Argues that standard forms of bioethics support the technological utopianism of medicine. Puts forth an alternative agenda arguing that the task of bioethics is to explore the moral significance of the body as it is expressed in the discourse and practice of moral and religious traditions.

A controversial scientific vision predicts a time in which humans and machines will merge and create a new form of non-biological intelligence, explaining how the occurrence will solve such issues as pollution, hunger, and aging.

In a sense, all technology is biotechnology: machines interacting with human organisms. Technology is designed to overcome the frailties and limitations of human beings in a state of nature -- to make us faster, stronger, longer-lived, smarter, happier. And all technology raises questions about its real contribution to human welfare: are our lives really better for the existence of the automobile, television, nuclear power? These questions are ethical and political, as well as medical; and they even reach to the philosophical (...) and spiritual. On the whole, we seem pretty well adapted to our technology, at least on the face of it -- but there have always been doubts about whether the human soul thrives best in the oppressively technological world we have created for ourselves. (I am continually struck by how much time I have to spend fixing the machines that supposedly improve my life.). (shrink)

The development of nanotechnology intensifies challenges to the traditional understanding of how to pursue scientific and technological knowledge. Science can no longer be construed simply as the ideal of the quest for truth . Science has become the source of economic power and political power. In this paper, I argue that nanotechnology is a cardinal exemplar of “this politicization.” At the same time, I assert that this new scientific ethos offers the possibility of a better integration of ethical and philosophical (...) reflections at the core of scientific and technological development. (shrink)

Using a philosophical framework that is informed by neuroscience as well as contemporary legal cases such as Terri Schiavo, this text offers readers an introduction to this topic. It looks at the ethical implications of our knowledge of the brain and medical treatments for neurological diseases.

The question of the moral status of human nature is today being posed above all under the influence of medical and biotechnological aspects. These facilitate not only an increasing number of, but also increasingly far-reaching interventions and manipulations in humans, so that the perspective of a gradual "technologization" of his physical constitution can no longer be regarded as merely utopian. Some authors are convinced that this disturbing development can only be halted when an inherent value is (once again) ascribed to (...) human nature. After a short description of this situation (I), the following paper first examines the difficulties that arise as regards an adequately precise descriptive definition of human nature (II) and, in a second step, the problems posed by the necessity to define the normative status of human nature (III). It hereby comes to the conclusion that a precise definition of "human nature" is not possible for fundamental reasons, and that only a weak normativity can be warranted. (shrink)

A half-billion years ago, a few species of single-celled protozoa stumbled irreversibly from loose social interaction into a tight, specialized interdependence. They became multi-celled metazoa, and human beings are one sort. Metazoa greatly transcend their constituent cells in lifetime, abilities, experiences and even materials (like bone). New kind of beings emerged out of the interactions of the old.

The differences between critics and proponents of enhancement technologies are easily overblown. Both sides of this debate share the moral ideal of being “authentic” to oneself. They differ in how they prefer to understand authenticity, but even this difference is not as stark as it sometimes seems.

This long-awaited book sets out the implications of Habermas's theory of communicative action for moral theory. "Discourse ethics" attempts to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged. The theory of justice it develops replaces Kant's categorical imperative with a procedure of justification based on reasoned agreement among participants in practical discourse.Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal development. (...) He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

In cultural history the human body has been the object of a great variety of opposing valuations, ranging from "imago dei" to "the devil's tool". At present, the body is commonly regarded as a mere means to fulfill the wishes of its "owner". According to these wishes it can be technically improved in an unlimited way. Against this view the text argues for a conception of the human body as a valuable "common heritage". The "normal" human body as the result (...) of natural and cultural history is an essential condition of the modern social and legal order. The consequences of its technical alteration should be the subject of public debates and common decisions. (shrink)

: The differences between critics and proponents of enhancement technologies are easily overblown. Both sides of this debate share the moral ideal of being "authentic" to oneself. They differ in how they prefer to understand authenticity, but even this difference is not as stark as it sometimes seems.