Human nature and enhancement

Bioethics

Volumn 23, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 141-150

  Buchanan, Allen ^a,b  

^a DUKE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b NONE   (United States)

Author keywords

Enhancement; Human nature; Normative essentialism

Indexed keywords

EID: 58649116714     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: 14678519     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2008.00633.x     Document Type: Review

References (21)

1. Enhancements of physical, cognitive, or motivational characteristics might be brought about through genetic engineering of embryos orgametes, implantation of laboratory-grown tissues and organs, human/machine interfacing (including nanotechnologies), and pharmacological interventions.
2. For some relevant literature, see: Harold W. Baillie and Timothy K. Casey, editors (2004) Is human nature obsolete? Genetics, bioengineering, and the future of the human condition (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press);
3. nd edition, ed. Glenn McGee, pp. 68-106. (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Hills Books);
4. and Erik Parens, editor (1998) Enhancing Human Traits: Ethical and Social Implications (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press).
5. Two prominent examples include Jurgen Habermas (2003) The Future of Human Nature (Cambridge: Polity)
6. and Francis Fukuyama (2002) Our Post-Human Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (New York: Ferrar, Straus & Giroux).
7. 'Hard-wired' here does not mean deterministic. Rather, it is used to convey either the idea that the dispositions in question are recalcitrant to modification by training, education, and acculturation (hence the adjective 'hard') and also that their existence is more innate than learned.
8. Norman Daniels (forthcoming) 'Can anyone really be talking about ethically modifying human nature?' In Julian Savulescu and Nick Bostrom, editors, Enhancement of Human Beings (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
9. Some critics of enhancement, including Michael Sandel and Erik Parens, contend that enhancement is objectionable precisely because it involves the removal of limitations on what human beings can do, because they believe that there are irreplaceable goods that depend upon our having limitations. For a systematic critique of this view, see Allen Buchanan, 'Human Development and Human Enhancement,' Kennedy Institute Journal of Ethics, forthcoming.
10. Erik Parens (1995 The Goodness of Fragility: On the Prospect of Genetic Technologies Aimed at the Enhancement of Human Capacities Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 5 (2 141 53
11. Michael Sandel (2004 The Case Against Perfection The Atlantic Monthly 293 (3 50 62.
12. Notice that it would be a mistake to assume that an enhancement that altered an individual's nature - that made her no longer a human - would result in the loss of that individual's identity. Personal identity could be preserved through such a transformation, regardless of whether one assumes that personal identity requires only continuity of psychological states or that plus the persistence of the body. Such a change would result in the loss of the individual's identity only if it were true that person's are essentially human.
13. I am grateful to Tom Douglas for this point.
14. President's Council on Bioethics (2002) Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry (Washington, DC: President's Council on Bioethics).
15. President's Council on Bioethics, Beyond Therapy, (2002) p. 70. Here the Council says that cloning and eugenic interventions might 'alter the very nature' of human procreation.
16. President's Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity (2002), p. 99.
17. President's Council on Bioethics, Beyond Therapy, p. 70.
18. Beyond Therapy, Ibid., p. 70.
19. Beyond Therapy, Ibid., p. 287.
20. Perhaps the claim that cloning would 'confound' relationships among generations is a clumsy shorthand for the empirical psychological prediction that if reproduction by cloning were pervasive people would be confused and disturbed in their thinking about the relationships among generations. The Council provides no evidence for this prediction and no indication of how serious or pervasive the alleged psychological distress would be. Nor do they address the fact that there is evidence that people can adjust, rather rapidly, to new reproductive technologies, for example, in vitro fertilization. Despite some initial speculation that 'test-tube babies' would be regarded as freaks, most people seem to have taken IVF in stride.
21. Research for this paper was done when the author was Scholar in Residence at the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy.