The therapy/enhancement distinction is a controversial one in the philosophy of medicine, yet the idea of enhancement is rarely if ever questioned as a proper goal of sports medicine. This opens up latitude to those who may seek to use elite sport as a vehicle of legitimation for their nature-transcending ideology. Given recent claims by transhumanists to develop our human nature and powers with the aid of biotechnology, I sketch out two interpretations of the myth of Prometheus, in Hesiod and (...) Aeschylus, which can help frame the moral limits of sports medicine. By way of conclusion I assemble some banal reminders: We are mortal beings; our vulnerability to disease, injury and the waning of our powers, far from something we can overcome or eliminate, represent natural limits both for morality and medicine generally and sports medicine in particular. (shrink)

According to Ortega, human history comes about as the discovery of differentiated, self-aware life that encounters itself in a reservoir of possibilities. Properly speaking, history does not exist until man, who is a metaphysical/existential entity, becomes aware of responsibility in choice-making. For this reason, human history signifies more than just historical events. Instead, history is the outward manifestation of the trajectory of personal life, either as ensimismamiento or alteración. In Toward a Philosophy of History, Ortega explains history as a vital (...) process that originates in the exuberance of free will. In Ortega’s thought, history is the domain of metaphysical/existential beings, and not the culmination of a “blind” process. Ortega’s philosophy of history locates history-making in the choices of individuals through vital reason. This is what he ultimately means by historical reason.ion, he suggests, revolts against life. (shrink)