There has been considerable recent debate on the ethics of human enhancement. A number of prominent authors have been concerned about or critical of the use of technology to alter or enhance human beings, citing threats to human nature and dignity as one basis for these concerns. Frances Kamm has given a detailed rebuttal of Sandel's arguments, arguing that human enhancement is permissible. Nicholas Agar, in his book Liberal Eugenics, argues that enhancement should be permissible but not obligatory. He argues (...) that what distinguishes liberal eugenics from the objectionable eugenic practices of the Nazis is that it is not based on a single conception of a desirable genome and that it is voluntary and not obligatory. This article takes a more provocative position. It aims to argue that, far from its being merely permissible, we have a moral obligation or moral reason to enhance ourselves and our children. Indeed, we have the same kind of obligation as we have to treat and prevent disease. It begins by considering the current interests in and possibilities of enhancement. It then offers three arguments that we have very strong reasons to seek to enhance. (shrink)

Three arguments of Habermas against “liberal eugenics”—the arguments from consent, responsibility, and instrumentalization—are critically evaluated and explicated in the light of his discourse ethics and social theory. It is argued that these arguments move partly at a too deep level and are in part too individualistic and psychological to sufficiently counter the liberal position that he sets out to criticize. This is also due to limitations that prevent discourse ethics from connecting effectively to the moral and political domains, e.g., through (...) a discussion of justice. In spite of these weaknesses, Habermas’s thesis is of major relevance and brings up neglected issues in the discussion about eugenic reproductive practices. This relevance has not been duly recognized in bioethics, largely because of the depth of his speculations of philosophical anthropology. It is argued that Habermas’s notion of the colonization of the lifeworld could provide the analytical tool needed to build that bridge to the moral and political domain. (shrink)

Should a society oriented towards justice provide parents with the possibility of enhancing their children's genes? The opposing arguments of authors in the Rawls School and of the theorist of communicative action, Jürgen Habermas, are analysed in terms of their key concepts. Their positions are then assessed from the point of view of the principles of the pedagogical task to educate towards autonomy under conditions of asymmetry. They each call for respect both of children's difference and of their dependence, and (...) they ask for parents to moderate their expectations. In the light of this, Habermas's critique of genetic intervention, based on a Kantian understanding of autonomy as the capacity to be moral, on Kierkegaard's concept of being able to be oneself, and on respect for finitude, is here to be justified. (shrink)

Should a society oriented towards justice provide parents with the possibility of enhancing their children’s genes? The opposing arguments of authors in the Rawls School and of the theorist of communicative action, Jürgen Habermas, are analysed in terms of their key concepts. Their positions are then assessed from the point of view of the principles of the pedagogical task to educate towards autonomy under conditions of asymmetry. They each call for respect both of children’s difference and of their dependence, and (...) they ask for parents to moderate their expectations. In the light of this, Habermas’s critique of genetic intervention, based on a Kantian understanding of autonomy as the capacity to be moral, on Kierkegaard’s concept of being able to be oneself, and on respect for finitude, is here to be justified. (shrink)

