On the Fact-Value Relationship in HTA.Bjørn Hofmann, Ken Bond & Lars Sandman - 2018 - Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 24 (5):957-965.
The Gene-Editing of Super-Ego.Bjørn Hofmann - 2018 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 21 (3):295-302.
Transcending Human Frailties with Technological Enhancements and Replacements: Transhumanist Perspective in Nursing and Healthcare.Rozzano C. Locsin, Joseph Andrew Pepito, Phanida Juntasopeepun & Rose E. Constantino - 2021 - Nursing Inquiry 28 (2).
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