Transformative technologies can radically alter human lives making us stronger, faster, more resistant to disease and so on. These include enhancement technologies as well as cloning and stem cell research. Such technologies are often approved of by many liberals who see them as offering us opportunities to lead better lives, but are often disapproved of by conservatives who worry about the many consequences of allowing these to be used. In this paper, we consider how a democratic government with mainly liberal (...) values that is governing a population divided between liberals and conservatives can introduce new transformative technologies and try to achieve consensus about the introduction of such technologies. To do so, we draw on recent work in moral psychology which enables us to better understand the intuitive and emotional responses that underpin conservative objections to such new technologies. We then show how a government may introduce incremental changes in our social practices that have the long-term effect of weakening conservative objections to transformative technologies and better enabling governments to achieve consensus about these. (shrink)

There are good theoretical rationales for considering germline gene editing (GGE) as a recommended and perhaps even necessary procedure for future long-term human space missions. This paper examines the arguments for applying GGE in a hypothetical future scenario where future parents living on Earth make decisions about applying GGE to their future children with the goal of allowing them to participate in space missions. The paper presents an ethical rationale for GGE. The paper also recognizes an area of potential moral (...) controversy that is not so much related to the application of GGE itself, but to the risk of different perceptions of well-being by parents and children that may result in the need for genetically modified children to leave Earth against their will. (shrink)

Emerging technologies are increasingly used in an attempt to “enhance the human body and/or mind” beyond the contemporary standards that characterize human beings. Yet, such standards are deeply controversial and it is not an easy task to determine whether the application of a given technology to an individual and its outcome can be defined as a human enhancement or not. Despite much debate on its potential or actual ethical and social impacts, human enhancement is not subject to any consensual definition. (...) This paper proposes a timely and much needed examination of the various definitions found in the literature. We classify these definitions into four main categories: the implicit approach, the therapy-enhancement distinction, the improvement of general human capacities and the increase of well-being. After commenting on these different approaches and their limitations, we propose a definition of human enhancement that focuses on individual perceptions. While acknowledging that a definition that mainly depends on personal and subjective individual perceptions raises many challenges, we suggest that a comprehensive approach to define human enhancement could constitute a useful premise to appropriately address the complexity of the ethical and social issues it generates. (shrink)

Debate concerning human enhancement often revolves around the question of whether there is a common “nature” that all human beings share and which is unwarrantedly violated by enhancing one’s capabilities beyond the “species-typical” norm. I explicate Thomas Aquinas’s influential theory of human nature, noting certain key traits commonly shared among human beings that define each as a “person” who possesses inviolable moral status. Understanding the specific qualities that define the nature of human persons, which includes self-conscious awareness, capacity for intellective (...) thought, and volitional autonomy, informs the ethical assessment of various forms of enhancement. Some forms of cognitive and physical enhancement may be desirable from the perspective of what constitutes the “flourishing” of human persons in our fundamental nature; while other forms of enhancement, such as emotive or so-called “moral” enhancement, run the risk of detracting from human flourishing when evaluated from the virtue-theoretic perspective Aquinas promotes. (shrink)