Offers an outline for a new ethical practice - one responsive to the need for critical autonomy and grounded in a new sense of the human subject. The author demonstrates how difficult it is to give an account of oneself, and how this lack of self-transparency and narratibility is crucial to an ethical understanding of the human.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.4 (2001) 22-40 [Access article in PDF] Giving an Account of Oneself Judith Butler In recent years, the critique of poststructuralism, itself loquacious, has held that the postulation of a subject who is not self-grounding undermines the possibility of responsibility and, in particular, of giving an account of oneself. Critics have argued that the various critical reconsiderations of the subject, including those that do away with the theory (...) of the subject altogether, cannot provide the basis for an account of responsibility, that if we are, as it were, divided, ungrounded, or incoherent from the start, it will be impossible to ground a notion of personal or social responsibility on the basis of such a view. I would like to try to rebut this view in what follows, and to show how a theory of subject-formation that acknowledges the limits of self-knowledge can work in the service of a conception of ethics and, indeed, of responsibility. If the subject is opaque to itself, it is not therefore licensed to do what it wants or to ignore its relations to others. Indeed, if it is precisely by virtue of its relations to others that it is opaque to itself, and if those relations to others are precisely the venue for its ethical responsibility, then it may well follow that it is precisely by virtue of the subject's opacity to itself that it sustains some of its most important ethical bonds.In all the talk about the social construction of the subject, we have perhaps overlooked the fact that the very being of the self is dependent not just on the existence of the Other—in its singularity, as Levinas would have it, though surely that—but also on the possibility that the normative horizon within which the Other sees and listens and knows and recognizes is also subject to a critical opening. This opening calls into question the limits of established regimes of truth, where a certain risking of the self becomes, as Levinas claims, the sign of virtue [see Foucault]. Whether or not the Other is singular, the Other is recognized and confers recognition through a set of norms that govern recognizability. So whereas the Other may be singular, if not radically personal, the norms are to some extent impersonal and indifferent, and they introduce a disorientation of perspective for the subject in the midst of recognition as an encounter. For if I understand myself to be conferring recognition on you, for instance, then I take seriously that the recognition comes from me. But in the moment that I realize that the terms by which I confer recognition are not mine alone, that I did not singlehandedly make them, then I am, as it were, dispossessed by the language that I offer. In a sense, I submit to a norm of recognition when I offer recognition to you, so that I am both subjected to that norm and the agency of its use.As Hegel would have it, recognition cannot be unilaterally given. In the moment that I give it, I am potentially given it, and the form by which I offer it is one that potentially is given to me. In this sense, one might say, I can never offer it, in the Hegelian sense, as a pure offering, since I am receiving it, at least potentially and structurally, in the moment, in the act, of giving. We might ask, as Levinas surely has, what kind of gift this is that returns to me so quickly, that never really leaves my hands. Is it the case that recognition consists, as it does for Hegel, in a reciprocal act whereby I recognize that [End Page 22] the Other is structured in the same way that I am, and I recognize that the Other also makes, or can make, this very recognition of sameness? Or is there perhaps an encounter with alterity here that is not reducible to sameness? If it is the latter, how are we to understand this alterity? On the one hand, the Hegelian Other is always found outside, or at least... (shrink)

This essay replies to critics since 1995 of my “biostatistical theory” of health. According to the BST, a pathological condition is a state of statistically species-subnormal biological part-functional ability, relative to sex and age. Theoretical health, the total absence of pathological conditions, is then a value-free scientific notion. Recent critics offer a mixture of old and new objections to this analysis. Some new ones relate to choice of reference class, situation-specificity of function, common diseases and healthy populations, improvements in population (...) health, the practice of pathologists, “Cambridge changes” in health status, and comparative vs. absolute health concepts. I make no changes in doctrine, except to consider treating “normal aging” as pathological by taking young adults as the standard for all adults. (shrink)

In Enhancing Evolution, leading bioethicist John Harris dismantles objections to genetic engineering, stem-cell research, designer babies, and cloning and makes an ethical case for biotechnology that is both forthright and rigorous. Human enhancement, Harris argues, is a good thing--good morally, good for individuals, good as social policy, and good for a genetic heritage that needs serious improvement. Enhancing Evolution defends biotechnological interventions that could allow us to live longer, healthier, and even happier lives by, for example, providing us with immunity (...) from cancer and HIV/AIDS. Further, Harris champions the possibility of influencing the very course of evolution to give us increased mental and physical powers--from reasoning, concentration, and memory to strength, stamina, and reaction speed. Indeed, he says, it's not only morally defensible to enhance ourselves; in some cases, it's morally obligatory. In a new preface, Harris offers a glimpse at the new science and technology to come, equipping readers with the knowledge to assess the ethics and policy dimensions of future forms of human enhancement. (shrink)